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MenuHomeUpfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon | RYDER, HenryBorn: fl. 1893Architect | |
Very little is known of Ryder: he is not mentioned in Picton-Seymour’s Victorian Buildings in South Africa (1977). He was listed as working as an architect in Salt River, Cape Town in 1903 and in the 1905 directory. The Pryce-Lewis Register of Building Plans submitted between 1890 and 1913 shows that he submitted a total of 431 projects for approval between 1893 and 1910 to the Sea Point, Cape Town, Claremont, Mowbray and Rondebosch municipal authorities. The majority (around 85% of these) was submitted to ‘The Corporation of the Town of Woodstock'. Among Ryder’s work there were Cecil Terrace and three other projects with a similar programme: 1901, a shop and dwellings in Mountain Road, Woodstock (for Gadsby); 1902, a shop and dwellings in Fairview Avenue, Woodstock (for Griffiths and Pender); and 1903, a shop and dwellings on the corner of Roodebloem Road and Salisbury Street (for C Bee). His first projects, a single-storey cottage in Hawthorne Road, Claremont, and a ‘large shop with a dwelling over’, Albert Road, Woodstock were submitted in 1893. His output of projects for ‘additions and alterations’, shops, cottages and dwellings, slowly grew over the next four years. However, it increased markedly in 1897 due to the growth in the economy and lower-end residential development market of Woodstock and Salt River. Between 1897 and 1904 Ryder completed around 300 projects in this area for submission. A project, more often than not, included multiple dwellings, sometimes with a shop included. For example, an 1897 project for J Fisher in Church Street comprised ten double-storey dwellings. Next to these followed an 1899 project for ten single-storey dwellings for M A Cunningham. Among Ryder’s clients counted the major speculator developers of the time: S C Greeff, Charles John Boswarva, Thomas Gadsby, Alfred George Bettington and M A Cunningham. For Greeff, in 1899, in an area then known as Rutters Field he completed a project of 15 single-storey dwellings and a shop. By the 1900s many of his projects were for large numbers of dwelling units. For example, in what was known as Fairview Estate (an area around Fairview Avenue, Woodstock), he completed two projects for Cunningham, the first with 21 single-storey dwellings in 1901 and the second with 73 units in 1903. For Boswarva he completed two projects in Salt River of 18 single-storey units each. Ryder himself also speculated with residential development, albeit on a smaller scale: two single-storey dwellings in Coleridge Road in 1900, five single-storey dwellings in Rochester Road and eight single-storey dwellings on the corner of Durham and Addison Roads, both 1903. The majority of Ryder’s work in Woodstock and Salt River was for single-storey terraced housing. The style of his work was Edwardian and more restrained in the use of architectural embellishments compared to the preceding Victorian style. The restraint is likely also due to the fact that the designs were for a low-cost speculative housing market. The character of his work was consistent to the point of following a pattern: narrow terrace houses, typically with two units sharing a straight triangular gable aligned with the entrance doorways; a low-walled stoep with supporting concrete column; entrance door with plaster relief rounded overhead; and a thin-framed four-division vertical sash window with decorative plaster surround. Ryder contributed much to Woodstock and Salt River’s residential streetscape character as can still be seen in Addison Road, Burns Road and Cecil Street between Dryden and Pope Streets, Salt River and Mountain Road, Fairview Avenue and Salisbury Street, Woodstock. [Juta's dir CT 1903, 1905; Steenkamp 2019 (electronic communication)]. List of projects With photographs With notes | ||