David Henry Burles was a soldier, architect and gifted artist. He lived much of his life in Southend where he built a number of memorable buildings.
It was while serving as a soldier during the First World War that Burles found the inspiration that led him to compile his portfolio of beautiful artworks of Southend’s churches.
As a soldier with the Middlesex Regiment, Burles served in France and Flanders from March 1917 to March 1919. He carried a small sketch book with him everywhere he went.
It was while working on his sketches in France that he resolved that when he returned home, he would make a pictorial record of the churches of what he called “my homeland” – the Rochford Hundred.
Mr. Burles went on to become a successful architect and his company ‘Burles, Harris and Collings’ were the architects responsible for many leading buildings in the town. Amongst others he designed the former R A Jones, jewellers in High Street, Southend, which was destroyed in a bombing raid in October 1942.
Ironically, Mr. Burles was killed, at the age of 76, in this same attack.
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Re Shopland query above, see 1933 painting by David Henry Burles on artUk.org
There is a fine pen and watercolour drawing of St Mary Magdalen, Shopland, which I copied some years ago to my desktop file to use as a screensaver. Unfortunately, the name of the artist is indecipherable; but I have tentatively dated it to circa 1900. When I was a boy in the 1950s, prompted by the opening scene of David Lean’s version of the film ‘Great Expectations’, I was intrigued by the building and churchyard; indeed it was that fascination and puzzlement that prompted my lifelong interest in history.
A link to the images is:
http://www.barlingwakeringvillages.co.uk/heritage/stmarymagdalen.html
I’ve just acquired a piece of his work.
Did David Henry Burles ever make a sketch or painting of St. Mary’s Church, Shopland which was demolished in the fifties?
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