Richard Carpenter (architect)
Encyclopedia
Richard Herbert Carpenter (1841–1893) was an eminent Victorian architect
from England
.
Richard was born 1841 in St. Pancras
, London
, Middlesex
, England and died in 1893. He was the son of the tractarian architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter
and his wife Amelia.
Richard Carpenter is best known for his collaboration with Benjamin Ingelow; their architectural practice, founded by Carpenter's father and based in Marylebone
, London
, was responsible for the construction or of many ecclesiastical properties.
of architecture to which his father had adhered. Following Slater's death in 1872, Carpenter worked either alone or with Ingelow.
Carpenter worked as architect to Ardingly College
following the school's purchase of a 196 acre (0.79318456 km²) site at Ardingly
in 1862. The buildings of Denstone College
(1868-73) were designed by William Slater and Richard Carpenter in a Gothic
style. The school buildings, hall, chapel and war memorial are all listed Grade II. The school's chapel was built in 1879-87 by Carpenter and Ingelow in a late 13th century Gothic style; it consists of a four bay nave with polygonal apse. In 1872 Carpenter was responsible for the design of the pulpit
at Jesus Church, Forty Hill
, Enfield, Middlesex, this one of Carpenter's earliest designs, led to a greater commission in 1874 a complete church at Enfield, St. Michael and All Angels. This Gothic
style stone church has a clerestory
with double lancet window
s. The altar
in the chancel
is recessed into polygonal vaulted
apse
in the Byzantine
style with stone reredos
depicting the Crucifixion
.
Richard Carpenter is perhaps best remembered today for his recreation of Holdenby House
. This large country house in Northamptonshire
had originally been built in the sixteenth century by Sir Christopher Hatton
, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I
; one of the largest and grandest houses in England, it had been subsequently sold to James I
and became a royal palace. Following the Civil War it had been mostly demolished. In 1873 Carpenter was employed by the owner Viscountess Clifden
to recreate the Elizabethan house incorporating the little that remained of it. Although Carpenter's house was only an eighth the size of the former palace, the completed Elizabethan-style mansion
was an architectural success. The many gabled stone new house, with tall ornamental chimneys and mullioned windows was approached through the original tripartite arches of the former palace. In 1887 Carpenter returned to Holdenby to design the great panelled entrance hall. It is at Holdenby, away from the ecclesiastical Gothic, that Carpenter's versatility of style as an architect can truly be seen.
By 1875 Carpenter was again working in Northamptonshire, this time working in a thirteenth-century design for the new chancel at the church of St. Margaret Luddington-in-the-Brook
. A large project in 1877 was the full scale restoration of the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Goudhurst
, Kent
. This included the building of a vestry
and a large part of the south aisle. Carpenter, working in 1865 with William Slater, who had been in partnership with his father, had prepared the plans for an earlier restoration of this church.
In 1884 Carpenter and Ingelow received an important commission to design what is today known as the Chapel Court at Jesus College, Cambridge
. Working with red brick, the court with a central castellated tower blends harmoniously with its surroundings.
In 1888 the partnership unsuccessfully entered the competition to design Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
, New York
: the eventual winners were the New York firm of Heins and Lafarge.
The church of St. Mary and All Saints, Willingham
, was one of the last restorations by the partnership, completed in 1891. Carpenter died in 1893 aged 52.
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Richard was born 1841 in St. Pancras
St Pancras, London
St Pancras is an area of London. For many centuries the name has been used for various officially-designated areas, but now is used informally and rarely having been largely superseded by several other names for overlapping districts.-Ancient parish:...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, England and died in 1893. He was the son of the tractarian architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter
Richard Cromwell Carpenter
Richard Cromwell Carpenter was an English architect. He is chiefly remembered as an ecclesiastical and tractarian architect working in the Gothic style.-Family:...
and his wife Amelia.
Richard Carpenter is best known for his collaboration with Benjamin Ingelow; their architectural practice, founded by Carpenter's father and based in Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, was responsible for the construction or of many ecclesiastical properties.
Biography
Carpenter began his architectural career working with his late father's partner William Slater. Carpenter was heavily influenced by the dictates of the Cambridge MovementCambridge Movement
The Cambridge Movement was a conservative ideological school of thought closely related to the Oxford Movement.- History :It has been claimed the origins of the movement emanate from the teachings of the Cambridge University professor and intellectual Desiderius Erasmus...
of architecture to which his father had adhered. Following Slater's death in 1872, Carpenter worked either alone or with Ingelow.
