The Stanton Guildhouse

THE STANTON GUILDHOUSE

Craft education centre and place of retreat built between 1963 and 1973 to the designs of architect Iorwerth Williams, a local architect. The design was modified during construction by Dave Twinberrow, Clerk of Works. The building was created for Mary Osborn, whose vision and inspiration led to the Guildhouse's creation. It was largely built by voluntary labour, including stonemasons Jim and Jack Powell, members of the International Voluntary Service, and many local residents.

The building is constructed of local stone and concrete block with stone quoins and stone slate roofs. It follows a traditional plan with a central hall flanked by wings, the largest wing to the left as viewed from the garden front, a small wing to the rear, and a lower range to the right. The structure rises to two storeys with a semi-basement beneath the left-hand wing, built on a dramatically sloping hillside site. Four stone chimneys rise from the roof, two from the main left-hand wing and two from the right.

The main front has four bays with two lower bays set forward beneath a sloping roof. Large windows light the left side, while smaller upper windows sit beneath rendered dormer gables, with a similarly treated window in the return angle of the left-hand wing. The dormer windows contain timber casements with small panes; other windows feature similar casements set in stone surrounds with unmoulded mullions. Two boarded double doors set left of centre are set beneath a curved stone arch with long iron hinges. Above them a stone plaque carved with the Guildhouse's symbol—a cross set within a spinning wheel, based on an original iron version made by Bill Martin—faces outward. To the right, another plaque records that Mary Osborn (1906–1996) lovingly inspired the creation of this building, which opened at Pentecost 1973, with the inscription: "Every noble life leaves the fabric of it forever woven in the work of the world". Mullion windows punctuate the side elevations. The rear is dominated by the gable end of a projecting inglenook stack bearing a plaque dated 1963. A projecting single-storey wing contains the principal entrance, a boarded door with large hinges set beneath a canted arch.

The interior is deliberately simple. The principal room at the centre has a York stone paved floor and a stone inglenook fireplace with a broad timber hood and exposed timber ceiling. A closed baluster stair, made by Ray Turner from a design by Martin Wharmby, rises from the left-hand end to the upper floor. Behind it are the kitchen and dining room; the latter contains a stone fireplace beneath a rendered hood, with the words "FECIT MARIA" recording that Mary Osborn laid the stonework herself. In the rear wing are a small entrance hall, lavatories, and an office, with a staircase leading down to a basement pottery studio and boiler room. At the other end of the hall is a crafts room used for weaving. Upstairs are small rooms with finely made boarded doors featuring iron hinges and simple timber latches, and similarly well-crafted cupboards lining the spinal corridor. At the far end, above the weaving room, is the room where Mary Osborn made her home, containing a fireplace, with a storeroom formerly occupied by her nurse beyond it.

Mary Osborn was a devout Christian and pacifist. In 1931 she met Mahatma Gandhi while working at Kingsley Hall settlement in Bow, counselling the unemployed and teaching spinning to local girls when Gandhi stayed there. In India, Gandhi had encouraged handspinning as a means by which the poorest members of communities could make a living through Khadi, and he inspired Osborn with his belief in the spirituality of the simplest human activities, particularly traditional handicrafts. He gave to Kingsley Hall a spinning wheel presented to him as a symbol of his Khadi movement by Indian students in London; it now resides in the main guildroom at Stanton. At the outbreak of World War II, Osborn settled in Laverton near Stanton and established classes in both villages to foster community spirit during wartime and to perpetuate traditional rural crafts at a moment when rural life was changing irrevocably. She envisioned a guildhouse as a centre where a community could share its skills in service to God. In 1953 she was given two acres at Stanton and spent the next ten years raising funds. The stone and stone slates were donated from local buildings that had been demolished.

Although built largely by amateurs, the Guildhouse possesses genuine architectural quality, with detailing that is simple but strong and entirely appropriate to the building's concept. Local craftsmen contributed various elements. The building continues the spirit of the crafts revival begun at nearby Chipping Campden by C.R. Ashbee in 1906 and continued through the work of Gordon Russell and others at Broadway in the inter-war period. It stands as part of the distinguished Arts and Crafts movement that had its foundation in the Cotswolds and formed the basis of the post-war crafts revival.