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Summary
Author: Hakewill, Arthur William
Title: General plan and external details with picturesque illustrations of Thorpe Hall, Peterborough; measured, drawn, and etched.
Publication: London, “to be had of the author, at Mr. Castle’s” 1852.
Price: £640
Reference: 08199
Full Description
Tall folio. 7+(3)pp, 12 engraved plates, engraved text ill pasted in (browned at margins due to glue). Publisher’s cloth, rebacked, front hinge cracking but binding sound. Title leaf slightly foxed, margins of first leaf browned, sporadic light foxing elsewhere, but plates largely clean. Contemporary ink ownership of George Aitchison, 1852 (architect, President RIBA 1896-9, friend of William Burges and of Lord Leighton, the painter).
Thorpe Hall in Peterborough is remarkable for being one of the few large private residences built during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, having been designed by the architect Peter Mills for Cromwell’s Secretary and Lord Chief Justice, Oliver St. John. The author, the architect Arthur William Hakewill (1808-1856), dedicates the volume to Rev. William Strong, who had recently bought the hall and renovated the buildings and grounds. The plates, engraved after Hakewill’s drawings, include attractive views of the house and its offices and measured views of its gateposts, doorways, wrought iron and other decorative external features. Scarce, one copy only reported to NUC (Library of Congress).