Login
Login

John Chessell Buckler

{{Short description|British architect (1793–1894)}}

{{Use British English|date=July 2022}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}

{{Infobox architect

| name = John Chessell Buckler

| image = John Chessell Buckler.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = 1872 portrait

| parents = John Buckler (father)

| children = Charles Alban Buckler (son)

| nationality = British

| birth_date = {{birth date|1793|12|08|df=y}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1894|01|10|1793|12|08|df=y}}

| death_place =

| alma_mater =

| practice =

| significant_buildings =

| significant_projects =

| significant_design =

| awards =

}}

John Chessell Buckler (8 December 1793 – 10 January 1894) was a British architect, the eldest son of the architect John Buckler. J. C. Buckler initially worked with his father before taking over his practice. His work included restorations of country houses and at the University of Oxford.

Career

File:Costessey Hall.jpg

Buckler received art lessons from the painter Francis Nicholson. From 1810 onwards he worked with his father. His younger brother, George, later joined them and reported that the three worked "in perfect harmony". In 1830 his father handed over his architectural practice to him, and he worked in partnership with George until 1842.Tyack, 2004

In 1825 Buckler began rebuilding Costessey Hall, Norfolk, for Lord Stafford. His work there was described by Charles Locke Eastlake, writing in 1872, as "one of the most important and successful instances of the [Gothic] Revival in Domestic Architecture". It was in a "Tudor" style, in red and white brick, with stone dressings. The new buildings formed an irregular picturesque group, with stepped gables, angle turrets and richly moulded chimney-shafts, exhibiting, according to Eastlake "a knowledge of detail and proportion far in advance of contemporary work".

File:John Chessell Buckler Oxford 2024.jpg was unveiled in 2015.[https://www.oxonblueplaques.org.uk/plaques/buckler.html Plaque for John Chessell Buckler], Oxfordshire Blue Plaque Scheme website]]

Buckler did a lot of work in Oxford, carrying out repairs and additions to St Mary's Church, and Oriel, Brasenose, Magdalen, and Jesus colleges.Joshua Mardell (2018) '"Fidelis ad Mortem": John Chessell Buckler, an Oxford College Architect', Oxoniensia, 83, pp. 73–92. He also restored Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, and Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, and designed Dunston Hall, Norfolk, and Butleigh Court in Somerset.{{cite book |last1=Eastlake |first1=Charles Locke |title=A History of the Gothic Revival |url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorygothicr00eastgoog|year=1872 |publisher= Longmans, Green & Co|location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/ahistorygothicr00eastgoog/page/n140 110]–11 }}

In 1836 he came second, behind Charles Barry, in the competition to rebuild the Palace of Westminster following its destruction by fire.{{cite journal |year=1836 |title=Miscellaneous Notices respecting the new competition designs for the New Houses of Parliament |journal=Architectural Magazine |volume=3 |page=104 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r4lAAAAAYAAJ |access-date=10 September 2011|last1=Loudon |first1=John Claudius }}

Buckler's writings included the text accompanying his father's engravings of Views of the Cathedral Churches of England and Wales (1822). In 1823 he published Observations on the Original Architecture of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, in which he expressed his hostility towards changes in the quadrangle of Magdalen College. Some of his later writings, such as A History of the Architecture of the Abbey Church of St Alban (1847), were in collaboration with his own son, Charles Alban Buckler. He wrote a further polemical work, A Description And Defense Of The Restorations Of The Exterior Of Lincoln Cathedral (1866), a scathing response to accusations that, in capacity as honorary architect to Lincoln Cathedral, he had overseen a damaging restoration involving the 'scraping' of the cathedral fabric.Joshua Mardell (2020) 'Getting into a Scrape: The Buckler Dynasty, Lincoln Cathedral and Mid-Victorian Architectural Politics', Architectural History, 63, pp. 191–218

He died, aged 100, on 10 January 1894.

List of Works

{{Incomplete list|date=January 2025}}

= Gloucestershire =

  • St. Mary the Virgin Church, Lower Swell (rebuilt nave, 1852)Verey, 1970, page 442

= Norfolk =

= Oxfordshire =

= Somerset =

  • Butleigh Court, Butleigh (1845)
  • Church of St. Leonard, Butleigh{{NHLE|desc=Church of St John The Baptist|num=1058773|accessdate=31 October 2015}}

= West Sussex =

See also

Unbuilt proposals

Kilronan Castle, Keadue, Co. Roscommon, Ireland.

References

{{Reflist}}

Sources

  • {{cite book |last1=Nairn |first1=Ian |author1-link=Ian Nairn |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |author2-link=Nikolaus Pevsner |series=The Buildings of England |title=Sussex |year=1965 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |isbn=0-14-071028-0 |page=287}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Sherwood |first1=Jennifer |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |author-link2=Nikolaus Pevsner |series=The Buildings of England |title=Oxfordshire |year=1974 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |isbn=0-14-071045-0 }}
  • {{cite ODNB |first=Geoffrey |last=Tyack |title=Buckler, John (1770–1851) |url-access=subscription |year= 2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/3863 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3863|access-date=23 June 2009 }}
  • {{cite book |last=Verey |first=David |series=The Buildings of England |title=Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds |volume=1 |year=1970 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |isbn=0-14-071040-X |page=442}}
  • {{cite web |last= Mardell |first=Joshua| title= Getting into a Scrape: The Buckler Dynasty, Lincoln Cathedral and Mid-Victorian Architectural Politics | series= Architectural History|volume=63|date= 2020 |pages= 191–218|doi=10.1017/arh.2020.5 | url= https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/architectural-history/article/abs/getting-into-a-scrape-the-buckler-dynasty-lincoln-cathedral-and-midvictorian-architectural-politics/86AA5304B06E4D7A7851CF4913ADB014 }}

External links

  • {{Commons category-inline|John Chessell Buckler}}
  • {{wikisource author-inline}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buckler, John Chessell}}

Category:1793 births

Category:1894 deaths

Category:British men centenarians

Category:English ecclesiastical architects

Category:Architects of cathedrals

Category:19th-century English architects