Charlotte Mew: and Her Friends. Penelope Fitzgerald

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      Vestry Hall, Hampstead (now the Old Town Hall) by Kendall and Mew. A drawing by Fred Mew.

      Freda was still a little girl, Anne continued placidly at the Gower Street School after Miss Harrison had left. Charlotte was now the daughter at home. Although Fred, as has been seen, was called upon as head of the household in all business matters, and when it was necessary for someone to be ‘spoken to’, it is doubtful if he saw much of his daughters. Still a complete failure from the point of view of gentlemanliness, he had had to put all his energy for some time past into the affairs of Kendall and Mew.

      H.E.K. relied by now almost entirely on Fred. Old Kendall had died in 1875, leaving very little (he had entertained lavishly all his life) beyond the Brighton property, and in The Builder’s words, H.E.K. ‘during his own later years, was greatly assisted in his professional engagements by his son-in-law Mr Frederick Mew’. The two of them were associated at Gordon House, Isleworth, for the Earl of Kilmorey; at Madingley Hall, near Cambridge, at Staunton Harold, for Earl Ferrers; and, in 1876, in the new Hampstead Vestry Hall. So far, so good. This commission should have been the high point of the firm’s success, ensuring a prosperous future for Anna Maria and the Mews.

      Hampstead in the late 1870s was a rapidly extending rural suburb, with a population of 40,000. The Hall (now the Old Town Hall, Rosslyn Hill) was intended to house the sixty Vestry members in dignity and comfort, but it was also to be ‘a centre of social life and healthful activity’. By this it was meant that the Vestry could recover some of the expenses by letting it out for concerts. From the outset it was stipulated that the main hall must hold 800, and, although the total costs were not to exceed £10,000, the building must be ‘appropriate’ and ‘worthy’.

      In April 1876 the contract was offered for competition. Kendall and Mew’s entry, under the disarming motto Cavendo tutus (caution means safety) was accepted by a majority. Their design was for a handsome edifice in one of their ‘Italian’ styles, faced with red brick and dressings of Portland Stone, centrally heated and lit by gas. But almost at once the familiar unpleasantness began. ‘Sir,’ wrote an unsuccessful competitor, a few weeks after the award, to the Hampstead & Highgate Express, ‘while inspecting the drawings for the above, prior to the decisions of the Vestry, my attention was called to a gentleman with a foot-rule, pointing out the merits (?) of the design marked ‘Cavendo tutus’ to all comers. Upon speaking to him, I discovered he was a vestryman, and he stated to me that he knew whose design it was, and had seen it prior to its being sent in … ‘Cavendo tutus’ appears to have ignored all the conditions – the large hall showing to hold about 400 people (if I mistake not) instead of the 800 required.’ This was quite true, and nobody believed, either, in the accepted estimate of £9,375. The suggestion was that H.E.K., as Hampstead’s district surveyor, had got his foot in first. Criticism grew louder when the work was held up for month after month. The Vestry, obliged to meet in one of the dining-halls of Hampstead Workhouse, were restive. By midsummer the partners had to issue a statement ‘that though the work had not been proceeded with so rapidly as it might have been, the architect was of the opinion that this was all the better for the building’. This sounds more like Fred than the suave and experienced Kendall, who in fact, at the age of seventy, had entered the slow deterioration of his last illness. Reports and certificates were no longer dated from his office, which was closed, but from 30 Doughty Street. With his wife Maria and daughter Mary Leonora, he СКАЧАТЬ