About
Court Barn is a small museum of craft and design occupying a converted stone barn beside St James's Church in Chipping Campden, and its subject is an extraordinary concentration of talent that settled in and around this one Cotswold town over the course of the twentieth century. The story begins in 1902, when the architect and designer Charles Robert Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft out of the East End of London and brought around a hundred and fifty people — craftsmen, their families and their workshops — to a small wool town in Gloucestershire that had been in genteel decline for two hundred years.
It was one of the boldest experiments the Arts and Crafts movement produced, and in commercial terms it failed: the Guild went into liquidation within six years, undone by distance from its market, competition from firms copying its designs and the collapse in demand that followed. But a good many of the craftsmen stayed, and the workshop tradition they established did not stop. Hart Silversmiths, founded by one of Ashbee's guildsmen, has worked continuously in the Old Silk Mill on Sheep Street ever since, passing through successive generations of the same family — one of the longest unbroken lines of workshop practice anywhere in British craft.
Around that core the museum gathers the wider north Cotswolds tradition: the sculptor and carver Alec Miller, the etcher and topographical draughtsman Frederick Landseer Griggs, the stained glass of Paul Woodroffe, the bookbinding of Katharine Adams, and, in the generation that followed, the industrial designer and silversmith Robert Welch, who set up in the same Silk Mill in the 1950s and produced work for mass manufacture alongside handmade silver. Gordon Russell's furniture workshops at Broadway are the natural companion story a few miles away.
The displays are compact and well chosen rather than exhaustive, with a strong changing exhibition programme, and the ticket admits the holder for a full year. The barn itself, quietly and carefully converted, is worth attention as a piece of design in its own right.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum closes on Mondays except bank holidays, and shuts an hour earlier from October to March.
- Your ticket is valid for a full year, and includes two-for-one entry at the Gordon Russell Design Museum in Broadway.
- Arrive by bus or bicycle and you pay half price on production of a bus ticket or cycle helmet.
- Walk down to the Old Silk Mill on Sheep Street afterwards to see Hart Silversmiths still at work in the Guild's original building.
- Check the current exhibition before visiting; the permanent displays are compact and the changing programme is a large part of the appeal.
- Students in full-time education and visitors under 25 qualify for concession rates.
- There is no car park at the museum; use the public car park off the High Street.
- Combine with Hidcote Manor Garden, five kilometres away, for a full day in the north Cotswolds.
Highlights
Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft
In 1902 Charles Robert Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft out of Whitechapel and resettled around a hundred and fifty people — silversmiths, jewellers, cabinetmakers, printers, their wives and their children — in Chipping Campden, on the conviction that craft work would be better done in the countryside than in the industrial East End.
It was one of the boldest social experiments the Arts and Crafts movement attempted and one of the most instructive, and the museum treats it seriously, covering both the idealism behind the move and the commercial realities that had put the Guild into liquidation by 1908.
Guild Silver and Jewellery
The Guild's silver is what secured Ashbee's reputation and remains the most immediately beautiful thing in the museum: hand-raised bowls and cups, loop-handled dishes, wirework and enamel, set with turquoise, moonstone and cabochon stones, and finished with the visible hammer marks that declared the work to be hand-made.
The style was widely and quickly copied by manufacturers who could produce a passable imitation by machine at a fraction of the cost — one of the main reasons the Guild failed — which makes seeing the genuine article at close range worth doing.
Hart Silversmiths: An Unbroken Workshop
When the Guild collapsed, one of its silversmiths stayed and set up on his own in the Old Silk Mill on Sheep Street, and Hart Silversmiths has worked there continuously ever since, passing through successive generations of the same family. It is one of the longest unbroken lines of workshop practice in British craft, and it means that the tradition Court Barn documents is not a closed historical episode but a living one still being carried on a few hundred metres away.
The museum shows Hart work across the generations, and the workshop itself welcomes visitors.
Robert Welch and Design for Industry
Robert Welch established himself in the same Old Silk Mill in the 1950s and pursued two careers at once: handmade silver of considerable refinement, and industrial design for mass production, including stainless steel tableware and domestic goods manufactured in very large quantities. He is the figure who connects Campden's Arts and Crafts inheritance to post-war British modernism, and his presence in the collection stops the museum from becoming a lament for a vanished handcraft world — the argument here is about continuity of design thinking, not the defeat of it.
Collections
Court Barn's collections document craft and design in Chipping Campden and the north Cotswolds from 1902 to the present. The core is the Guild of Handicraft, brought here from London's East End by C. R.
Ashbee in 1902 and wound up in 1908, represented by hand-raised silver, jewellery, enamel and metalwork alongside interpretation of the Guild's aims and its commercial collapse. The collection continues through craftsmen who stayed or followed — the sculptor and carver Alec Miller, the etcher F. L.
Griggs, the stained-glass artist Paul Woodroffe and the bookbinder Katharine Adams — and through Hart Silversmiths, founded by a Guild member and working continuously in the Old Silk Mill through successive generations of the same family. Later twentieth-century holdings centre on Robert Welch, silversmith and industrial designer, who worked from the same Silk Mill from the 1950s.
A changing exhibition programme shows contemporary makers alongside the permanent displays.
The Guild of Handicraft
Ashbee's move from Whitechapel to Chipping Campden in 1902, the Guild's silver and jewellery, and its liquidation in 1908.
Makers of the North Cotswolds
Alec Miller, F. L. Griggs, Paul Woodroffe, Katharine Adams and the wider circle of craftsmen who worked in and around Campden.
Hart Silversmiths and Robert Welch
The continuous workshop tradition of the Old Silk Mill, from a founding guildsman's family firm to design for industry.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.