Mr. Muff

Visting Guildford Cathedral last year and wanting to read a bit more about its construction, I had a look in the shop. They couldn’t do quite that, but they could do a biography of the architect, Edward Maufe, by a grand-daughter (reference 1), so I got that instead. A book which turned out to be an easy read and resulting in much Maufe-chasing in the weeks and months that followed. So while he was first noticed (a long way) back in 2018 at reference 2, there was a regular flurry of notices last year, to be found at reference 3. 

The book is printed on thick white paper, rather like that of the book noticed at reference 4. Suitable for the printing of glossy photographs, although they all on their own pages, rather than mixed up with the text. Reasonable supply of them, mostly of or about his buildings. A cheerful, easy read, on the first reading getting through the 300 odd pages of text in two days. Second read in perhaps three.

Maufe started life as the son of a successful Bradford draper. A well-heeled youth with no particular need to earn a living but who had a taste for architecture. His career proper started in around 1920, after war service in the Balkans. The cathedral ran from 1936 to 1961 (by which time he was in his eighties) and he finally retired in the mid 1960’s.

At some point, the family changed its name from Muff to Maufe. The former, it seems, is common enough in Yorkshire, but the present Maufe was pleased enough to get shot of Muff, the subject of some ribbing.

Mr. Maufe was half of a husband and wife team, both of whom came from well-to-do northern families. He did the building while she had a hand in the décor and decorations. She was well educated for the time – including Ancient Greek – was quite arty and had lovers, as did he. But, in the fashion of arty types between the wars, everyone stayed good friends. All his godliness and work for churches notwithstanding. The same can be said in spades about Gill, who did sculptures for many of Maufe’s buildings. But who, sadly, died of lung cancer in 1940 before he completed his work on the cathedral.

Mrs. Maufe was strongly associated with Heal’s, becoming a director there. Including a long affair with the long-time boss, Ambrose Heal. Passing association with Osbert Sitwell, the subject of an earlier chase, as it was her who put on his famous post first world war show of French painting in the Mansard gallery at the top of Heal’s.

Mr. Maufe started off with country houses for the rich. Some bank work. Some church work. Some restoration work, for example at Middle Temple. There was a lot of war memorial work after the second world war.

The large and expensive houses in the country for rich people were very much the sort of house that figured in Galworthy’s ‘Man of Property’, published in 1906 when Maufe was still a young man, not yet embarked on his architectural practise. Galsworthy being the subject of yet another chase, back in 2018, noticed at reference 6.

He did Weston Church, where we used to hear the Ripieno Choir. I have now visited the precursor of Guildford, St. Thomas at Hanwell and we have now visited the Canadian records pavilion at Brookwood Military Cemetery, but we have yet to visit the RAF memorial at Cooper’s Hill, the Runnymede Magna Carta memorial and the Methodist church in Walworth Road.

He worked on the foundations of the cathedral with Trollope & Colls, whom I know from working on a building for Croydon Art College, near East Croydon railway station, in the early 1970’s. But a firm called Dove Brothers got the main contract, regarding whom I dug up the following:

‘Dove Brothers Ltd was a prominent construction company based in Islington from 1781 to 1993 which worked with most of the major architects of the late 19th to 20th century. The company was founded by William Spencer Dove (1793-1869). He began as a jobbing builder and carpenter and his first major commission was the Islington Literary and Scientific Society building. His sons formed the Dove Brothers partnership in 1852 and expanded the business. Between 1858 and 1900, the company constructed 130 churches and from the 1870s onwards, built other buildings including banks, industrial premises and public buildings, predominantly in London but also across England and occasionally abroad’.

Their one-time building in Islington is to be found at gmaps reference 51.535612,-0.1087827.

More odds and ends

The Maufe’s shared their family motto ‘ex forti dulcedo’ with the Golden Syrup from Tate & Lyle. A motto derived from the Bible via reference 10. Sometimes translated as ‘from strength comes forth sweetness’, but actually to do with bees making their nests in the rotting innards of dead lions. For a rather different version see reference 11. All very odd.

