MRS MARY CREE (1921-)
Mrs Mary Cree was born 96 years ago in the same family home she still occupies today. Built around 1730, it was bought in 1898 by her grandfather, a tea planter in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In the 1940s, what was then a farm with nearby cottages, also became the home of Albert ‘Smiler’ Marshall, later to become Britain’s last surviving World War One cavalryman. As well as travelling worldwide, Mrs Cree, an architect, became closely involved with the Domestic Dwelling Research Group in 1981 and organised many of its exhibitions.
Interview date: 7 April 2017
Location: Ashtead
Interviewer: Tony Matthews
Beginnings
What are your full name and date of birth:
Mary Chauncy Cree, 24 September 1921. I was born at Murreys Court in Ashtead.
What were your parents names?
My father was Frederick Chauncy Maples, my mother was Violet Mary Robertson.
They came here in 1898?
That was my grandfather who bought the house. My mother was born in Ceylon at a place called Polonnaruwa.
Your father was a solicitor?
He was. The firm was called Maples Teesdale and he was in 8 Old Jury, London EC. I have a sister called Rosemary Violet Elizabeth Jameson, much younger. [Born] the beginning of 1924.
What was the house like when you were a child?
It was very much the same as it is now. There are a lot of steps. Originally the house dated from about 1740 and the barn is 100 years older. It was a threshing barn [for all the farms in the village]. I’ve always wondered why it was so large. [The original house is the same age as the barn- about 1640.]
What type of farm was this?
Animals and mixed. Originally before I was born it was 40 acres and went down to the Rye Brook. When I was born it was 14 acres. All during the war it was a farm and Smiler [Marshall] came to the farm in 1940. The little walled garden [now known as the Dog Garden] was in fact the farmyard……The barn has high doors on the courtyard side and low doors now tiled over so you can’t see, and between those two piers was the way out to the road…They had what was called the coach-house although it never had a coach in it.
Was the land eventually sold off for housing?
Yes…I’m not actually sure when it was sold. [About 30 years ago.]
Education and early career
What about your school days?
Both my sister and myself went to Parsons Mead, Ottways Lane. We were very happy and thoroughly enjoyed it. They used to have plays in the garden, played Comus [by] Milton one year, [then we often] did Shakespeare. I enjoyed dancing there very much, did Greek dancing.
What were your favourite subjects?
History and English.
…and your sister?
English. She went to Oxford to Somerville. I went to the Epsom Art School for the first three years of architecture up to the intermediate exam. My father died, that’s why I wanted to stay locally and then I went up to London and finished at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square, run by practising architects. Originally I wanted to be a town planner [but] I decided you had to be a Communist to be a town planner. So I was going to do three years architecture and then probably do town planning but I didn’t, I continued with architecture…When I first qualified my mother said I’ve a lot of friends, now is the time to have a holiday. I’ve got friends in Africa, we’ll go down to Africa. All down from the north, from Khartoum.
How long were you there?
Four months. I was an architect before I went. When I went back I went to a firm in London on Regent Street called Halfhide and Partners where I worked for about six years. I was lucky being the only girl and I got all the interior work to do… After the war, mostly in the 1950s. I married an architect who trained in Sheffield and his father was a naval captain.
The family business
What was his [your husband’s] name?
David Norman Leslie Cree. [We married] June 1955.
Did you have more than one child?
No, because my husband sadly died when he was only 34. Of leukaemia. The plan was that I would do the [local] work [but] it got too much. He was working in London to earn some money. He decided to take the plunge and come out of London and we worked together. It was absolutely ideal because we found that we could work together. He was very good at the things I was bad at and I was good at the things he wasn’t any good at. Absolutely perfect. If we had a problem we would solve it at the dining room table. Supper would still be there and we would solve the problem. Supper would be cleared away later.
What was the name of your firm here?
