ash chairs for the dining room. Gimson’s lifelong collabora-
tor Sidney Barnsley made the massive oak dining table from
a single plank. A high-backed settle was designed by Sidney’s
older brother and partner, Ernest Barnsley, to be placed near
the front door to help exclude drafts. The door opened directly
into what is today the dining room. (The room was used as the
kitchen up into the 1950s.)
Broad slate steps lead from the dining room to the large
sitting room on the next level. A collection of stoneware hot-
water bottles sat on the steps to warm cold winter evenings,
as the house had no central heat until 1969. The sitting room
features a window seat with garden views, along with an ingle-
nook fireplace across the room for winter evenings. A small,
protruding slate shelf was left for Sydney’s tobacco tin, an ex-
ample of the intimate and practical nature of the construction.
Narrow steps lead up another level to the master bed-
room, where a window on the gable end allows one to step
straight into the garden—a feature much enjoyed by children
playing tag. Furnishings include a handsome walnut coffer
with carved bands of walnuts and acorns by Joseph Armitage
(who designed the National Trust’s oak-leaf logo in 1935). Ad-
ditional bedrooms include a walkthrough nursery, a five-sided
bedroom with a solid oak bed made by Sidney Barnsley, and the
Well Room (so-called as one steps down into it). Sydney Gim-
ABOVE In the dining room at Stoneywell in Leicestershire, rush-seated
ladderback chairs by Ernest Gimson join an oak refectory table designed by
Sidney Barnsley. BELOW A window seat reveals the thickness of the stone walls.COURTESY NATIONAL TRUST JAMES DOBSON