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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Little attention has yet been paid to the work of the East Anglian Arts and Crafts architect Basil Oliver (1882–1948) who is best known, if at all, for his book The Renaissance of the English Public House, published in 1947. Indeed he practised in the period, after the Great War, when the Arts and Crafts Movement is generally considered to have been a spent force, and so his obscurity comes as no surprise. We do not look to Oliver for insight into the fashionable styles of architecture such as emerging Modernism or even ‘art deco’. However, he is representative of a number of architects from this era who could be dismissed as traditionalists but who attempted to continue the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement in difficult times.
1 Basil Oliver birth certificate.
2 Basil Oliver was registered on the BA course in architecture (as well as studying Latin, French and Mechanics) at the federal Victoria University (of which University College, Liverpool was a constituent) in 1900-01 and 1901-02, but he did not take his BA. Refer to Day Student Address Books, references S.2975 and S.2976, Liverpool University archives.
3 See Bennett, Mary, The Art Sheds 1894-1905 (Liverpool, 1981)Google Scholar; Powers, Alan, ‘Liverpool and Architectural Education in the Early Twentieth Century’, in Charles Reilly and the Liverpool School of Architecture 1904-1933, ed. Sharpies, Joseph (Liverpool, 1997), pp. 1–23 Google Scholar; Simpson, F. M., ‘Architectural Education IV: Liverpool University College’, Architectural Review, 14 (1903), pp. 87–90 Google Scholar; and Reilly, C. H., Scaffolding in the Sky (London, 1938)Google Scholar.
4 Crawford, Alan, ‘The Birmingham Setting’, in By Hammer and Hand, ed. Crawford, Alan (Birmingham, 1984), p. 39 Google Scholar. The view that the City of Liverpool School of Architecture and Applied Art was an exemplar of the Arts and Crafts approach to education has been challenged by Crouch, Christopher, Design Culture in Liverpool 1880-1914: The Origins of the Liverpool School of Architecture (Liverpool, 2002)Google Scholar in which it is argued that the teaching of architecture and applied art was divorced and that the use of the Beaux Arts as a model was begun under Professor Simpson and only continued by Reilly.
5 RIBA Associateship papers, ref. 2119 (elected 5 December 1910); RIBA Fellowship papers, ref. 1679 (elected 12 January 1920).
6 This is explained in detail in Basil Oliver’s obituary of Warren in The Times, 26 November 1937, p. 18, although Alan Powers, ‘Liverpool and Architectural Education in the Early Twentieth Century’, p. 4, states that Simpson’s sponsor was the architect Thomas Graham Jackson.
7 A total of 78 separate works have been identified, mostly from secondary sources. Of these works, 7 are for new public houses, 8 are war memorials, 14 historic buildings restorations, and 14 new private houses. Forty-five are in East Anglia. It would appear that Basil Oliver’s account books, diaries, and other professional papers have not survived. Regrettably, Greene King have destroyed their archive and therefore the extent of Oliver’s pub work cannot be established.
8 Basil Oliver’s design for a new porch for an unidentified church in Suffolk was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1911. He designed new choir stalls for St John’s Cathedral, Umtata, South Africa in conjunction with Hugh Benson.
9 Beach Elementary School, Christ Church Square, Lowestoft, 1912-13 won in competition in conjunction with Henry J. Chetwood, FRIBA. See Lowestoft Journal, 26 April 1913, p. 8, and 3 May 1913, p. 5; The Building News, 3 January 1917, p. 16; The Architects’ Journal, 14 October 1925, pp. 549-51.
10 Pevsner, Nikolaus, Pioneers of Modern Design, first published in 1936 as Pioneers of the Modern Movement (London, 1987 reprint), p. 107 Google Scholar.
11 Davey, Peter, Arts and Crafts Architecture (London, 1995), p. 167 Google Scholar. Lambourne, Lionel in Utopian Craftsmen (New York, etc., 1980), p. 162 Google Scholar, considers that ‘The end of the Arts and Crafts movement in America, like its end in England and Europe, can be dated at 1916’.
