Red House, Bexleyheath

Stand still for a moment and look at the brick. It is a deep, warm red, laid in solid walls with no stucco, no paint and no disguise. Above you, steep tiled roofs fall at sharp angles. Pointed arches sit over the doorways. In a quiet suburban street on the edge of Greater London, this house looks like something from an older and more personal world. That is exactly what its owner intended.

This is Red House. It was built at the end of the 1850s for a young man named William Morris. Today many people know Morris for his wallpapers and fabrics: twisting willow branches, strawberry thieves and dense flowering vines. When this house went up, however, he was in his mid-twenties. He was newly married, recently inherited money, and was full of ideas about how a home should look and feel.

Morris did not design the house alone. His friend Philip Webb, a young architect, drew the plans. The two men had met while working in an architect's office. They shared a strong dislike of the mass-produced ornament that filled so many Victorian homes. Webb gave Morris a building where honest materials did the work. The red brick, the oak, the tile and the glass are all left plain to see.

Look at the shape of the building as you walk around it. It is not a neat, symmetrical box. Instead, it forms an L, wrapped around a garden. Windows sit where the rooms need light, not where a rulebook would put them. Some are tall and arched, and others are small and round. To many architectural historians, this freedom makes Red House an early step towards the modern idea that a building's outside should follow its inside.

In the garden, look for the well. It has a steep, conical roof that looks almost like a witch's hat. It is one of the most photographed details here. It also shows the spirit of the whole place: a practical object treated with care and a little romance. When Morris lived here, the land around the house was orchards and open Kent countryside. The suburb you walked through came much later.

Morris chose this spot partly for its setting. According to a well-known story, he liked that it lay near the old route that medieval pilgrims took to Canterbury. Morris loved the Middle Ages. He loved Chaucer, the fourteenth-century poet whose Canterbury Tales follows a group of pilgrims on that road. You can feel that love throughout the house, in the arches, the heavy timber and the sense of a hall built for friends.

And friends came. The house filled with members of the circle that gathered around the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of painters who looked back to art from before the Renaissance. The painter Edward Burne-Jones visited often with his wife, Georgiana. The poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti came too. One line is often attributed to Rossetti. He supposedly said that Red House was more a poem than a house. Whether or not he said those exact words, the idea has stayed with the place.

Here is the first surprise. When Morris and his friends tried to furnish the house, they could not find anything they liked in the shops. So they made it themselves. They painted furniture, designed stained glass, embroidered hangings and decorated walls and ceilings. That shared effort led to a company. In the early 1860s, Morris and several partners founded the firm that later became Morris and Company. In a real sense, the whole Arts and Crafts movement has one of its roots in this building.

Inside, look for the traces of that work. Some of it survives, and some was painted over or lost over the years. Conservation has slowly uncovered more of it. Look for wall paintings by Burne-Jones based on a medieval romance. Look for painted decoration on ceilings and woodwork, and stained glass in the windows. Look especially at the large built-in settle, a high-backed wooden bench and cupboard combined. It is one of the most important pieces in the house.

The staircase is worth a slow look as well. It is made of solid oak, with tall, sturdy newel posts that rise like small towers. Light falls into the stairwell from above. It is a simple space, but it feels generous. Notice how little here is hidden. Joints, beams and brick arches are part of the design, not covered up. Morris believed people should be able to see how things are made.

Now the second surprise. For all its importance, Morris lived here only for about five years. His two daughters, Jenny and May, were born during that time. May later became a respected designer and embroiderer herself. But the long journey into central London to run the business became too much, and money grew tighter. In the mid-1860s, Morris sold the house and moved his family closer to his work. Some say he never returned to see it again.

After Morris left, a series of private owners lived here. Over the following century, the house survived when many Victorian buildings did not. Later residents valued it and protected what remained of the decoration. In the early 2000s, the National Trust took over the property. Since then, careful research and conservation have brought more of the original painted schemes back into view, and that work continues.

Before you leave, stand once more in the garden and look back at the house. Notice the colour of the brick in this light, the shadows under the deep roofs, the small windows looking out over the lawn. Imagine friends at a long table inside, arguing about art and laughing into the evening. Then walk back out into the quiet streets of Bexleyheath. Look at the houses you pass, and ask yourself how many of their ideas about home began right here.