The Honeywood Files (10 page)

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 27.10.24.

I am much obliged for your letter. I had a good report of these bricks which pleased me when I saw them. I do not like Strettons for facing plaster walls. What other proposal can you make?

Yours faithfully,

Spinlove is right. Stretton bricks have a smooth, greasy face and square edges and show a narrow joint, so that even when the joints are carefully raked the key for the plaster is not good. A rough-surfaced, irregular brick is what a builder likes for plastering upon, and there is nothing better for this purpose than the London stock.

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 28.10.24.

Our proposal was for grooved Strettons, although the cost to us would be a little higher than the bricks specified. We understand you have no objection to these and have ordered as we shall require them at once for cellar.

Yours faithfully,

The bricks referred to have grooves formed by pressing rubber ridges into the brick; the rubber expands with the pressure and contracts on its withdrawal, so that the groove is slightly dovetailed in consequence and forms an excellent key for plaster.

Grigblay is a little inclined to take charge of matters and tell Spinlove what he ought to do, but his quickness to notice the defect in the specified bricks is one of the advantages which an architect gains by employing a good builder.

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 29.10.24.

I was on the site yesterday and found that your foreman had not carried out my instructions to throw out the soft facing bricks. I have to ask you to see that this is done.

Another trolly load of these bricks arrived while I was on the site, and it seemed to me that it contained as large a quantity of the objectionable bricks as the earlier consignment. These must be picked out.

Yours faithfully,

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 30.10.24.

We have noted your instructions re facings and will see that no unsuitable bricks are used, as the bricklayer will have instructions to throw them out. It is not necessary to handle the whole lot over first. We have written again to the brickyard calling attention to the matter.

We enclose list of detailed drawings as per your request. Bloggs points out that the 14 in. return where Den breaks for ward (see revised plan No. 8) will not give room for gable knee to match other gables (see ½ in. detail No. 6) as indicated on ¼ in. scale elevation. It is too late to alter now, but call your attention to same.

Yours faithfully,

It will be recalled that this projecting gable marking the Den was one particular of the kitchen range modification. Here is an instance of the mishaps that are too apt to follow revision of the design. Spinlove, in making his design as a whole, would have kept this point in mind, but pecking at it against time he has overlooked the condition imposed by his ½ in. detail of the gable knees. Some sort of contrivance or botch will have to be made to meet the case. It may perhaps lead to an interesting variation; on the other hand it perhaps will not, and in any case the matter is an annoyance to the architect, as his letter in reply makes clear.

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 31.10.24.

I am sorry to learn of the mistake with the Den gable. You say it is “too late to alter now,” but I have to point out to you that you are responsible for the building according to the true intent and meaning of the drawings and for referring all discrepancies to me. I am not in this case going to require you to take down the wall and build 1 ft. 10 ½ in. break, but I must reserve to myself the right to require strict observance of this condition of the contract. The list of details you enclose does not help me much as they are general and cover the whole building. What I ask is that I may be kept informed beforehand of details that may be immediately wanted.

Yours faithfully,

This will not do! Spinlove is unfair and he is even foolish. The condition he quotes is a saving clause. It determines that the builder is responsible for the correct building of the house, but it does not make him responsible for the architect’s definite instructions any more than it does for the design. Spinlove directed a break of 14 in. it seems, and he ought to be grateful to the builder for warning him of what lies ahead, and not discourage him, as he has done, from looking beyond what is strictly his business. The dimension was a definite instruction; the detail of the particular gable knee is suppositious. The tone of Spinlove’s letter is wrong; he ought to make the best of the matter to the builder, and not the worst. Disparagement is always an error; expostulation or even reprimand may be necessary, and a builder will not be put out of countenance even if he feels grieved; but disparagement serves no good end whatever and destroys that atmosphere of common purpose on which good results depend.

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 1.11.24.

We note your remarks and have to say that we quite understand what we have to do and are giving this work our best attention; but when an architect sends us a figured dimension to work to we work to it unless it disagrees with other figured dimensions, which please note and see conditions of contract, page 2.

With reference to our foreman’s question re finish of Den gable knee, of which we have not yet received details, we are instructing him not to take any such action again. The details which we immediately require are those which vary from contract drawing and specifications now in our hands, as you may deem it necessary for us to have and as per our list.

Yours faithfully,

This is a very stiff letter for a builder to write to an architect.

Grigblay is naturally annoyed. His letter states the case fairly and entirely demolishes Spinlove. No contract can be carried out at all if the letter of the conditions only is to be observed. A common spirit of good intention and fair play and good sense is necessary.

SPINLOVE TO BRASH

Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 6.11.24.

Before I arrange for the well to be sunk, would it not be worthwhile to consider whether the spring cannot be made use of? I understand that you are under covenant not to pollute or interfere with the flow, but you could lay on to a storage tank without infringing either condition. Two thousand gallons a day, which would be more than you would use for all purposes, would in no measurable way interfere with the flow. I took the opportunity when last on site to observe the flow where it discharges into the stream below Honeywood Farm, and it seemed as strong as at the source, so that the owner seems to have little use for the water. If the spring were tapped as I propose, the cost of well-sinking would be saved and also most of the cost of installing and running a pump, for the fall of the ground makes it an easy matter to put in an efficient ram. The waste water from this would be returned to the spring. I assume the spring water to be fit for drinking purposes, etc., but it ought to be reported upon by an analyst. I will take no steps until I hear from you.

