Charles Brooking

 

The Charles Brooking

Home Study Collection

Charles Brooking is a fascinating and knowledgeable collector of architectural detail, The Brooking Collection of Architectural Detail, and as a Chartered Surveyor we find his lifelong quest to collect British building details unique, informative and valuable and a collection that must be kept intact for years to come. If you need help and advice with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, dilapidations or any other property matters please free phone 0800 298 5424.

The following is one of a series of interviews with Charles Brooking, Historic and Listed Buildings Detail Expert, The Brooking Collection of Architectural Detail and an Independent Chartered Surveyor where we have recorded his comments and various aspects that have affected windows and doors and other collectibles. The interviews outline how his collection started and built over the years and gives an insight into the amazing architectural features housed in his fine collection.

Surveyor: Please describe your Home Study Collection?

Charles Brooking : The home study collection is quite large in its own right and has developed a nature of its own because it's very much based on the Surrey vernacular. It's got its own life, as it were, compared with the main collection, which is all embracing.

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The main Brooking Collection of rescued architectural detail went through various mutations with the site being sold at Dartford to West Kent College who had to move at a rush. This was a very difficult time as everything was put into a store and all the cataloguing was mixed up. My curator had left in 2000, which was very difficult, and I had no-one to work with. The main collection was stuffed into a gymnasium at Woolwich and it was very depressing.

Meanwhile, I was still being bullied for collecting, still rescuing important bits which were coming thick and fast and was a bit embarrassing because we hadn't got enough space. I was being actually instructed not to bring anymore and I was doing consultancy work.

The collection was well known, but obviously I was struggling on all fronts, trying to fund the improvements of my Cranleigh site and not having any input from anybody else on the main site except doing CPD's (Continued Professional Development and Lifelong Learning), which were impossible. Actually, they stopped with the move in 2002 and it wasn't until two or three years later the University arranged space at the Royal College, where I've run CPD's (Continued Professional Development and Lifelong Learning) since, in two stable blocks there.

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Rescue defined

Charles Brooking defines a rescue as saving a window or door or staircase that would be doomed.

Charles Brooking was a pioneer in the rescue of architectural detailing as many years ago it was very much considered a strange and an unusual past time to want to rescue old parts of buildings with everything new and shiny being so important.

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References:

TheBrookingCollection.com DartfordArchive.org.uk IHBC.org.uk ProjectBook.co.uk Independent Surveyors

Independent Surveyors

If you truly do want an independent expert opinion from a Surveyor with regard to building surveys, structural surveys, structural reports, engineers reports, specific defects report, dilapidations or any other property matters please contact 0800 298 5424 for a Surveyor to give you a call back.

Commercial Property Surveyors

If you have a commercial property, be it leasehold or freehold, then you may wish to look at our Dilapidations Website at www.DilapsHelp.com and for Disputes go to our Disputes Help site www.DisputesHelp.com . We hope you found the article of use and if you have any experiences that you feel should be added to this article that would benefit others, or you feel that some of the information that we have put is wrong then please do not hesitate to contact us (we are only human). The contents of the website are for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon for specific or general decisions. Appropriate independent professional advice should be paid for before making such a decision.

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