[1][2][4][5] Many of Hughes and Bicknell's commissions were in Cambridge, including projects for the university and colleges,[1][2] commercial buildings[6][7] and private houses.
[6][9][10] Notable examples include Fen Court, Peterhouse (1939),[2][6][9][11] described in its grade II listing as "the only pre-war Cambridge college accommodation building in the International Modern style and the forerunner to other college buildings constructed at both Oxford and Cambridge after the war";[10] as well as an extension to the Scott Polar Research Institute (1968).
[15] Other Hughes and Bicknell projects outside Cambridgeshire include a cricket pavilion at Oundle School, Northamptonshire,[1] and a housing estate at Hilgay, Norfolk.
[1][2] In 1981, around the time of his retirement from architectural practice, Bicknell curated an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and wrote its catalogue.
[1][2][4] The nucleus of the exhibition was Bicknell's extensive personal collection of 18th- and 19th-century guidebooks and artworks on the Lakes – described by the art historian John Gage as "exceptionally fine"[16] – which he had just donated to King's College.
[1][2][16] In a review for Burlington Magazine, Gage appreciates the inclusion of such unusual items as a Claude glass, headed hotel notepaper and a children's game, and praises the "instructive" placement of initial sketches together with the final print.
[16] The success of this venture led to what his Times obituary describes as a "rewarding second career" in museum and bibliographic work, relating to his passion for depictions of mountain landscapes in art.
[4] He edited the Illustrated Wordsworth Guide (1984)[1][4] and compiled the bibliography Picturesque Scenery of the Lake District 1752–1855 (1990),[17] which established itself as a definitive reference.
[4][18] This terrible experience failed to put him off mountaineering, and he continued to participate in climbing expeditions in the Alps until 1955, often with his younger brother Claud.
[4][19] Bicknell contributed the book British Hills and Mountains (1947) to Collins' Britain in Pictures series, with his own illustrations in pen-and-ink and watercolours.