Charles Brooking

How the Brooking Collection began

and early rescues in the Surrey area

Charles Brooking is a fascinating and knowledgeable collector of architectural detail, The Brooking Collection of Architectural Detail, and as Surveyors 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 a 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 : How did your collection of architectural detail begin?

Charles Brooking : People often ask how I started my interest in rescuing architectural detailing, how it began and why it started in the way it did and they are always curious about it starting when I was 3 years old. It is actually true, I did start when I was three years old.

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We lived in Cheam, Surrey and I was brought up in a 1930's house built by Andrew Burton, a very well known local builder who built very well in a sort of watered down Arts and Crafts tradition. I was very aware of the design detail of the house from the day I was born and became interested in door furniture when I was about two or three years old.

My father was very embarrassed about this, talking to neighbours across the road about what a strange son he had, as he likes all these fittings and fixtures instead of cricket, that sort of thing! My father tried to stamp out my interest but I rebelled, became interested in door furniture and particularly numbers on gates which was curious and the different fonts and designs of numbers and Bakelite fittings.

Bakelite

The Belgian chemist L H Baekeland invented Bakelite in 1909 which is a synthetic resin which is chemically formulated and can be used for molding items which were until its invention made from celluloid or hard rubber. Bakelite can be used for many items including lamps, jewellery, radio cases, button's and for parts in electrical wiring etc.

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.

Surveyor: Were you collecting them?

Charles Brooking : I was collecting them and getting my mother to try and swap them over so that neighbours could have more modern ones because I wanted the old ones and it caused quite a stir and a lot of amusement in the mid1950's. Father was despairing! He was a tycoon to finance and that sort of thing and wanted me to become something similar and I then became interested in chimney pots in 1957 on trips into Cheam and other parts of Surrey , fascinated by the way they caught the light. My interest was more artistic than historical then with the shape, the design and the texture appealing to my young eyes.

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My interest soon became historical, my mother was an art historian/dealer and she had an amazing gallery in The Strand, London WC2 with her guardian between 1926 and 1951, known as St. Martin 's Gallery in William IV Street, London WC2. My mother's gallery had wonderful antiques, all kinds of things like glass, china, paintings, objects, curios in drawers in the loft which I was fascinated by particularly the textures and colours of the glass. She had extraordinary objects, drawers full of strange things too, early pens, fittings and fixtures which one could explore when one was getting bored and we had a series of au pair girls who proved to be great allies with my collecting, chatting up owners of houses and letting me swap over numbers and things and I didn't prise them off before! Chimney pots caused quite a stir.

Surveyor: From what age did you start collecting architectural details?

Charles Brooking : Well I was about three at least, if not younger, and then in 1958 I got interested in other things such as designs of insulators on telegraph poles for a short time and then swung back with a vengeance to architectural detail, because we moved in 1959 to a large commodious 1930's villa in White Lane , Guildford . We moved into this house in the summer of 1959 which was un-modernised and the workmen knew my interest and they showered me with old bell fittings, light switches and other things which I enjoyed taking them apart. It wasn't actually collectable but spurred on my interest and encouraged it and fired my imagination becoming interested in various bits and pieces.

I chipped out an airbrick from our house because I liked the shape of it; my father went mad about this when he came back from Australia ! When I knocked out the airbrick and my mother asked me why have you done that? and I responded that I liked the design and the shape! I knocked it out of the wall!

I was reading my World of Wonder book and became aware of sash windows. I liked the mouldings and the design of ovelos and shapes. It was the shapes really that set me off!

Airbrick low level unprotected

Sketch of an airbrick acting as a gutter

1666 Sash
1709 sash
1774 sash

Surveyor: Ovelo's?

Charles Brooking : Yes, ovelo's I had noticed them at my school and I thought these mouldings were rather nice.

Surveyor: Where was your school?

Charles Brooking : My school was in Chiddingfold in a 16th century glassmakers house on the High Street Green in Surrey. There was a great big lecture room built by Sir William Bragg who lectured at the Royal Institute in the 1920's and when it was bought by Miss Maxwell who set up the school in 1951 she converted it to the junior classroom and that had these very nice casement windows which set off my window interest.

