Archives & Library

Paul Joyce Archive

Paul Joyce (1934–2014) was an architectural draughtsman and historian with a life-long interest in the work of George Edmund Street (1824–1881), a leading architect of the Victorian Gothic Revival. The Centre holds Joyce’s archive, containing material compiled in the course of his research on G.E. Street and other Victorian architects. The archive is fully catalogued and available for research. This spotlight feature highlights original drawings from the archive and a representative sample of Joyce’s research.

Introduction

The archive contains a wealth of research material - from Joyce’s forensic notes on the features and fittings of Street’s churches, parsonages and schools, to files of photographic images of buildings, cuttings from Victorian newspapers detailing their construction and design, and correspondence with scholars and writers including Nikolaus Pevsner and John Betjeman. The material mainly concerns Street’s original designs, but Joyce also monitored and documented any proposed alterations and redevelopments of the buildings.

In the course of his research Joyce assembled an attractive collection of original drawings for eleven G.E. Street buildings, dating from 1855 to 1878. Many of these large scale drawings (the biggest measures 985mm x 670mm) are as precise and vivid as the day they were drawn, illustrating features from the windows, bell turret, and distinctive polychrome brickwork. Totalling over one hundred original items, forty drawings have been digitised and are highlighted in this spotlight feature, as well as in the online catalogue.