12 Many members of the Art Workers’ Guild can be described as neo-Georgian Arts and Crafts architects. Examples might include Oliver and his master E. P. Warren, Ernest Newton, Mervyn Macartney, Reginald Blomfield, Guy Dawber, Walter Tapper, F. W. Troup, W. Curtis Green, Horace Field, Albert Richardson, Smith and Brewer and of course Lutyens. This argument has been made in part by Horton, Ian in ‘The Art Workers’ Guild and the F.A.B.S.’, in William Morris and Architecture, ed. Crawford, Alan and Cunningham, Colin (Milton Keynes, 1997)Google Scholar. It might also be possible to suggest that the neo-Georgians developed the Arts and Crafts in one direction, whilst others, such as Mackintosh, Edgar Wood and Harrison Townsend, developed it in a different, more progressive, way.
13 Conversation with Colin Tickner, November 2001.
14 Alan Crawford, ‘The Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sketch’, in By Hammer and Hand, p. 23.
15 Oliver, Basil, ‘English Inns’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 14 May 1932, pp. 545-67Google Scholar. See also The Architects’ Journal, 27 April 1932, p. 550, and The Times, 26 April 1932, p. 13.
16 Oliver, Basil, The Modern Public House (London, 1934)Google Scholar with a preface by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
17 Oliver, Basil, The Renaissance of the English Public House (London, 1947)Google Scholar.
18 The rarity of unaltered 1930s pubs was shown by the recent spot listing of the Fox, Bix, Oxfordshire, designed by A. E. Hobbs. See Building Design, 5 November 1999.
19 For the ‘improved’ public house see Crawford, Alan, Dunn, Michael, & Thorne, Robert, Birmingham Pubs 1880-1939 (Gloucester, 1986)Google Scholar; Elwall, Robert, Bricks and Beer — English Pub Architecture 1830-1939 (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Aslet, Clive, ‘Beer and Skittles in the Improved Public House’, Thirties Society Journal, 4 (1983), pp. 2–9 Google Scholar; Yorke, Francis W. B., The Planning and Equipment of Public Houses (London, 1949)Google Scholar. H. B. Creswell’s humorous ‘Monty’ articles deal with the fictional chairman of Grierley’s brewery, Montague Trass, OBE, Hon. ARIBA, and were serialized in The Architect and Building News, 1942-43.
20 C. R. Ashbee, Masters of the Art Workers Guild from the Beginning Till AD 1934, manuscript dated 1941 held by the Art Workers’ Guild.
21 Other than the Bury Borough Offices and ‘The Pillar of Salt’ which are described in the text, Oliver carried out alterations to The Athenaeum for Bury Borough Council (The Builder, 7 March 1941, pp. 250, 254; Bury Free Press, 10 April 1937, p. 2).
22 Alterations and additions to the Old Rectory, Great Whelnetham, Suffolk, 1934 for Major Lake (see Bury Free Press, 15 December 1934).
23 ‘The Stone and Fagot Inn, Little Yeldham, Essex’, The Architects’ Journal, 5 November 1919, pp. 568, 573-75. See also Country Life, Supplement 40, 14 October 1916, pp. 16-18.
24 Oliver, ‘The Renaissance of the English Public House’, p. 69. For ‘The Carlisle Undertaking’, see Hunt, John, A City Under the Influence (Carlisle, 1971)Google Scholar.
25 See RIBA Drawings Collection drawings VOY 469, 549-53, 594, 903, 904. Oliver wrote an obituary of Voysey for The Builder, 21 February 1941, p. 197, as well as a letter of consolation to Voysey’s son, the architect Cowles Voysey (RIBA archive, VOC/6/10/4, see also VOC/6/9/3).
26 See RIBA Drawings Collection drawings PA 146/10/1-26. PA 146/10/2 is in Basil Oliver’s hand and is marked ‘s+d BO 13/1/17’ as well as ‘sent to BO May 9 1917’. For Walton, see Moon, Karen, George Walton: Designer and Architect (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar; and Pevsner, Nikolaus, ‘George Walton’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, XLVI (1939)Google Scholar, reproduced in Studies in Art, Architecture and Design: Victorian and After (Princeton, 1968, 1982 reprint), pp. 176-88.
