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Map shines light on city's Victorian craftspeople

Katy Prickettand
Tom Jackson,at St Mary's Passage, Cambridge
Tom Jackson/BBC Bob Hewis standing on St Mary's Passage, Cambridge. He has waving dark brown hair and a trimmed beard and full moustache. He is wearing black framed glasses and a navy roll-neck jumper. Tom Jackson/BBC
The walking trail celebrates the artisans who worked for a firm called F R Leach & Sons during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, said Bob Hewis

A walking map of a university city will focus on the lives and skills of the Victorian craftspeople who helped transform some of its buildings, according to a curator.

The trail has been created by David Parr House in Gwydir Street, Cambridge, the family home of an artisan decorator who worked for city firm F R Leach & Sons.

It will take walkers past the churches and colleges whose interiors were shaped by craftsmen such as Parr, as well as to the firm's Grade II* listed showroom.

"This is a way of really foregrounding their contributions to making the city, the university and actually places all over the country," said Bob Hewis.

Tom Jackson/BBC A close-up of the first floor of a shop in St Mary's Passage, Cambridge. It has a jutting out window, pained in a stone colour and on either side is white plaster which has fleur-de-lis patterns. Tom Jackson/BBC
It includes the now defunct company's Cambridge HQ on St Mary's Passage, which still has its decorative waterproof plaster work, known as pargeting

"The idea of the walking tour is that people may be familiar with the university buildings, but they maybe don't know the history of the people who made them and shaped them into the beautiful places they are," said Hewis, who is the visitor experience and house manager at David Parr House.

"Places like Queen's College or Jesus College are just two of the stops and, like plenty of churches throughout the city, people may well have visited but don't know the history of this decorative firm that really made them these amazing interiors."

At least seven churches feature on the trail, including All Saints' Church on Jesus Lane, St Michael's Church on Trinity Street and St Edward King and Martyr Church on St Edward's Passage.

Adrian Powter The interior of All Saints' Church in Cambridge. Every part of the interior is decorated in colourful medieval gothic-style patterns, including the wooden roof. Adrian Powter
One of the interiors it helped transform was All Saints' Church, built in 1860 and described as "a triumph of Victorian art and design"

F R Leach & Sons was founded by Frederick Richard Leach in 1862, on City Road in Cambridge.

It worked with many of the leading architects, artists and craftsmen of the day, including George Frederick Bodley, William Morris and Charles Eamer Kempe.

As well as highlighting "hidden gems" in the city, it is hoped the walking tour will raise the profile of the firm, which helped transform patterns "from the drawing board" and into buildings around the country, the museum said.

Howard Rice/David Parr House The sitting room (drawing room) at David Parr house showing richly decorated walls in the Arts and Craft style. Below the dado rail it has a pattern of gold and green trees; above the dado rail it has a a pattern of trailing branches with large gold flowers on a pale background. There is a small sofa in front of the walls and on the left the entrance door painted dark brown with trim picked out in gold while to the right is a green-painted alcove and photographs. Howard Rice/David Parr House
David Parr spent 40 years transforming the interiors of his own home until his death in 1927

Hewis said: "David Parr (1854 to 1927) was born and raised in Cambridge, a Cambridge painter, decorator, art workman, and he worked his whole life with the Leach firm, all over the country on projects like St. James's Palace [London]."

Parr specialised in hand-painted interiors and transformed his now-Grade II* listed workers' terraced house from the 1880s onwards with lavishly-decorated interiors, more typically seen in stately homes or churches.

Matthew Smith The exterior of a terraced house made of yellow and brown bricks, with yellow painted windows trimmed in red. It is attached on either side, with the house on the right covered by a large tree in leaf. The house on the left is also built of yellow brick and has a white-painted bow window. Matthew Smith
From the outside, it looks like many of the other late Victorian terraced houses built in what was once a working class area of Cambridge

Hewis said he hoped the self-guided trail would offer people a new way of looking at a city they thought they already knew.

"What's so incredible is all of this work is so hidden in plain sight; some of it is so vibrant and bright that it can't help but catch your eye," he added.

"But there's very little known about the people who made it and so we hope that this will give people a way of walking in those people's footsteps and of seeing the city in a new way."

The map is available from David Parr's House, where the trail starts, or can be downloaded from its website.

It has been created as part of a year-long programme of exhibitions and talks on the theme maps, travel and journeys.

David Parr House A hand-painted rectangular sign on the corner of a white-painted brick wall. It is a little battered but it is possible to see it says FR Leach in brown cursive letters with red patterns painted around the letters. David Parr House
The aim of the map is help people notice the company's work, some of it hidden in plain sight, such as this hand-painted sign

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