The Story Begins …

At Architectural Classics, we love history … obviously! The opportunity recently came up to piece together some historical puzzles, return some history to its rightful spot, and look at some gorgeous photos of ancient Welsh architecture in the process.

You can imagine the feeling in the office! We haven’t even needed coffee this week.

It is a twisted tale indeed, but here is the story of this imposing, strong and masculine chandelier. Starting at the start … St Donat’s castle in Wales was built at a time unknown (how romantic :-), but the parts of it still standing that were earliest built were owned by the de Hawey family in the twelfth century. Later, one of the de Hawey daughters, Joan, married Sir Peter Stradling. We hear that she always burnt poor old Pete’s toast, and had very strange nose-hair …and so ownership of the castle was seen as a fair exchange for the liability and inconvenience of being responsible for Joan (!). Or perhaps it was to do with the custom of wives’ property being passed to their husbands upon marriage, the reasoning is a bit blurry. Anyway! The Stradling family owned the castle for many centuries – until 1738 in fact, when Thomas Stradling died, and a John Tyrwhitt ended up buying the castle.

William Randolph Hearst’s Chandelier

It sounds all well and good to own a castle, but several owners found that it costs a bit more than you’d think … the castle fell into a state of disrepair, until the late 1920s, when William Randolph Hearst, owner of several successful magazine titles and newspapers in America, fell in love with it. Mr. Hearst seemed to have an absolute love affair with castles and things medieval, and fortunately for him, had the money to indulge such an expensive habit. Even worse than skiing, for a cost to enjoyment ratio in a hobby! (more…)

The James Gibbons foundry is a very famous foundry in the UK, and it is really fascinating to read about the people and processes on the frontline of creating some of the architectural classics in our collection (albeit the newer pieces). We often look at how things are used, what you can do with them in your own home, and the weird and wonderful ways people reinvent old concepts – but it has been rare that we’ve looked at how things were actually made, and how these pieces began their life. The James Gibbons products will be our bread and butter in a hundred years time, but are quite classic now. Not to mention the fact that it is just fascinating to see people in suits and rimless spectacles (or monocles!), in black and white photos, working in another era…

A former employee of James Gibbons in the middle of last century, Frank Spittle, described them as putting ‘the ‘City’ on the face of Wolverhampton in the Millenium”. He also notes that the decline of the business was due to cheap imports, and unnecessary strikes by a union-led workforce, later.

James Gibbons was a unique place to work – Frank Spittle says that fifty years of service for an employee was far from unusually, and many people stayed there for their whole working life. People felt such loyalty to James Gibbons because it was a family-owned business, and the staff respected the management. However, as with all good things, once you’ve built it up someone will want o come along and buy it… most often ruining it. Spittle says that management takeovers later in the piece destroyed the workers’ respect for the management. However, the strong working community early on is what made it possible for such beautiful pieces and such great inventions to come about through the company. James gibbons not only had their dedicated art-metal department, they also had a strong focus on product innovation. They invented the coin-operated lock for lockers, which is now popular at swimming pools. Their advert for it was probably fairly risqué at the time, also! Surely women are only allowed to uncover their stomachs in the privacy of their own bathroom, or possibly their bed… ! (more…)