Speaker Barrie Birch

Barrie said that in recent years he had avoided speaking by showing videos, but he had come to the end of the available videos so he was going to give a biography of Alec Clifton-Taylor who had presented the 3 BBC series about English Towns. These are not guidebook programmes but rather investigations of buildings in the different towns he visited.

Alec was born the son of a corn merchant in 1907 in Sutton, Surrey. He was educated at Bishop Stortford College and then went on to study at Queens College Oxford. In 1962 he published the book The Pattern of English Building. He was also viewed as a very knowledgeable source of the architecture of English churches.

His first TV work was for the BBC when he presented The Medieval World. This was followed by the three series that Barrie has previously show of 6 English Towns, 6 More English Towns and Another 6 English Towns.

He lived in Kensington in London and there is a memorial garden to him behind St Mary Abbots church in Kensington.

In his early days as an architect much of Barrie’s work was on churches, working in an office in Skipton, so Clifton-Taylor was a great influence on his career. The programme and his books helped him in his discussions with planning officers etc.

When Barrie set up his own practice he got involved with a lot of country estates. This started with Roger Tempest at Broughton Hall where they were changing old farm buildings into offices and then adding on new buildings that were sympathetic to the existing estate. He also worked on changing stables to a farm shop at Castle Howard as well as other work outside the boundary of that estate. In addition he drew up plans to  convert a stable block with Oastler House to offices for an American company in the Cotswolds. All of this was a very productive and enjoyable time in his career.

John Waterhouse told an anecdote about when they were walking in Derbyshire and wanted to go to look at a building on a country estate. The Lord of manor was going to run them off until Barrie Birch's name mentioned when he became quite chatty.