CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE

13th January 2008

The First Church of Christ Scientist, Castlemere Street, Rochdale is being demolished. Built between 1911-14 the architect was Thomas Butterworth of 78 King Street Manchester, the same address as the office of Wood and Sellers. It is obviously based Wood’s Daisy Bank Road Church. Is this School of Wood or did the Master himself lend a hand?

Most recently used by Jehovah’s Witnesses the building was in a pathetic state with windows bricked up, walls pasted with render, and a suspended ceiling inside. Possibly the walls were too insubstantial for the thrust of
the huge open trussed roof. Following the destruction of Durnford School in 2002 our stock of Wood is going down fast.

The garden made by Edgar Wood at Monte Calvario, Porto Maurizio, Liguria around 1935 has a theatrical air. His housekeeper, to whom he bequeathed the villa, is sitting on the bench.

(We thank J. Jelly for permission to display this photograph)

Event at Long Street Methodist Church, Middleton, 6-9 September 2007

Andy Marshall writes: Just to let you know that I have a photo exhibition of Edgar Wood buildings commissioned by Friends of Long Street Methodist on at Long Street Methodist Church in Middleton between the 6 and 9th of September. Hope you can make it. We also have a heritage skills event with demonstrations by traditional joiners, roofers, metal workers and stone masons. Please find attached a flyer with details.

Edgar Wood. Ed Wood

A book of great architects skating would be necessarily brief but would certainly contain this splendid image of the dashing Edgar Wood. Uncovered by CiA in the Manchester Art Gallery archives this photograph has been mutilated possibly to cut off his now unknown companion. Who could it have been?

Andy Marshall (’fotofacade’) has started a flickr group called The Edgar Wood Project as a repository of images of buildings by er…. Edgar Wood. Andy is an architectural photographer and blogs at fotofacade.

Thursday 11 January saw Continuity in Architecture attending a celebration for the eightieth birthday of the architectural historian John Archer. John is a former lecturer at the University of Manchester School of Architecture, and the event was hosted by the Manchester Metropolitan University, the successor institution to the Manchester Municipal College of Art from which he graduated in 1953. The evening was organised by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and John was presented with a specially bound volume of their new book “Making Manchester: Aspects of the History of Architecture in the City and Region since 1800: Essays in honour of John H.G. Archer” edited by Clare Hartwell and Terry Wyke. Among the collection of essays is one by CiA contributor Andrew Crompton entitled “The Destruction of Durnford Street School, Middleton” recording the demise of a pioneering work by Edgar Wood, the architect who has been the subject of constant research by John since his undergraduate days. In the photograph John is pictured outside Wood’s most celebrated and extraordinary work, the First Church of Christ Scientist, Victoria Park, Manchester.