Richard Carpenter (architect)
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Richard Herbert Carpenter was an eminent Victorian architect from England.
The son of the tractarian architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter, he was born in 1841 and died in 1893. While he, working alone, designed many buildings he is best known for his collaboration with his business partner Benjamin Ingelow; their architectural practice founded by Carpenter's father based in Marylebone, London was responsible for the restoration and construction of many ecclesiastical properties in the 19th century.
Carpenter began his architectural career working with his late father's partner William Slater, in the early stages of his life Carpenter was heavily influenced by the ditates of the Cambridge Movement of architecture to which his father had adhered. Following Slater's death in 1872, Carpenter worked either alone or with Ingelow.
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 & All Angels. This Gothic style stone church has a clerestory with double lancet windows. 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 the recreation of Holdenby House this large country house in Northamptonshire had originally been built in the 16th century by a Lord chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I, one of the largest and grandest houses in England it had been subsequently sold to James I and become 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, working in an Elizabethan style the subsequent completed 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 13th century design on 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 in Kent. This included the building of the vestry and a large part of the south aisle. Carpenter working in 1865 with the architect 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 castelated tower blends harmoniously with its surroundings.
A disappointment to the partnership in 1888 was the rejection of their plans in a competition to design Saint John the Divine Cathedral, New York, USA, the patrons of the project had held a competition for the cathedral's design. The eventual winners were the firm of Heins & Lafarge with a Romanesque, Byzantine design similar in style to the works of Carpenter and Ingelow.
The church of St. Mary and All Saints, Willingham, was one of the last restorations by the partnership in 1891. Carpenter died in 1893 aged 52, he is one of the many architects responsible for what we today term as Victorian architecture, for many years out of fashion his work is now being re-evaluated and again appreciated.
