Jubilee Architect : Charles Nightingale Beazley

In this year of Jubilee we remember Charles Nightingale Beazley, architect of St Saviour's Church Westgate on Sea, the home of the Westgate Heritage Centre. Beazley was the consultant architect of the Margate Jubilee Clock Tower commemorating the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.

There is an article on the clock tower in the current edition of the Margate Civic Society's Newsletter. The Directory of British Architects 1834-1900 describes Beazley as working from 1853-1897 in London.

He was, however, probably the leading architect in the neighbourhood of West Margate from about 1870 – 1890. Already known to Corbett and McClymont, developers of the West Brompton Estate in London and first developers of the Westgate Estate - Corbett referred to him in 1878 as “my old friend, Charles Nightingale Beazley, whose name has come several times before you (the Royal Insurance Company) in connection with the Westgate Estate” he was appointed architect to the Westgate Estate in 1870.

He drew up a plan for the Estate that year. There is a large scale copy in the heritage Centre. Shortly afterwards work began on the eastern part of the Estate and Beazley is referred to in an article in The Builder in October 1870.

His work in Westgate almost certainly included the eastern most shops in Station Road, and Adrian Square.

(Cp façade of the Hollywood Arms on the West Brompton Estate in Kensington with the entrance to Jackson's Stables in Station Road and 38 Redcliffe Gardens West Brompton with 21 Adrian Square Westgate.) Interestingly the area in London on which Corbett and McClymont were working in the 1860s also has an Adrian Mews which continued to be known as Adrian Terrace until 1909

Beazley's Public Works after his appointment to the Westgate Estate in 1870

1872/3 St James' Church Westgate (now St James' Garlinge) – although outside the Westgate Estate it was thought that a church in such a position would serve the “two new towns of Westgate and Westbrook” (Canon Bateman, St James' Church archives)

1876 St Mildred's Church Acol near Birchington “Acol, C.E. St Mildred's, Plumstone Road, 1878, C.N. Beazley. E.E. Flint with stone dressings and tiled roof”
Roger Homan, The Victorian Churches of Kent, Chichester, 1984, Gazateer, p. 33

1882 First plan for the church of St Saviour Westgate on Sea. Lithograph shows church with steeple to seat 800. Plans altered as sufficient funds could not be raised. 2nd lithograph shows church as it was built 1883/4. Originals with signature in Canterbury Diocesan Record Office under St Saviour's parish records

1883 Designed the reredos of All Saints' Church Birchington
“The chancel is dedicated to All Saints. The beautiful reredos, completed in 1883, takes the form of a tryptich and was designed by a Mr C.N. Beazley and painted by Mr M.H. J. Westlake FSA a well known artist at that time” Alfred T. Walker, The Ville of Birchinton, 3rd edition, 1991

1886 St Saviour's C.E. National School Elm Grove Westgate on Sea

1887 Consultant architect for the Jubilee Clock Tower Margate

Amongst the houses that he designed for Westgate was Exbury in Sea Road for A.B. Mitford, a house much admired by Mark Girouard in his book “Sweetness and Light: The Queen Anne Movement 1860-1900, Oxford, 1977
“Exbury House, Westgate on Sea, built to the order of A.B. Freeman Mitford Esq. C.B. under the personal supervision of C.N. Beazley Esq FRIBA”
(Auction sale catalogue, 6 June 1891, Rogers and Hambidge collection

He was paying insurance on 3 and 4 Westgate Road and on his offices in Delahoye Street London via the Westgate Royal Insurance Agent in 1882. His plans were insured for £300, no single one to be more the £20.