Contents of West Sussex country house go to auction, with collections including work by William Morris

The works come from the Yorke family, who purchased the historic manor house in 1953, when David Yorke married Anne Mackail, the great-granddaughter of Edward Burne-Jones, and the couple moved out of London to settle in Steyning in a property surrounded by countryside.

Son James Yorke, in the introduction to the sale, says: "London of the early 1950s was more reminiscent of the drabness and austerity of Orwell's 1984 than the 'Swinging London' of the next decade.

"In contrast, Steyning was an attractive historic town, with a fine Norman church, opposite Gatewick, the house they bought that year.

"It must indeed have seemed a haven, in comparison with the bomb-damaged and smog-ridden London they had just left."

Works from family of artist Edward Burne-Jones from Gatewick House in Sussex heading to auction

David's father, The Hon Claude Yorke, third son of the 7th Earl of Hardwicke, was a professional architect and his son inherited his love for historic houses.

Gatewick was mostly built from 1690 and once served as a vicarage. The Jacobean-style folly in front, built in 1749, is a splendid piece but more modern features, David was happy to sweep away.

James explains: "An ugly mock Tudor porch of about 1930 was replaced with a copy of a doorway originally from Downing Street, then on display at the V&A.

"An old barn at the side was embellished with battlements and Georgian 'Gothick' window trompe-l'oeils, and it partly served as a loggia to house his collection of marble statues and busts [lots 406-413]."

Claude's collections of antiques were giving space in Gatewick, alongside David's own collections. They survived thanks to housekeeper Florence Barnet, who cared for them while Claude was away at war. He died in 1940 but his house miraculously survived the Blitz and his collections were held together.

David also had items from the various London antique markets he had visited with his father, as well as inherited family pieces. James said it was sad to bid farewell but it was time to move on and let others enjoy the wonderful treasures of Gatewick.

The contents of the house are to be offered at auction by Dreweatts on Wednesday, October 16, in a sale entitled Collecting Arcadia: The Collections from Gatewick and Trethill House.

Auction of Royal Household uniforms of groom in waiting to Queen Victoria from Gatewick in Sussex

Among the works is a bird pattern textile hanging by the famed English designer and artist William Morris, a lifelong friend of Burne-Jones. The two met as undergraduates at Oxford in 1853 and dedicated their lives to the arts, becoming hugely successful both in their own right and in their collaborative projects.

Burne-Jones designed furniture, tapestries, stained glass, jewellery, theatre sets and fine art, which would lead to him becoming an associate of the Royal Academy in 1885. Morris founded the furnishings and decorative arts company Morris & Co. which focused on the medieval aesthetic, with hand craftsmanship and traditional textile arts as its main focus.

The textile hanging, featuring birds in a recurring pattern, is instantly recognisable as an original William Morris design from circa 1877 and 1878. It was first hand-loom jacquard woven at Morris & Co. headquarters at Queen Square in London and later at Merton Abbey in Surrey.

In November 1879, Edward Burne-Jones ordered a set of bed hangings in this pattern and it is possible that this hanging may have formed part of this order. It was passed to his daughter Margaret, then to her daughter Clare Mackail to the current generation.

An occasional table attributed to George Washington Jack, the chief furniture designer and wood carver at Morris & Co., features a label that reads ‘William Morris used to work at his designs for the Kelmscot Chaucer in the studio at The Grange on Sunday Mornings while my father Edward Burne-Jones worked at his drawings for the same book. Morris used this table'.

The table was a popular model, with clients purchasing it from Morris & Co. in the late 19th century, and it is therefore even more exciting to have the actual model that Burne-Jones used in his own home.

Originally of Scottish and Irish descent, Washington Jack worked at several architectural practices in Scotland and London before joining Philip Webb's firm as a draughtsman and site architect in 1882.

It was Webb who introduced Jack to William Morris and from 1885 Jack began to work for Morris & Co. as chief designer, while simultaneously working for Webb. He was elected a member of the Art Workers Guild in 1906 and exhibited at the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society. The table dates from c1890 and is in Washington Jack's preferred 18th century revival style.

A late George III Irish green, black and gilt Japanned ‘royal portable harp’ that belonged to Margaret, also features in the sale. Decorated all over with shamrock gilding, it was made by famed royal musical instrument maker John Egan, who is considered the ‘father of the Irish harp’.

Egan successfully revolutionised the use of the harp by creating ‘portables’, in a new romantic style. He diverted away from the traditional Irish harp by adding a dital tuning mechanism and pliable catgut strings, as used in European pedal harps.

Egan’s portable harps, such as this one, are extremely rare and out of approximately 2,000 that he made, only 37 are still known to exist. A comparable harp with a similar paper label to this one is held in The National Trust Collection at Snowshill Manor and Garden, Gloucestershire.

The family collection from Gatewick will present more than 400 lots, ranging from works by the Scottish artist Allan Ramsay, a painter to King George III and Michelangelo Maestri, to fine furniture, objects of vertu and jewellery collected by and descended from numerous members of the Yorke and Burne-Jones families.

All are illustrative of a combination of discerning architectural ambition, family lineage and enthusiastic 1950s antiquarian collecting, which created a thoroughly modern country house in the 18th century spirit.

The sale is an exploration into one family’s collecting story, from entrance hall to the attics, each piece a part of the puzzle in the Yorke family’s quest for their arcadia.⁠

The Saxon name Gatewick means ‘goat farm’ and the house rests on an ancient site. It is first noted in a deed of c.1200 as a water mill, when Ralph, Abbot of Fécamp in Normandy, gifted ‘the mill by the church at Staninges’ to a family who later took the ‘de Gatwyck’ name and lived there for several generations.

Having acquired Gatewick in the 1950s David sought to transform it from a modest home to a fine Georgian country house, all to his own designs. He was a Justice of the Peace for Sussex but in his spare time, he was a passionate amateur architect, a skill that led him to become senior architectural adviser for the National Trust.

The interiors were remodelled and designed to accommodate generations of both families’ collections. Alongside the pieces coming directly from the Burne-Jones side of the family, many came from the home of David’s father, Claude.

He was a collector of Georgian furniture, paintings and porcelain, which were all transposed to Gatewick on his death and remained integral to the new designs.

Yorke also designed a Georgian landscape around the house, framing the church view with trees and making the stream flow from an arch, with clever planting and garden carvings adding to its charm.