Charters (1936-1938): A House of Two Voices

Origins and pathways

For a wealthy northern landowner and entrepreneur eager to make his mark in the south of England and on London society, the establishment of a noteworthy and stately family seat remained the customary route by which his name and status would be recognised. Frank Parkinson Fig. 2 was a self-made industrialist and chairman of Crompton Parkinson Limited from Guiseley, near Leeds in Yorkshire. He and his brother began as electrical engineers and amassed a fortune pioneering the development of the principle of standardisation in the design and construction of induction motors and through careful investment. By 1932 his portfolio of acquisitions included a link-up with British Electric Transformer Company which brought with it Tricity cookers and the Tricity Restaurant in the Strand. It gave him the entry into London life he so desired. He stayed true to his roots in the north of England and became a benefactor of the University of Leeds endowing a sizeable central block and tower, as well as student scholarships in his name.¹ His decision to set up home in the south was driven by his abiding passions for agriculture and golf. Also pivotal in his choice in favouring a site convenient to the cultural life of the metropolis was his second marriage in 1936 at the age of forty-nine to Doris Burke, daughter of Lady Forres, descended from Yorkshire aristocracy and then living in Grosvenor Square, London.

In the early days of his career, Wilson’s memoir reminds us that while Frank developed his skills to become a notable industrialist and entrepreneur, he was said to be shy in company and not given to small talk. He was enchanted by Doris and impressed by her aristocratic heritage and wide circle of fashionable friends. He began to distance himself from life in Guiseley; he divorced his wife Elizabeth and married Doris months apart in 1936 and purchased the premises of the Gaiety Theatre in the Strand which occupied a prominent position in the West End ripe for redevelopment. At the time his brother Albert was said to have remarked “Aye, Frank’s cutting a right dash in London.”² There is little doubt that Frank deferred to his wife for social connections acknowledging the milieu in which they as a couple would be accepted in metropolitan society and through which his business interests would be furthered. He also amassed 3,000 acres of farmland and farms in Hampshire at West Tisted, initially to indulge his fascination with agriculture but at the same time to establish a retreat outside London. Eventually he could not resist a new challenge and exercised his proven scientific skills in industrial production to improve the land and revolutionise farming systems, while providing better living conditions for his workers. The Tisted Estate became a showpiece model farm in the education of agricultural students.

Being a very modern man with a keen interest in developing technologies and a substantial track record in industry, his choice of architects for the marital home he planned to build, was not surprising. They had no experience with private houses but Frederick C. Button FRIBA³ of Adie Button & Partners had worked for Wallis Gilbert on modern factory buildings in west London; Firestone (1929), Hoover (1932) and Victoria Coach Station (1932). The partnership was also responsible for several of the newly fashionable service flats in London including those at Athenaeum Court and Princes Gate.⁴ Fig. 3 ⁵ Parkinson was guided in his choice of design by the principal criterion that the house should look like it belonged to the present–perhaps even the future. He abhorred reproductions. He considered that the proposed building should stand as a unique statement of his overwhelming belief in the modern world. His personal aesthetic career can be compared to the purist collector though his particular ‘cabinet of delights’ passionately centred on gathering together the most technically advanced, scientifically efficient equipment and materials to construct his home.

For him the appearance of the house in the landscape was required to demonstrate his appreciation and understanding of the International Style but also to incorporate patent notions of status; the wealthy man taking physical possession of his land following traditional footsteps of stately home owners of the past. It was to be a substantial building on the scale of eighteenth century country seats offering spacious living spaces for family and guests with an entirely separate wing for servants. Its size was out of proportion to any of the small number of private houses built in Britain as a response to continental modernism in the years leading up to World War II.