DNL Cree and Partners [in Leatherhead. We lived] in Ottways Lane…. Once he died it was very difficult. I had much too much work and within four days of his death, which was very sudden, it was only 24 hours after I knew he had leukaemia, he died. Before I married I used to do Scottish dancing with a Scottish lawyer and he always said you must meet Peter. He has not got enough work and you’ve got much too much. Perhaps you could help each other out. Within four days he brought him over and he said get out everything that needs doing, all the drawings that need doing, where everything is, what is necessary. He seemed quite impressed with that and said I’ll help you out until the baby is born. I was pregnant you see as well. Which he did and then a month before she was born he said we seem to work very well together, how about going into practice? So I said I’m a very bad bet, which I was obviously, and then he said suppose we each draw according to the amount of time we each put in and then I was happy. I came back here, I had my mother, I had au pairs, so I knew I could work in the evening. It was a hard life but I hadn’t got time to think which was a great help. Used to do everything before I went into the office, we had an office in Leatherhead. To start with we just had Peter Stiles and myself and subsequently we had about 14.
The Domestic Dwelling Research Group
Your first firm, DNL Cree was formed after you were married and your husband died in 1961. How long did the next firm practise?
20 years.
Until 1981?
Yes. Then I joined the Domestic Dwelling Research Group. It was started by an archaeologist called Joan Harding (1911-2004). For family reasons she didn’t want to go abroad and archaeology jobs are not easy to find in this country. She realised that all the big houses were well documented but there was nothing to document the cottages or the farms and so she then went to York University and she read vernacular architecture. Then with four friends, she started this group. By the time I finished doing practical work for them they had about 150 members. It is still going on. I used to do all the exhibitions for them, two a year.
Joan Harding had a most incredible sense of the development of a house. She could walk into a house and she could tell you how it had developed. I always remember one of the first I went to was a moated manor house in Newdigate. It had a lot of wings and none of us, we normally go and walk around the house outside, walk around the house inside, have coffee with the owner and then start deciding how we are going to do it. By lunchtime either in the kitchen or in the garden according to the weather, we meet and we all say what we have found and what we think. We were all on this occasion completely nonplussed. We didn’t know which was the first – there were so many wings – which was the first one. She said who has walked round the moat? Well none of us had. It was quite deep, very narrow path, quite deep straight down to the moat. She stamped round the moat and said you are stupid, it’s obviously that place there. I realised how little I knew.
I also realised how little I knew when I saw a wonderful college in Arabia called Bail-wa-Wazir. It had been designed by a man [who had drawn the plans] with his foot in the sand and I wondered what I had been doing six years for.
Daughter and sister’s family
What is your daughter’s name?
Davinia Mary Cree. She was born in 1961.
Is she an architect?
No, I’ll tell you why. At the age of about six or seven they were told to act what they were going to be when she was at Parsons Mead. So she came back and she told me and I said well what did you act? She said actually I acted being an architect – a dead bore, they work too hard and they are not paid enough. So I said what do you actually want? A circus rider she said but I couldn’t act it. She turned out to be a teacher. She’s head of English at Downsend. It was a boys school, now it’s mixed. Very big. It’s the biggest prep school I think all round and about really. Enormous. She lives at Little Bookham. I designed her house. Woodlands Rise, 67 Woodlands Way.
I also designed my sister’s house. That was before I was married. [In] Warborough, Oxfordshire, between Henley and Oxford. She did work for the Admiralty after she left Oxford, since when she has done a lot of voluntary work. She had two sons. Fortunately, they are both in the law. The eldest one is a consultant in a big firm in Southampton, called Crispin, and the younger one is now a judge in Leeds. One of the youngest judges, I think, ever. I think he was 57 or 58 when he became a judge. We went to the ceremony. Very interesting. The head of the Law Society in those days was called Judge Judge.
Smiler Marshall
What about Smiler Marshall?
He came to my father in 1940. He met my father in the yard and said can you tell me where I can find Mr Maples? So he said he was. He then brought his wife down to see the cottage and he was a general factotum. He ran the farm, he looked after the ponies, all the livestock, grew potatoes during the war and …brought it back to a farm during the war. We had cows. My mother used to make butter by churning milk.
When did your mother die?
1975.
So Smiler would have remembered her very well.
Oh good gracious yes.