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I went to see some friends near our house at Tyting Farm, where there was a dairy farm building and I rescued some bits of window frames and then I saw this book. I noticed this sash window illustration showing how they work and so I decided I wanted a whole sash window and that became an obsession in 1961 and it was very difficult to get because no one understood how they went in and we didn't know any builders!

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sliding-sash-window-problems

I dragged my father around demolition sites because Guildford was an unspoilt market town with a lot of Victorian development that came after the railway in the 1840's and was marked down by various people including the Mayor Sam Weller. Guildford was a redevelopment area and there were so many plans to redevelop and of course the demolition was just beginning and there was a lot of slum clearance going on with whole rows of houses in the Sydenham Road area, built in the 1820's, 30's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, and of course late Regency/ Victorian terraces. We used to walk around the town and on shopping trips I would look up at the windows becoming aware of the designs and detail.

Once when we had been swimming I spotted this wonderful row of artisan houses, two up two down really quite poor and run down but original 1820's to 30's and they had 16 pane sash windows really cute, to use an American term, small scaled down sashes which were I suppose only about what 3 foot 6 by about 3 foot 6, something like that, 8 over 8 some with cram glass. I didn't know about cram glass then but I remember being aware of their visual interest because I wanted a complete sash window and they seemed to fit the bill.

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The foreman on the site told me that sash windows are very hard to get out so they don't bother saving them, we just burn them! On offering a pound the next day two workmen stood outside my house with a grey pick up van with this dear little 16 pane sash window and I immediately set to work on it. To my horror I discovered I took the blocks that were holding the top sash up in the pulley style. I thought that's funny why doesn't it work because I wanted one which worked.

I wasn't so much interested in the history then, I just liked the object and this is how my interest began. I basically took these blocks out and then forced the top sash down and it wasn't made to work and I went up to my mother and I said rather pompously I want a proper sash window not a common sash window from a common terraced house, I don't like it at all it doesn't work properly! So that was all rather difficult but my uncle was involved in a major restoration project in Nottingham on a Crown State Property so he was enlisted to help.

Surveyor: What was your uncle's profession?

Charles Brooking : I think he was a surveyor and he was involved in some aspect/development in Nottingham as far as I can make out. He did various things and he said that he could probably lay his hands on a sash window and we duly went up there in November 1962 to collect a complete sash window! Again, a 16 pane sash window which it looked actually late Georgian but in fact it was a copy of probably the 1840's / 1850's maybe later and I was very pleased.

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No one encouraged my interest in architectural detailing instead everyone was encouraging my new interest in fossils and archaeology and as I was starting at prep school in the summer or April, I just thought oh gosh no one is interested in my collection. It was Guy Fawkes Night and I thought shall I be a big boy and give up this ridiculous interest and with my father saying yes, it would be marvellous I decided to break up the sash window for Guy Fawkes Night in 1962 deciding to go straight as it were and become more conventional as my father put it and become interested in fossils and archaeology and things that most people could understand.

Well I went to prep school and didn't like it very much but the school was Edwardian and had lovely detailed stained glass which fired my interest in architecture again! 

Surveyor: Where was the prep school?

Charles Brooking : It was in Seaford , Sussex and was built in 1905.

Later on in 1965 they were doing some work on the farm buildings, I was skipping games to go and look for Neolithic axe heads and things on the field, and was distracted as there was a top sash in one of the old farm sheds. I went to the chap who was managing the pigs and said what's going to happen to that window and he said that it was going to come out and that he would save it for me. This find made me think that I was getting interested in joinery details and buildings again and was the beginning of my interest again.

In 1966 a very strange things happened when we were going past the demolition of a girls school, Ravens Croft in Eastbourne which was a big place built in the 1870's to 1890's, a massive site and I wasn't expecting to stop. I just saw that they were taking the roofs off and it said bricks, doors and windows for sale.

