The Spirit of the Yealm
Chapter 2.1
Membland and the Barings. - Membland Hall
Much has been written about this house and the Baring family, little seems to have been recorded about the interior design and contents of the house itself.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London does, however, have one of the interior panels from one of the rooms, as you can see below:
This beautiful set of panel tiles was designed by William Morris and made by William de Morgan specifically for Membland Hall. Indeed it was one of their earliest commissions for a domestic space.
If anyone out there has a record of other high quality interior views of the rooms or their contents, we would be glad to receive them at either robstarflotilla@gmail.com or
rydamembers@yahoo.co.uk
We drew your attention in RYDA Newsletter 06/20 to the fact that the Victoria and Albert Museum has a set of panel tiles that were designed by William Morris specifically for Membland Hall. Mel Ellis has reminded us that much more information about Membland is contained in ‘Vanished Houses of South Devon’ by Rosemary Lauder, published by North Devon Books in Bideford. It is out of print but copies are occasionally available from Amazon or eBay.