European modernism and the private residence

The visual language of an aesthetic which endorsed austere, flat-roofed, stark cubes of concrete stripped down to such a degree as to be considered devoid of character was greeted in Britain with cries of ‘freakishness’ which did little to further its use other than provide a point of reference and a visible flag of unity to rally its serious disciples. Those pioneer architects who embraced the whole modernist ethos came together in MARS [The Modern Architectural Research] group in 1933. Members such as Wells Coates, Yorke, Fry, Connell, Ward and Lubetkin had high ideals related to form and function and social responsibilities for the greater good.⁶ They produced some notable examples of individual modern houses built at roughly the same time as Charters but on the whole provided truer statements of the ideology and aesthetic application. High and Over (1931), designed by Connell and Ward for Bernard Ashmole, exhibited an imposing white Y-shaped double-rectangular form layered with flat strips of windows, which sat above the Amersham landscape. High Cross Hill (1932-1933) in Dartington, by Howe and Lescaze, presented smooth rendered surfaces, metal windows in clusters or strips, open roof terraces and projecting balconies asymmetrically arranged within the cubic form. The house that Serge Chermayeff built for himself, Bentley Wood (1938-1939) at Halland, Sussex, was enthusiastically reported in professional journals as a prime example of modern domestic architecture. The long rectangular form of the timberframed construction with flat roof and strips of grey weather-boarding produced a flat uncomplicated silhouette. A regular line of six balconied bays with full length windows on the ground floor and set back on the first floor, blurred the boundaries between inside/outside and fully engaged with the landscape beyond. Each of these individual houses translated and adopted to a greater or lesser extent the new simplified, unadorned modernist concept in Britain echoing the International Style in the treatment of exterior form.

Visitors to Charters in 1936 would have had little doubt of the importance of the site and the substance of the building standing on it. Fig. 4 The initial visual statement of the owners' public eminence was encountered by recognisable signifiers of country houses of the past; the discreet entrance on the main road, the long processional driveway over the estate lands where glorious vistas over rolling fields were glimpsed as a prelude to the imposing white geometry of the house. A wide terraced forecourt proclaimed the entrance staged with a majestic portico, pillars and a wall of glass bricks (a new invention–hollow and vacuum-sealed) offering light and screening to the elegant foyer. The driveway was flanked by a flight of steps leading to an august classical sculpture with fountains surrounded by a sequence of columns. The brick and load-bearing construction of the house was concealed, not beneath concrete or cement render as would have been expected from the modern treatment of the form, but incongruously by Portland stone slab facings normally used to offer grandeur to government and corporate buildings. However other significant features of the modernist aesthetic including the asymmetric plan, flat roofs, integrated terraces and the lack of extraneous detail were employed in giving the house its smooth white continuity. The roof was crowned, not by a patriotic flag, but a gigantic wireless aerial! At the time it was critically viewed as a monumental and severe interpretation of modern movement technology–Nikolaus Pevsner’s impression of the stone pillars were even described as "Fascist" though Alan Powers considered that “Scandinavian sources seem more likely.”⁷

The interior of Charters

In each of the individual modernist houses so far mentioned, the architect was also responsible or worked closely with the client, on the internal decoration to carry through the overall aesthetic and provide unity and harmony with the exterior. They encouraged white walls, integrated cupboards and shelving, no extraneous ornament but proportioned surfaces of glass and chrome to provide contrast and rhythm. Architects such as Chermayeff incorporated new streamlined furniture designs of tubular-chrome and leather or Alvar Aalto’s laminated plywood and introduced Marion Dorn carpets and textiles in a limited colour range to decorate and unify the aesthetic. At Charters the lack of such basic accessories of modernism in the interior decoration is confusing and idiosyncratic, creating an aesthetic tension between the exterior/interior elements.

Mrs Parkinson’s particular taste and displays of luxury confounded the architect’s and her husband’s dreams of creating a modernist Gesamtkunstwerk. A letter from the artist Adrian Daintrey noted that Mrs Parkinson felt that her husband "kept her in a gilded cage" from which she was determined to escape.⁸ Instead of his functional, machine-driven aesthetic proclivities, the main rooms contained his wife’s more traditional concept of stately home interior decor based on the neo-classical Regency style. Much to the reported dismay of the architect Frederick Button, the style details of the interiors were unequivocally surrendered to a formidable trio of ladies, namely Mrs Parkinson, her sister Mrs Mount and the owner of the local deco­rating firm Webster’s. It was only in the less public areas of the house where more modern decoration was explored and modestly applied. The sisters created personal statements of the home environment, employing leading artists and craftsmen and acquiring antique as well as modern furniture reproductions, to demonstrate their compositional vision.