27 Ernest Michael Dinkel, ARWS ARCA (1894-1983) was an accomplished artist and inn-sign painter. His contribution to the 1936 Inn Signs Exhibition was extensive as is shown by the catalogue, a copy of which is held at the Modern Records Centre as part of the Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association records, ref. MSS 420, box 465. Many of these signs are included in Larward, Jacob and Hotten, John Campden with Miller, Gerald, English Inn Signs: A History of Signboards (London, 1951)Google Scholar.
28 Oliver, ‘The Renaissance of the English Public House’, p. 59.
29 Neither of these projects can be accurately dated, but it would seem likely that they are representative of a number of minor works by Oliver for Greene King. For the Fox, Bury see Architectural Review, LIX (January-June 1926), pp. 74-75. For the Bull, Braintree, see Oliver, ‘The Renaissance of the English Public House’, pp. 153, 158-59.
30 ‘Rose and Crown: Cambridge’s Bronze Medal Public House’, The Architect’s Journal, 27 November 1929, pp. 831-34. For further references to this building, see ‘The Modern Inn’, Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal, 21 August 1929; ‘Rewarding Good Architecture’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 23 November 1929, p. 66; ‘The Rose and Crown, Cambridge’, The Architect and Building News, 22 November 1929, pp. 635-37; The Rose and Crown, Cambridge’, The Brewing Trade Review, 1 December 1929, pp. 470-71; The Brick Builder, 16 (December 1929), cover and p. 31; The Builder, 20 December 1929, pp. 1050, 1052; The Architect and Building News, 3 January 1930, p. 33; Phillips, Randal, ‘The Public-House Improved’, Country Life, 2 August 1930, p. 161 Google Scholar.
31 ‘Rose and Crown: Cambridge’s Bronze Medal Public House’, The Architect’s Journal, 27 November 1929, p. 832.
32 ‘The King’s Head, Halstead, Essex’, The Builder, 26 July 1940, p. 83. For further references to this building, see The Architect and Building News, 5 April 1940, pp. 8-9; Eesi Anglian Daily Times, 19 February 1962.
33 See The Builder, 31 January 1941, pp. 127-28.
34 See Architecture Illustrated, September 1935, pp. 84-85.
35 See Essex Record Office (Colchester branch), plans D/RT/Pbi/2602, 2678 and 2738. The rainwater heads are those designed by Oliver for Elsley’s and published in The Architects’ Journal, 11 April 1923, p. 631, and 25 April 1923, p. 709; and The Studio, 85 (1923), p. 223. Some pubs which have been misattributed to Oliver include the Crown, Girton, Cambridgeshire, 1936-37 by Harold R. Cooper of Ipswich; the Portland Arms, Chesterton Road, Cambridge, 1930 for the brewers Barclay Perkins & Co.; the Beehive, Little Horkesley, Essex, after 1948 (although Oliver may have designed the beehive inn sign); and the Prior’s Inn, Bury St Edmunds by W. H. Mitchell. Greene King’s own brewery was rebuilt by a brewery engineer, Mark Jennings, in 1936-39. Works for Greene King which cannot be confidently attributed to Oliver due to lack of documentary evidence include the Cock, Lavenham, Suffolk; alterations to the Green Dragon, Chesterton, Cambridge; and alterations to the Rushbrooke Arms, Sicklesmere, Suffolk.
36 Oliver, ‘The Renaissance of the English Public House’, p. 149. For a further reference to this building see The Builder, 25 October 1940, pp. 398, 407-09.
