William Burges (architect)

William Burges
William Burges
Born	2 December 1827(1827-12-02) London, England
Died	20 April 1881(1881-04-20) (aged 53) London, England
Nationality	English
Work
Buildings	Cardiff Castle Castell Coch The Tower House

William Burges (2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Amongst the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth century industrialisation and the Neo-Classical architectural style and to restore the architectural and social values of a utopian mediaeval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival and his works echo those of the Pre-Raphaelites and herald those of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Burges's career was short; his first major commission for Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork was won in 1863 when he was thirty-five and he died in 1881 at The Tower House, the home he built, aged only fifty-three. His architectural output was small; he lost far more architectural competitions than he won. Those commissions that he did obtain were invariably hugely over budget, often to the dissatisfaction of his clients. But what he did build was of outstanding quality. Working with a long-standing team of craftsmen and taking artistic control of all aspects of his buildings; Burges designed churches, including the Church of Christ the Consoler and St Mary's; cathedrals, of which only Saint Fin Barre's is his complete conception, although he undertook work at Salisbury Cathedral and Waltham Abbey; houses including Gayhurst House, Park House, Knightshayes Court and his own home, The Tower House; and castles at Cardiff and Castell Coch.

Many of his designs were never executed: he drew plans for cathedrals at Lille, Adelaide, Colombo, Brisbane, Edinburgh, and Truro but they were not built. His prospectus for the complete re-decoration of the interior of St Paul's was abandoned and in his competion design for the Royal Courts of Justice he lost out to George Edmund Street, although Street himself acknowledged the superiority of Burges's designs.

Beyond architecture, Burges designed metalwork, sculpture, jewellery, furniture and stained glass. Art Applied to Industry, a series of lectures he gave to the Society of Arts in 1864, illustrates the breadth of his interests, the topics covered being "Glass, Pottery, Brass and Iron, Gold and Silver, Furniture, The Weaver's Art, and External Architectural Decoration.". In the decades following his death Victorian architecture was almost universally derided and Burges's work largely ignored. The last forty years, however, have seen a renaissance in the study of Victorian art, architecture and design and Burges's position as "a wide-ranging scholar, an intrepid traveller, a corruscating lecturer, a brilliant decorative designer and an architect of genius" is again appreciated.

Early life and travels

Burges was born on 2 December 1827, the son of Alfred Burges (1796–1886), a wealthy civil engineer who undertook work in Cardiff for John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, himself the father of Burges' later, greatest, patron, the 3rd Marquess. Alfred Burges made a considerable fortune, some £113,000 (£ 9,126,996 in 2012 adjusted for inflation ) at his death,, and this wealth enabled Burges to devote his life to the study and practice of architecture, without requiring that he actually earn a living.

The Arab Room ceiling at Cardiff Castle showing the Moorish influence on Burges's design

Burges entered King's College London in 1839 and studied with the likes of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti. In 1843, he stayed on at the college to study engineering but left after one year as an undergraduate in 1844 to join the office of Edward Blore, surveyor to Westminster Abbey. Blore was an established architect, being "Special Architect" to both William IV and Queen Victoria, and had made his reputation as a gothic revivalist. After five years, Burges moved to the offices of Matthew Digby Wyatt in 1848. Wyatt was then almost at the height of his influence and public prominence, culminating in his leading role in the direction of the 1851 Great Exhibition. Burges' work on the Medieval Court for this exhibition was highly influential on the subsequent course of his career. During this period, he also worked on drawings of mediaeval metalwork for Wyatt's book, Metalwork, published in 1852.

Of equal importance and influence was Burges' travelling. He believed that all architects should travel, as it was "absolutely necessary to see how various art problems have been resolved in different ages by different men." Enabled by his private income, Burges moved through England, then France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany and Spain, Italy and Sicily, Greece and finally into Turkey, studying and drawing on a prodigious scale. What he saw, and sketched, provided a repository of influences and ideas that he used, and re-used, for the whole of his career. The influence of the East, both Near and Far, was profound; his fascination with Moorish design finding ultimate expression in the Arab Room at Cardiff Castle, and his absorption of Japanese techniques having a significant impact on his metalwork. As he received his first major commission late in his career, at thirty-five, his subsequent career did not see the "development" that might be expected. His style was formed by his study, his thinking and his travelling and "once established, after twenty years' preparation, his 'design language' had merely to be applied, and he applied and re-applied the same vocabulary with increasing subtlety and gusto."

Early works

All Saints Church, Fleet

In 1856, Burges established his own architectural practice at 15 Buckingham Street, The Strand. Some of his early items of furniture were created for this office and later moved to The Tower House, Melbury Road, Kensington, the home he built for himself towards the end of his life. His early architectural career was relatively unsuccessful although he won prestigious commissions for Lille Cathedral, the Crimea Memorial Church and the Bombay School of Art. All remained unbuilt, at least to Burges' designs. Most regrettable of all was his failed entry for the Law Courts in the Strand which, if built, would have given London its own Carcassonne, "a re-creation of a thirteenth century dream world and a skyline of great inventiveness." In 1859 he submitted a French-inspired design for St John's Cathedral, Brisbane in Australia. He also provided designs for Colombo Cathedral in Ceylon and St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide, without success. In 1855, however, he had obtained a commission for the reconstruction of the Chapter House of Salisbury Cathedral. Henry Clutton was the lead architect but Burges, as assistant, contributed to the restoration of the sculpture and the general decorative scheme. All was lost in over-hasty restorations in the 1960s. More lasting is Burges's work of 1858 onwards in the substantial remodelling of Gayhurst House, Buckinghamshire for the second Lord Carrington. Rooms there contain some of his most splendid fireplaces, with carving by Burges' long-time collaborator Thomas Nicholls, in particular those in the Drawing Room which include motifs from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. In addition, he designed a ventilated circular privy for Gayhurst, with "steeply arched dormer windows and surmounted by a growling Cerberus, each of his three heads inset with bloodshot glass eyes."

