|

William Flockhart 1853-1913: Architect to the Nouveaux Riches

RIBA Historical Research Trust Award 2008

 

Born and trained in Glasgow, William Flockhart was an important and influential London-based Scottish architect whose work was regularly published in the architectural journals and exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Flockhart’s clients were principally the nouveaux riches – shipping magnates, business entrepreneurs, bankers, diamond merchants, art dealers, artists and photographers – and this study will explore how he addressed their aspirations, often with extravagant, opulent and inventive designs.

His most notable building is Rosehaugh House, a monumental Wagnerian chateau cum mansion with associated Arts and Crafts estate buildings for the entrepreneur James Fletcher, in Ross and Cromarty. He designed other important country houses with estate buildings including Parkwood near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire for the businessman Sir Charles Henry, Pasturewood near Holmbury St Mary for Sir Frederick Mirrielees, chairman of the Union Castle shipping line, and Galewood near Cambridge for the psychologist Charles Myers.

He designed a number of important buildings in London including artist’s houses and studios at 69 Eton Avenue, Hampstead for John Collier, 1 Abbey Road, St Johns Wood for John MacWhirter and 15 Fitzjohns Avenue, Hampstead for John Pettie, photographic studios for the royal photographers Elliott and Fry in South Kensington, 2-4 Palace Court, Bayswater for Patrick Ness, and a number of refurbishments of town houses in Mayfair.

The proposal is to produce a definitive monograph on Flockhart to complement my published monograph on his closest London-based Scottish contemporary, the Arts
and Crafts architect James Marjoribanks MacLaren 1853-1890.

 

Biography 

Alan Calder is an architect, specialising in historic building work in Oxford and the Cotswolds. He can be contacted on email at a.calder@tyackarchitects.com|