My father, Christopher Mullan, who has died aged 78, was an architect who undertook hundreds of projects during 37 years working at the Falconer Partnership in Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Perhaps his finest creations were the various developments to the Fuller’s brewery in Chiswick, west London, as it grew across the 1980s, 90s and early 2000s, and a large award-winning extension he designed for Christ Church in Cheltenham, the final phase of which opened in 2006.
The Fuller’s project was challenging, with fermentation tank installations for the brewhouse, bottling halls and technical spaces of great complexity, while the Christ Church Parish Centre featured a beautiful orangery atrium with a huge glazed roof, two main halls, the parish offices, a music room, a meeting room and a kitchen.
Part of the brewhouse at the Fuller’s brewery in west London, designed by Christopher Mullan
Christopher was born in Belfast to Charles, a solicitor and Ulster Unionist MP, and his wife, Marcella (nee Sharpe), a secretary. He was first educated at Castle Park preparatory school on the outskirts of Dublin – an experience he remembered fondly, albeit punctuated by tales of black eyes, beatings and roller-skating mishaps.
His secondary education as a boarder at Rossall school in what he described as “the harsh, cold and inhospitable surroundings” of the Fylde peninsula in Lancashire was recalled less affectionately, though it was there that he became head of the school’s Combined Cadet Force, an early sign of his appreciation of structure and integrity.
He studied architecture at Queen’s University Belfast at the start of the Troubles in 1966, and was in the city on Bloody Friday in 1972 when the IRA detonated 22 bombs, killing nine people and seriously injuring more than 100 others. Years later he modestly recalled leading terrified fellow students to safety in the open spaces of a nearby park amid the chaos.
Perhaps that fractured context helped shape the abiding theme of his life: building and fixing things. He was always the first to seek resolution, find common ground and pragmatically defuse any conflict.
After university, Christopher worked over the next four years for two small architecture firms – first in London and then Cheltenham – from which he joined the Falconer Partnership in nearby Stroud in 1978. He remained there, latterly as a senior associate, continuing to work on projects for Fuller’s until his retirement in 2015. Among his other clients were a number of schools, including Downe House in Berkshire, and he led the development of a new clubhouse at Minchinhampton golf club near Stroud.
Christopher met Virginia Sanders, a secretary, at a ball in Cirencester in 1976, shortly after moving to Cheltenham, and they married in 1978. They were both members of the Christ Church congregation where Christopher was a sidesman and warden, as well as chair of its fabric committee, responsible for the care and maintenance of the church’s buildings and grounds.
Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014, he moved into a care home following a fall in 2022. He is survived by Virginia, his children, Peter, Emily and me, and a granddaughter, Rose.