Maison Dieu, Dover

In 1859 Burges commenced work on the Maison Dieu in Dover with Ambrose Poynter, completed around October 1861. Burgess admiration of the original mediaeval style can be seen in such parts of his renovation as grotesque animals and in the coats of arms incorporated into his new designs. Burges later designed the Council Chamber at the end of the hall, added in 1867, and in 1881 began work on Connaught Hall in Dover, a town meeting and concert hall. The new building, on the site of the old prison which closed in 1877, contained meeting rooms and mayoral and official offices. Whilst William Burges designed the project, most parts were completed after his death by Pullan and Chapple, his partners. In 1859-60, Burges took over from Poynter in the restoration and decoration of Waltham Abbey. He worked with Poynter's son Edward Poynter, who had been commissioned to design an intricate ceiling with the signs of the zodiac, and furniture makers Harland and Fisher. Burges commissioned Edward Burne-Jones of James Powell & Sons to make three stained-glass windows for the east end, representing the Tree of Jesse. Burges published a booklet the same year, The Legend of Waltham Abbey.

In 1861-2, Burges oversaw the construction of All Saints Church, Fleet, commissioned by the local squire, Charles Edward Lefroy, secretary to the Speaker of the House of Commons as a memorial to his wife. Originally a Walker, his wife was the daughter of James Walker, who established the great marine engineering company of Walker and Burges with Burges's father Alfred, and this family connection led to Burges obtaining the commission. The church cost £3,323 and was classified as a Grade II* Listed Building in 1987. Pevsner says of Fleet that "it has no shape, nor character nor notable buildings, except one," that one being All Saints. The church is of red brick and is "astonishingly restrained. The interior too is simply decorated but the massive sculpture, particularly of the Lefroy's tomb and of the gabled arch below which it originally sat is quintessentially Burges, "not so much muscular (gothic) as muscle-bound."

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork

St. Finbarre's Cathedral, Cork, Ireland - Burges' first major commission

Sustained by his belief that Early French provided the answer to the crisis of architectural style that beset mid-Victorian England; "I was brought up in the 13th century belief and in that belief I intend to die"; Burges finally secured his first major commission for St. Fin Barre's Cathedral Cork in 1863 as the result of, at last, winning a competition. The competion for St Fin Barre's was held in 1862 and in February 1863 Burges's diary records his delight at the result; "Got Cork!"

As was usual for Burges, he oversaw all aspects of the design, including the architecture of the building, the statuary, the stained glass and the internal decoration. The result is "undoubtedly (his) greatest work in ecclesiastical architecture" with an interior that is "overwhelming and intoxicating. To enter St. Fin Barre's Cathedral is an experience unparalled in Ireland and rarely matched anywhere."

Vastly exceeding the intended budget of £15,000, he produced a building that in size is little more than a large parish church but in impression is indeed "a cathedral becoming such a city and one which posterity may regard as a monument to the Almighty's praise."

Architectural team

Burges was not unique amongst Victorian architects in forming around him a team of assistants but the loyalty he inspired, and the consequent longevity of the partnerships, perhaps was. John Starling Chapple was the office manager, joining Burges's practice in 1859. It was Chapple who completed the restoration of Castell Coch after Burges's death and designed most of its furniture. Second to Chapple was William Frame, who acted as clerk of works. Horatio Walter Lonsdale was Burges's chief artist, contributing extensive murals both for Castell Coch, and for Cardiff Castle. His main sculptor was Thomas Nicholls who started with Burges at Cork, completing hundreds of figures for St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, worked with him on his two major churches in Yorskshire, and undertook all of the carving for the Animal Wall at Cardiff. Ceccardo Fucigna was another long-time collaborator who sculpted the Madonna and Child above the drawbridge at Castell Coch, the figure of St. John over the mantelpiece in Lord Bute's bedroom at Cardiff Castle and the bronze Madonna in the roof garden. Lastly was Axel Haig, a Swedish-born illustrator, who prepared many of the watercolour perspectives with which Burges entranced his clients. Mourdant Crook calls them "a group of talented men, moulded in their master's image, art-architects and medievalists to a man - jokers and jesters too - devoted above all to art rather than to business."

Burges and Bute

In 1865, Burges met John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute. The connection may have occurred as a result of Burges' father's own connection with the 2nd Marquess, Alfred Burges's engineering firm, Walker, Burges and Cooper having undertaken work on the East Bute Docks at Cardiff in 1855 but this is uncertain. Bute was a landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian, scholar, philanthropist, High Tory, Roman Catholic convert and became Burges's greatest architectural patron. Both Burges and Bute were men of their times, both had fathers whose industrial endeavours provided the means for their sons' architectural achievements, and both sought to "redeem the evils of industrialism by re-living the art of the Middle Ages".

View of Cardiff Castle

However occasioned, the connection lasted the rest of Burges's life and led to his most important works. To the Marquess, and his wife, Burges was the "soul-inspiring one", and the relationship between them was "a prime example of the partnership of aristocratic patron and talented architect produc(ing) the marvels of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch." That the Marquess was the richest man in Britain was an essential factor, for Burges was not a cheap architect. As he himself wrote "good art is far too rare and far too precious ever to be cheap." But Bute brought more than money to the partnership. He was a serious scholar, passionate antiquarian and committed medievalist and his resources and his interests allied with Burges's genius to stupendous effect. Burges' re-building of Cardiff Castle and the complete reconstruction of the ruin of Castell Coch, north of the city, represent his highest achievements. In these buildings, Burges escaped into "a world of architectural fantasy" but undertaken with a genius that sets them far apart from 19th century feudal pastiches and makes them "amongst the most magnificent the Gothic Revival ever achieved." His contemporary, the architect Edward William Godwin said of Burges that "no one of the century of this country or any other that I know of, ever possessed that artistic rule over the kingdom of nature in a measure at all comparable with that which he shared in common with the creator of the Sphinx and the designer of Chartres.

Cardiff Castle

Burges' design for the Summer Smoking Room at Cardiff Castle

Burges began building at Cardiff Castle in 1868. In the early 19th century the castle had been enlarged and refashioned in an early Gothic Revival style for John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute by Henry Holland. Bute's and Burges's shared interest in medieval gothic revivalism, combined with Bute's almost limitless financial resources as the richest man in Britain, meant that Burges could build on the grandest scale. His imagination, his scholarship, his architectural and decorative talents, his inventiveness and his sheer high spirits combined to make Cardiff Castle the "most successful of all the fantasy castles of the nineteenth century."

