10 Best William Morris Collection Wallpapers

More than 160 years after he drew his first pattern, William Morris is still the most famous name in heritage wallpaper anywhere. He designed Trellis in 1862. The patterns his firm made between then and his death in 1896 have never once gone out of print. The current Arts and Crafts and country-house revival has pushed the range to some of its best sales in decades, with Strawberry Thief, Willow Bough, and Acanthus all selling ahead of forecast.

Here's how to choose the right Morris design for your room, the ten most-loved patterns in the collection, how to style them with the furniture you already own, and the questions buyers ask before ordering.

How to choose William Morris wallpaper

The catalog now runs to dozens of patterns across several eras and colorways, and the right one comes down to three things about your room. Take scale first. The big patterns, Acanthus and Pimpernel, want high ceilings, generous walls, and large furniture. The smaller repeats, Strawberry Thief, Larkspur, and Willow Bough, suit ordinary rooms with normal ceilings. Order full-roll samples and live with them on the wall for a few days, because scale reads completely differently on a small swatch than across a whole wall.

Then color. The catalog carries both the original heritage colorways, sage greens, deep blues, soft pinks, warm creams, ochre yellows, and modern reissues in deeper jewel tones, monochrome black-and-cream, and brighter contemporary palettes. The originals suit traditional and country-house rooms; the modern colorways let a contemporary room borrow Morris pattern without the full Victorian palette. Match the colorway to the colors already dominant in the room.

Last, moisture and traffic. Most of the collection is non-woven paste-the-wall, fine for bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, and dry hallways. For a bathroom or kitchen, choose vinyl-on-non-woven or wait for a moisture-rated reissue in the colorway you want. Our What Is William Morris Style guide goes deeper into his whole design vocabulary.

What makes William Morris wallpaper distinctive

Morris was the central figure of the Arts and Crafts movement, the late-nineteenth-century reaction against industrial mass production that argued for hand craftsmanship, botanical subjects drawn from real observation, and pattern that honored the wall rather than disguising it. His wallpapers were the most widely seen expression of those ideas. Each one grows from a single living subject: a willow leaf, a strawberry plant, an acanthus leaf, a flowering branch. That subject is worked into a flowing repeat that fills the wall with no dead space and none of the stiffness of geometric pattern. And they were drawn at the scale of a room, not a textile, so they only show their full weight once they wrap a whole wall. That mix of natural subject, flowing repeat, and wall-scale design set them apart in 1862, and it still does.

His originals were printed by hand from carved wood blocks, one color at a time. A single pattern could take weeks. The modern reissues are machine-printed on non-woven backing, which keeps the patterns affordable and available while holding faithfully to Morris's original drawing and color. Our collection reproduces the heritage colorways and adds modern ones for contemporary rooms, with the drawing in each design taken from his original block-print artwork.

The ten best William Morris wallpapers in the current collection

1. William Morris Strawberry Thief Red Wallpaper

The most famous Morris design of all. The 1883 pattern shows thrushes stealing strawberries from a garden. The idea came from the real birds raiding the kitchen garden at Kelmscott Manor, the country house Morris had taken in 1871. The Red colorway keeps the original deep red ground with cream, gold, and soft green, and it's made for dining rooms, formal living rooms, and the wall behind a bed.

2. William Morris Willow Bough Green Wallpaper

Morris's second-most-famous pattern, from 1887. Dense willow leaves and stems in a flowing tangle, drawn straight from the willows leaning over the Thames at Kelmscott. The Green is the original heritage colorway, and there's a real calm to it, the kind that suits a bedroom, a dining room, or the home office where you actually need to settle and think.

3. William Morris Acanthus Green Wallpaper

His most dramatic large-scale botanical, from 1875, all big overlapping acanthus leaves. It took Morris longer to draw than anything else in the catalog, and it stays his most ambitious single work. Give the Green colorway a high ceiling and a generous wall; it would swamp a small bedroom but anchors a formal dining room or a big entry hall beautifully.

4. William Morris Golden Lily Teal Wallpaper

Golden Lily came in 1899. John Henry Dearle designed it for the firm after Morris's death, but very much in his style: large lilies and meandering stems over a teal ground. It's one of the richest designs in the range, and the teal brings real color to a formal room. Lovely in dining rooms, libraries, and sitting rooms with traditional furniture.

5. William Morris Pimpernel Green Wallpaper

From 1876. Small wildflowers among curving stems in a dense all-over arrangement that reads well both up close and across the room. Morris hung Pimpernel in his own dining room at Kelmscott House, and it's still one of the most-used Morris patterns in country-house decoration. The Green is the original heritage version.

6. William Morris Larkspur Blue Wallpaper

Larkspur, from 1872, sends curving flower stems up the wall in an elegant vertical rhythm. The eye follows them upward wherever it hangs. The Blue colorway pairs deep indigo with pale cream in the classic Morris palette, and that vertical lift makes it a quiet favorite for bedrooms and offices in rooms with lower ceilings.

7. William Morris Snakeshead Blue Wallpaper

Snakeshead, from 1876, draws the checkered snakeshead fritillary, one of the wildflowers that grew in the meadows around Kelmscott. It's among his most botanically specific designs, and the Blue makes a lovely, less-expected alternative to the familiar Strawberry Thief and Willow Bough.

