Randall Wells

Mr and Mrs Wells moved to Slinfold Manor near Horsham, Sussex where, to supplement his fewer architectural commissions he designed a series of devices for the use of craftsmen including secret joinery connections and self-draining tiles, which he patented in the UK and US.

In the 1930s he designed the 'Galleon Wing' extension to Said House, Chiswick Mall for Sir Nigel Playfair incorporating a huge curved plate-glass window for the first floor Drawing Room (the location for Series One of the BBC reality programme The Apprentice)[8] and, presumably through his step-daughter Veronica Pease's father-in-law Lord Gainford (a former cabinet colleague of Sir Francis Acland, a cousin of Beaumont Pease and the first chairman of the BBC); the Children's Hour studio and Talk Studio 3A at Broadcasting House.

[9] For competition entries and other connections of his wife including Lord Grey and Sir Evelyn Wrench, Wells submitted some very advanced designs ahead of contemporary modernism for a range of projects through the 1910s and 20s, none of which was built.

[10] Towards the end of his career, Wells' St Wilfrid's Church at Halton, Leeds (1937–39), funded by his old client at Roker, John Priestman, again shows Arts and Crafts blended with an advanced modernism.

[11] Large expanses of clear glass within tall, stepped lancet windows allow light to flood high vaults and cast shadows on the plastered interior.

Wells and his wife, who was said to have lost her mind as a result of this tragedy, moved to a cottage on her daughter Lady Gainford's estate at Taynish, Argyllshire, where they died within weeks of each other in 1942.