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Walgate, C(harles) P(ercival)
(b Beverley, Yorks, 4 Feb 1886; d Fish Hoek, Cape Prov., 26 April 1972). British architect, active in South Africa. In 1907 he won the National Scholarship in Architecture and went to the Architectural School of the Royal College of Art in London. In 1910 he was made a Travelling Scholar and studied in the British School in Rome. He was engaged by Herbert Baker to work on projects in London and Delhi. In 1920 he arrived in South Africa to assist J. M. Solomon (1888–1920) with plans for the new University of Cape Town, Rondebosch. In 1921 Walgate took L. A. Elsworth (1891–1971) into partnership and, in association with W. Hawke and W. N. McKinley, replanned residences (1924) and designed a tutorial building (1926–8), hall and library buildings (both 1930) for the university. His university buildings, the college chapel (1926), Rondebosch, the Zonnekus mansion (1929), Milnerton, and a hostel (1930) in Kloof Street, Cape Town, show Baker’s influence in their formal classical idiom. Walgate’s experiments with local materials and building traditions produced the Tea House (1924; destr. 1982), Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Town, with a thatched roof raised on white columns; a restaurant (1928), on top of Table Mountain, a chalet built of local stone; and the Town Hall (1940), Stellenbosch, with Cape Dutch-style fenestration. Walgate also coordinated the design of the Huguenot Monument (1943), Franschhoek. The Capitol Cinema (1932) and Plaza Cinema (1932; destr. 1970), both Cape Town, in non-vernacular style, were less successful. In 1946 he was appointed sole architect for the new Cape Town railway station. His ambitious design consisted of a huge 24-platform complex sited beneath public gardens, with multi-storey parking, a sunken forecourt and connecting subways. In 1949 most of the project was abandoned, after the change of the government; a high-rise railway office, the Paul Sauer Building, was completed in a mutilated form in 1960. Walgate was active in the School of Architecture, Cape Town, and in the promotion of the Architects’ Act. He received the Bronze Medal of the Cape Provincial Institute in 1940.
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