Stylistically they drew on their regular experiences as elegant ladies of fashion who shopped at couturiers such as Chanel and Hartnell, dressed in furs of mink and sable and entertained on a prodigious scale.⁹ At this time the upper-classes were still moving in their own privileged orbit where it was still customary to openly parade one’s affluence through displays of rare and expensive acquisitions. Such modes of sophistication extended to the decoration of houses by which one’s standing in elite society would be recognised. The period however was short-lived and by the end of the decade the lifestyle of the leisured country house set was seen to be out of kilter with a changing society.

Interwar Britain was the location of great social upheav­al which affected all classes and particularly women. Many in Mrs Parkinson’s position in society were seen to be breaking away from the ties of home and husbands, becoming more independent in terms of their lives and finances, adjusting to work outside the home or to the opening of their own shops or busi­nesses. Awareness and education in birth control practices and the clinics launched by Marie Stopes in the 1920s gradually filtered through the consciousness and helped to promote women’s power over their own bodies and the gaining of sexual freedoms.

A taste for the Regency

The interior decoration of Charters gave Mrs Parkinson a unique opportunity to indulge her most ambitious and glamorous vision of high-style living. The house represented a new life for her with her millionaire husband and important landowning man of business. She surrounded herself with those of her immediate circle she considered to be people of sophisticated taste and consulted her friend Lady Estelle Hambro¹⁰ who was an acknowledged connoisseur of art and antiques.

From the imposing façade of the front elevations, the large entrance hallway gave way to a central columned gallery of Georgian inspiration. Fig. 5 The so-called Great Hall was approached through pine-panelled double doors and arranged enfilade with the drawing room and dining room beyond. Fig. 6 The double-storey height of the Great Hall was a spectacular feat of cream and gold Vogue Regency¹¹ magnificence. Martin Battersby's¹² fantastical murals dominated opposing walls and featured floating cupids amid romantic baroque land­scapes incorporating a scrolled cartouche in which the initials FP were entwined. The colour tones of the gigantic wall paintings were soft and mannered rather than a distraction from the overall decoration of the room. The iron balustrade at the first floor level of the gallery on the entrance side emphasised the room’s lofty elevations and gave it a palpable theatricality.¹³ The room contained both genuine Louis XVI and quality reproduction furniture including fashionable Knole sofas. Finely carved over-mantles and chimney­pieces featuring painted trompe l’oeil diaphanous drapes and swags, pairs of blackamoor pedestals, large Savonnerie rugs covering the beige fitted carpet and heavily decorated geranium-coloured brocade curtains resplendent with tassels and tails, gave the room a period feel, though the expanse and verticality of the windows denied any recourse to authenticity. The ladies adored the magnitude of the space and the light afforded by the open glazing and high ceilings of the modernist building but not sufficiently enough to affect their Vogue Regency tastes which were underpinned by a penchant for glamour and luxury glimpsed from popular Hollywood films of the day. Antique brass chandeliers and table lamps helped to augment their preferred style of decor though technical innovations were sometimes permitted to intervene for the sake of convenience. Curtain drapes were controlled electronically and the majority of lighting was operated through concealed strips in the window recesses. There were no radiators in the house; heating was delivered through grilles and hot pipes built into ceilings and floors.

The dining-room carried on the eighteenth century theme in its delicate, feminine taste and included a set of Chinese Chippendale, cabriole-legged chairs and mahogany table ensuite (though in this case the table was a modern reproduction) arranged against a background of hand-painted chinoiserie wallpaper.¹⁴ Here the austere modern fenestration of the floor to ceiling windows looking on to the wide terraces of the garden side allowing the inside/outside space to be extended, was disguised behind draped swags and flounces of grey silk hung from sculptured pelmets to intensify the overall Regency aesthetic. The technological marvel of the lighting incorporated in the cornice was grudgingly included by the ladies as it could turn the mood from white to pink or moonlight blue at the flick of a switch. A feat of electrical engineering engaged to deliver a romantic, harmonious stage-setting for social, intimate gatherings.