37 Sir Edwin Lutyens, preface to Oliver, ‘The Modern Public House’, p. 3.
38 See Pevsner, Nikolaus, ‘The Return of Historicism’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, LXVIII (1961)Google Scholar, reproduced in Studies in Art, Architecture and Design: Victorian and After, p. 255; Gorham, Maurice & Dunnett, H. M., Inside the Pub (London, 1950)Google Scholar; ‘The Pub Tradition Recaptured’, a special edition of the Architectural Review, June 1950; Powers, Alan, ‘The Inter War Pub’, in Trouble Brewing: Pub Refurbishments — Over the Limit? (pamphlet by Georgian Group, etc., 1991), p. 26 Google Scholar.
39 Gradidge, Roderick, ‘Markham Arms’, Architectural Design, 48, No. 5-6 (1978), p. 409 Google Scholar. See also Powers, Alan, ‘Ale’s Pace’, Building Design, 26 January 2001, p. 32 Google Scholar.
40 Lethaby, William Richard, Ernest Gimson and His Work (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1924)Google Scholar, reprinted in Spence, Rory (ed.), A School of Rational Builders (London, 1982), p. 4 Google Scholar.
41 Examples might include Ernest Gimson’s Stoneywell Cottage, Ulverscroft, Leicestershire, 1898, and E. S. Prior’s St Andrew’s, Roker, near Sunderland, 1906.
42 For example Oliver spoke at the Art Workers’ Guild on ‘English Country Cottages and Their Preservation’ on 21 March 1930 and on ‘Preservation of the Country and Old Cottages’ on 1 July 1939. He showed some slides of ‘Old Buildings demolished in our time’ at the Guild on 3 July 1925. See his paper ‘Stucco, Plaster and Pargetting’, in The Builder, 4 October 1940, pp. 328-30.
43 See Chapter VII: Country Buildings in The National Trust: A Record of Fifty Years’ Achievement, ed. Lees-Milne, James (London, 1945), pp. 78–96 Google Scholar.
44 Oliver, Basil, ‘The Preservation of Old Buildings’, The Architectural Association journal, February 1924, p. 217 Google Scholar. This talk was also published in part in The Architects’ journal, 6 February 1924, p. 263, and The Builder, 1 February 1924, p. 175.
45 Morris, William, ‘The Manifesto of the SPAB’, 1877, reprinted in William Morris on Architecture, ed. Miele, Chris (Sheffield, 1996), pp. 54–55 Google Scholar.
46 Oliver, ‘The Preservation of Old Buildings’, p. 219.
47 Oliver, Basil, ‘Stonework of the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle’, journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 19 March 1927, p. 340 Google Scholar.
48 Other restorations by Oliver include Sparrow Hall, Twinstead, Essex, 1928-29; Hart’s House, Boughton Monchelsea, Kent, 1934 (see National Monuments Record drawing ref. 1950/00075, RIBA Photographs Collection ref. 3564); The Grange, Chelsworth, Suffolk, 1926-27; Langley’s Newhouse, Hawkedon, Suffolk (see listing description); Redgrave Park, Suffolk, 1937 (not executed, see www.holt-wilson.freeserve.co.uk/ wilsonpark); Swanborough Manor, Sussex, 1930.
49 National Monuments Record, Swindon, photograph dated 27 May 1923, filed under Isfield Place, handwriting on rear is Basil Oliver’s.
50 Ionides, Basil, ‘Isfield Place, Sussex’, Vogue, Late April 1924, p. 81 Google Scholar.
51 National Monuments Record, Swindon, drawing ref. HD 1949/00189.
52 ‘The Restoration of Castling’s Hall, Groton, Near Sudbury, Suffolk’, The Building News, August 1934, p.,10.
53 Ibid, p. 12.
54 Ibid, p. 14.
55 Sandon, Eric, Suffolk Houses (Woodbridge, 1977), p. 264 Google Scholar.
56 ‘The Restoration of Castling’s Hall’, p. 12.
57 The introduction of a war memorial at St Edmund’s Church, Assington, Suffolk in 1919 was approved by the SPAB committee (as stated on the faculty application form, Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds, FE500/6/2/ASSINGTON/1). No records for this remain, however, at the SPAB.
58 ‘Wolford Lodge, Dunkeswell, Near Honiton, Devonshire’, The Architects’ Journal, 6 August 1930, p. 190.
