Christopher Crabb Creeke
| Christopher Crabb Creeke | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 March 1820 Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Died | 1886 Bournemouth, Hampshire now Dorset, England |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Projects |
Royal Bath Hotel extension (1878) First Bournemouth town survey and plan Bournemouth sewer improvements Wimborne Road Cemetery, Bournemouth |
Christopher Crabb Creeke (11 March 1820 – 1886) was an architect and surveyor who was largely responsible for shaping the early development of Bournemouth.
Christopher Crabb Creeke was born on 11 March 1820, in Cambridge, the son of tailor and robe maker Thomas Creeke and his first wife Elizabeth Rootham Crabb. By the time he was 20, Creeke looked set to follow his father's trade as a tailor, however he moved to London to train as an architectural draughtsman. Whilst there, he married the recently widowed Elisabeth Norwood in 1845.
Creeke seems to have arrived in Bournemouth in around 1850, on a commission from Mary Shelley to convert a large property at Boscombe into her seaside retreat. Shelley died before she could move in, but her son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley, retained Creeke's services.
Bournemouth at this time was a haphazard development, where properties had been built largely at the whim of untrained landowners. There was no co-ordination of effort, and in the case of the vast Branksome Estate, the promise of development potential had led to a tangled mass of mortgages and the ruination of at least one owner. This was a situation crying out for a capable mind to solve.
Creeke, meanwhile, had decided not to return to London, a resolution determined as much perhaps by the delicate health of his wife (which had left her needing the constant care of an institution) as by Creek's appreciation of the beauty of Bournemouth. The varied problems of Bournemouth presented him with a challenge to which he showed himself the equal. One of his first tasks was to assist in a court case that was causing problems at Branksome. Creeke used his skills to draw up a map of the vast Branksome Estate, hundreds of acres in extent, which proved useful in sorting out the wrangles over the various mortgages and charges at the estate. As a result of Creeke's work, the estate was soon up for sale and attracted some significant purchasers, such as the Talbot sisters and Charles William Packe.
Elsewhere in Bournemouth, William Clapcott Dean was on the verge of inheriting several hundred acres of land. Dean hailed from a local family of yeoman farmers. They too were suffering from crippling mortgages which were only cleared by a life insurance payout when Dean's mother died. This left Dean able to contemplate the development of his land, but he had none of the necessary training for the work and so turned to Creeke for advice.
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