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In his speech of thanks for the dinner that was given to mark his 70th birthday in 1927, the architect and designer C F A (Charles) Voysey (1857-1941) declared: ‘my work was never popular, therefore you must all see how my position here tonight is due to my many kind friends more than to myself’.
It is unlikely that that was true at the time, and it is certainly not true today. The C F A Voysey Society, founded in 2011, brings together his myriad fans from around the world – people who would consider themselves fortunate indeed if they could live in one of the 40 or so Arts and Crafts buildings that Voysey designed over the course of his career.
In fact, for a price, you can do just that, as the Landmark Trust now owns the Voysey-designed former Winsford Cottage Hospital in Beaworthy, Devon, with accommodation for six. Caroline Stanford, the Trust’s historian, says the Hospital typifies Voysey’s values: that every detail should ‘instil a sense of calm repose’, and for this he preferred elements from traditional cottage architecture to ‘great sheets of plate glass’.
His buildings are marked by steeply pitched roofs with dramatic eaves lines, thick roughcast walls, and so-called ‘ribbon’ windows – long, horizontal windows, framed by stonework, that wrap around the façade of the building. Combined with a south-facing aspect, these windows allow the warmth and glow of sunlight to flood the interiors, playing on walls of white and green (‘the most restful of colours’) and the motifs of hearts, birds, and trees that decorate window fittings and door furniture.
Voysey was also a prolific designer of hundreds of wallpaper patterns, often featuring plants and birds, and it was for the Sanderson wallpaper firm that he designed the white-brick factory and showroom that stands opposite the former offices of Current Archaeology in Chiswick.
The C F A Voysey Society’s objective is to encourage research into all aspects of Voysey’s life and work, to which end it offers grants to individual scholars as well as to archives, museums, and galleries holding Voysey artefacts. Members enjoy a quarterly newsletter, an annual journal, lectures, and visits, as well as a website rich in resources including transcriptions of letters and archive material now in the collections of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the V&A.
Further information: http://www.voyseysociety.org
Images: Neil Jackson; Christopher Catling
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