Christopher Crabb Creeke
Christopher Crabb Creeke was an architect and surveyor who was largely responsible for shaping the early development of Bournemouth.
Early life
Christopher Crabb Creeke was born on 11 March 1820, in Cambridge, the son of tailor and robe maker Thomas Creeke and his first wife Elizabeth Rootham Crabb. By the time he was 20, Creeke looked set to follow his father's trade as a tailor, however he moved to London to train as an architectural draughtsman. Whilst there, he married the recently widowed Elisabeth Norwood in 1845.Bournemouth
Arrival
Creeke seems to have arrived in Bournemouth around 1850, on a commission from Mary Shelley to convert a large property at Boscombe into her seaside retreat. Shelley died before she could move in, but her son, Sir Percy Shelley, retained Creeke's services.Bournemouth at that time was a haphazard development, where properties had been built largely at the whim of untrained landowners. There was no co-ordination of effort, and in the case of the vast Branksome Estate, the promise of development potential had led to a tangled mass of mortgages and the ruination of at least one owner. This was a situation crying out for a capable mind to solve.
Growth of reputation
Creeke, meanwhile, had decided not to return to London, a resolution determined as much perhaps by the delicate health of his wife as by Creeke's appreciation of the beauty of Bournemouth. The varied problems of Bournemouth presented him with a challenge to which he showed himself the equal. One of his first tasks was to assist in a court case that was causing problems at Branksome. Creeke used his skills to draw up a map of the vast Branksome Estate, hundreds of acres in extent, which proved useful in sorting out the wrangles over the various mortgages and charges at the estate. As a result of Creeke's work, the estate was soon up for sale and attracted some significant purchasers, such as the Talbot sisters and Charles William Packe.Elsewhere in Bournemouth, William Clapcott Dean was on the verge of inheriting several hundred acres of land. Dean hailed from a local family of yeoman farmers. They too were suffering from crippling mortgages which were only cleared by a life insurance payout when Dean's mother died. This left Dean able to contemplate the development of his land, but he had none of the necessary training for the work and so turned to Creeke for advice.