William Weir (20 September 1865 – 8 July 1950) was a Scottish

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

who specialised in the repair of ancient structures. Weir left school at sixteen to become a pupil of Edinburgh architect Archibald MacPherson, while also attending the Edinburgh School of Art. He moved to London at nineteen to work in the studios of first

Leonard Stokes Leonard Aloysius Scott Stokes (1858 – 25 December 1925) was an English architect and artist. Leonard Stokes was born in Southport (then in Lancashire) in 1858 the son of Scott Nasmyth Stokes, a school inspector. He trained in London and tra ...

and then Arts and Crafts pioneer

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

. Weir set up independent practice in 1900 and was admitted as a Licentiate member of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

in 1911. William Weir is best known for overseeing repairs to historic buildings including

Dartington Hall Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...

, Tattershall Castle and

Bodiam Castle Bodiam Castle () is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II, ostensibly to defend the area ...

.Burman, Peter
Conservation Philosophy in Practice – a Scottish Perspective
/ref> His work spanned more than forty British counties and more than 300 buildings, including scores of small town and country churches. He collaborated with many of the leading figures of the Arts and Crafts Movement such as

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

Ernest Gimson Ernest William Gimson (; 21 December 1864 – 12 August 1919) was an English furniture designer and architect. Gimson was described by the art critic Nikolaus Pevsner as "the greatest of the English architect-designers". Today his reputati ...

Norman Jewson Norman Jewson (12 February 1884 – 28 August 1975) was an English architect-craftsman of the Arts and Crafts movement, who practised in the Cotswolds. He was a distinguished, younger member of the group which had settled in Sapperton, Glouce ...

and

Detmar Blow Detmar Jellings Blow (24 November 1867 – 7 February 1939) was a British architect of the early 20th century, who designed principally in the arts and crafts style. His clients belonged chiefly to the British aristocracy, and later he became es ...

. Weir's work at Dartington Hall, near

Totnes Totnes ( or ) is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England, within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is about west of Paignton, about west-southwest of Torquay and abo ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

consisted of the restoration of seriously depressed manor house buildings of about 1388. The buildings consist of the three storey west range of the courtyard, where he removed external stairways to the upper floors and internalised all the vertical circulation. He re-planned the accommodation internally, including installing plumbing, heating and electrical wiring. The east range is similar in arrangement but may not have had external staircases. Weir put an oak hammerbeam roof on the Great Hall and renovated doors and windows. The profile of the beams was gleaned from the shadowy remains on the plaster walls of the exact dimensions of the roof trusses. The spacing of trusses was established by the window spacing below. The kitchens were cleaned up and provided with new hammerbeam roofs clad externally in local slate. From his mid-thirties Weir was a committed campaigner for the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in ...

, founded by Webb and Morris to promote the repair (rather than restoration) of ancient buildings. An SPAB annual report in the 1920s said Weir had "perhaps been more closely connected with

he society He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

than any other individual architect."

References

;Footnotes ;Bibliography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Weir, William 1865 births 1950 deaths Scottish architects Arts and Crafts movement artists Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art