The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
After his move to London in 1886 Gimson quickly became part of the circle of younger men round Morris. In 1889 Morris proposed his election to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Gimson became a member of the committee alongside Philip Webb, Sidney Cockerell, Emery Walker and Morris himself.
The Society was founded in 1877 by William Morris and his close friend the architect Philip Webb. There was a growing concern in from the mid nineteenth century about the over-enthusiastic restoration work carried out on medieval buildings. Churches were particularly vulnerable. While staying at Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire during the summer of 1876, Morris was shocked to discover the extent of restoration work being carried out on Burford Church. A threat to Tewkesbury Abbey the following year spurred him on to found the society. It was affectionately known as Anti-scrape because that was what it did – it tried to regulate architects and builders from scraping away at accumulated layers of alterations etc to produce a sanitised version of historic buildings.
Philip Webb was the most experienced architect involved in the society. He made sure that the younger generation of architects involved in the society had a real understanding of the way medieval buildings were put together. He encouraged them to get physically involved in stone carving, carpentry and other building crafts. In 1891 Gimson introduced Lethaby to the society. Lethaby described it as:
‘a remarkable teaching body. Dealing as it did with the common facts of traditional buildings in scores and hundreds of examples, it became under the technical guidance of Philip Webb…the real school of practical building, architecture with all the whims which we usually call ‘design’ left out.’
The committee met regularly every Thursday, discussed cases for two hours then crossed the Strand to an Italian eating house, Gatti’s for tea. According to the diaries of Sidney Cockerell, he and Gimson attended over thirty of the weekly meetings in 1891. They visited sites and campaigned on behalf of the society. On one occasion Cockerell described how they left London on a Saturday morning in February ‘dark with fog like midnight’ to inspect a tithe barn at Burroughbury, near Peterborough.
Gimson continued to undertake projects for the Society throughout his working life. He co-operated with the architect William Weir who gradually took over responsibility for the Society’s practical work from Philip Webb from 1900. Weir worked with his own team of builders and craftsmen but often approached Gimson for assistance where wood working was involved. Projects included the repair in English oak to the stone tracery of a window at Whaplode church, Lincolnshire and interior fittings at Staverton church, Northamptonshire.