a visitor calls

Lydia Robinson and Lawrence Grigg welcome Charles Brooking, one the country’s leading conservation experts, to the farmhouse

Researching the history of Mabel’s and the architectural details has been at the heart of our work at the house. It is important to us, not just from a conservation standpoint, but also on a personal level that we are honest to the building, articulating the eras of change and retaining period features — no matter what era they are from.

We really enjoy the fact that the house has experienced change at different points in its history, which illustrate the fortunes of the farm and its inhabitants. Discovering what we can about these periods of change has been important.

We have used different sources to piece things together: archive research, old maps, anecdotal evidence and finally architectural details.

In order to help us understand more about these details we called in an expert, Charles Brooking (pictured, right), who runs the Brooking National Collection of Architectural Detail in Surrey.

Charles has a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of old buildings and has spent a lifetime salvaging components from them. We hoped Charles would help us unpick some of the mysteries at Mabel’s and confirm some of our suspicions.

After a thorough inspection, Charles ascertained that despite dating from the early 18th century, few details survive from this period and the house had a significant remodelling in the mid-19th century. The front door, shutters, internal doors and the gothic wallpaper fragment

found next to the front door all date from this period. Potentially the farmer at this time came into some wealth and was able to do substantial work to the house.

Charles was also able to identify remnants of the original house; one of the attic doors appears to have been cut down from a larger brace and ledger door, perhaps from a lower storey. Charles spotted evidence of a wrought-iron strap-hinge on the opening side and a curious double-crescent arrangement of nails, also on the outside opening side. It is possible that this could be an apotropaic mark, for warding off witches, which can often be found on joinery of this period.

However, one of the other reasons for Charles’ visit was to deliver a ‘new’ window to replace the wooden kitchen window that had once been a matching Crittall. The old photographs of the house clearly show this was originally a metal window and we were keen to put one back and re-glaze with old cylinder glass to match the rest of the house. However, finding a replacement 1919 window has not been easy, and kindly Charles, and the museum’s trustees, agreed to release a spare window from their collection for us to use at Mabel’s.

We are thrilled to be able to reinstate the window, which will let more light in and complete the collection of Crittalls!