Originally designed as a wallpaper by William Morris’ chief designer John Henry Dearle in 1893 and housed in the William Morris Gallery archive, the Spring Thicket design follows the same conventions as William Morris’ wallpaper ‘Lily and Pomegranate’, designed in 1886. Both patterns follow a symmetrical net repeat, with a large central clump of tulips against a background of foliage.

The flowering hawthorn in this design unites the overall pattern. Recoloured for bedding in rich shades of teal, mineral, pink and soft yellows and printed onto a luxurious 250 thread count cotton sateen base.

Morris’ Borage design features on the reverse in a complimentary soft yellow shade; the William Morris Gallery archive includes a fragment of the printed cotton by the firm Wardle and Co. A company that manufactured textiles for William Morris before he moved his production in-house to Merton Abbey in 1881. The date Borage was designed post-dates Wardle & Co’s period of production and Thomas Wardle who was a master dyer, worked with William Morris to perfect the dyes used for his textiles.