By day David Parr, a painter and decorator in Victorian Cambridge, worked on some of the town’s grandest interiors, including colleges, churches and private mansions.
Often working by candlelight, he covered the walls of his modest two-storey cottage with hand-painted versions of the splendour he was creating for the rich.
The house – a rare survival of an unaltered working-class home in the area – is now owned by a trust and has been awarded a heritage lottery grant of £625,000 to restore it and open it to the public.
Parr worked for the renowned Cambridge firm FR Leach, whose clients included Jesus and Queen’s colleges. He bought the cottage in 1887 and, over the next 40 years, adorned its walls with versions of the gothic revival and arts and crafts interiors he was working on by day, including his interpretation of William Morris designs.
Tamsin Wimhurst, chair of the trust, said: “The David Parr house is a unique showcase for the life and art of the ordinary working people who created this beautiful city.
“As William Morris so perfectly said: ‘The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.’”
Parr’s interiors survived only because, on his death in 1927, his 12-year-old granddaughter Elsie Palmer moved in to help care for his widow.
She lived in the house for the next 85 years, marrying and raising a family there, but leaving it almost unaltered. Her coat still hangs in the hall and her wedding photograph is framed on the wall.
The trust bought the property in 2013 and is collaborating with Parr’s family on its restoration. Work is scheduled to start this spring and be completed within two years.