59 ‘House near Bury St. Edmunds’, The Builder, 10 January 1941, pp. 53-55• The largest remaining collection of Basil Oliver’s working drawings is held by the owner of this house.
60 ‘The Red Lion, Grantchester, Cambridge’, The Builder, 25 October 1940, p. 408.
61 Ibid, p. 408.
62 See photograph in Cambridgeshire Collection, Y.Gra.K36 43204.
63 See Crawford, Alan, ‘Supper at Gatti’s: The SPAB and the Arts and Crafts Movement’, in Conservation and the Authentic Original: William Morris and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, ed. Miele, Chris (New Haven and London, 2004)Google Scholar; Drury, Michael, Wandering Architects (Stamford, 2000)Google Scholar; and A School of Rational Builders, ed. Spence, Rory (London, 1982)Google Scholar.
64 Oliver, ‘The Preservation of Old Buildings’, p. 217.
65 Rough notes for this book together with a publishing contract dated 3 March 1920 are held at the RIBA Library, OIB/1/4.
66 See Creswell, H. B., ‘Two of Mr. Basil Oliver’s Jobs’, The Architects’ Journal, 28 August 1929, pp. 313-17Google Scholar; Philips, R. Randal, ‘Croach’s Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks’, Country Life, 26 November 1927, pp. 789-90Google Scholar; Architecture, June 1927, pp. 413, 418, 440.
67 For Cooper, see Kuzmanovic, N. Natasha, John Paul Cooper (Stroud, 1999)Google Scholar which includes photographs of May Morgan Oliver and Violet Cooper.
68 See The Building News, 30 October 1925, p. 455; The Queen, 30 June 1926, pp. 6-8; Houses, Cottages and Bungalows, ed. Chatterton, Frederick (London, 1926), p. 51 Google Scholar; The Architects’ Journal, 12 January 1927, pp. 95-96; The Builder, 9 March 1928, p. 410; The Architects’ Journal, 26 November 1930, pp. 798-800. This house inspired a song of 1974 by the heavy metal singer, Ronnie James Dio, composed at the house whilst staying with the then owner, the bass player from Deep Purple, Roger Glover, and includes the words ‘I love to watch the English countryside … Oh, feels good in Prentice Wood, yeah’.
69 See ‘A Bungalow at Maidon, Essex’, The Architects’ Journal, 10 October 1923, pp. 548-49; House and Garden, November 1922, pp. 26, 27, and May 1923, p. 192; and photographs in the RIBA Collection, ref. 3562, 3562/1-4.
70 See Franklin, Jill, ‘Edwardian Butterfly Houses’, Architectural Review, 157 (1975), pp. 220-25Google Scholar.
71 Essex Record Office (Colchester branch), plans D/UFW P61/428.
72 Drawings in possession of owner. See also photographs in the RIBA collection ref. 3565, 3565/1-3.
73 Drawing at National Monuments Record, Swindon 1950/00077.
74 See H. B. Creswell, ‘Two of Mr. Basil Oliver’s Jobs’, and the 1925 sales particulars for Imber Court, held at the National Monuments Record, Swindon.
75 See Building News, 8 November 1916, p. 441; Country Life, 13 March 1920, pp. 349-50; House and Garden, May 1922, p. 33; The Architects’ Journal, 16 June 1922, pp. 754-55, 757.
76 See The Building News, 22 May 1925, p. 383; Country Life, 12 December 1925, pp. 947-48; Chatterton, Frederick (ed.), Houses, Cottages and Bungalows (London, 1926), p. 14 Google Scholar; Homes and Gardens, March 1926, pp. 366-70.
77 ‘The End House, East Sheen’, The Architect and Building News, 29 June 1928, p. 938. See also The Architect and Building News, 11 June 1926, p. 565; The Builder, 1 October 1926, pp. 527, 529; The Queen, 17 October 1928, pp. 18-20; The Architects’ Journal, 1 April 1931, pp. 482-83, 498.
