Preston’s Building Design Partnership beginnings

Alex Burton-Hargreaves has provided a short account of Sir George Grenfell-Baines and the formation of his Building Design Partnership on his Northwest Nature and History website.

He brings to it his family memories, for his grandfather, Thomas Gorton Hargreaves, was one of Grenfell-Baines’ first partners and his father, Matthew, later worked for the firm.

Sir George was born plain George Baines in Preston, adopting his mother’s maiden name, Grenfell, while a student and becoming double-barrelled. He started his practice in a room in his parents’ home in Ashton.

What is particularly interesting in the account is the family connections between Alex and the firm: ‘As a kid I was fascinated by the scale-models that stood in glass cases at my dad’s workplace, I never did get to push my toy cars around them no matter how much I asked!’

The first member of his family to become involved was his grandfather:

‘After the war is when my grandfather Thomas Gorton Hargreaves enters the scene, and the practice was renamed Grenfell Baines & Hargreaves as he became the named partner alongside Grenfell-Baines. The firm continued to be based in Preston while expanding its range of work through the post-war boom in housing, education, commercial and public buildings. My grandfather also taught architecture in Preston (at the institution that later became the University of Central Lancashire).

‘My grandad Tom occupied a distinctive place in the pre-BDP years. As the partner whose name stood alongside Grenfell-Baines he was part of the firm during its important post-war expansion and during the period when the ideas that led to BDP were being refined. His concurrent role as a lecturer in architecture in Preston also linked the practice to the local education of the next generation of designers.

‘His subsequent independent career included the design of the Jamea Masjid (Preston’s mosque) on Clarendon Street, completed in 1984, a notable local commission that reflected the town’s changing post-war communities and of which I’ll write more about in the future.’

And then there was his father’s connection:

‘… some of the projects that my father Matthew worked on during his time with BDP, such as the Ealing Broadway Centre, Bridgewater Shopping Centre, Sellafield, and the regeneration of Carlisle City Centre.’

Read more here: Born in Preston to Design the World, the History of BDP – Northwest Nature and History