The decoration of each of the main reception rooms was completed in the manner of a French ensemblier, the concerted energy of the indefatigable threesome validating fashionable Regency taste and style during a period in Britain of aesthetic contradictions and discord.¹⁵ In the less public spaces such as the bedrooms, decorative detail was more restrained, providing flexible, contemporary accommodation for the couple and their guests. Webster’s provided a range of reproduction furniture sourced from popular firms in Tottenham Court Road such as Birkalls. Websters’ custom-made curtains, bedspreads and scalloped dressing-tables showed the willingness of their lady client to engage with modern clean and simple lines whilst continuing to preserve Georgian feminity and fluid grace. Webster’s pickled and painted furniture in their own workshops and used techniques such as japanning and tooled leatherwork, buttoning and quilting and encouraged the use of glazed fabrics like chintz for practical convenience. Each bedroom carried through a colour theme on walls and fabric which harmonized with fitted carpets and painted, built-in cupboards. Such themes arose from modish couture dress trends which insisted on matching fabric colour and style for each clothing accessory. The sisters religiously followed such crazes, frequenting a London shop in Burlinghton Arcade where even Sobranie cocktail cigarettes could be bought to match a frock!¹⁶

Change of style

The morning-room was situated on the opposite side of the house and separated from other reception rooms not only bu the corridor but by the intrinsic style itself. This less formal series of rooms reflected a more contemporary attitude to furnishing and aesthetics, suggesting that in this case there could have been some form of compromise between the husband and wife’s conflicting views. The simple geometric forms of the chairs, shiny black marble and chrome fireplace, built-in cupboards and lack of superfluous ornament hinted at the dominant hand of the architect and his male client. The focus on the colour palette of brown and green was muted and arose from the hue of a treasured Australian walnut cabinet. A range of modern paintings commissioned from the artist Adrian Daintrey featuring contemporary street scenes, exhibited similar tones of colour and style.¹⁷ The whole composition of the rooms was constructed along cubist lines, comprising overlapping planes and smooth contours which combined to unite the overall aesthetic. Here the influence of Mr Parkinson’s contemporary leanings added sonne weight and pointed to the opening up of a dialogue with his wife into his more holistic approach to interior design which referenced and showed respect for the house’s exterior expression.

Below stairs–the beating heart of the house

While Mr Parkinson’s sphere of authority encompassed the overall plan, exterior design and materials of Charters, his roots in industrial development and appreciation of modern technologies meant that he could not resist lavishing money on the controlling hub of the machine for living in he had created. His resolve in giving expression to such ideas was showcased below ground in an enormous space built like the engine room of a magnificent ocean liner. From this basement area diverse services were delivered which allowed the rest of the huge house to function. Here giant boilers, electrical power generators and ventilation units distributed heating, lighting and air-conditioning all over the building. Fig. 7 It held a water-softening plant and was the central suction point for a system of vacuum tubes which were arranged throughout the rooms to collect dust and debris. Christopher Hussey, architectural editor of Country Life, who visited towards the end of the war in 1944, expressed positive regard for the spaciousness of the house and reserved particular approval for the interior planning which separated the living spaces from mechanical services. His comments underlined the extent to which machine age technologies were required to evolve before being fully accepted in the domestic environment. He wrote,

The servile engines are herded into a huge basement and kept there, instead of being allowed to roam all over the place... Thus confined they work very much better and mankind is free to cultivate the humane arts undistracted by their insistent whisperings about functionalism–the only idea that machines have.¹⁸

The combined kitchen area and scullery resembled a small operating theatre with chrome-faced counters for food preparation, warming cupboards and large gas ovens. It housed a very new invention for the time, an electric dishwasher as well as a waste disposal unit. It was the most functional of rooms located at the opposite end of the house from the dining room preventing cooking smells from invading living spaces but difficult for staff to manoeuvre. The kitchen area existed within the operating structure of the house and therefore, because of its inherently utilitarian nature, fell under the auspices of Frank and his architect. It was a working room administered by servants and although Mrs Parkinson was ultimately in control of the overall housekeeping and running of the house, she would be unlikely to spend time in such a domain. Decoration was restrained, functional and minimal; this was not a room she would be showing off to her friends.

