From the 1880s to the twenties, a working-class terraced house was transformed into a work of decorative distinction – and it still survives today. Hugh St Clair tells its story

Number 186 Gwydir Street in Cambridge is a small, mid-terrace Victorian house the like of which exists all over Britain. Situated in what was once a working-class street on the edge of town, today, after years of and gentrification, the road is inhabited by people with SUVs, open-plan kitchens and large-screen TVs. But number 186 is different. The window frames are still painted in the early 20th-century colours of burgundy and cream. The house is open to the public and remains much as it was when artisan decorative painter David Parr lived there from 1886 to 1927.

Born in Cambridge in 1854, Parr came from a working-class background and had a precarious upbringing; his mother died when he was six and his father spent time in prison for stealing a pig. Fortunately his uncle, a cask maker, took over the care of David and his sisters, and managed to get the 17-year-old an apprenticeship with building and decorating firm FR Leach in Cambridge. The company provided accomplished painters and decorators for prestigious clients such as William Morris, the architect George Bodley and the stained-glass artist Charles Kempe.

Through his talent and dedication, the young apprentice soon mastered the intricate painting and stencilling required. He painted the interior of All Saints Church in Jesus Lane, Cambridge and was allowed to sign his name in a corner of the ceiling. He was also sent to London to decorate the house of architect George Gilbert Scott Junior. Unlike the exploitative employer Rushton & Co in the influential novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, based on the author’s own experience as a painter and decorator in the early 1900s, FW Leach valued Parr and paid him properly.

“Thanks to careful saving he was able to buy the house in Gwydir Street – an exception in a street where 90 per cent of the houses were rented,” the director of David Parr House, Annabelle Campbell, elaborates.

Parr lived there with his wife Mary Jane and their three daughters, and when he got home from work and at weekends, he would replicate what he had produced for Leach’s clients on a more intimate scale. He used what’s known as the “prick and pounce” technique. Holes are pricked along the outline of a design on paper which is then  placed on the wall. Then charcoal or chalk are dabbed through the holes to create a dotted guideline for the decorators. In the tiny drawing room, Parr has added a scroll with a quote from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The stairs are covered with decorated linoleum originally made from wood pulp varnished with linseed oil.

“It’s very rare that this kind of beautiful craftsmanship is expended on such a modest terraced house,” adds Annabelle Campbell.

Parr was painting and repainting up to his dying day in 1927. One of the final decorative schemes he painted was a William Morris style pattern of winding flowers on the chimney breast in the kitchen.

After he died aged 73, his 12-year-old granddaughter Elsie moved in to keep Mary Jane company – and never left. Elsie recalled that her grandmother was very strict, not allowing her into most of the rooms. Marrying in 1945, she brought her new husband to live at the house, and they raised their children there. Elsie didn’t want her grandfather’s work to be damaged so she put down mats to protect the floor, and kept the house much as it was when she moved in – though she did paper over the children’s bedroom and painted over designs in the hallway. She died in 2013 having moved into a care home just a year before.

By the end, the house was in a poor state, very damp, with plaster coming off the walls and water leaking through the roof. Fortunately, social historian Tamsin Wimhurst, who had visited Elsie in the house, felt it was worth restoring and bought it. After years of painstaking and delicate work, David Parr’s craftsmanship can be seen in its glory once more. The passing of time has seen the varnish on the decoration in the dining room/kitchen darken – a detail the team who manages the house has decided to leave as is. They’ve also decided to keep the tatty mats and 1930s wallpaper Elsie added, but they do plan to strip the yellow paint covering the original hall murals.

Annabelle Campbell says the decision was to make it feel more like a home, as if Elsie had just popped out to the shops, rather than a museum of design. She adds that she wants to increase visitor numbers, but that there have to be some restrictions. Human breath in such small spaces creates humidity. “We don’t want to add radiators or under-floor heating, but to allow more people in we’ve installed discreet dehumidifiers that come on when required.”

Hopefully now a larger audience will be able to enjoy this unique example of the Arts & Crafts movement – a philosophy which promoted the particularly idler-friendly idea that making something by hand is valuable not just for its own sake, but for the maker’s well-being and society as a whole.

David Parr House, 186 Gwydir Road, Cambridge CB1 2LW. Tel: 01223 311 680. Website: davidparrhouse.org.

This article is from Idler #109.

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