Edward Lapidge

Edward Lapidge (1779–1860) was an English architect, who held the post of County Surveyor of Surrey and designed Kingston Bridge.

Life

Edward Lapidge was the eldest son of Samuel Lapidge,[1] the head gardener at Hampton Court Palace and one-time assistant of Lancelot "Capability" Brown

He built Esher Place for John Spicer; a brick house, stuccoed in imitation of stone, with an Ionic portico on each side.[2] Lapidge showed a view of the garden front of the house at the Royal Academy in 1808. At Norbiton Place he carried out considerable additions and alterations for its owner, Charles Nicholas Pallmer, including a dairy in the style of an Indian temple.[3]

In 1807, he built Hildersham Hall in Cambridgeshire for Thomas Fassett (formerly of Surbiton Hall, Surrey);[3] a stuccoed villa incorporating a former farmhouse in one wing. He showed a drawing for it at the Royal Academy in 1814.[4] In 1811 he was engaged by the Rev. John Kirby of Mayfield, Sussex, to rebuild the vicarage there.[5]

Lapidge was appointed surveyor to the County of Surrey in 1824.[6] The next year he was given the job of replacing the bridge at Kingston-upon-Thames, after the Kingston corporation dropped its plan to build a cast iron structure. Lapidge designed a five-arched stone bridge in the classical style,[7] which was opened in 1828.

He designed a number of churches: St John, Hampton Wick (1829–30),[8] St Mary, Hampton (1829-31),[9] and St Andrew, Ham Common (1830-1)[10] all of brick, in the Gothic style, and St Peter's, Hammersmith in the Grecian Ionic style, in brick finished with Bath stone dressings. The Gentleman's Magazine described St Peter's as " a very fair specimen of modern Grecian architecture. The tower has considerable merit. The design is novel and pleasing, and the proportions are harmonious. The interior is however chaste and formal, displaying even a presbyterian nakedness".[11][12] Lapidge himself donated the site of the church at Hampton Wick.[13] As well as these buildings on the west side of London he built St James, Radcliffe (1837-8), in the East End. [14] It was in the Early English style, in brick with stone dressings.[15]

In 1830, he was invited by the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, William Chafy, to design a new botanic garden for the university. The expense of acquiring the necessary land caused the plan to be shelved, and Lapidge waited for more than ten years for his bill to be paid. The gardens were eventually laid out in the mid-1840s, but not under his supervision.[16]

He entered designs for the competitions for a new range of buildings for Kings College, Cambridge in 1824, in which he came third;.[17] for the new Houses of Parliament in 1836; and for the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge in 1837, proposing a domed building, ornamented with sculpture.[18]

In 1836–7 he made considerable alterations to St. Mary's Church, Putney, repairing the tower and rebuilding the body of the church in yellow brick with stone dressings and perpendicular windows,[19] and in 1839–40 restored All Saints' Church at Fulham.

In 1840, he designed the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum,(now Springfield Hospital), a grand Tudor-style composition, enclosing a large courtyard, in red-brick with stone dressings.[20]

In 1846 he paid for the patenting of a new type of suspension bridge, invented by his pupil Henry Heathcote Russell.[21]

Lapidge was a elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1838.[22]

He died early in March 1860.

References

 Cust, Lionel Henry (1892). "Lapidge, Edward". In Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

  1. ^ "Edward Lapidge". Twickenham Museum. http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=221. Retrieved 21 July 2011. 
  2. ^ Brayley, Edward Wedlake. A Topographical History of Surrey. 2. p. 437. 
  3. ^ a b Prosser, G.F. (1828). Select Illustrations of the County of Surrey. Lonon. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4PcGAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 24 July 2011. 
  4. ^ "Hildersham Hall, Hildersham, England". Parks and Gardens UK. http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/component/option,com_parksandgardens/task,site/id,5605/tab,history/Itemid,292/. Retrieved 23 July 2011. 
  5. ^ "Archive of the Baker and Kirby Families of Battle, Withyham and of Lower and Middle House, Mayfield Place and the Vicarage, Mayfield.". National Archives. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=179-kir&cid=3-4#3-4. Retrieved 24 July 2011. 
  6. ^ L. H. Cust, ‘Lapidge, Edward (1779–1860)’, rev. Jane Harding, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 25 July 2011
  7. ^ "New Bridge, Kingston-upon-Thames". The Times: p. 2. 9 November 1825. 
  8. ^ Details from listed building database (205261) . Images of England. English Heritage.
  9. ^ Details from listed building database (436099) . Images of England. English Heritage.
  10. ^ Details from listed building database (205270) . Images of England. English Heritage.
  11. ^ "Saint Peter, Hammersmith:". AIM25. http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=15133&inst_id=118&nv1=search&nv2=. Retrieved 21 July 2011. 
  12. ^ "NEW CHURCHES.—No. XXIX. St. Peter's Church, Hammebsmith.". The Gentleman's Magazine 101: 105. 1831. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4KpJAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 25 July 2011. 
  13. ^ "Chapel of St John the Baptist at Hampton Wick". The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 19: 376. 1832. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BEIFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 25 July 2011. 
  14. ^ Cherry, Bridget; O'Brien, Charles; Nikolaus Pevsner (2005). London 5: East. The Buildings of England. Yale University Press. p. 519. ISBN 0 300 10701 3. 
  15. ^ "New Churches and Public Buildings". Civil Engineeer's and Architects Journal 1: 87-8. 1837-8. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sQ5AAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 10 December. 
  16. ^ Walters, Stuart Max; Walters, Max; Elizabeth Anne Stow (2001). Darwin's Mentor: John Stevens Henslow, 1796-1861. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 138–48. ISBN 0521591465. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5mM81p17vvsC&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved July 30, 2011. 
  17. ^ "Varieties". New Monthly magazine 9. 1824. 
  18. ^ "The Architectural Début at the New Apartments of the Royal Academy". The Architectural magazine 4: 305. 1837. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=eIlAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 1 August 2011. 
  19. ^ Brayley, Edward Wedlake (1850). A Topographical History of Surrey. 3. p. 478. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y2U-AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 25 July 2011. 
  20. ^ Details from listed building database (206991) . Images of England. English Heritage.
  21. ^ "The Railway Suspension Bridge". The Civil engineer and architect's journal 9: 10–12. 1846. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bxFAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 30 July 2011. 
  22. ^ "Royal Institute of British Architects". Civil engineer and architect's journal 1: 171. 1838. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sQ5AAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 1 August 2011.