He was here until he died.
Yes, he was. He was 108. He had his 100th birthday here. We had nine television crew crawling around. Do you know about his being an escort when my daughter was married? He wore his pink [hunting] coat which was a bit tight and split down the back. He held up all the traffic apparently in the street in Ashtead so the carriage could turn round – she had a horse and carriage – and the same thing coming back. He held up all the traffic and brought her back. The carriage returned [but] actually she never arrived. She went by car but the carriage was due to be picked up here and taken to the church. Unfortunately, the chap broke down on the way in the van. He said I can’t let this bride down I must get somebody there. So he rang up a friend with a very plebeian horse and carriage and ten minutes later they cantered up the drive to the church just when I had told her she had to go back by car. He saved the day. [25th July 1987] [Smiler trotted Davina’s horse, Pisces, for a mile back to the reception behind the pony and trap. He was then aged 90.] They have three daughters.
Smiler could get on with anybody. Any age, from any background whatsoever. This I think was borne out very much by his 108th birthday when the cottage was full all day long. Staff from the City Freemen’s bringing a lot of children all with special cards, cards from the church school. I was very fortunate in meeting a lot of people whom I would never have met otherwise who came down to see Smiler. One of the most interesting was an American lady from Ohio who read about him I think on the Internet. She came down and she said of all the days she spent in England that was the day she enjoyed the most.
He had a wonderful mentality, never worried about anything. When he was asked for his recipe for a long life he said eight hours work, eight hours play and eight hours sleep. I often went in the cottage and found him singing. He had a very good singing voice, not at all like an older man’s voice. Brilliant. One time – I don’t know whether this is already recorded or not – my daughter was at a service, Armistice service, in St George’s and they were singing Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus. Smiler said in a very loud voice to Davinia: “Sit down, sit down for Christ sake.” [Smiler could play the hunting horn on a hosepipe.]
How old was he then?
I can’t remember. I think you have probably heard all about the Rochester – when he had a standing ovation in Rochester Cathedral. I wasn’t there. There was an anniversary of Rochester Cathedral and he went down – unfortunately, I wasn’t there but I’ve heard a lot about it – and he sang war songs. He had a standing ovation from 1000 people.
Historic Ashtead and the barn
How has Ashtead changed in your lifetime?
Nearly all the vacant spots have been built on. The Council came to my mother once and at that stage they wanted the land for a school. They said that my mother had put in for development which was absolutely untrue. At that time it was not possible to prosecute people. They could come and see a site and put in for planning permission without the owner’s consent. She was furious and no wonder.
This barn was the threshing barn for all the farms in Ashtead. I’ve always wondered why it was so big. It was big because all the other farms used it. I also wondered why it was 100 years older than the house. Could never understand this. We discovered proof of it a couple of years ago. We re-did the bathroom and had to take the plaster off the wall. We found there had been a window and we found the rake of an older staircase. Up to now we had known that the old staircase was 1730 whereas it must have been 1630 or before. It really proved what I had always felt but it was nice to have actual proof.
So is the barn the oldest building in Ashtead?
No, I think Kate’s Cottage, the cottage at the end of Agate’s Lane, is probably the oldest.
Medieval perhaps?
Yes. [But] it is the oldest barn around. It was very interesting when we had to restore it because on the far side there was a Euonymus tree and we didn’t realise it had damaged the tiles very badly. So we had to get in touch with the conservation officer at the county council whom I happened to know through the research group. Eventually, not he but another man came over and I said the trouble is we can’t get a shaped brace. So he said what do you want a shaped brace for? So I said well look and see. You will see quite clearly where the mortice was to take the brace. It was missing. After that, I told him what I was going to do.
What do you use the barn for now?
They store all the props for films. It is absolutely choc-a-block with stuff. Lot of flowers, all sorts of things for films. It is Pinewood or one of the local ones.
How long has it been used for studio storage?
Probably about six years I should think. Before that, one end was the stable for a harness room, threshing in the middle, and the other side was a cow barn. It was used for our ponies.
Life with horses
You were a very keen equestrian?
