Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
craft practices expounded in the pattern and design topics that were coming
into England from Europe, particularly the Netherlands. They were also closely
associated with each other socially and professionally, and with the influential
master bricklayers in the city. Documents, accounts, and diaries of these men
show them to have been frequently meeting and dining with the master crafts-
men and discussing proposed and current projects.
Sir Hugh May
The architect Sir Hugh May was the seventh son of John May of Mid-Lavant,
near Chichester (Sussex), and cousin to Baptist May (1629-98) keeper of the
King's privy purse. As Nicholls (1993, 445) writes:
Little is known of his early career before the Restoration, but it is likely that his
appointment on 29 June 1660 as paymaster of the Works indicates services ren-
dered to the court in exile, rather than architectural activity.
Yet, as Nicholls (1993, 455) emphasises:
…he proved himself …to be an inspired choice. May became one of the out-
standing architects of the seventeenth century… In 1665-6 he joined with Sir
Roger Pratt and Sir Christopher Wren in advising on the repair of old St. Paul's
cathedral, and after the great fire was appointed as one of the supervisors of the
rebuilding of the City…he was promoted to the comptrollership in June 1668.
In terms of May's contribution to English architecture, Nicholls (1993, 455)
further states:
Eltham Lodge, Kent, one of the quintessential Restoration houses, built in 1664
for Sir John Shaw, and one of the few buildings by the architect to survive. His
other firmly authenticated works, all for men in court circles, included Cornbury
House in Oxfordshire, Berkley House in Piccadilly, and Cassiobury Park in
Hertfordshire.
May stayed in Holland during the 1650s whilst in the service of George
Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham. He was considered to be the only
Restoration architect to fully understand the accord between interior planning
and external form in the Dutch Classicists style, and his use of brick and stone
was very much in the Dutch tradition. Kuyper (1980, 118-20) says of Hugh
May that:
His Eltham Lodge, Kent was built in 1663-5, shows complete sympathy with and
understanding of the ideas expressed by Van Campen and Van's-Gravesande thirty
