27 Facts About Norman Jewson

Norman Jewson was an English architect-craftsman of the Arts and Crafts movement, who practised in the Cotswolds.

Norman Jewson was a distinguished, younger member of the group which had settled in Sapperton, Gloucestershire, a village in rural southwest England, under the influence of Ernest Gimson.

Norman Jewson spent all his early life in East Anglia, where he was educated in Lowestoft, before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he rowed in the College eight.

Norman Jewson served his articles in the architectural practice of his cousin, Herbert [Bertie] Ibberson in London, which he 'disliked as a place to live in permanently the longer [he] stayed there'.

Norman Jewson describes, in his autobiographical reminiscences, By Chance I did Rove, how, having finished his apprenticeship in 1907, he set out with a donkey and trap on a sketching tour in the Cotswolds, 'a part of the country little known at that time'.

Norman Jewson had no idea that he would stay there for the rest of his life.

Norman Jewson describes how, as part of his training under Gimson, he was encouraged to draw a different wild flower every day from nature, noting its essential characteristics and adapting it to a formal pattern suitable for modelled plasterwork, wood-carving or needlework.

Norman Jewson soon became an invaluable member of the group, and a pupil, friend and close companion of Gimson in his later years.

Norman Jewson supervised much of Gimson's architectural and repair work.

Norman Jewson writes that he admired in Gimson an assured distinction, traditional in the use of the best craftsmanship and materials, where in design grace of form was combined with simplicity; these are the qualities of his own best architectural work.

Norman Jewson set up in practice on his own in 1919 and soon gained a reputation for the sympathetic conservation and adaptation of old buildings.

Norman Jewson worked confidently in a classical idiom in his country houses, when necessity or the spirit of place demanded it, as Norman Shaw, Edwin Lutyens and, in the Cotswolds, Guy Dawber had done.

Norman Jewson travelled whenever he could in Italy, making sketches of architectural details, lettering, farm carts, landscapes and village scenes.

Norman Jewson worked for a time with William Weir, a skilful architect in the repair of old buildings and churches, such as Salle, in Norfolk, on behalf of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and The Priest's House at Muchelney.

Norman Jewson assisted Ernest Barnsley, supervising the completion of Rodmarton Manor when Barnsley died in 1925, most notably the chapel.

Norman Jewson became established as a well-known 'gentleman's architect' in the Cotswolds between the Wars, working on a number of distinguished Cotswold manor houses and farmhouses, and adapting historic buildings to modern uses.

Norman Jewson executed church repair work, and designs for memorials, inscriptions, headstones, and lettering; for metalwork, as Gimson had done, including sconces, chimney furniture and gates, and architectural leadwork.

Norman Jewson turned his hand to the woodcarving of details such as finials and newels for his houses.

Norman Jewson wrote two books: By Chance I did Rove is recognised as a minor classic of the background to the Gimson group and Cotswold life before the First World War, appearing in three editions, and The Little Book of Architecture is a useful beginner's guide to English architectural styles.

Norman Jewson wrote a number of poems, illustrated for his friends, and would declaim a Victorian peep show in a whining, sing-song drone.

Norman Jewson did little professional work after 1940, and felt increasingly at odds with modernism and the historical-artistic developments of the post-war period.

Norman Jewson died suddenly at his house in Sapperton in 1975, aged 91, when the art historian David Gould wrote the following account:.

Norman Jewson's buildings look as if they had grown naturally from the ground.

Norman Jewson was equally skilled and sym-pathetic in the restoration of old houses, the most notable of which is the romantic and unique gabled manor house of Owlpen, in the Cotswolds, which he bought in a dilapidated condition in [1925] and restored at his own cost and, alas, ultimate loss.

Norman Jewson, with Fred Griggs and the poet and essayist Russell Alexander, were a trio of friends whose hearts beat as one in their regard and love for all that was finest in the English tradition.

Norman Jewson was content to pursue his own unfashionable path, never deviating from his high ideals and what he knew to be right.

Norman Jewson produced many delicate watercolours and a number of poems of much felicity.