Maufe liked to work hands on, a liking perhaps reflected in his declining presidential posts. So while he had assistants and employees, there were not a lot of them. He worked out of modest offices and did not build up a monster practise in the way of some of our star architects of today.

He was also rather keen on fancy furniture and fittings. Some of the furniture he designed himself, some of it came from Heal’s and some of it came from his Arts & Crafts friends, the likes of Eric Gill. Some of this can be seen at Guildford. Some of it can look a little dated, not to say precious.

The concrete piling columns for Guildford Cathedral were driven into the ground, as snapped above. Presumably a hole was drilled out first? Answer: not necessarily: see references 7 and 8 below.

There was spray on acoustic plaster at Guildford, on the ceilings. Which was expensively removed because of asbestos in 2015 or so. Also used at Hanwell, also now removed. 

Maufe was an early user of reinforced concrete for roof spans. But what about the steel roof trusses that I remember from the bigger churches in Paris? Presumably more or less contemporary with all the indoor markets and railway stations of the late nineteenth century?

At some point, Dunmur mentions the sporting Bulgars, during 1917 or 1918. There was, it seems, a large flat field in range of their guns. When we played football on it, they left us alone. But when we used the same field for parades, they shelled them.

There is a passing mention of TocH on pages 257-8. A name which puzzled me when I was young. And now, many years later, I get to the bottom of the matter: Talbot House and one Tubby Clayton. And they still exist at reference 9.

In conclusion

An easy read, but also a good read and I am very glad to have made the acquaintance of the Maufes through this book.

We are told of a photographic record of the building of the cathedral in the archives. At some point I must try to get a look. In the meantime, the source of the snap of concrete piling above, via Google.

PS 1: along the way, I learned that in the late 19th century, Bradford was the capital of the worsted trade, with worsted being a smooth fabric made from long staple wool, not to be confused with woollens. A relative by marriage of the Muffs, one Sir Titus Salt, experimented first with using a cotton warp (lengthwise) and a woollen weft (cross wise, carried on the shuttle), then with Alpaca, which turned out to be very good for ladies’ dresses and which made his fortune. This being the time when most ladies bought cloth rather than clothes. The builder of the integrated factory town called Saltaire, now a World Heritage Site, for which see reference 5.

PS 2: the Maufes were very much of an age with Aldous Huxley, chap whose books had been the light of my mother’s life and a periodic companion of my own. But reading about the Maufes, on the fringe of the circles he moved in, I came to think how dated and contrived his work was. All so very precious and 1930’s. A putting off which eventually resulted in the burial of six or more inches of the work of the man himself – while retaining the two volume Sybil Bedford biography. Notice of which is to be found in among the posts of reference 3. Further evidence of the drift from reading books to reading books about people that write books. Reading about celebrities even.

References

Reference 1: Edward Maufe: Architect and Cathedral Builder – Julie Dunmur – 2019. 

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/handl.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=maufe. 

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/04/phi.html. 

Reference 5: https://saltairevillage.info/. 

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=galsworthy. 

Reference 7: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/driven-precast-concrete-piles/7092/. Suggests that driving concrete piles straight into the ground is an option. But they are pointed and there is talk of soft ground. A variation is casting them in-situ using a metal case, then withdrawing the case. Why not leave it there? See reference 8.

Reference 8: https://theconstructor.org/geotechnical/driven-cast-in-situ-concrete-piles-construction-process/7088/.

Reference 9: https://www.toch-uk.org.uk/. 

Reference 10: The Poetry of Michelangelo - Walter Horatio Pater – 1873. I have a copy, downloaded from somewhere, but I don’t claim to have done more than glanced at it. All far too deep for me.

Reference 11: The lion’s honey: The myth of Samson – David Grossman – 2005.