It was necessary for Burges to incorporate the existing structure of the castle within his work. This "over-laying" can clearly be seen, either from the park or from the courtyard, with the silhouette showing Burges' capping of the Georgian towers by gothic steeples. However, the Clock Tower, which was begun on Bute's coming of age in 1869, is entirely Burges' own. The first part of the re-building, it formed a suite of bachelor's rooms, the Marquess not marrying until 1872, comprising a bedroom, a servant's room and the Summer and Winter smoking rooms. The rooms are sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables. Work continued along Holland's Georgian range including the construction of the Guest Tower, the Arab Room, the Chaucer Room, the Nursery, the Library, the Banqueting Hall and bedrooms for both Lord and Lady Bute. Almost the entire of Burges's usual team were involved, including Chapple, Frame and Lonsdale. Following Burges' death in 1881, further areas of the castle were developed along the lines he had set, culminating in the Animal Wall, which was not completed until the 1920s by the third Marquess' son, the fourth Marquess. The Swiss bridge that originally crossed the moat to the pre-Raphaelite garden which the Animal Wall encompassed, was demolished in the nineteen thirties. Also gone is the Grand Staircase. The staircase, shown in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig, was long thought never to have been built but recent research has shown that it was in fact constructed, only to be torn out in the 1930s.

The Clock Tower

Burges was able to create a richness and fantasy in his interiors that has rarely been equalled. Although "he executed few buildings as his rich fantastic gothic required equally rich patrons (..) his finished works are outstanding monuments to nineteenth century gothic, (Cardiff Castle's) interiors (are) some of the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved."

The Castle apartments

From the park, all five towers appear in enfilade to produce a wonderfully crowded variegated and romantic Victorian skyline. It has been suggested that Burges' work is overpowering. Mordaunt Crook responds that, whilst at Cardiff "the lily suffers from a surfeit of gilding.. (the) suffocating richness was the aim. (The rooms) are fantasy capsules, three dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold. In Cardiff Castle we enter a land of dreams".

Cardiff Castle is extraordinary, Mordaunt Crook contending that there is nothing in Victorian Britain to match its obsessive exoticism. "Alton castle, Eaton Hall, Carlton Towers, Alnwick, Peckforton, none approaches the Burgesian Sublime. And none has comparable interiors. Cardiff is incomparable. Its silhouette has become the skyline of the capital of Wales. The dream of one great patron and one great architect has almost become the symbol of a whole nation."

Castell Coch

Castell Coch

In 1872, whilst work at Cardiff Castle was at its height, Burges presented a scheme for the complete reconstruction of Castell Coch, a ruined thirteenth century fort to the north of Cardiff on the Bute estate. Burges's report on the possible reconstruction was delivered in 1872 but construction was delayed until 1875, in part because of the pressure of works at Cardiff Castle, and in part because of an unfounded concern on behalf of the Marquess's trustees that he was facing bankruptcy. But in August 1875 work began in earnest. The exterior comprises three towers, "almost equal to each other in diameter, (but) arrestingly dissimilar in height." They form an awesome display of architectural power and ability.

Castell Coch was built on the site of a 13th-century castle. Severely damaged during Welsh rebellions in the early fourteenth century, the castle fell into disuse and by Tudor times, the antiquary John Leland described it as "all in ruin no big thing but high".

A set of drawings for the planned rebuilding exists, together with a full architectural justification by Burges. The castle reconstruction features three conical roofs to the towers that are historically questionable. Burges sought to defend their use with references to a body of doubtful historical evidence: "the truth is that he wanted them for their architectural effect." He did admit that they were "utterly conjectural" although "more picturesque and (...) affording much more accommodation", contending that:

"It is true that some antiquaries deny the existence of high roofs in English Mediaeval Military Architecture, and ask objectors to point out examples. As nearly every Castle in the country has been ruined for more than two centuries...it is not surprising that no examples are to be found. But we may form a very fair idea of the case if we consult contemporary (manuscripts) and if we do we find nearly an equal number of towers with flat roofs as those with pointed roofs. The case appears to me to be thus: if a tower presented a good situation for military engines, it had a flat top; if the contrary, it had a high roof to guarantee the defenders from the rain and the lighter sorts of missiles. Thus an arrow could not pierce the roof, but if the latter were absent and the arrow was fired upright, in its downward flight it might occasion the same accident to the defenders as happened to Harold at Hastings."

The Keep tower, the Well Tower and the Kitchen Tower incorporate a series of apartments; of which the main sequence, the Castellan's Rooms, lie within the Keep. The Hall, the Drawing Room, Lord Bute's Bedroom and Lady Bute's bedroom comprise a suite of rooms that exemplify the High Victorian Gothic style in 19th-century Britain. They begin weakly, the Banqueting Hall, completed well after Burges's death, being "dilute(,...) unfocussed" and "anaemic." The Drawing Room is "more exciting", a double-height room with decoration illustrating the "intertwined themes (of) the fecundity of nature and the fragility of life." A superb fireplace by Thomas Nicholls features the Three Fates, spinning, measuring and cutting the thread of life.

Detail of the Drawing Room decoration

The octagonal chamber with its great rib-vault, modelled on one designed by Viollet-Le-Duc at Councy, is "spangled with butterflies and birds of sunny plume in gilded trellis work." Off the hall, lies the Windlass Room, in which Burges delighted in assembling the fully functioning apparatus for the drawbridge, together with "murder holes" for expelling boiling oil. The Marquess's bedroom provide some "spartan" respite before the culmination of the castle, Lady Bute's Bedroom. The room is "pure Burges: an arcaded circle, punched through by window embrasures, and topped by a trefoil-sectioned dome." The decorative theme is 'love', symbolised by "monkeys, pomegranates, nesting birds". The decoration was completed long after Burges's death but his was the guiding spirit; "Would Mr Burges have done it?" William Frame wrote to Thomas Nicholls in 1887.

Following Burges' death in 1881, work on the interior continued for another ten years. The castle's use was limited, the Marquess never came after its completion, and the family appeared to use it as a sort of sanitorium, although the Marchioness and her daughter, Lady Margaret Crichton-Stuart, did occupy it for a period following the death of the Marquess in 1900. But the castle remained "one of the greatest Victorian triumphs of architectural composition," summing up "to perfection the learned dream world of a great patron and his favourite architect, recreating from a heap of rubble a fairy-tale castle which seems almost to have materialised from the margins of a medieval manuscript."

Later works

Bute's commissions formed the major corpus of Burges' work from the late 1860s until his death. However, he continued to accept other appointments.