There was undoubtedly a dichotomy between Frank’s passionate pride in all things innovative and scientifically sophisticated and the position in which they were placed in the house. His arsenal of technologies and robotic servants was discreetly hidden, lurking shamefaced in the basement or beneath floors, ceilings and cornices. It is also noteworthy that with so much attention given to the practical aspects of the building and despite the most efficient state-of-the art machines and labour-saving devices, open fires still formed the focal point of each of the reception rooms and a workforce of more than ten was needed to keep the house and its equipment operational. Adequate accommodation for the servants was provided in a separate wing and included a butler’s pantry, servants’ hall and footman’s room with adjoining bathroom. Reliable staff could not be easily found during and after World War II and advertisements placed by Mrs Parkinson in The Times had to assure prospective employees that good wages and excellent working conditions awaited them at Charters.¹⁹ The house seemed to be out of touch with prevailing conditions in denying the decline in the availability of live-in domestic servants. It is surprising that Frank’s mechanised box of tricks below stairs did not provide some future proofing for such events.

Modern bathrooms to suit all tastes

Throughout the course of the construction and deco­ration of Charters, the couple’s differing appetites revealed their individual and highly gendered perceptions, sensitivities and temperaments. However it was in the bathrooms that difference really showed itself. These spaces were among the principal vehicles through which Frank’s vision of domestic modernity was articulated. Each of the seven bathrooms had a window and exhibited the most technologically advanced devices for bathing and showering including extensive displays of shiny chrome for rails, taps and fittings set against clean-lined and integrated fittings and cupboards. Doris’ bathroom was the apogee of gracious living; the ultimate luxury in a range of gold-plated appliances enveloped in the soft curves of peach-pink marble of the rarest kind–Rosa Aurora–specially imported from Italy, cut across the grain to emphasise the intrinsic patterning and fitted by special­ist craftsmen. Fig. 8 Here in the intimate surroundings of her bathroom she found her own model of modern style which reflected the racy glamour and pure indulgence of her wealth and class.

The Parkinson mansion in 1938 represented a polar disjunction between exterior and interior landscapes and between the style used throughout the rooms showing the extent to which the idea of the modern could be interpreted and applied in line with their personal, gendered predispositions. The development of the house brought the two Bides of Frank’s nature to the fore, combining the dogged determinism of the industrialist with the need to be recognised as the cultivated country squire. He focused his considerable energies and resources in Britain’s industrial future, developing electrical systems for cars, buses and house hold appliances and applied this knowledge to agricul­ture and farming and in so doing created a legacy by which his name would be recognised in science, education and care of local communities.

Both Mr and Mrs Parkinson were individually convinced that they were being modern. The architecture and decoration of the house reveals a narrative of their individual preferences but each in their own way represented a valid statement of design in popular culture and what it meant to live a modern life in interwar Britain. Doris and her decorating companions followed their own taste which was primarily a response to her bourgeois society roots and her cultured aspirations. We can only assume what Doris thought of the finished house but she liked it enough to entertain their close circle of friends and acquaintances to regular house parties at Charters. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography of Frank Parkinson it was revealed that one of their weary weekend guests had recalled the frenzied rounds of tennis before breakfast, golf in the afternoon followed by bridge and an evening trip to a London show.²⁰ After Frank’s untimely death in 1946, she continued to run the house on a lavish scale, entertaining and showcasing the house for all its splendours and even welcoming the Duke and Duchess of Windsor Fig. 9 for a stay in 1947 on their way to France.

Bibliographie