Architects
It is impossible that Scott, the architect of St. Joseph's in Sheringham, and Maufe, architect of Kelling Hall, were not aware of each other and their work. Furthermore, Father Carter, being the son of an architect, would be highly conscious of the need for a building of stature.
Scott is amongst the famous names in British ecclesiastical architecture. Giles Gilbert Scott was born on 9 November 1880 at 26 Church Row, Hampstead, London, the third son of George Gilbert Scott junior (1839-97) and the grandson of Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-78), both architects: the latter was architect of St. Pancras Station restored and reopened in 2007 to serve as the terminal for TGVs to Paris and Brussels. Gilbert was educated at Beaumont College (Windsor). Gilbert and his brother Adrian were taken by their mother, Ellen, on many cycle trips, which he called "church crawls" visiting some of the masterpieces of church architecture on the Kent-Sussex border. Both the young Scott's were articled for three years to Temple Lushington Moore (an Irish architect noted for his modern Gothic churches which reflected his Anglo Catholicism), who had himself been articled to their father.
Giles Gilbert Scott became one of Britain's most successful architects, being responsible for several cathedrals, a very large number of churches and public buildings. In Scotland, he designed the magnificent St. Columba's Catholic Cathedral in Oban (Argyll and Bute). His masterpiece was Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, the largest Cathedral in Britain, which was designed whilst he was still very young. Two power stations (masterpieces of brick cladding) became landmarks in London: Battersea and Bankside. The latter is now the Tate Modern dedicated to housing modern art. In a less secular age the great turbine hall might have been re-used to form the nave for a further great cathedral. Just up the River Thames from the Tate Modern the graceful modern Waterloo Bridge is another of Scott's works: simple, functional and elegant. Gilbert Scott also designed that uniquely British symbol: the classic red telephone box.
Scott became a Fellow of the RIBA in 1912 and received the Institute's Royal Gold Medal in 1925. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1918 and a full Academician in 1922 — the youngest since Turner. He was knighted in 1924 after the consecration of the first portion of Liverpool Cathedral and was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1944. Scott was also made a Knight of the Order of St. Olaf of Norway for his advice on the completion of Trondheim Cathedral.
He died in University College Hospital (London) After a Requiem Mass at St. James's, Spanish Place, London, Scott was buried by the Benedictine monks from Ampleforth outside the west end of "his" great Cathedral in Liverpool next to his wife at a point which should have been enclosed by a porte cochere had his final design of 1942 been followed.
Other than architecture, Scott's passion was for golf: he must surely have played on the course at Sheringham. Sir John Betjeman thought "He was a jovial, generous man who looked more like a cheerful naval officer than an architect," [Obituary, Birmingham Post, 10 February 1960]. Sir Hubert Worthington [R.I.B.A. Journal, April 1960, p. 194] recorded "his was a singularly beautiful character, free of the jealousies that so often spoil the successful artist. He bore life's triumphs and life's trials with an unruffled serenity."
Maufe was born 12 December 1883 in Ilkley, Yorkshire, with the name of Muff (his family owned Brown, Muff & Co., of the Bradford department store), which he changed in 1909 to Maufe. He died on 12 December 1974 in Buxted, East Sussex. He read Architecture at St John's College, Oxford and studied Design at the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
Kelling Hall was his first major commission. Other works include the Festival Theatre in Cambridge, the Air Forces Memorial overlooking Runnymede, the Oxford Playhouse, St Columba's Church (Pont Street, London SW1) and won the competition to design Guildford Cathedral (1932): a brick building which must owe something to Scott's work. He was the architect chiefly responsible, in the 1950s for the rebuilding of much of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple which had been heavily damaged in bombing during World War II. He worked for the Imperial War Graves Commission (1943-1969) as principal architect (UK), then chief architect and artistic advisor; he was knighted for his work with the Commission.