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It was all very sedate in those days, we would go out on a school visit and go to lunch at the Queen's Hotel and take a walk down the front and go to a castle and perhaps go fossil hunting at the cliffs and then were taken back to prep school after high tea.

Mother said oh stop, that looks interesting I'm sure Charles would like to look and I wasn't actually asking but by making my father stop on that site in 1966 a match was put to the fire again and the torch was lit and they bought a top sash. My father I didn't want me to start this architectural detail collecting again, it's ridiculous, this interest! However I was very excited by this; that previous summer in 1965 a marvellous tutor was employed to tutor me in Maths and English, well Maths mainly and this chap was a great character. He was a great William Morris fan, a socialist, but he was very enthusiastic in the arts. I had become interested in weapons 

Surveyor: The William Morris connection was bad as well?

Charles Brooking : Yes that's right and he was very keen on that but he was a pacifist and my father had been to Belgium on trips with British Leyland and bought back pistols and guns. This is more normal, and tried to get me interested in those.

My tutor was very enthusiastic about what I was doing but he found the weapons thing very odd, he was interested in the archaeological side of things. With my interest in buildings I went to look at one or two sites just standing looking at work that was going on not actually rescuing. I was very nervous about being stamped on because I could see the opposition was so strong. My father used to come back from work and say I hope you are doing something sensible with your time, with your collecting fossils and things. We don't want any more of this rubbish with buildings.

My tutor brought me some ironmongery one day when I was ill in 1965 and that fired me up again and to cut as long story short, you can imagine what happened!

My rescuing had truly started again and one day when we were walking down the lane with the dogs and there was a wonderful Queen Anne revival twin sash leaning against a pile of rubble which had been taken out of a house at the end of the road, which was built in 1905. 

I drew my breath and my mother said no, no. no. no, don't you get any funny ideas about that Charles, you've left that behind. You are a big boy now and you are off to prep school soon. We don't want any more of this sort of thing. I don't mind you being interested in old things but not that. I don't want any more of those in the house and I'm surprised you even asked! So I went home looking rather sad.

My tutor came up the next day which was the beginning of the project really, and said to me that he had a proposition whereby if I gave up these awful war relics, guns and things like that, he thought he could get around my mother and he could see what he can do about the sash window as a bargain. I went home breathless with excitement and the tutor worked on my mother to allow me to start collecting again in earnest. The window proved far too heavy. It was too big for me being about 5 foot perhaps a bit less but it was very heavy. I like something I can move around, because remember I had to do this on my own. It was twin sashed, eight weights because both sashes worked with a central mullion beautifully formed. It was far too large to rescue myself, so it was back to the drawing board and I thought that I was going to have to get around this issue and sort something out to retrieve it.

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We went down to Guildford again shopping before the new term of prep school and guess what? - we parked in a multi storey car park and I spied with my little eye, a late Victorian double villa built by, I think it was a local builder. I have forgotten his name now but it was Baker's Passage in Guildford and it was an old electrical shop with an archway over Baker's Passage and in the gable was a re-used 16 pane sash window. All of the panes were broken but it looked very exciting because I thought of myself restoring it and starting perhaps a proper museum. My mother said that's a bit of old Guildford , I will try and get that for you as you will be off to school tomorrow.

I went back to school, I was dreading it because I hated the beginning of a new term, I was nervous as hell. We had a horrible set of people in the dormitory that term, ghastly. It was a separate house up the road and there was a particularly nasty person in the dormitory and I thought oh my god but I've got this project I can work on which helped me centre my thoughts. Shortly after the beginning of term we went up into the attic and I found all of these Victorian bits of door furniture which rather naughtily we put away. They were just rubbish up there which had been moved into the house.

Surveyor: Were they used or new?

Charles Brooking : They were used but then I thought this is amazing! Anyway back to reality and I was picked up by my mother, it was the summer term of 1966, and she told me that they had had a terrible time with my window, a dreadful time with it! She told me that when she had gone down to rescue the window she was not able to save that window as it had fallen off the building and had to get another one out, it was a very big thing and my father went ballistic. He went absolutely mad because it wouldn't go in the car. It had to go on the roof and he was in a terrible state. You've got to stop this behaviour! Oh my goodness!

