Like most architects at the turn of the century, Lethaby spent much of his time designing furnishings and decorative details. He did excellent work of this kind for his master Norman Shaw, and in 1890 became a partner in Kenton & Co., a short-lived business for the design and manufacture of fine furniture in which he was joined by the Barnsley brothers, Ernest Gimson and others. The present group of drawings embraces some important schemes. Stanmore Hall, Middlesex, was decorated by William Morris about 1890 for the Australian mining millionaire William Knox D'Arcy, and he employed Lethaby to design chimney-pieces and all the woodwork, including panelling, cupboards, doors, and built-in and free-standing furniture. The font and cover for the Church of St John the Baptist, Low Bentham, Lancs. (1889), was almost certainly a commission from Norman Shaw, who had restored the church in 1878. Avon Tyrrell, near Ringwood, Hants., a large country house built for Lord and Lady Manners, was Lethaby's first independent commission after he had finally left Shaw in 1891. The inlaid mahogany table which he designed for the hall is now in the Cheltenham Art Gallery. Other designs are for a chair for the Eagle Insurance Buildings in Colmore Row, Birmingham, an office block designed by Lethaby in 1900; and a sideboard with inlaid decoration which was exhibited by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1906 (repr. Lethaby exh., 1984-5, cat. p. 95). The designs for cast-iron firegrates were made for Farmer and Brindley and other manufacturers, c. 1890. 'Lethaby had a particular feeling for cast iron and tried to make this humble material popular' (ibid., p. 87).