Skilbeck's Warehouse

Skilbeck's Warehouse, formerly at 46 Upper Thames Street, London, and now demolished, was a drysalter's warehouse constructed by Burges in 1866 and is important as his only forray into industrial design. Burges was commissioned by the Skilbeck Brothers to re-model an existing warehouse; the result was hugely "influential", representing "probably the most successful attempt ever made to unite the requirements of art and mercantile convenience." Burges's re-modelling used "twin pointed bays under a single Gothic relieving arch and gable". The use of exposed cast iron was revolutionary with "..good use of ironwork in the window frames (and) the iron girder which stretch(ed)across the front of the building (was) painted, the bolt heads being gilt." The use of modern materials and technologies was combined with Gothic iconography, "the great crane supported by a corbel carved into a bust of a fair Oriental maid, symbolising the clime from which so much of the drysalter's materials are brought, and over a circular window in the gable (a) ship bringing in its precious freight." The total cost of the work was £1,413.

Knightshayes Court

Knightshayes Court

The commission for the brand new house of Knightshayes Court was obtained in 1867. The house was for Sir John Heathcoat-Amory and the foundation stone laid in 1869. By 1874, the building was complete, although not to Burges' original designs, and work had begun on the interior. However, the relationship between architect and client was not successful, Sir John objecting to Burges' designs both on grounds of cost and of style. "Heathcote-Amory (had) built a house he could not afford to decorate, by an architect whose speciality was interior design." This disagreement led to Burges' sacking in 1874 and his replacement by John Dibblee Crace. Nevertheless, Knightshayes Court remains the only example built of a medium-sized Burges country house, to the "standard" Victorian arrangement. The interior was to have been a riot of Burgesian excess but "not one of the rooms was completed according to Burges's designs." Of the few interior features that were fully executed, much was dismantled or covered over by Sir John and his successors, Burges's "magical interiors remain(ing) a half-formed dream."

Park House

Park House

Park House, Cardiff, formerly known as McConnochie House, was built by Burges for Lord Bute's engineer, James McConnochie between 1871 and 1874, although decoration of the interior continued, somewhat slowly, until McConnochie's Cardiff mayoral year of 1880. The style of the house is Burges' signature Early French Gothic, with triangle and rectangle to the fore, although it is without the conical tower Burges considered appropriate for both his own home and for Castell Coch. Burges used various building stones for Park House, Pennant Sandstone for the walls, Bath stones around the windows, entrance porch and plinths, while the pillars are pink Peterhead granite from Aberdeenshire. The external frontage comprises four gables, the windows of the last gable concealing the major error of the interior, the fact that the entrance confronts the visitor with the underside of a colossal staircase. It is hard to understand how Burges could have made such a mistake. It was not repeated at The Tower House, which is an almost, reversed, replica, with added conical tower. With its steep roofs and boldly textured walls (the house) "revolutionized Cardiff's domestic architecture", and was widely imitated, in Cardiff and beyond. This can be evidenced in any of Cardiff's inner suburbs, where faint and not so faint traces of Burges' influence can be seen. Cadw described Park House as "perhaps the most important 19th century house in Wales". Park House is a Grade I listed building.

Christ the Consoler, St Mary's and St Paul's

Church of St Mary, Studley Royal

Burges's two best churches were also undertaken in the 1870s, the Church of Christ the Consoler at Skelton-on-Ure and St Mary's, Studley Royal. His patron, George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, although not as rich as Bute, was the Marquess's equal in "romantic medievalism" and had been a friend of Bute's at Oxford, which may account for the choice of Burges as architect. Both churches were built as memorial churches for the Marquess's brother-in-law, Frederick Grantham Vyner, who was murdered by Greek bandits in 1870. Vyner's mother commissioned the Church of Christ the Consoler and his sister St Mary's, Studley Royal. Both begun in 1870, Skelton was consecrated in 1876 and Studley Royal in 1878.

The Church of Christ the Consoler is a Victorian Gothic Revival church built in the Early English style. It is located in the grounds of Newby Hall at Skelton-on-Ure, in North Yorkshire, England. The exterior is constructed of grey Catraig stone, with Morcar stone for the mouldings and is in an Early English style. The interior is faced with white limestone and exceptionally rich, with members of Burges' favourite team, e.g. Nicholls and Lonsdale, contributing. It is particularly interesting as representing an architectural move from Burges' favourite Early French style to an English inspiration. Pevsner describes it thus: "Of determined originality, the impression is one of great opulence, even if of a somewhat elephantine calibre."

The Church of St Mary, Studley Royal is built in the Early English style and is located in the grounds of Studley Royal Park at Fountains Abbey, in North Yorkshire, England. The interior is spectacular, exceeding Skelton in richness and majesty. The stained glass is of particularly high quality. St Mary's is Burges' "ecclesiastical masterpiece."

In 1870 Burges was asked to draw up an iconographic scheme of decoration for St. Paul's Cathedral, its interior unfinished since the death of Wren. In 1872, he was formally appointed architect and over the next five years produced detailed schemes of decoration designed to ensure the interior of the cathedral surpassed that of St. Peter's in Rome. However, artistic and religious controveries led to Burges's dismissal in 1877 with none of his plans undertaken.

The Tower House

The Tower House: Burges's Palace of the Arts

From 1875, although he continued to work on the completion of projects already begun, notably those undertaken for John Crichton-Stuart 3rd Marquess of Bute, Burges received no further major commissions, and the construction, decoration and furnishing of his own home, The Tower House, Melbury Road, Kensington filled much of the last six years of his life. Burges designed his home in the style of a substantial 13th century French townhouse, "a model residence of the 13th century." Both the exterior and the interior echo again and again the highlights of Burges' earlier career, revised and re-worked as appropriate. A frontage from the McConnochie House, a cylindrical tower and conical roof from Castell Coch, fireplaces from Cardiff Castle, Burges designed with "the experience of twenty years learning, travelling and building. The house was to be the "synthesis of his career and a glittering tribute to his achievement." Upon completion, the Tower House was sensationally received and its influence endured. In the 1893 survey of architecture of the last half century, it "was the only private town house to be included. The fireplaces Burges constructed, which, unlike many of the fittings, remain, were particular tours-de-force, "veritable altars of art..some of the most amazing pieces of decoration Burges ever designed." The Tower House stands as "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival and the last, (representing) the ne plus ultra of domestic Gothic," described by William Lethaby as "massive, learned, glittering, amazing."

