
The tapestry hanging in the burial chapel below the east window is reproduction, purchased in 1998 during the chapel's refurbishment. The original was designed and woven by William Morris in 1879 and is particularly appropriate as he was born in the East End of London, and the tapestry was first woven at about the same time that the chapel was built. The tapestry, called "Vine and Acanthus" was his first tapestry, and the only large piece woven by Morris himself, who always referred to it as "Cabbage and Vine". The original hangs at Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire, which was Morris's home at the time, and is where this tapestry was produced. William Morris was born in 1836. He was educated at Marlborough, and then at Exeter College, Oxford. Here he met his life-long friend Edward Burne-Jones. Later Morris and his colleagues founded a firm, Morris & Co., at Merton Abbey, Surrey, producing beautifully designed curtains, rugs, wallpapers and tapestries.
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