Carpenter worked as architect to Ardingly College
Ardingly College
Ardingly College is a selective independent co-educational boarding and day school, founded in 1858 by Canon Nathaniel Woodard, included in the Tatler list of top public schools. The college is located in the village of Ardingly near Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England, having moved to its present...
following the school's purchase of a 196 acre (0.79318456 km²) site at Ardingly
Ardingly
Ardingly is a village and civil parish in the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty about north of Haywards Heath in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England. The village is about south of London, south-south-west of East Grinstead, southeast of Crawley, north of Brighton and ...
in 1862. The buildings of Denstone College
Denstone College
Denstone College is an independent, coeducational boarding school in Denstone,Staffordshire, England and a member school of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. It is also a Woodard school and as such has a strong Anglo-Catholic tradition. It has continued to show impressive academic...
(1868-73) were designed by William Slater and Richard Carpenter in a Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
style. The school buildings, hall, chapel and war memorial are all listed Grade II. The school's chapel was built in 1879-87 by Carpenter and Ingelow in a late 13th century Gothic style; it consists of a four bay nave with polygonal apse. In 1872 Carpenter was responsible for the design of the pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
at Jesus Church, Forty Hill
Forty Hill
Forty Hill is a largely residential suburb in the north of the London Borough of Enfield, England. To the north is Bulls Cross, to the south Enfield Town, to the west Clay Hill, and to the east Enfield Highway.- Etymology :...
, Enfield, Middlesex, this one of Carpenter's earliest designs, led to a greater commission in 1874 a complete church at Enfield, St. Michael and All Angels. This Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
style stone church has a clerestory
Clerestory
Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...
with double lancet window
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...
s. The altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
in the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
is recessed into polygonal vaulted
Vault (architecture)
A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
in the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
style with stone reredos
Reredos
thumb|300px|right|An altar and reredos from [[St. Josaphat's Roman Catholic Church|St. Josaphat Catholic Church]] in [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]]. This would be called a [[retable]] in many other languages and countries....
depicting the Crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
.
Richard Carpenter is perhaps best remembered today for his recreation of Holdenby House
Holdenby House
Holdenby House is a historic country house in Northamptonshire, traditionally pronounced and sometimes spelt Holmby. The house is situated in the parish of Holdenby, six miles northwest of Northampton and close to Althorp....
. This large country house in Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
had originally been built in the sixteenth century by Sir Christopher Hatton
Christopher Hatton
Sir Christopher Hatton was an English politician, Lord Chancellor of England and a favourite of Elizabeth I of England.-Early days:...
, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
; one of the largest and grandest houses in England, it had been subsequently sold to James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
and became a royal palace. Following the Civil War it had been mostly demolished. In 1873 Carpenter was employed by the owner Viscountess Clifden
Viscount Clifden
Viscount Clifden, of Gowran in the County of Kilkenny, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 12 January 1781 for James Agar, 1st Baron Clifden. He had already been created Baron Clifden, of Gowran in the County of Kilkenny, in 1776, also in the Peerage of Ireland...
to recreate the Elizabethan house incorporating the little that remained of it. Although Carpenter's house was only an eighth the size of the former palace, the completed Elizabethan-style mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
was an architectural success. The many gabled stone new house, with tall ornamental chimneys and mullioned windows was approached through the original tripartite arches of the former palace. In 1887 Carpenter returned to Holdenby to design the great panelled entrance hall. It is at Holdenby, away from the ecclesiastical Gothic, that Carpenter's versatility of style as an architect can truly be seen.
By 1875 Carpenter was again working in Northamptonshire, this time working in a thirteenth-century design for the new chancel at the church of St. Margaret Luddington-in-the-Brook
Luddington-in-the-Brook
Luddington-in-the-Brook is a village in East Northamptonshire. The name of its civil parish is Luddington....
. A large project in 1877 was the full scale restoration of the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Goudhurst
Goudhurst
Goudhurst is a village in Kent on the Weald, about south of Maidstone.It stands on a crossroads , where there is a large village pond. It is also in the Cranbrook School catchment area....
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
. This included the building of a vestry
Vestry
A vestry is a room in or attached to a church or synagogue in which the vestments, vessels, records, etc., are kept , and in which the clergy and choir robe or don their vestments for divine service....
and a large part of the south aisle. Carpenter, working in 1865 with William Slater, who had been in partnership with his father, had prepared the plans for an earlier restoration of this church.
In 1884 Carpenter and Ingelow received an important commission to design what is today known as the Chapel Court at Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
. Working with red brick, the court with a central castellated tower blends harmoniously with its surroundings.
In 1888 the partnership unsuccessfully entered the competition to design Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in the City and Diocese of New York, is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York...
, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
: the eventual winners were the New York firm of Heins and Lafarge.
The church of St. Mary and All Saints, Willingham
Willingham, Cambridgeshire
Willingham is a medium to large village in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the edge of the Fens just south of the River Ouse. Driving north from the village one may observe the characteristic elevated straight roads and black soil....
, was one of the last restorations by the partnership, completed in 1891. Carpenter died in 1893 aged 52.
External links
- Jesus College: http://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/html/0003/P3190307.html
- Holdenby House: http://www.holdenby.com/
- Enfield Churches http://www.saintmarymagdalene.org.uk/section/37