The Tower House in Burges's day also illustrated his supreme skill as a jeweller, metal-worker and designer, containing some of his finest pieces of furniture including the Zodiac Settle, the Dog Cabinet and the Great Bookcase, the last of which Charles Handley-Read described as "occupying a unique position in the history of Victorian painted furniture." Of Burges's metal-work the artist Henry Stacy Marks wrote "he could design a chalice as well as a cathedral...His decanters, cups, jugs, forks and spoons were designed with an equal ability to that with which he would design a castle." Within the Tower House Burges placed some of his finest metalwork, including goblets, decanters, claret jugs, the Mermaid Bowl and the Cat Cup, chosen by Lady Bute as a memento after his death, and the Elephant Inkstand, which stood on his drawing room table but has since been lost, of which Mordaunt-Crook writes "it is the very epitome of its creator's special genius: (his) answer to the dilemma of style". The Tower House was "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last."

Metalwork and jewellery

Green glass and silver decanter designed by Burges, commissioned in 1865 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

"Burges's genius as a designer is expressed to perfection in his jewellery and metalwork." Burges was more than an architect, indeed his buildings have been described as "more jewel than architecture," and his obsession and his ability in these fields enabled him to create architecture that was beyond architecture, not "machines for living in...(rather) fantasy capsules, three-dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold." Burges began with primarily religious artefacts; candlesticks, chalices, pectoral crosses, as individual commissions or as part of the decorative scheme for buildings over which he had complete artistic control. Examples include the chalices for St Michael's Church, Brighton. Later he undertook the creation of works as gifts for or commissions from patrons such as the Sneyd dessert service or the Bute claret jug. But his most astonishing works are those he created for himself, often with the proceeds of the winning of an architectural competition. Examples include the Elephant Inkstand, "the very epitome of its creator's special genius", the pair of jewelled decanters funded by the fee for the plans for the Crimea Memorial Church, and the Cat Cup, created by Barkentin in commemoration of the Law Courts competition, of which Mordaunt Crook writes: "Its technical virtuosity sets standards for the Arts and Crafts phase. But the overall conception, the range of materials, the ingenuity, the inventiveness, the sheer gusto of the design, is perculiarly, triumphantly Burges."

A brooch Burges designed as a wedding present for his friend John Pollard Seddon sold at auction for £31,000 in August 2011, after being re-discovered on the BBC television series Antiques Roadshow.

Stained glass

Burges's contribution to the development of the manufacture and artistry of stained glass in Victorian architecture is significant; "in the renaissance of High Victorian stained glass, Burges played an important role." Working with, and patronising some of the finest manufacturers, Burges "transformed the quality of English stained glass." His importance was as much in the encouragement of new techniques, as in the genius of his conceptions. Working with a range of craftsmen, including William Gualbert Saunders, his designs had "a vibrancy, an intensity and a brilliance which no other glass-maker could match." Lawrence considers Burges was particularly indebted to Saunders: "his technique (gave) Burges's glass its most distinctive characteristic, namely the flesh colour. This is unique, had no precedents and has had no imitators." Perhaps his highest achievement in the area of stained glass was as St. Fin Barre's. The history of that cathedral has detailed commentaries on the glass there, of which the co-author, David Lawrence, writes, "The impact created by all these glowing, coloured religious images is overwhelming and intoxicating. To enter St. Fin Barre's Cathedral is an experience unparalled in Ireland and rarely matched anywhere." Similarly impressive results were attained at Waltham Abbey but much of Burges's work there was destroyed in the Blitz. Mordaunt Crook writes, "At Waltham, Burges does not copy. He meets the Middle Ages as an equal."

Furniture

Writing Cabinet designed by Burges, built by Gualbert Saunders (1867) (Manchester City Art Gallery)

Burges's furniture was, second to his buildings, his major contribution to the Victorian Gothic revival; "More than anyone, it was Burges, with his eye for detail and his lust for colour, who created the furniture appropriate to High Victorian Gothic." Enormous, elaborate and highly painted, Burges's "art furniture" was "medieval in a way no other designer ever approached." The first detailed study of Burges's work in this area was by Charles Handley-Read in his article in The Burlington Magazine of November 1963, Notes on William Burges's Painted Furniture." Despised even more than his buildings in the reaction against Victorian taste that occurred in the early twentieth century, his furniture came back into fashion in the latter part of that century and prices paid for pieces are now astronomical. The most recent example of the price his furniture now commands is the £850,000 paid for the Zodiac Settle by the Bedford Museum and Art Gallery, comprising a £480,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £190,000 from the Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery and £180,000 from the Art Fund. Designed by Burges in 1869-71, the "theme is typical of his love of colour, mythology and fun." The settle was originally designed for Buckingham Street and was subsequently moved to The Tower House.

Personal life

Eccentric, and often unpredictable and over indulgent, Burges was physically unprepossessing, described by the wife of his greatest patron as "ugly Burges." Physically he was short and so short-sighted that he once mistook a peacock for a man. Burges appears to have been sensitive about his appearance and very few images of him exist. The only known portraits are: a painting on a panel of the Yatman Cabinet by Edward John Poynter of 1858, a photograph from the 1860s by an unknown author showing Burges dressed as a court jester, a sketch by Theodore Blake Wirgman in The Graphic of 1871, a pencil drawing in profile by Edward William Godwin of 1875, a caricature by Edward Burne-Jones of 1881, and three posed photographs from 1881 by Henry Van Der Weyde. Burges never married.

Burges as architect

Whatever his physical shortcomings, his personality, his conversation and his sense of humour were attractive and infectious, "his range of friends running the whole gamut of pre-Raphaelite London. Contemparies refer to Burges's child-like nature, Dante Gabriel Rossetti composing a limerick about him that ran: "There’s a babyish party called Burges, Who from childhood hardly emerges. If you hadn’t been told, He’s disgracefully old, You would offer a bull’s-eye to Burges".

Burges as jester

Robert Kerr's novel of 1879, The Ambassador Extraordinary, involves an architect Georgius Oldhousen, whom Mordaunt Crook considers to be clearly based on Burges; he is "not exactly young in years but is in an odd way youthful in appearance and in manners Georgius can never grow old.. His strong point is a disdain for Common Sense...His vocation is Art.. (a) matter of Uncommon Sense."

