Act of charity
Quentin Crewe
Somebody has got to be cheerful. So this is a story of conservation, of charity and, above all, of cooperation.
Nantwich, in Cheshire, is a town brimming with the solid virtues of Britain. It has a beautiful church, many fine buildings, both Elizabethan and Georgian. It even has a good restaurant. Its citizens are worthy and independent people and have ever been so. Thus it happens that, for a town of its size, Nantwich has an unusual number of groups of almshouses, erected over the centuries by philanthropic persons who loved their town.
It seems to have been quite a habit to set up charities of this sort. In particular there were the six almshouses founded by Sir Edmund Wright, the seven founded by my family and a fund left by a Miss Harriet Hope to build some more.
Sir Edmund Wright was Lord Mayor of London in 1641 and a man with a certain sense of his own importance. In 1638, he built these six almshouses in his native town and laid down a lot of rules associated with them. He ordained that every year on the anniversary of his baptism, the rector of the parish church should preach a sermon in his memory and that the almspeople should go to hear it. The rector also has to read out the endless regulations which were to govern the morals and general conduct of the almspeople, whose duties include going to the funeral of any distinguished figure in Nantwich. Sir John and Sir Thomas Crewe, I am glad to say, laid down no such conditions when their almshouses were put up in 1767.
Sadly, despite the rector's annual prayers, Sir Edmund's houses became virtually derelict. Surrounded as they were by garage premises, it was impossible to modernise them. The Crewe houses suffered similarly and, three years ago, were empty and decaying.
No one had ever built Miss Harriet Hope's houses. She had run a sweetshop and had not been known for her generosity in her lifetime, but she died in 1958 and left £15,000 for this good cause. It was hardly enough to do much with. Then a singular thing happened. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with charities will know that it is nearly always impossible to get anyone to agree to anything. Yet the trustees of each of these charities, and several smaller ones as well, all decided to pool their problems. And they dreamed a dream. While the Wright almshouses were on a minute patch of land, the Crewe ones had a fair amount of space around them. The plan was to move the Wright houses and set them up beside the Crewe block and add on to them whatever Miss Harriet Hope's money would buy. The advantage of this bold step would be that the amalgamated almshouses would be of a size and number which would qualify them for all manner of grants.
Nevertheless, you might think to yourself, how many obdurate, short-sighted bodies there must be who would be in a position to frustrate so enlightened a scheme. It would need the approval of the Charity Commissioners, of the County Council, of the Urban District Council, of the Department of Environment, of the Historic Buildings Council. What a hope, you might say. How wrong you would be.
The Charity Commissioners embraced the scheme and improved upon it. The Cheshire County Council did a feasibility study and improved it further. The Nantwich Urban District Council bought a further patch of land to enlarge the site. Naturally, the scheme was expensive. The cost was estimated at £232,000. The grants would total some £120,000. The Charities had about £40,000. It was then that the people and businesses of the Nantwich area rose to the occasion. In the tradition of the town, they raised more than £20,000, in private subscriptions ranging from £1 to £500.
Two years ago work started. The Wright almshouses were taken down brick by brick and re-erected beside the Crewe houses. On to the back of each of them, the architect added a large living-room. The seven Crewe houses were also enlarged and converted into fourteen flats for single old people. Four new double flats were built in the name of Harriet Hope. Linking the three groups is an entirely modern communal block, with large kitchens, a lift and a flat for a resident warden. Recently, Princess Alexandra came to open this restored symbol of the good nature of the people of Nantwich.
It is a remarkable achievement. Two historic buildings (one listed as Grade 1, the other Grade 2) have been saved. Thirtyfour old people have been housed in surroundings which, by their traditional character, are more sympathetic to old people's taste. More than that, it is an achievement of cooperation between private charity and public bodies; one which will be a continuing example, for by virtue of the grants the communal block and the warden are the responsibility of the local authority, while the rest is the responsibility of the charity trustees. Each fortnight those trustees appoint one of their number to be on call for any problem which may arise.
Now, this happy tale has a moral. The standard of building and the facilities provided do not merely conform to the requirements laid down for accommodation of this kind. In many ways they are superior. The builder, engaged as he was by a private concern, kept astonishingly close to the original estimates. The final bill came to a matter of only £9,000 more than the architect's figures. The cost of housing each old person came to £7,000: that is to say £2,000 less per person than councils in the area were paying for their schemes.
Credit is due to all the parties involved, whether public or private. But the fact remains that it was that combination which achieved this success. It is a pointer to guide us in many fields.
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