8. William Morris Sweet Briar Dark Wallpaper

Sweet Briar shows the wild English rose, the eglantine, in Morris's flowing stem arrangement. The Dark colorway leans into deep moody green and burgundy, which lands it squarely in the 2026 dark-botanical mood, sometimes called whimsigoth or moody floral. It's at its best in dining rooms, libraries, and atmospheric offices.

9. William Morris Strawberry Thief Blue Wallpaper

The same iconic thrushes raiding the strawberries, now in deep indigo and cream. The Blue is gentler than the Red, which is exactly why it works over a bed, where the cooler palette helps you drop off, and in a family room with leather and warm wood. Reach for it when you love the pattern but don't want the full weight of the color.

10. William Morris Pimpernel Pink Wallpaper

The same small-wildflower Pimpernel, this time in soft dusty pink and cream. It's lovely in a feminine bedroom, a dressing room, or a nursery, and it hands you a Morris pattern in a softer, more modern key than the heritage greens ever strike.

How to style William Morris wallpaper in your home

Morris pattern is happiest beside traditional and Arts and Crafts furniture, oak Mission pieces, leather, brass and copper, linen and wool, in country-house and traditional rooms, and in the dining rooms and bedrooms where it can either set the scene for dinner or quietly support rest. It works in modern rooms too. Cleaner furniture lets a single Morris pattern add heritage character to an otherwise plain space.

A few principles carry most schemes. Let the wallpaper be the room's strongest note and keep the rest quiet, plain linen or wool upholstery, single-color leather, simple natural-fiber rugs, with one or two of the paper's colors picked up in cushions, lampshades, or a vase. Choose furniture in natural wood, oak especially, but walnut and ash too, since the warm grain suits Morris's botanical drawing far better than a painted finish. And light the room warmly with several lamps rather than one bright overhead, because these patterns give up their detail best in soft, warm light.

For the install, our How to Hang Wallpaper guide covers the paste-the-wall non-woven method the collection uses, and the Accent Wall Ideas guide covers a single feature wall, which works well for the bolder patterns like Acanthus and Golden Lily when a full room would be too much. Plenty of buyers start with one wall before papering the rest.

William Morris wallpaper questions

What is the most popular William Morris wallpaper?

Strawberry Thief, from 1883, is the most famous Morris design and the best-selling single pattern in the heritage range. Willow Bough (1887) and Acanthus (1875) follow close behind, and together the three account for most Morris wallpaper sales worldwide.

Are Morris wallpapers still in style in 2026?

Yes, strongly. The Arts and Crafts and country-house revival has made Morris wallpaper more popular than at any point in the past forty years. The patterns turn up constantly in design magazines, in country-house and traditional rooms, and in contemporary interiors borrowing heritage botanical pattern.

How much does William Morris wallpaper cost?

Most rooms take three to five rolls once you allow for pattern matching. Each roll covers about 5.2 square meters, or 56 square feet, and it's worth adding 15 percent to your order for waste.

What is the best William Morris pattern for a bedroom?

Willow Bough, in any colorway, is the most popular bedroom choice for its calm botanical pattern. Strawberry Thief works beautifully as a feature wall behind the bed. Larkspur Blue suits a low-ceilinged room, where its vertical lift helps the walls feel taller, and Pimpernel Pink suits feminine bedrooms and dressing rooms.

Is William Morris wallpaper hard to hang?

No. The heritage collection is non-woven paste-the-wall, the easiest format for a first-timer: paste the wall, hang the dry paper into the wet paste, no booking or soaking. Most installs are well within reach of a careful first-time DIYer with patience and the right tools.

What colors do William Morris wallpapers come in?

The heritage colorways cover sage greens, deep blues, soft pinks, warm creams, ochre yellows, and indigo, alongside modern reissues in deeper jewel tones, monochrome cream and black, and brighter contemporary palettes. Most of the major patterns come in three to six colorways.

Can William Morris wallpaper work in small spaces?

Yes, with the right pattern. The smaller-scale designs, Willow Bough, Strawberry Thief, Larkspur, work well in small bedrooms, powder rooms, and dressing rooms, reading as decorative without crowding. Keep the largest patterns, Acanthus and Golden Lily, out of small rooms. In a very small room, papering all four walls often reads better than a single accent wall, since the whole space becomes one decorative envelope.

Are there peel and stick William Morris wallpapers?

Some Morris-style peel and stick exists from other makers, but the print quality and the fidelity to Morris's original drawing are noticeably better in traditional paste-the-wall non-woven. Our collection uses non-woven paste-the-wall, which reproduces the original block-print drawing accurately and strips off cleanly when you redecorate, so for Morris pattern specifically it's the better choice.

Are these reproductions of the original Morris designs?

Yes. The patterns reproduce the original heritage designs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some Morris drew himself, including Trellis (1862), Acanthus (1875), Strawberry Thief (1883), and Willow Bough (1887). Golden Lily (1899) came from John Henry Dearle, who worked in the house style after Morris's death. The drawing in each is taken from the original artwork.

Where can I buy authentic William Morris wallpaper?

You can browse the full heritage range at William Morris Wallpaper. The collection continues the original decorating firm Morris founded in 1861, now part of the Sanderson Design Group, which still produces his designs in updated colorways alongside newer patterns drawn from the archive.