His interests beyond architecture included some louche, although not atypical, pursuits of the Victorian rich including clubbing; Burges was elected to the Athenaeum Club, London in 1874, was a member of the Arts Club and the Hogarth Club and was elected to the Royal Academy in the year of his death; collecting, Freemasonry, ratting and opium. The influence of drugs on his life and his architectural output has been debated, Mordaunt Crook speculating that it was in Constantinople, on his tour in the 1850s, that he "first tasted opium" and the Dictionary of Scottish Architects stating with certainty that his early death was brought about "at least partly as a result of his bachelor lifestyle of smoking both tobacco and opium." In England's Thousand Best Houses Simon Jenkins queries why Sir John Heathcoat-Amory chose as his architect "an opium-addicted bachelor Gothicist who dressed in medieval costume..." Burges's own diary of 1865 includes the reference "Too much opium, did not go to Hayward's wedding" and Mordaunt Crook concludes that "it is hard to resist the conclusion that (opium) reinforced the dreamier elements in his artistic make-up".

Death

Burges' sarcophagus at West Norwood Cemetery

Burges died, aged 53, at The Tower House on 20 April 1881. He caught a chill whilst undertaking "a long ride in a dog cart" overseeing works at Cardiff and returned to London, half-paralysed, where he lay dying for some three weeks. He was buried in the tomb he designed for his mother at West Norwood, a suitably gothic cemetery by the architect William Tite. On his death, John Chapple, Burges's office manager and close associate for over twenty years, wrote "a constant relationship...with one of the brightest ornaments of the profession has rendered the parting most severe. Thank God his work will live and ... be the admiration of future students. I have hardly got to realize my lonely position yet. He was almost all the world to me." Lady Bute, wife of his greatest patron, wrote, somewhat more prosaically, "Dear Burges, ugly Burges who designed such lovely things - what a duck."

William Burges was "the most dazzling exponent of the High Victorian Dream. Pugin conceived that dream; Rossetti and Burne-Jones painted it; Tennyson sang its glories; Ruskin and Morris formulated its philosophy; but only Burges built it." His own words, in his letter of January 1877 to the Bishop of Cork, sum up his career "(In the future) the whole affair will be on its trial and, the elements of time and cost being forgotten, the result only will be looked at. The great questions will then be, first, is this work beautiful and, secondly, have those to whom it was entrusted, done it with all their heart and all their ability."

In St. Fin Barre's, together with memorials to his mother and sister, there is also a memorial plaque to Burges. "Erected by Alfred Burges to the memory of his eldest son. Designed by Burges himself, it shows the King of Heaven presiding over the four apostles, who hold open the Word of God." Under the inscription Architect of this cathedral is a simple shield and a small, worn plaque with a mosaic surround, bearing Burges's entwined initials and name.

Legacy

Animal Wall Cardiff Castle - The Monkeys: One of nine original sculptures carved in 1891 by Thomas Nicholls to designs by Burges

Burges is considered to be one of the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, and in a relatively short career of twenty years he established himself as "the most brilliant architect-designer of his generation", his "own strange genius turn(ing) the Middle Ages into magic". Burges's architecture rivals that undertaken by the greatest architects of the Victorian era. To enter any one of his buildings is to enter "an architecture of dreams." Others conceived that High Victorian Dream, painted it and wrote of it, "but only Burges built it.

Beyond architecture, the range of Burges's achievements in design, metalwork, jewellery and stained glass outdoes that of any other designer of his age. "In furniture and stained glass he matches the finest work of Morris and Co. In jewellery and metalwork he is really without rival."

Burges' death came as the Gothic revival was already waning as an architectural force. Within twenty years his style was considered hopelessly out-dated and owners of his work, such as the Heathcoat-Amory's, sought to eradicate all traces of his endeavours from their homes. From the 1890s to the middle of the last century Victorian architecture was almost universally derided. Critics wrote of "the collapse of taste", ridiculing "the uncompromising ugliness" of some of that era's greatest buildings and attacking the "sadistic hatred of beauty" of some of its finest architects. Of Burges, they wrote almost nothing. His buildings were disregarded or altered, his jewellery and stained glass were lost or ignored, and his furniture had to be given away. "He founded no school".. (had few adherents outside the circle of his practice).. and trained no further generation of designers." Even had the stylistic scene remained unchanged, his architecture was too rich, too unique and too expensive to allow for many practitioners, or patrons, to attempt to follow it. The list of projects he completed is relatively short, the number of architectural competitions lost and commissions unbuilt depressingly long. Burges's contemporary and collaborator in the area of stained glass, the artist Nathaniel Westlake lamented "competitions are seldom given to the best man - look at the number poor Burges won, or should have won, and I think he executed only one." The last forty years, however, have seen a renaissance in the study of Victorian art, architecture and design and Burges's place at the centre of that world as "a wide-ranging scholar, an intrepid traveller, a corruscating lecturer, a brilliant decorative designer and an architect of genius" is again appreciated.

Almost Burges's sole champion in the years after his death was his brother-in-law, Richard Popplewell Pullan. Pullan was primarily an illustrator, as well as a scholar and archeologist. He trained with Alfred Waterhouse in Manchester, before coming to Burges's office in the 1850s. In 1859, he married Burges's sister. Following Burges's death in 1881, Pullan lived at The Tower House and published collections of Burges's designs, including Architectural Designs of William Burges (1883) and The House of William Burges (1886).

Given Burges' long-standing interest in Japanese art, it should be noted that he did have some adherents in Japan. Josiah Conder studied under him, and, through Conder's influence, the notable Japanese architect Tatsuno Kingo was articled to Burges in the year before the latter's death.

Study of Burges

Resurrection Angel - The Angel at Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral was a gift from Burges

Burges' limited output, and the general unpopularity of his work for much of the century following his death, meant that he was little studied. Pevsner's 1951 study of the exhibits at the Great Exhibition, High Victorian Design, makes no mention of him, despite his significant contributions to the Medieval Court. In a seventy-page guide to Cardiff Castle, published in 1923, he is referenced only twice, and on each occasion his name is misspelt as "Burgess". However, the past thirty years have seen a very significant revival of interest. By far the best, indeed the only, full study is J. Mordaunt Crook's William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. In the dedication to that volume, "In Mem. C.H.-R", Mordaunt Crook acknowledges his debt to Charles Handley-Read, perhaps the first serious scholar of Burges, whose notes on Burges were bequeathed to Mordaunt Crook following Handley-Read's suicide. Other valuable sources, from a limited range, are two articles on Cardiff Castle and Castle Coch in Mark Girouard's The Victorian Country House; the catalogue to the exhibition held in Cardiff in 1981 to commemorate the centenary of Burges's death, entitled The Strange Genius of William Burges and edited by Crook; and John Newman's The Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan. The current curator of Cardiff Castle, Matthew Williams, has also written a number of Burgesian/Bute articles for the architectural press. The most recent addition to the study of Burges is The Cathedral of Saint Fin Barre at Cork, by David Lawrence and Ann Wilson.

