THE BROOKING COLLECTION

Julie Wakefield describes a success story

Over the past 20 years many Conserva-

tion Officers have pilgrimaged to the

Surrey home of Charles Brooking to

view his collection of architectural

detail, stored in a series of garden sheds.

Now fully catalogued and rehoused at

the University of Greenwich, the Brook-

ing Collection is coming into its own as

a unique resource for the conservation

professional.

Thirty years ago Charles Brooking,

an inveterate schoolboy collector, took

the decision to concentrate his

collecting efforts on the single subject

of architectural details. Initially he was

motivated by a fascination with the

designs of the pieces which he

‘rescued’. (No item is added to the

Collection unless it is threatened by

demolition or has already been

removed.) As the Collection has grown

over the years the collecting has

become a highly focused exercise with

the aim of documenting as

comprehensively as possible the

evolution of the window, door, fanlight,

staircase, firegrate, rainwater head and

timber moulding. With the growth of

the Collection there has developed an

underpinning philosophy. “Part of my

aim”, states Charles, “is to preserve the

modest everyday features, the very

features ignored by museums and

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