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the diarist Evelyn (Dobson, 1906, 56), records, that his fortune was '…honestly
got and unenvied…', hence he could afford the very best brickwork and crafts-
men for his house. It is likely that he directly employed the master bricklayer
Edward Helder, as the above piers are very similar in design and appearance to
the much smaller gauged gate piers, with limestone dressings, at the church and
almshouses in Fox's birthplace of Farley (Wiltshire). Helder erected these build-
ings in 1680-82, as Fox's benevolent gift to his native community (Fig. 69).
Figure 69
Gauged gate piers to
Farley churchyard
(Wiltshire), 1680-82.
(Courtesy of Adrian
Feltham)
Sir Roger Pratt
Sir Roger Pratt, gentleman architect who, with Wren and May, was one of three
Commissioners appointed by King Charles II for the re-building of London after
the Great Fire of 1666, had travelled widely in Italy, France, and the Netherlands.
Very aware of the rapidly changing architectural fashions and craft practices
of Europe in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, he assimilated
many ideas leading to a personal style of classicism. The property at Kingston
Lacy (Dorset) (1663-65) is Dutch in design and uses brick with stone dressings.
Pratt's own notebooks provide a good insight into the thoughts of this knowl-
edgeable seventeenth-century designer, revealing his ruminations over the prep-
aration of rubbed brickwork. Gunther (1928, 228); citing a memo by Pratt, of 12
March 1669, shows an early use of the word 'gauged' in connection with cut and
rubbed work:
What qualities must brick have which will be fit to be rubbed, on what parts is it
grinded, how to be gauged. How many rubbed by the day and at what rates
 
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