List of works

This list of Burges's buildings is fairly, but not fully, comprehensive. The list of furniture and other works is selective. Good examples of Burges's furniture can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the Bedford Museum and Art Gallery, and Manchester Art Gallery. No listing is given here of his extensive creations of jewellery and stained glass. Mordaunt Crook has a comprehensive listing of Burges's work with indications as to whether the work is still in situ, was never executed, has been removed elsewhere, demolished or where the present location is unknown.

Buildings

• Salisbury Cathedral, 1855-59 - Chapter House restoration
• Treverbyn Vean, Cornwall, 1858-62 - decoration and fittings for Col. C.L.Somers Cocks. Since altered
• Gayhurst House, Buckinghamshire, 1858-65 - alterations for Lord Carrington
• Maison Dieu, Dover and Town Hall, 1859-75 - alterations and extensions
• Waltham Abbey, 1859-77 - restoration
• Elizabeth Almshouses and Chapel, Worthing, 1860 - for his father, Alfred, who founded the charity
• All Saints Church, Fleet, Hampshire, 1860–62
• Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, Ireland, 1863–1904
• Yorke Almshouses, Forthampton, Gloucestershire, 1863-4
• Worcester College, Oxford, 1864-79 - chapel redecoration
• Oakwood Hall, Bingley, Yorkshire, 1864-5 internal decoration, in collaboration with Edward Burne-Jones. Since altered
• Skilbeck's Warehouse, 1865-6, remodelling of a drysalter's warehouse on Upper Thames Street - now demolished
• Holy Trinity Church Templebreedy, Crosshaven, Co. Cork, Ireland, 1866–68
• Cardiff Castle, 1866-1928 - reconstruction and restoration for Lord Bute
• St Michael and All Angels Church, Lowfield Heath, Sussex, 1867-8
• Knightshayes Court, Tiverton, Devon, 1867–74
• St Michael's Church, Brighton, 1868 - designs for extensions, 1892-9 - designs executed
• Milton Court, Dorking, Surrey, 1869-80 - refurbishment
• Church of Christ the Consoler at Skelton-on-Ure, Yorkshire, 1870–76
• St Mary's, Studley Royal, near Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, 1870–78
• Park House, Cardiff, 1871-80 - for Lord Bute's chief engineer, James McConnochie and previously known as McConnochie House .
• Speech Room, Harrow School, 1871–77
• Church of All Saints, Murston, Kent, 1872-3
• St Faith's, Stoke Newington, London, 1872-3, badly damaged by a flying bomb in 1944 and since demolished
• Castell Coch, 1872-91 - recreation for Lord Bute
• Mount Stuart House oratory, 1873-5 - for Lord Bute
• Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut: Seabury, Northam and Jarvis Halls, and unrealized College Master Plan: 1873-82
• The Tower House, Melbury Road, Kensington, 1875-81. For himself
• Anglican Church, Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic, 1879 memorial church for Mrs Anna Scott. Now a concert hall

Unexecuted designs

• Lille Cathedral, 1856
• St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Adelaide, 1856
• Colombo Cathedral, Ceylon
• Crimea Memorial Church, 1856-61
• St John's Cathedral, Brisbane, 1859
• Florence Cathedral, West front, 1862
• Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art, Bombay 1865-6
• Royal Courts of Justice, London, 1866–67
• St. Paul's Cathedral, London, 1870-77. Interior decoration
• St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh (Episcopal), Edinburgh, 1873
• Truro Cathedral, 1878

Major pieces of furniture and works

• The Yatman cabinet - 1858 - the Victoria and Albert Museum
• St. Bacchus sideboard - 1858 - Detroit Institute of Arts
• The Architecture cabinet - 1859 - the National Museum of Wales
• The Mirrored buffet - 1859– present location unknown
• Sideboard and wine cabinet - 1859 - the Art Institute of Chicago
• Wines and Beers sideboard - 1859 - Victoria and Albert Museum
• The Great bookcase - 1859-62 - Knightshayes Court, Devon. On loan from the Ashmolean Museum
• Font at St Peter's Church, Draycott, Somerset - 1861 - Controversially offered up for sale by Bath & Wells in 2007, but retained on appeal
• Taylor bookcase - 1862 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
• Elephant Inkstand - 1862-3 - present location unknown
• Narcissus washstand - 1865 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, features in Evelyn Waugh's "The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold"
• Burges' bed - 1865 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
• Crocker dressing table - 1867 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
• The Clock cabinet - 1867 - Manchester City Art Gallery
• Zodiac settle - 1869-70 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum, purchased by the museum in February 2011 and due for display on the museum's re-opening in 2013
• Nursery wardrobe - 1875 - Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
• The 'Golden' bed - 1879 - Victoria and Albert Museum
• Philosophy cabinet - 1878-79 - Designed for the guest bedroom at Tower House, private collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber

Gallery of architectural work

The gallery follows the themes chosen by J. Mordaunt Crook to represent, firstly, Burges's ecclesiastical works, then his domestic commissions from wealthy patrons, and lastly his architectural and decorative fantasies.

