C.R.Ashbee

Architect, England
C.R.Ashbee was one of the best-known figures of the British Arts and Crafts
movement. He was born on 17 May 1863 in Spring Grove, Isleworth, on the western
fringe of London. Ashbee attended Wellington College from 1877 to 1882 and graduated
from King’s College, Cambridge, in 1886. At King’s College, Ashbee became exposed to
the thoughts of Ruskin, which were to influence his lifelong commitment to the Arts and
Crafts. Among Ashbee’s noteworthy accomplishments were the founding of the Guild of
Handicraft; a series of houses on Cheyne Walk, London; the development of the Survey
of London; and his role as civic adviser to the city of Jerusalem during renovations to the
old city.
Following King’s College, Ashbee joined the architectural firm of Bodley and Garner,
the leading English church architects of their day. For the next two years, Ashbee lived at
Toynbee Hall, meeting William Morris for the first time on 4 January 1886. Ashbee drew
on his experiences at Toynbee Hall in founding his own School and Guild of Handicraft,
inaugurated on 23 January 1888. The School and Guild grew in part from Ashbee’s
reading class on Ruskin in the winter of 1896–97 and a later class on drawing and
decoration (both at Toynbee Hall). Ashbee rented for two years the top floor of a
warehouse on Commercial Street, which served as a combined workshop and
schoolroom. The primary goal of the School and Guild, observed Ashbee, was “the
application of Art to Industry” (Burrough, 1969, p. 85). The School lasted only until
1895, but the Guild (which produced furniture, silver and metalwork, jewelry, and later,
books) was Ashbee’s constant focus until it began to decline in 1905. Shortly after its
inauguration, the Guild’s work was favorably received at the first exhibition of the Fine
Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in September 1888. After William Morris’s death in
1896, the Guild purchased and operated his Kelmscott Press. For most of his career,
Ashbee maintained an architectural office as well as the Guild of Handicraft. His first
architectural office opened in September 1890 at 15 Lincoln’s End Fields, London. Soon
the volume of work required a larger space, and the firm moved to Essex House on Mile
End Road in 1891.
A major undertaking of Ashbee’s career was the large-scale movement of the Guild of
Handicraft, its workers, and their families to Chipping Campden in the Gloucestershire
countryside in 1902. Inspired by Ruskin’s 1882 explanation of his St. George’s Guild,
focusing on the value of rural life, work, and community, Ashbee and his Guild
renovated buildings in the small rural town for their purposes. Chief among the renovated
buildings was the old Silk Mill (1902, woodshed and engine house; 1909, pottery kilns),
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 144
which became the center of the Chipping Campden site. By 1905, however, the Guild
was in decline. Its distance from London made marketing its wares more difficult, and
competitors, such as Liberty, began to produce comparatively inexpensive copies of its
silver work. The dismal economic times and remote location of the Guild made letting
workers go an impractical solution to these problems. Instead, the Guild began to
liquidate its assets in 1907. Despite the Guild’s eventual demise, it served as a model for
other socially conscious projects, such as Jane Addams’s Hull House in Chicago.
In addition to his work with the Guild, Ashbee designed, built, and
renovated many houses, including several on Cheyne Walk, London,
where his work is perhaps best known. He combined the ambiance of old
London, brickwork, and an asymmetrical arrangement of elements to
produce simple and functional houses appropriate for their riverside
setting.In 1893 Ashbee began work on the first house—The Ancient
Magpie and Stump at 37 Cheyne Walk—which became his mother’s
house and was Ashbee’s first executed design. He then bought land that he was interested in developing, designed houses for the land, and showed the homes to
friends, colleagues, and real estate agents to attract a clientele. Ashbee created drawings
for 21 sites, often designing multiple schemes simultaneously. Other homes in the area
with which Ashbee was involved as architect or renovator were 24 Cheyne Row (1895)
and the following structures on Cheyne Walk: 72–73 (1896–97), 118–119 (1897–98), 74
(1897–98), 38–39 (1898–99), and 75 (1901–02). Of these houses, only 38–39 survives.
Ashbee also made significant contributions to architecture and the study of its history
through two additional projects. In 1894 he began work on the Survey of London, one of
his most enduring legacies to English architectural history. The aim of this ambitious
project was to record all historic buildings in London. Today, the Survey of London is a
continuing and scholarly record. Following the Guild’s demise, Ashbee was appointed
civic adviser to the city of Jerusalem to survey the old city and to begin the restoration
process. Ashbee worked on the restoration of Jerusalem between 1919 and 1922, when he
resigned and retired to Godden Green, Kent.
In addition to his architectural and crafts pursuits, Ashbee traveled and lectured
extensively in the United States in 1896 and 1900–01 (the East and Midwest) and in
1908–09 (California), visiting some 14 states on his coast-to-coast tour. Some time in late
November or early December 1900, Ashbee met Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he was
to keep up a lifelong correspondence and friendship. During his 1909 visit to California,
Ashbee met Charles Sumner Greene and was impressed by the architectural and furniture
work of the firm, which was just completing work on the Blacker and Gamble Houses in
Pasadena, California.
Ashbee died on 23 May 1942. His multidimensional life had been dedicated to his
belief that “the things which made for good craftsmanship were in the end neither
technical nor aesthetic, but moral and social” (Crawford, 1985.