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We got home and there was one of the worse condition sash windows, a two over two, 1890's very cheaply made example. The mouldings weren't even properly made and that upset me tremendously. I noticed that they were very cheaply made and the actual backboards to the window were an old billboard advertising the Guildford Agricultural Show of 1898 and it was still on there! I thought that window's 1898 which wasn't that old as it was less than 70 years old and look at the condition of it! My tutor came to the rescue saying of course you could repair it, you could put a block there, but still it's damaged. It's lost its glazing - I wanted a complete example.

A few months later my mother was going down to the indoor swimming baths and low and behold they were demolishing a really interesting 1810 to 1816 terraced, four houses. They were quite nicely detailed in the late Georgian tradition and there was a three over six sash window on the first floor!

Surveyor: Could you please explain what you mean by nicely detailed, late Georgian tradition?  

Charles Brooking : Well proportioned with a blind window above the front door. Symmetrical.

Surveyor: By a blind window you mean?

Charles Brooking : Not blocked by the window tacks but blind to maintain the proportions of the house, symmetrically proportioned. Very lonely houses but nicely detailed and built on London Stock Brick, which was unusual for Guildford, Surrey .

Surveyor: What colour?

Charles Brooking : Typical late Georgian London Stock, I suppose darkened. They would have been yellow originally but this time quite dark and weather beaten so far as I remember with slate roofs. The windows were painted terracotta and cream and they were condemned as slums. They would have been demolished now and if they had been restored they would probably be worth probably about four hundred thousand each but in 1966 they were slums and they were condemned as unfit for human habitation. There was a closing order in the summer of 1964.

Surveyor: But this was a potential for you to have your first working window?  

Charles Brooking : Well this was another very interesting issue here because it wasn't straightforward either. Nothing was straightforward in my life! Basically these houses were built by a local builder, again on the cheap probably; they were beautifully made windows but being economic in the terms of their fitting out. In the six over six window downstairs the top sash was fixed, as they always were in early sash windows, but in this case to save money.

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Surveyor: What year would an early sash window be?

Charles Brooking : They would be from the late 17th century up until the 1730's. Often the top sashes were fixed, or they were in the beginning but then they made them both operate with weights. In many cases right up until, well in some cases the turn of the 20th century, one sash was fixed just for economic reasons which it was not a good idea in the point of view of ventilation. In this case the top sash, which was a three over six sash window with a narrow shallow top sash, was made to be operational with cast down pulleys and weights, made by Carron, and the bottom sash was made to be operational but not hung with sash cords. In other words it was a poor man's sash, you could just prop it up with a broom or something.

Surveyor: So it didn't have the weights?  

Charles Brooking : It didn't have the weights and pulleys. It was quite interesting. This foreman on the site knew a bit about this. My mother went down with a friend and offered the foreman a small payment and brought it home. When I came home for my 13 th birthday in October 1965 as the car went down the drive I noticed this window and immediately realised it was something and the interest became far more academic because this was a Georgian window and I realised it was potentially much older than anything I have had before. It had the bead mouldings on the outside, the joinery was well orchestrated and the mouldings were typical of the late 18 th / early 19th Century. I didn't know that but I knew there was something by the depth of the glazing bars.

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Surveyor: Late 1830's to..?

Charles Brooking : 18th Century to early 19th. In fact I have checked up since. The houses were built probably about 1808 to 1815 and I knew it was an early window and that day I set about restoring it. I had by this time decided to collect door furniture and door knockers and mount them on doors and I basically decided in my mind and of course with my tutor to establish a museum, embracing architectural detail and other artefacts as he called them. My tutor gave me a marvellous book Old English Household Life by Gertrude Jekyll which had photographs and illustrations of old lamps which of course I was collecting by the way and other things like that, but also chimneys.

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References:

TheBrookingCollection.com

DartfordArchive.org.uk

IHBC.org.uk

ProjectBook.co.uk

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