Chronicle Summer 2023

50 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Peeling Back The Years By Bonnie Robinson

The Warden’s Rooms as they were in the 1890s

Last summer, before the Warden and his family moved back into the historic Warden’s Lodgings in the Quad, the beige dragged wallpaper was stripped off the walls of the drawing room in preparation for a new lick of paint. As the paper was peeled back hand-painted daisies and birds were revealed below the dado level, a mural hidden for decades and covered over when it fell out of fashion or favour. The mural itself is a fascinating glimpse into the decorating styles of the 1870s – the stylised birds and branches lean towards Japonisme whilst the simple pounced flowers and roundels are more Gothic Revival. It would make sense that this was part of the original decorating scheme as the Warden’s Lodgings were completed in 1874 and designed by William

Wilkinson, an Oxford architect who is known for his Gothic Revival buildings such as the Randolph Hotel. Simeon, the Warden at this time, married his wife, Beatrice, in 1883 and in 1886 the Lodgings were extended to a design by Harry Wilkinson Moore (William Wilkinson’s nephew) to accommodate their growing family. Photographs from our archive show the Warden’s Rooms in the 1890s, entirely papered in a rather lurid floral paper so it would seem the original décor was rather short-lived. Similar, but more ornate, wall paintings can be seen at the David Parr House in Cambridge. Parr was a working-class Victorian decorative artist employed by the Cambridge firm of artworkmen, F R

Leach & Sons. Parr painstakingly decorated his own small, terraced house in his spare time and his home, lovingly preserved by his granddaughter for many years, is now a remarkable neo-Gothic time capsule. F R Leach & Sons worked extensively in Cambridge, decorating churches such as All Saints’ and St Botolph’s and colleges such as Queen’s. They worked with William Morris to paint the ceiling of the Oxford Union in 1875 and, intriguingly, they also often worked with Charles Eamer Kempe, the renowned stained-glass artist who created the glass windows of St Edward’s Chapel. Once the paintings in the Warden’s drawing room had been uncovered Bianca Marrett, a local conservator, was brought in to restore and stabilise them. A water-based