The Goddards Week June 2002

Study Day Wednesday 12 June 2002

Our Study Day was blessed with lovely weather and exhilarating company: a full house. The purpose was an attempted assessment of the public and private archive resources relating to Lutyens’s life and work, and the morning was spent in the library reviewing my paper listing these. Briefly, our conclusions were:

1. The RIBA Drawings Collection (in the process of removal to the V & A, this is scheduled for completion in 2004) and the RIBA Library are main sources, but three others must be added, Godalming Museum, which has good copies of the Jekyll Reef Point Collection containing much Lutyens material, and the Fulbrook Letters, and the Surrey History Centre in Woking, which has the Halnaker Collection and local material on the early Surrey clients etc. The fifth source is Country Life, the photographic collection and the articles, especially prior to 1980.

2. We reviewed an additional 20 sources for pre-1914 buildings, 9 connected with public and private projects abroad, 5 for war cemeteries and memorials, and 16 sources for buildings of the 1920’s and 30’s.

3. There is scope for research, especially through the Royal Commission on Historic Manuscripts’ co-ordination of record offices.

4. The Trust’s aim is to have indices and lists for reference of these collections in the library at Goddards. Many of these are already in place and contribute to a unique one-stop preliminary research tool.

After a delicious lunch organised by Clayre Percy and Claire Hill, we visited Fulbrook at Elstead and were shown around by Mrs Mary Ebrahimi; we were joined by Alan Bott, Chairman of the Trustees of Godalming Museum and Alison Pattison, the Curator, and we went on to the Museum to pore over the Reef Point Collection and the Fulbrook Letters.

My thanks to everyone, particularly Claire and Russell Morris for a marvellous day.

Jane Brown

PS. If anyone is interested in the list of sources, which is a preliminary ‘stab’ at a time-consuming project, perhaps they would like to contact me, at 31 Middle Street, Elton, Cambs. PE8 6RA.

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This year there was a lunch for owners of Lutyens houses many of whom had allowed groups of us to visit their homes. The lunch was partly a ‘thank you’ to them and partly an opportunity for the owners to compare notes and discuss common problems. They were then shown around Goddards by Ian Angus who repaired the building for the Landmark Trust.

As the owners left our four SPAB (Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings) scholars arrived and Ian Angus, who is their tutor this year, stayed on and gave them a more detailed tour and examination of Goddards. The scholars stayed with us for three nights and took part in the Study Day. Finally, the Arts and Crafts Movement in Surrey together with Guildford Borough Council gave a buffet lunch in the Common Room at Goddards to launch a new edition of Nature and Tradition. Arts and Crafts, Architecture and Gardens in and around Guildford.