The Architectural History of Longleat. 231 



on the building, which records that it was begun in 1580 and finished 

 in 1588. 



I will here give an extract from'Rritton's Architectural Antiquities, 

 published in 1809. Si^eakiug of Wollaton^ John Brittou says : — 

 " since writing the preceding pages, I have obtained the following 

 copy of an inscription from the church at Wollaton : and as this 

 brings forward the name of an Architect, hitherto unknown, or 

 scarcely noticed, and invalidates the claims of John Thorpe, to the 

 honour of having designed Wollaton- Hall, I presume it will be 

 deemed a curious document, by the Architectural Antiquary. ' Here 

 lieth y^ body of Mr. Robert Smithson, Genf^ Architector and 

 Survayor unto the most worthy House of Wollaton with diverse others 

 of great account. He lived in y^ Fayth of Christ 79 yeares, and 

 then departed this life the xv*** of October an'o d^ni 1614.' " From 

 this inscription, it appears that Smithson must have been born about 

 1535, and would be about 33 when he went to Longleat. Another 

 writer (in the Building News, 1870) states that the original drawings 

 of Wollaton are preserved and are signed by Smithson. 



I now come to the tower-like building, in the centre, at Wollaton. 

 It has, I understand, been suggested that this was an old tower 

 originally. If so, it was converted in the time of Elizabeth or 

 James the First. Yet it is in no keeping with the Elizabethan 

 work which surrounds it. It exhibits a reversion, in the windows, 

 towards a quasi-Gothic type, that is, they have a kind of tracery, 

 of circles only, and the building has turrets, corbelled out at the 

 angles, something like those which were common in Scotland. 

 Combined with this, there are some Elizabethan features, similar to 

 those in the rest of the house, and the balustrade, at the top, seems to 

 have been originally the same, though since altered to a Gothic type. 

 It is well-known that there is, in Sir John Soane's Museum, in 

 London, a book of plans and drawings by John Thorpe, an architect 

 of the time of Elizabeth and James the First, to which attention 

 appears to have been first called by Horace Walpole, in whose time 

 it was in the possession of the Earl of Warwick. It is obvious that 

 Thorpe was not the originator of all the designs which he represents. 

 There is a plan of Copt Hall, but no elevation, and the plan does 