Gothic

• 

  West end, St. Mary's Studley Royal (1870-8)

• 

  Church of Christ the Consoler, Skelton-on-Ure (1870-6)

• 

  West Front, St. Finbarr,'s Cathedral, Cork, Ireland (1863-1904)

• 

  Waltham Abbey, end window & wall by Burges

Feudal

• 

  Entrance, Castell Coch, Wales (1872-91)

• 

  Cardiff Castle (1866-1928)

• 

  Cardiff Castle from Bute Park

• 

  Entrance front, Knightshayes Court, Devon (1867-74)

Fantastic

• 

  Chimney-piece, Winter Smoking Room, Cardiff Castle

• 

  Three Fates, above Drawing Room fireplace, Castell Coch, Wales

• 

  The Drawing Room, Castell Coch, Wales

• 

  Detail of the ceiling, Lady Bute's Bedroom, Castell Coch, Wales

See also

• Victorian architecture
• Gothic Revival architecture

References

• Aldrich, Megan (2005). Gothic Revival. Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780714836317. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tfNPAAAAMAAJ&q=Gothic+Revival&dq=Gothic+Revival&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MDFBT8aEB6qG0AWSkJSPDw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ. 
• Bradley, Simon; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2002). The Buildings Of England: London 1: The City of London. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300096248. http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-Pevsner-Architectural-Buildings-England/dp/0300096240. 
• Burges, William (2009). Art Applied to Industry: A series of Lectures. Bibliobazaar. ISBN 9781115193627. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9phLmpynAosC&source=gbs_book_other_versions. 
• Cherry, Bridget; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1991, 2002). London 3: North West. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-071048-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=8utUAAAAMAAJ. 
• Cherry, Bridget; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2004). The Buildings of England:Devon. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300095961. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5wd_Pw4L3zcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Devon+Pevsner&hl=en&ei=CjpBT4WEIInF0QXqgeGPDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CDkQ6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=Devon%20Pevsner&f=false. 
• Cooper, Jeremy (May 1998). Victorian and Edwardian decor: from the gothic revival to art nouveau. Abbeville Press. ISBN 9780789204462. http://books.google.com/books?id=HZMXAQAAMAAJ. 
• Crook, J. Mordaunt (1981). William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. John Murray. ISBN 9780719538223. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nSdpQgAACAAJ&dq=William+Burges+and+the+High+Victorian+Dream&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6zxBT_OIPIHH0QXpybCPDw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA. 
• Crook, J. Mordaunt (1981). The Strange Genius of William Burges. The National Museum of Wales. ISBN 9780720002591. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Pg2TAAAAIAAJ&q=The+Strange+Genius+of+William+Burges&dq=The+Strange+Genius+of+William+Burges&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nT1BT8SsKcrD0QXG36CPDw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA. 
• Crook, J. Mordaunt (1980). William Burges and the Completion of St. Paul's. Oxford University Press. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y3VftwAACAAJ&dq=William+Burges+and+the+completion+of+St+Paul's&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YUBBT-XcEqPD0QW3uLyPDw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA. 
• Crook, J.Mordaunt; Lennox-Boyd, C. (1984). Axel Haig and the Victorian Vision of the Middle Ages. George Allen and Unwin. ISBN 9780047200298. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ed2wAAAAIAAJ&dq=Axel+Haig+and+the+Victorian+Vision&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qkFBT4LPOZO00QWrpZCQDw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA. 
• Dixon, Roger; Muthesius, Stefan (1993). Victorian Architecture. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780195200485. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yVcs9z4-rzUC&q=Victorian+Architecture&dq=Victorian+Architecture&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TUVBT9-XCobR0QWJieGODw&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA. 
• Finn, Dallas (1995). Meiji Revisited: The Sites of Victorian Japan. Weatherhill. ISBN 9780834802889. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EB_qAAAAMAAJ&q=Meiji+Revisited&dq=Meiji+Revisited&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KUpBT7rOH8it0QWGuuWPDw&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAA. 
• Girouard, Mark (1995). The Victorian Country House. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-02390-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=SyN3QgAACAAJ. 
• Hall, Michael (2009). The Victorian Country House from the Archives of Country Life. Aurum Press. ISBN 9781845134570. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pHJJAQAAIAAJ&q=The+Victorian+Country+House+from+the+Archives+of+Country+Life&dq=The+Victorian+Country+House+from+the+Archives+of+Country+Life&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EktBT4_DIIHH0QXpybCPDw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA. 
• Harrison, Martin; Waters, Bill (1989). Burne-Jones. Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 9780712621939. http://books.google.com/books?id=4WbsAAAAMAAJ. 
• Jenkins, Simon (2003). England's Thousand Best Houses. Allen Lane. ISBN 9780141039299. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SQJLPwAACAAJ&dq=England's+Thousand+best+houses&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0UtBT8KZJ8TS0QW3uIiPDw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA. 
• Jones, Nigel R. (2005). Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31850-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=epsFOeV1mCMC&pg=PA48. 
• Lawrence, David; Wilson, Ann (2006). The Cathedral of Saint Fin Barre at Cork: William Burges in Ireland. Four Courts Press. ISBN 978-1-84682-023-6. http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Cathedral_of_St_Fin_Barre_at_Cork.html?id=pRfqAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y. 
• Newman, John (2001). Glamorgan. The Buildings of Wales. Penguin. ISBN 0140710566. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DpUMspCtpNIC&pg=PP4&dq=The+Buildings+of+Wales:+Glamorgan&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lFxBT4yQDKek0QWTm6iQDw&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Buildings%20of%20Wales%3A%20Glamorgan&f=false. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Lloyd, David Wharton (1967). Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-071032-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=LmFXHKH4VfUC. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Williamson, Elizabeth (2003). Buckinghamshire. The Buildings of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09584-5. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BlI3AQAAIAAJ&q=The+Buildings+of+England:+Buckinghamshire&dq=The+Buildings+of+England:+Buckinghamshire&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fllBT7LqIYnM0QWDhcGPDw&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBA. 
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Radcliffe, Enid (1967). Yorkshire: The West Riding. The Buildings of England. Penguin. ISBN ISBN 978-0-140-71017-5. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ptsYAAAAYAAJ&q=Yorkshire:+The+West+Riding&dq=Yorkshire:+The+West+Riding&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BmhBT9TjEumx0AWZ4eGPDw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA. 
• Sargent, Pauline (1977). Catalogue of the Exhibition of Stained Glass Cartoons from Cardiff Castle. Cardiff City Council. 
• Smith, Helen (1984). Decorative painting in the domestic interior in England and Wales, c. 1850-1890. Garland Pub.. ISBN 978-0-8240-5986-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=mLa0AAAAIAAJ. 
• Sutcliffe, Anthony (2006). London: an architectural history. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11006-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=ONC1UsSpS4AC&pg=PA135. 
• Vost's Fine Art Auctioneers (1999). The Mirrored Sideboard - designed by William Burges. Miro Press, Suffolk. 

• The Arts and Crafts Home - William Burges