Sharpe, Edmund
The seven periods of English architecture defined and illustrated.
London, George Bell 1851.
Full Description
8vo. xiii+(3)+37+(5)pp, 14 engr plates. woodcut text ills. Publisher’s cloth. Ink ownership inscriptions of the nineteenth century Chester architect Edward Hodkinson in two places. Subsequently Jill Allibone’s copy, with her bookplate
First edition. Sharpe was an accomplished church architect with an extensive knowledge not only of English, but also of French and German church architecture. Although a former pupil of Thomas Rickman, Sharpe challenges Rickman’s nomenclature and his division of the periods of English pre-reformation architecture into four. Putting the case that Rickman’s definitions were too restrictive and simplistic, and not in line with the latest advances in archaeological knowledge, he suggests instead a division into seven periods.