Yes….My daughter used to event [and] my grandchildren are extremely good. How she manages it. She is a real workaholic. She has a full time teaching job and she is responsible for 12 horses and two Shetland ponies which were despatched on the main road near Chertsey. The police rang her up, she went over and fetched them. They had just been turned out. Absolutely wicked. So she’s got two Shetlands as well up there……We had two. We had a miniature one here called Ted who was about the size of a dog and we’ve still got one Shetland and one of Davinia’s. Lovely ponies. Very near.
Does she ride them here?
No, this one is retired. My middle [grandchild] is a very good show-jumper. [She jumps abroad in places such as Holland and Belgium.] She is at the moment somewhere near Maastricht, show-jumping there. Very excited. What she does is train horses that these wealthy people have bought, found they can’t ride – they are too difficult. She then trains them and then sells them on. That is the middle grand-daughter.
What’s her name?
Kyra. The eldest one, Jessica, was married last June, the day of the referendum, in Ranmore Church with the reception in Horsley Towers. The day before they went up for rehearsal it poured with rain. Nigel [Davinia’s husband] said to the rector, who was a very nice chap, I hope to goodness we don’t get day like this tomorrow because there is nowhere to park there other than the grass and he said I’ll have a word with the Almighty. The next day the sun shone. Unbelievable. So when Nigel arrived he said it worked. The eldest one, the one that was married, is another workaholic. She has trained six years to become first a human physiotherapist and then [a veterinary physiotherapist].
When did you last ride a horse?
In Canada with Davinia in Calgary. We went after she qualified…..[in the 1980s?] We went out to Canada after she qualified and coming back we went by the Greyhound bus which was ghastly and I didn’t like it at all. We managed to transfer back again on to something called Greyline Buses, driven by a geologist, couldn’t have been better, who knew everything. He was marvellous. When we got to Calgary, we found first of all that the other bus didn’t even go through the Rockies at all but when we eventually went through the Rockies and landed in Calgary we said what do you do in Calgary? They said there’s nothing to do in Calgary on a Sunday. So anyhow we unpacked, got out our breeches and went for a ride up in the mountains. On the Rockies. That was the last time.
You’ve spent a lifetime with horses.
With ponies. We did it all ourselves. Smiler helped but otherwise we looked after them, we were responsible for them. Very different to the days now.
Ashtead and grand-daughters
Are you still positive about Ashtead?
I think although it has increased in size with a lot of new people it has still retained its friendly atmosphere and I’ve got several friends who moved away and then came back because they weren’t happy. Went down to Dorset or somewhere and then came back.
So Ashtead calls to you.
I think it does. I think it’s got a lot to be said for it because it’s near London, we’ve got lots of National Trust property right close to us and one can get up to London.
It is a beautiful place.
Yes, I think it is. We are very lucky to live here.
Jessica, although she has spent ten years at the City of London Freemans, they never realised she was dyslexic. When she got to Nottingham University they discovered this. She was terrified she was going to be sent down. Not a bit of it. They helped her and she had a further [25%] in exams. She confounded everybody by getting a double first. She trained as a human physiotherapist. After three years she had always wanted from the age of 13 to be an equine physiotherapist. She had to do the human first. She still enjoyed it because she is very good with children. She spends four days a week with disabled children in their homes, in nursing homes, in schools and she loves it. So she now works three days for the National Health working with children, she works the other three days for equine physiotherapy. She shares this job with another friend who also qualified as an equine physiotherapist. That was after six years training. She is now embarked on a Masters degree for another year. Fortunately it involves mostly research and she doesn’t need to go down to college in Gloucestershire. Just as well.
The youngest one, also at the 13 I think…Nicole decided she wanted to read criminology. She has just left St John’s. She wants to read the legal side of criminology which I think will be very interesting. There are not that many universities which do a good course but at the moment, subject to her A-levels which she takes very shortly, she’s got five acceptances – Loughborough, Bristol, Southampton, Birmingham and one other.
How old are your grand-daughters?
Yes, the oldest one is 25, Kyra is 23 and [Nicole] 18.