Charles Brooking and his collection

To the casual observer it may come as a surprise to learn that there is a characteristic ‘Woking Style’ in house building, but architectural historian and curator Charles Brooking knew he was onto something special when he spotted a semi-derelict house on the corner of Constitution Hill, Woking, which had been acquired for redevelopment by Rushmon Homes.

Knowing the property was typical of a style prevalent in Victorian Woking, Charles immediately contacted the company with a view to rescuing some of the internal features of the house for the Brooking Collection, his nationally important archive of architectural features.

Martyn Bairdow, contracts manager at Rushmon Homes, was eager to help. He says: “We are always pleased to give something back to the community, and this was a good opportunity to do so. These days most of our developments are on brownfield land so it was unusual to find a site which has so much value.”

The Constitution Hill house is quite likely to have been built by a nineteenthcentury developer called Smith, who was active in Surrey in the late 1800s. Charles Brooking thinks this particular house dates from about 1895. So, as a result of his collaboration with Rushmon, a number of architectural details from the house will now join the thousands of period doors, architraves, mouldings, staircases and other items that make up the Brooking Collection, which is currently housed in Cranleigh and Greenwich.

The items salvaged from the house include windows with a star pattern etched onto the glass, commonly used for cloakrooms to provide privacy, and an older version of modern obscure glass.

Charles Brooking has also been given some elaborate mouldings, architraves, sections of staircase handrail, and door furniture, all of which are fine examples of the Woking style. “The pieces will become part of a major museum collection,” says Charles, “and highlight the importance of recognising local detail.”

Rushmon Homes is to build a collection of twenty two-bedroom apartments on the site, to be called Ockenden after the refugee charity Ockenden International, who used the house as a school and then as its HQ from the early 1950s.

As befits the established, leafy neighbourhood, the building is to be traditional in style with projecting bays, flat roofed dormer windows, stone sills, and a feature conical tower. The specification will include such features as custom built kitchens with integrated appliances and underfloor heating.

The Brooking Collection is the largest archive of original architectural features of its kind in Europe, housed at the University of Greenwich in southeast London, and in several purpose-built buildings at the back of Charles Brookings’ home in Cranleigh, Surrey.

Thousands of pieces from the past five centuries, including windows, doors, door knobs, staircases, fanlight sections and even boot scrapers, fill every inch of space. There are doors from the Royal box at Wembley stadium and 10 Downing Street, a window from Windsor Castle, sash windows from Buckingham Palace and a sweep of balustrade from a house once owned by Pete Townsend of The Who.

In Cranleigh he keeps his specifically Surrey pieces. There are many items of Voysey and Lutyens, Arts and Crafts, Turner and Thackeray. Charles Brooking is so enthusiastic about what he does that he runs workshops for homeowners who are restoring old houses at weekends, based at his house, to help them understand and seek out the correct items for re-creating the homes of the past. He has devoted much of his life to his personal collection, developing a passion for the parts of old buildings that most people overlook. Eventually the rest of the world caught up with him: the appeal of objects dismissed as scrap in the 1960s and 1970s is now widely recognised. His collection charts the history of domestic interiors in this country. Some of his pieces are already on display in his home and Greenwich, or stacked neatly with a label attached – thousands of others are stored awaiting cataloguing and more space for permanent displays.

But does it matter? Why store old mouldings or picture rails that are neither use nor ornament? "Because these objects tell us about our history," says Charles Brooking. "You will find intricate mouldings in the main rooms of an important house but there will be nothing so ornate in the servants' quarters – no picture rail even and only a very plain fireplace. Then, in the 1930s, social boundaries became blurred.

The lady of the house would use the servants' sitting room herself so it became more comfortable. These objects show us how we lived." Charles Brooking does not have to scavenge the building sites for pieces any more, thanks to developers such as Rushmon Homes willingly supplying him with salvage. However, he is looking for funding to set up study rooms on different themes within his collection – to create order from his great tangle of architectural wreckage.

"My nightmare is that I will die and all of this will be considered an eccentric's hobby," he says. "This must be made into a proper study collection of artefacts."

Charles Brooking will be happy to hear from anyone who wants to visit his collection, by appointment. He would also welcome voluntary help from anyone wanting to assist with cataloguing The Brooking Collection. He can be contacted by emailing him at cbbrooking@tiscali.co.uk

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