78 Lancaster, Osbert, Pillar to Post: The Pocket Lamp of Architecture (London, 1963 edn), pp. 80–81 Google Scholar.
79 Compare to works such as Steep Hill, Jersey, 1902-04 and Newbies, Baughurst, Hampshire, 1903.
80 Basil Oliver’s papers at the RIBA archive include postcards of the Palacio Real de la Magdalena as well as a view of the bay with an ‘x’ marking the site of the Valdenoja House. This site is now a public park, the Parque de D. Angel Perez Eizaguerre, given to the municipality in 1983 (recorded on a plaque at the entrance to the park) and the probable site of the house is marked by a pergola giving excellent views across the bay.
81 See RIBA Drawings Collection W/7/1-19 for Valdenoja House and W7/6/1-6 for topographical details (which do not appear to be in Oliver’s hand).
82 It is possible that the commission came via Oliver’s colleague, Alan G. Brace (see note 107 below), who worked for the Rio Tinto Zinc Co. in Huelva, southern Spain. See 1976 correspondence from Senor Miguel Gonzalez Vilchez in Brace’s RIBA ‘Biog File’. The author has found a reference to a book by Vilchez, Miguel Gonzales, Historia de la arquitectura inglesa en Huelva (Seville, 1981)Google Scholar but has not been able to see a copy.
83 Wilson, Henry quoted in Massé, H. J. L. J., The Art-Workers’ Guild 1884-1934 (Oxford, 1935), p. 5 Google Scholar.
84 G. B. Simonds quoted in Massé, The Art-Workers’ Guild, p. 1.
85 Art Workers’ Guild Annual Reports, 3 (1913-33), record for 1932.
86 John Betjeman to Alan Pryce-Jones, 13 February 1937, in Green, Candida Lycett (ed.), John Betjeman, Letters: Volume One 1926 to 1951 (London, 1994), p. 166 Google Scholar.
87 Information from records concerning Revels held at the Art Workers’ Guild.
88 This poster is by Hugh de Poix who later painted Basil Oliver’s portrait as Master. The poster is inscribed ‘Nunc est Sherryendum’ which would appear to be a deliberate misquote from Horace, Odes, Book 1, No. 37, line 1, ‘Nunc est Bibendum’ (Now is the time for Drinking). Both the poster and portrait are at the Art Workers’ Guild.
89 The Builder, 31 January 1941, p. 128.
90 See Suffolk Free Press, 7 January 1920.
91 See Bury Free Press, 12 February 1921.
92 See RIBA Drawings Collection drawing U18/70/6.
93 See Pomeroy, Leonard, ‘The Making of a War Memorial’, Town Planning Review, ix, No. 4 (1922), pp. 213-16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
94 Stamp, Gavin, ‘A Hundred Years of the Art Workers’ Guild’, in Beauty’s Awakening: The Centenary Exhibition of the Art Workers’ Guild (Brighton, 1984), p. 8 Google Scholar.
95 Art Workers’ Guild Minute Books for 17 June 1932. The Guild Annual Report for 1932 gives the title as ‘Art under Changed Conditions’. Curiously, Massé in The Art Workers’ Guild: 1884-1914, p. 131 (where no speaker’s names are recorded) indicates that the title for this date was ‘Modern Churches’.
96 Oliver, The Renaissance of the English Public House, p. 131.
97 Ibid, p. 132.
98 W. R. Lethaby quoted in Brandon-Jones, John, ‘The Architectural Work of William Lethaby’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, April 1957, p. 221 Google Scholar.
99 See note 64 above.
100 For the Design and Industries Association, see Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘The DIA’, Studies in Art, Architecture and Design: Victorian and After, pp. 226-41; and Kirkham, Pat, Harry Peach: Dryad and the DIA (London, 1986)Google Scholar.
101 Refer to listing description of this structure. Oliver secured a special dispensation from standard Ministry of Transport regulations so that the height of the road numbers and letters of road names were the same.