Yours sincerely,

Spinlove, it will be noticed, has put himself to some trouble to master the facts and devise a scheme that shall give Brash a better service and save his pocket. Such action is not merely the prerogative of the architect, but a privilege which brings dignity to his office and adds joy to his activities to do a thing well for the sake of so doing it, and not for the money it brings, is what distinguishes the professional from the commercial code. It is because the commercial man is conscious of this that he bleats continuously: “I wish to serve you,” and protests that his performances are “genuine,” and “real,” and “bona fide,” and “super.” I make this comment because there are signs that the spirit of disinterested initiative here displayed by Spinlove is in some degree discredited by the architects of a new generation. It will learn better when its own children revolt against the sophistication which numbs the sense of true life values for their parents, and puts the architect in a hopeless rivalry with the shopkeeper.

BRASH TO SPINLOVE

Dear Mr. Spinlove, 8.11.24.

I am extremely gratified at your communication anent water supply. I have transmitted a copy of your letter to my legal advisers who approved the conveyance in my behalf and who will no doubt be able to inform me what the correct interpretation of “pollution” and “interference” is to be understood to signify. I will communicate with you when I have received this information. In the interim please desist from all operations in regard to water supply.

Yours sincerely,

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 8.11.24.

We are sorry to say that Bloggs reports difficulty with damp course. He has carried up cellar to near level of ground, but in fixing level of damp course at bottom of cellar wall he did not allow for main damp course also running round, so that joint is 1 ½ in. too high at ground-floor level. What we propose to do is to take down a couple of courses and level over wall below ground to give the correct joint level. Shall be glad of your approval.

Yours faithfully,

The fact that Grigblay has confessed to this blunder and referred his proposal for making good to Spinlove is a sign that he has a particular sense of his obligations The foreman of some builders would have levelled over with cut bricks in cement, and when the architect objected to the botch would have made excuses and belittled the matter, confident that as the wall was sound and the work finished and out of sight, the architect would not call upon him to demolish it.

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 10.11.24.

Your foreman had no grounds for assuming that the main damp course would not run round the top of cellar walls, and if he did suppose so he should have realized that the width of the two courses of slates in cement had to be made up somehow to allow the joints of facings to run through. I am not prepared to accept your proposal to level up. It will be necessary to pull down, say, fifteen courses and save the 1 ½ in. out of the joints in rebuilding.

Yours faithfully,

Spinlove is right in pointing out that the foreman made a stupid mistake, but his letter is unsympathetic; so long as a builder does his best the architect ought to try to help him out of difficulties. There is no weight on the walls, and the half course would be out of sight in the thickness of the floor or perceived only by an expert eye below the ceiling of the unplastered cellar. On the other hand, it is a good thing at the beginning of a job for an architect to be exacting in his demands on the builder; for if he passes over small irregularities at the outset, the builder may assume that the architect is easy-going and some later deviation from exactness may lead to dreadful difficulties and makeshifts. It will take perhaps two hours to pull down the wall and a day to rebuild, and the cost to the builder will be perhaps £7. The foreman will “know all about it,” and he and the builder will be warned to be wary. On the whole, Spinlove’s decision is probably the best one, but he can write polite, and even ingratiating letters to his client, and he should know better than to write crusty and domineering ones to the builder.

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 12.11.24.

We enclose letter we have received from Messrs. Hoochkoft re facings. Please return with your instructions.

Yours faithfully,

(ENCLOSURE) HOOCHKOFT TO GRIGBLAY

Sir, 8.11.24.

We do not understand the complaint of the architect. The bricks we are sending are same as approved by him. If we are required to pick over we shall have to charge 35s. per thousand extra. There is nothing wrong with the bricks.

Yours faithfully,

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 14.11.24.

I return Hoochkoft’s letter, of which I have kept copy, and enclose copy of my letter to the firm.

Yours faithfully,

(ENCLOSURE) SPINLOVE TO HOOCHKOFT

Dear Sirs, 14.11.24.

Mr. Grigblay has shown me your letter to him of 8.11.24. My objection to the bricks you have delivered on the site is that they include a quantity of the soft bright red bricks which I expressly said I could not use at the time I ordered the bricks.

Yours faithfully,

BRASH TO SPINLOVE

Dear Mr. Spinlove, 14.11.24.

I have been in correspondence with my solicitors, Messrs. Russ, Topper, Mainprice, Cornish and McFee, and have further discussed with them the proposition of obtaining water from the effluent of spring, but they are unable to advise me what interpretation should be given to the covenant limiting my use of the water. They approved the conveyance in my behalf so that I should have expected them to be able to tell me what the words mean, but this they seem unable to do. I am given to understand that only a judge can say what the words mean and that probably different judges would have different views as to their meaning. I am now, at my solicitors’ suggestion, obtaining the opinion of an eminent K.C. as to what opinion a judge would be likely to give on the matter. When I have this information I shall know better how I stand. I inform you of these minutiae in order that you may comprehend that a considerable period must elapse before anything can be definitely determined.

Yours sincerely,

The way Brash sets forth this matter makes it appear ludicrous. The predicament of his solicitors is in fact grotesque—the more so as there are five of them—though Brash does not perceive it. We do not know what the terms of the clause in question are, and should be little the wiser if we did, but it may be that Brash is under covenant not to “interfere” with the flow of the spring, and that the question is what exactly constitutes “interference,” having regard to the terms of the conveyance as a whole and the physical circumstances of the case? We lately saw Spinlove lightheartedly committing Brash in ambiguous words, and now we find skilled lawyers all at sea as to the meaning of their own carefully weighed phrases. A great part of the business of lawyers is to determine the meaning of words used by other lawyers. The law is what is known as “a lucrative profession.”