Sanderson Miller

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Mock semi-ruined castle designed by Miller, in the grounds of Wimpole Hall

Sanderson Miller (1716, Radway, Warwickshire - 23 April 1780, Radway) was a pioneer of Gothic revival architecture, and a landscape designer who often added follies or other picturesque garden buildings to the grounds of an estate.

At the age of fifteen, Miller was already interested in antiquarian subjects, and while studying at St Mary Hall, Oxford he continued to develop his interest in England's past. He inherited Radway Grange when he was only twenty-one and a few years later started to redesign the Elizabethan house in a Gothic style. In the grounds he added a thatched cottage and octagonal tower based on Guy's Tower at Warwick Castle. The tower not only evoked the past visually through its medieval design but it also had strong historical associations of other kinds: for instance, it was intended to house a statue of Caractacus and was sited on the spot traditionally associated with the king raising the standard before the battle of Edgehill.

Hagley Hall, where George Lyttelton insisted on a classical style for the main house. Miller landscaped the grounds and added a Gothic "ruined" castle.

This work at Radway established Miller's reputation as a gentleman, or amateur, architect and landscape designer. His wide social circle, and contacts developed through his patron George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, led to many requests for his designs. He produced some classical buildings like the Shire Hall in Warwick and Hagley Hall, Worcestershire, but is more often associated with Gothic revival work, as at Albury Hall, Oxfordshire and the Great Hall at Lacock Abbey. He is especially known for the evocative mock "ruined" castles he created at Hagley, Wimpole Hall and Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire though this last has since been demolished. Other places to which he contributed include Wroxton Abbey and Upton House.

He married Susannah (née Trotman) and they had six children. Miller was born, lived and died at Radway, on the estate bought by his wool merchant father.

The Wimpole Hall mock castle in its setting

[edit] Sources

William Hawkes, The Diaries of Sanderson Miller (Dugdale 2005)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

[edit] Further reading

Jennifer Meir, Sanderson Miller and his Landscapes (Phillimore 2006)
Michael Cousins, "Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire: an eighteenth-century estate", Follies Journal, no 5 (2005), pp. 39-72.
Michael Cousins, "The sham ruin, Hagley", Follies Magazine, vol. 10, no. 1 (1998), pp. 3-4.
Michael Cousins, "Lady Elizabeth's Grotto [Hagley]", Follies Magazine, #64, pp. 14-16.