102 See East Anglian Daily Times, 18 July 1935, p. 4; Bury Free Press, 10 April 1937, p. 17; Architect and Building News, 16 April 1937, pp. 64, 68-71; Bury Free Press, 17 April 1937, p. 12; Builder, 23 April 1937, pp. 868, 871, 877-80; Surveyor and Municipal and County Engineer, 30 April 1937, pp. 615-16.
103 Pevsner, Nikolaus and Radcliffe, Enid, Buildings of England: Suffolk (London, 1961, revised 1974), p. 146 Google Scholar.
104 The other large building projects of the inter-war period were the new West Suffolk Hospital, designed by Naish and Mitchell in a neo-Georgian style, 1927-29, and the Greene King brewery, 1936-39, also neo-Georgian. After the Second World War, Donald McMorran, a Guildsman, built a series of Soane-inspired buildings for the Borough, whilst Stephen Dykes Bower, also a Guildsman, extended the cathedral in a late Gothic revival manner.
105 Kelly’s Directories for 1912 and 1916 indicate that Oliver may have originally practised from his father’s brewery house in Sudbury as well as from his London addresses, firstly 7 Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square 1910-23, then 148 Kensington High Street 1923-30, and finally 6 Unwin Mansions, Queen’s Club Gardens 1930-48. Whilst much of his work was in East Anglia, a London address allowed him to obtain work in the capital and Home Counties and attend meetings of the various societies to which he belonged. By setting up in London, Oliver was indicating that he wished to work throughout the country and aspired to join the top ranks of the profession.
106 Lawrence Crampton, FRIBA, studied at the Royal Academy Schools and later became a partner with Nicholas & Dixon-Spain. He was articled to Oliver in the 1920s (his RIBA fellowship application papers state that he was articled to and later assistant to Alan G. Brace 1920-26) and worked on the conversion of Highfield Mill, Sudbury, 1928. His wife was the niece of Edward Stallibrass, owner of Highfield Mill. Information from Crampton’s daughter.
107 Henry J. Chetwood FRIBA (1885-1943) entered the Royal Academy Schools with Oliver in 1906 and they collaborated together on the successful competition entry for the Beach School, Lowestoft. Oliver wrote two obituaries of Chetwood (The Architect and Building News, 24 September 1943, p. 182, and The Builder, 24 September 1943, p. 252). Chetwood shared an office with Alan G. Brace, MC FRIBA (d. 1971), who worked with Oliver on the alterations to Tyrrell’s Hall Working Men’s Club, Little Thurrock, Essex 1922. Brace contributed to Oliver’s obituary (Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, June 1948, p. 373). Oliver collaborated with W. H. Mitchell, FRIBA, of Naish and Mitchell, architects of Bury, on the Bury Borough Offices and the Kingscliff Hotel, Clacton-on-Sea.
108 Holloway’s carried out the Dunmow War Memorial, unspecified work at 121 Mount Street, London and the restoration of Isfield Place. Wakelin & Rampling were contractors for Prentice Wood, Wolford Lodge, Castlings Hall, Uplands, Braiswick, Colchester, 1929 (Essex Record Office, Colchester branch, plans D/B6/Pb3/5332), and Highfield Mill, Sudbury. Works at The Athenaeum, Bury, the Bury Borough Offices and the Old Rectory, Great Whelnetham, Suffolk were executed by Harvey G. Frost. For Harvey G. Frost, see Bury Free Press and Post, 15 December 1934, and The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder, 13 January 1961, pp. 94-95. The Sudbury blacksmiths F. Clubb & Son worked extensively for Basil Oliver, carrying out works at Prentice Wood, the King’s Head, Halstead, Bury Borough Offices, the Fox, Bury, Beyton House, Castlings Hall, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, the End House, East Sheen and Three Gates, Guildford. For an obituary of Frederick Robert Clubb, see East Anglian Daily Times, 27 January 1951.
109 The National Monuments Record, Swindon, holds a 1968 photograph ref. ST 9648/1 showing the damage wrought by the army. The village has still not been returned to the villagers. For Imber, see SPAB News, 23, No. 4 (2002), p. 6.
110 Basil Oliver death certificate.