When in 1940 Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines moved to Benton End, overlooking the River Brett on the outskirts of Hadleigh, Suffolk, they were both established artists with international reputations. What they discovered was a somewhat ramshackle old house with over three acres of walled gardens lost beneath brambles and elderberries, but this became both their home and the new premises of the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing which, disillusioned with the commercial aspects of the art world, they had founded together in 1937.