On one occasion at least he used the attitude of his craftsmen to deflect any criticism of his designs. When the architect, Philip Webb, wrote commenting critically on the plain outline of a cabinet, Gimson replied:

Utility/laundry room, marble tiled flooring, range of base units with oak work surfaces, Belfast style sink unit, plumbing for washer and tumble dryer.Ernest Barnsley and his younger brother Sidney both trained as architects. After graduation Sidney completed his training at London architect Norman Shaw, a proponent of 'Old English' style, and Ernest at John Dando Sedding, an influential Arts and Crafts designer. It was through Ernest working for Sedding that he and later Sidney met Ernest Gimson [see below], a fellow trainee architect. In 1893 Gimson and Sidney Barnsley persuaded Ernest to leave his accelerating architectural career to join them in setting up a craft community in Sapperton in Gloucestershire, that was to focus on working with local people and materials. Here the Barnsley brothers produced furniture that adhered to the Arts and Crafts ideal: visible construction, simple structures and limited decoration. Sitting room, a wonderful feature inglenook fireplace with open fire, exposed beams and wall light points. Principal bedroom, exposed roof trusses, beams and purlins, hand built double hanging wardrobes and matching dressing table, chest of drawers, corner cupboard and beside cabinets. Secondary double glazed lead windows with panoramic views over the garden and Charnwood Forest towards Old John. He was a great walker all his life. Maggie Gimson remembered walking with him from Leicester to Sapperton in Gloucestershire in about 1900. It took them four or five days covering about 20 miles a day. The distance along the Fosse Way is about 75 miles.

The book combines biography with an analysis of Gimson’s work as an architect and designer of diverse items. In ‘Life’, the authors survey Gimson’s life and career, from his upbringing in Leicester to his London training and travels. In the following chapters they chart his early work and involvement with Kenton & Co., his move to the Cotswolds in 1893 and then the Sapperton workshops, concluding with an analysis of his approach to the process of designing. A number of Secular halls were opened in midland and northern cities in the second half of the 19th century because it was becoming increasingly difficult to book rooms for their meetings. Most rooms were attached to churches and clerical authorities also put pressure on pub landlords to refuse bookings by threatening the renewal of licences. The architect’s layout of streets, public spaces, and important buildings, meanwhile, shows the influence of the aesthetic principles of the Austrian urbanist Camillo Sitte, now unjustly neglected since being contemptuously derided by Le Corbusier and other leading modernists.

Edwardian Leicester

The text is based on extensive new research, with 320 illustrations, many previously unpublished, including photographs from the Gimson family archive, designs, and a number of photographs by James Brittain of buildings, interiors, objects and details. The book keeps alive the spirit of a designer and craftsman who, as his contemporary William Lethaby observed, was motivated by ‘work not words, things not designs, life not rewards’. decorative plasterwork by Ernest Gimson. (fn. 38) Beechanger contains a tooled stone chimney-piece, and

when we had a long wait in Manchester, we spent the time over a tea-table in a corner (to which he had hurriedly dragged me, as if we were pursued) and surprised the waitress by shyly asking if we could be given ‘something made in the country.’ His last visit to London was a short one, during the illness that proved fatal. We had taken him up to see a specialist from whom a hopeful verdict would have meant a longer stay and an operation; when we had to return the same afternoon to Paddington, he alone could smile – because he was not to stay in London, but could return to the country and his home for the last few days.’ Leicester, London, Pinbury & Sapperton, Gloucestershire; architect, chair maker, furniture designer and workshop owner (b.1864-d.1919)Burrows, David. Ernest Gimson. Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service, 1969

Ernest William Gimson (21 December 1864 – 12 August 1919) was an English furniture designer and architect. Gimson was described by the art critic Nikolaus Pevsner as "the greatest of the English architect-designers". Today his reputation is securely established as one of the most influential designers of the English Arts and Crafts movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two years later, aged 21, Gimson had both architectural experience and a first class result from classes at Leicester School of Art. He moved to London to gain wider experience, and William Morris wrote him letters of recommendation. The first architectural practice he approached was John Dando Sedding, where he was taken on, and stayed for two years.[4] From Sedding, Gimson derived his interest in craft techniques, the stress on textures and surfaces, naturalistic detail of flowers, leaves and animals, always drawn from life, the close involvement of the architect in the simple processes of building and in the supervision of a team of craftsmen employed direct. Seddings offices were next door to the showrooms of Morris & Co., providing opportunity to see first hand the first flourishing of Arts and Crafts design. He met Ernest Barnsley at Sedding's studio, and through him, Sidney Barnsley, a friendship that was to last the rest of his life.[5]The two men began designing furniture. There are five drawings – all in Gimson’s hand –signed ‘B &G’ and dated 1902 in Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. A small oak chest of drawers in oak with chamfered decoration round the carcase and drawer fronts designed by Ernest Barnsley dates from this period as does the store cabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1900, Gimson and Ernest Barnsley went into partnership setting up a second workshop and employing cabinet makers including Peter Waals to make up their furniture designs. Gimson took sole control of the business from about 1903; after the move to Sapperton he opened showrooms at Daneway House and a workshop in the outbuildings. He also set up a smithy in Sapperton and with Edward Gardiner a chair making business at Daneway. According to Norman Jewson, Gimson, ‘preferred a rush-seated chair to an upholstered one, plain lime-washed walls to wallpapered, plain home-made food to imported luxuries. He was not a teetotaler, but was almost a total abstainer’. According to Harry Davoll he dismissed two men once for being drunk but would take an occasional half pint himself mainly to be sociable. Gimson however was not a socialist. He called himself an individualist, inspired by the nineteenth-century writer and philosopher Herbert Spencer whose work was influential in France and the United States as well as in Britain.