Ernest Gimson: Early training

In 1881 Gimson was articled to Isaac Barradale, a local architect who was responsible for both domestic and commercial buildings in the city including his own office building in Greyfriars completed in 1879. Gimson would have worked in this brick building with its first-floor sash windows running along the entire length.

Barradale was also designing villas in the pleasant south suburbs of the city including one in Knighton Park Road in 1882 for Joseph Harrison, head of the School of Art. Here the dramatic lines of its steeply-pitched roof are broken up by the introduction of dormer windows. The house also includes incised plasterwork on the coving between the walls and the roof. He left Barradale’s office at some point between the end of 1883 and early in 1884.

Gimson also attended classes at Leicester School of Art, taking courses in advanced Building Construction and entering designs for a number of competitions. In 1884 he was awarded a silver medal for a design for a Suburban House and, in the following year, won a third grade prize for a set of designs for furniture.