Percy Houfton

Percy Bond Houfton (1873–1926) was a late 19th and early 20th-century English architect. Born in Alfreton, Derbyshire, he was educated at St Mary’s House School in Chesterfield before starting work for his older cousin, J. P. Houfton at the Bolsover and Creswell Colliery Company. He was awarded a certificate in mine management in 1897 and was elected to the Institute of Mining Engineers.^[1]

After designing CreswellArts and crafts style model industrial settlement in Creswell in the parish of Elmton-with-Creswell in the Bolsover district in northeast Derbyshire. Model VillageType of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and industrialists to house their workers. for the colliery company in 1895, Houfton turned to architecture and opened his own practice in Chesterfield in 1898. Much of his work was for colliery companies and the design of private houses.^[1] In 1905 he was awarded a prize of £100 for producing the best cottage at Letchworth Garden City. Between 1907 and 1909 Sir Arthur Markham of Brodsworth Colliery employed him to build Woodlands, a model village for employees at his colliery near Doncaster. Houfton applied garden village principles, designing the houses in an Arts and Crafts style with large gables reminiscent of the style of Charles Voysey.^[2][3][4] He became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1925.

Houfton had obituaries in

• The Builder 130:826 21 May 1926
• RIBA Journal 33:495 26 June 1926