Sanderson Miller (1716 – 23 April 1780) was an English pioneer of

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architecture and

landscape designer Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practiced by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice, landscape design bridges the space between landscape architecture and ga ...

. He is noted for adding

follies ''Follies'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The plot takes place in a crumbling Broadway theater, now scheduled for demolition, previously home to a musical revue (based on the ''Ziegfeld Fol ...

or other

Picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

garden buildings and features to the grounds of an estate. Wimpole folly

Early life

Miller was the son of a wool merchant of the same name,

High Sheriff of Warwickshire This is a list of sheriffs and high sheriffs of the English county of Warwickshire. The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most ...

in 1728, who died in 1737. He was born, lived and died at

Radway Radway is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England, about north-west of Banbury in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The population taken at the 2011 census had reduced to 238. The village is at the foot of Edge Hill and is notable for the ...

, on the

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avo ...

estate bought by his father in 1712. At the age of 15, Miller was already interested in

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

subjects, and while studying at St Mary Hall, Oxford he continued to develop his interest in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

's past, under the influence of

William King William King may refer to: Arts * Willie King (1943–2009), American blues guitarist and singer *William King (author) (born 1959), British science fiction author and game designer, also known as Bill King *William King (artist) (1925–2015), Am ...

. He inherited Radway Grange when he was 21, and a few years later started to redesign the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

house in a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style.

In the grounds he added a

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

ed cottage and

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, w ...

al tower based on Guy's Tower at

Warwick Castle Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-an ...

. The tower not only evoked the past visually through its

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

design but it also had strong historical associations of other kinds: for instance, it was intended to house a statue of

Caractacus Caratacus ( Brythonic ''*Caratācos'', Middle Welsh ''Caratawc''; Welsh ''Caradog''; Breton ''Karadeg''; Greek ''Καράτακος''; variants Latin ''Caractacus'', Greek ''Καρτάκης'') was a 1st-century AD British chieftain of the ...

and was sited on the spot traditionally associated with the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

raising the standard before the

Battle of Edgehill The Battle of Edgehill (or Edge Hill) was a pitched battle of the First English Civil War. It was fought near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire on Sunday, 23 October 1642. All attempts at constitutional compromise between ...

Patronage and developments

This work at Radway established Miller's reputation as a gentleman, or

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. History ...

, architect and landscape designer. His wide social circle, and contacts developed through his patron

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, (17 January 1709 – 22 August 1773), known between 1751 and 1756 as Sir George Lyttelton, 5th Baronet, was a British statesman. As an author himself, he was also a supporter of other writers and as a patr ...

, led to many requests for his designs. He produced some classical buildings like the Shire Hall in

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

and

Hagley Hall Hagley Hall is a Grade I listed 18th-century house in Hagley, Worcestershire, the home of the Lyttelton family. It was the creation of George, 1st Lord Lyttelton (1709–1773), secretary to Frederick, Prince of Wales, poet and man of letters ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, but is more often associated with Gothic revival work, as at Albury Hall,

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

and the Great Hall at

Lacock Abbey Lacock Abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the suppression of Roman Catholic inst ...

. He is especially known for the evocative mock "ruined" castles he created at Hagley,

Wimpole Hall Wimpole Estate is a large estate containing Wimpole Hall, a country house located within the civil parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, England, about southwest of Cambridge. The house, begun in 1640, and its of parkland and farmland are owned ...

and

Ingestre Hall Ingestre Hall is a Grade II* 17th-century Jacobean mansion situated at Ingestre, near Stafford, Staffordshire, England. Formerly the seat of the Earls Talbot and then the Earls of Shrewsbury, the hall is now owned by Sandwell Metropolitan B ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

, though this last has since been demolished. Other places to which he contributed include

Farnborough Hall Farnborough Hall is a country house in Warwickshire, England near to the town of Banbury, (). Owned by the National Trust, but administered by the Holbech family; the house is a Grade I listed building. History Ambrose Holbech acquired the ...

, Wroxton Abbey, Upton House,

Sham Castle Sham Castle is a folly on Claverton Down overlooking the city of Bath, Somerset, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. It is a screen wall with a central pointed arch flanked by two 3-storey circular turrets, which extend sideways to a 2-s ...

, and

Siston Court Siston (pronounced "sizeton") is a small village in South Gloucestershire, England. It is east of Bristol at the confluence of the two sources of the Siston Brook, a tributary of the River Avon. The village consists of a number of cottages a ...

and Tudor Court,

Hanworth Park London Air Park, also known as Hanworth Air Park, was a grass airfield in the grounds of Hanworth Park House, operational 1917–1919 and 1929–1947. It was on the southeastern edge of Feltham, now part of the London Borough of Hounslow. In th ...

, the surviving part of a Royal hunting lodge used by Henry VIII.

Family

Miller married Susanna, daughter of Edward Trotman and they had six children: Fiennes, Charles, Susanna, Mary, Hester and Anna. Wimpole hall grounds lake and folly

Gallery of work

Farnborough_Hall_North.jpg,

, Warwickshire Warwick Shire Hall and County Court building.jpg, Shire Hall, Warwick Lacock Abbey, Lacock, Wiltshire - geograph.org.uk - 11408.jpg,

, Sanderson's Great Hall on left Croome Court07.jpg,

Croome Court Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown fo ...

Hagley Hall.jpg,

Ralph Allens Castle - geograph.org.uk - 1762356.jpg,

Ralph Allen Ralph Allen (1693 – 29 June 1764) was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, who was notable for his reforms to the British postal system. Allen was born in Cornwall but moved to Bath to work in the post office, becoming the postmaster at ...

's sham castle overlooking

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Pl ...

Notes

References

Sources

*William Hawkes, ''The Diaries of Sanderson Miller'' (Dugdale 2005)

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Sanderson British neoclassical architects English landscape and garden designers 1716 births 1780 deaths 18th-century English architects Architects from Warwickshire