In 1895, Ashbee wrote an article, 'Suggestions for Electric Light Fittings', for the Art Journal. Besides imagining how the ancient Greeks would have designed electric lights - as the epitome of simplicity - he states that, as light falls, the best solution for fittings is high hanging lamps, in preference to low table lamps; (this contradicted those who advocated standard lamps, fearing that a hanging bulb would set light to the wire supporting it). He also approved of the shape of bulbs which looked like drops and therefore should be seen to hang. The hanging design was also restful: 'I prefer rest in a design, and feel disturbed when three naked bronze children coming rushing over the table with forty-eight candle-power hands full'. The exposed wires, to be covered in coloured silks, were to be very much part of the design. Ashbee also stressed the importance of a central rose, preferably made of embossed and enamelled metal sheet, to cover the porcelain ceiling box.

In the Art Journal article, Ashbee described this chandelier, designed for the drawing room of his house, the Magpie and Stump at 37 Cheyne Walk, as 'a rather elaborate arrangement of a nine-pendant rose.... Here, almost the whole effect of the design is got in the manipulation of the cords, and - a little detail in light designing that is so often forgotten - their arrangement is such as to cast pleasing and broken shadows on the ceiling. The nine-pendant circular rose in question spins a sort of grand spider-web upon white plaster'.

CR Ashbee built the 'Magpie and Stump' for his mother , Mrs Elizabeth Ashbee at 37 Cheyne Walk in 1893. She moved in with her two younger daughters Agnes and Elsa in 1894. It was named after a pub, the Magpie and Stump Inn which had stood on the site since the sixteenth century, the last building having burnt down in 1886. Much of the interior decoration of the house was made by the Guild of Handicrafts to Ashbee's designs.