The words architect and architecture, derived from Greek through Latin, remind us that the architectural profession has its origins in the ancient world. Architects in a sense have always existed, in that wherever there have been buildings there has been someone to design them, but architecture has not always been a profession. It was so in antiquity, as it is today, but was not always in the intervening period. There were no doubt working masons in Greece and Rome who could put up a modest building on their own, and we know of at least one amateur architect, the Emperor Hadrian, but in general the designing of buildings was a matter for the professional man.

I have never felt quite satisfied with the conventional dating of Cecil's work at Burghley. According to the accepted scheme this can be divided into four main periods. Starting on the basis of an older building Cecil first, about 1556–61, built the existing great hall (Fig. 1) and vaulted kitchen, both of which are very Gothic in character. Secondly, about 1561–4, he constructed the elaborate classical architecture of the courtyard (Fig. 2), much of the detail of which was imported ready-made from Antwerp. Thirdly, in 1577–8 he added on to the west end of the courtyard a new west range, with a four-storeyed gatehouse. Fourthly he built, in 1585, the central feature of the north front (Fig. 4) and perhaps reconstructed the whole of the façade; and in 1587 added a spired top-storey (containing a clock) to the three-storey pavilion on the east side of the court yard.

The prolific architectural activity of Filippo Juvarra in Piedmont during the first half of the 18th century has been the subject of a number of specialist studies. Augusto Tellucini’s L’arte del architetto Filippo Juvara in Piemonte, published in 1926, is the only one to discuss at any length the question of French influence on his work. Since then there have appeared the important researches of A. E. Brinckmann in his Teatrum Novum Pedemontii and in the commemorative volume Filippo Juvarra. The first of these deals mainly with questions of attribution, dating of designs and progress of building operations, and does not go very far in attempting to interpret or assess the value of the architecture. The second was unfortunately published in 1937 when political pressures made it difficult for Italian and German scholars to suggest that any good could have come out of France. It may therefore be time to reconsider this aspect of Juvarra’s architecture in relation to three of his works for the house of Savoy: the Palazzo Madama and the royal palaces at Stupinigi and Turin.

The neglect of Sir William Chambers is one of the paradoxes of English architectural history. Although he stands with Robert Adam and James Wyatt as one of the triumvirate of great architects of the second half of the eighteenth century, he has received little attention. Yet, he was not only engaged in over seventy building projects, but he also designed furniture, clocks, and the State Coach; wrote the classic architectural treatise of the century, the first book to discuss Chinese architecture seriously, and a dissertation introducing the Jardin Anglo-Chinois to Europe; was widely respected as a scholar, and was the main force behind the foundation of the Royal Academy.

The erection of the London Custom House, and its subsequent collapse and reconstruction, provides an interesting illustration of professional practice and building technique in the early 19th century.

Sir Robert Smirke’s Custom House appears to have been London’s seventh. The medieval building mentioned by Stow was succeeded by the larger Elizabethan edifice destroyed in the Great Fire. Wren’s ‘commodious and substantial building of brick and stone’, erected in 1671 at a cost of £10,000/ was in turn burnt in 1718 and replaced by Thomas Ripley’s essay in the Tuscan styled. It was the inadequacy of this building to cope with an increasing volume of trade and an expanding administrative system which prompted plans for rebuilding during the Napoleonic War.

Just after the publication of my ‘Thoresby House, Nottinghamshire’ (Architectural History, IV, 1961), two documents appeared which take us a long way towards the final solution of this complicated problem. One is a large oil veduta, attributed to Pieter Tillemans and now in the possession of Messrs Appleby Brothers. The other is no less than the original design for the controversial front, published as long ago as 1930 (Wren Society, VII, plate 11, top), but only just recognised and identified by the percipient eye of Sir John Summerson.

The date of the ‘Burton’ drawings was erroneously given in my article in Architectural History, IV; lines 1 to 4 on page 82 should read:

Two of the drawings initialled by Burton are now reproduced and show the structural arrangements (Figs 1 and 2). Note should be made of the use of laminated timber ribs and other timber members, while the hollow castiron columns served also to carry drainage from the roof-gutters as in all Paxton's glass buildings. Certain points about the drawings themselves—e.g. the title lettering, which is similar to that used by Paxton's staff at other times—suggest that these may well be the drawings prepared by Samuel Holden in London, and that Burton's approval was signified by his initialling them.