Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/326

 :: (now destroyed), finished in 1568 for Sir Richard Sackville, who afterwards as Earl of Dorset carried out alterations and additions to Knole, Kent, 1603–1605, where the gables and the treatment of the south side of the inner court are in Thorpe's manner.
 * 1) Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, 1595. The more remarkable buildings in the same neighbourhood, the triangular lodge at Rushton, Rothwell Market-house, and Lyveden New Building, which have also been attributed to Thorpe, were probably designed by Sir Thomas Tresham.
 * 2) Audley End, Essex, 1610 to 1616 (greatly altered in 1700, 1721, and 1749), where he is said to have worked in conjunction with  [q. v.], probably as his subordinate.

The more important houses which have been attributed to Thorpe on insufficient grounds are the following: Longleat, Wiltshire, the design of which is also attributed to Sir John Thynne, for whom it was built, 1567–78; Theobalds, Hertfordshire, for Lord Burghley, 1571; Burleigh House, Northamptonshire, for the same, 1575–80; and Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, begun in 1580 for Sir Francis Willoughby, of which Robert Smithson (d. 1614) is expressly named as the architect and surveyor in his epitaph in Wollaton church.

Thorpe was mentioned by [q. v.] in his ‘Gentleman's Exercise’ (1634, p. 12) as his especial friend, an excellent geometrician and surveyor, and ‘not onely learned and ingenuous himselfe, but a furtherer and favorer of all excellency whatsoever, of whom our age findeth too few.’ Of his career no less than of his life and character our knowledge remains very imperfect. It is not even certain that he was an architect at all, in the modern sense of the word. He was a builder, surveyor, and skilled architectural draughtsman, but there is no positive evidence that he designed any of the buildings attributed to him. If he did so, as may fairly be assumed in the case of Kirby and Holland House, he remained faithful to the tradition of the English gabled house, strictly planned and sober in detail of ornament, without indulging in the fantastic extravagance to which some of the Elizabethan builders were led by copying German models. He represents the period of transition between the mediæval builder designers and the academic architects of the seventeenth century.

Owing to the presence of a plan of Old Somerset House, Strand, in the Soane volume, John Thorpe has been confused with ‘that other ignis fatuus of archaeology,’ John of Padua [see ].



THORPE, JOHN (1682–1750), antiquary, eldest son of John Thorpe and his wife Ann, sister and coheiress of Oliver Combridge of Newhouse, Kent, was born at his father's house of Newhouse in the parish of Penshurst, Kent, on 12 March 1681–2. His family was a branch of the Thorpes of Chertsey, Surrey, and his father had a good estate in the parishes of Penshurst, Lamberhurst, Tonbridge, and Chiddingstone. He was sent to the grammar school at Westerham, of which the master was [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Chichester, and on 14 April 1698 matriculated from University College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. at Michaelmas 1701, M.A. on 27 June 1704, M.B. on 16 May 1707, and M.D. in July 1710. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 30 Nov. 1705, and at that time lived in Ormond Street, London, near his friend, [q. v.], the physician. He assisted Sir [q. v.] in the publication of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ and published in them on 24 July 1704 a letter to Sloane on worms in the heads of sheep. In 1715 he settled as a physician in Rochester, where he lived within the precincts of the cathedral, and attained considerable practice, at the same time devoting himself to the study of the architecture, antiquities, and history of the county of Kent. His collections were published in 1769 by his son, in folio, under the title of ‘Registrum Roffense.’ The book contains numerous charters, all given in full, monumental inscriptions, and other historical materials. An index to the monumental inscriptions appeared in 1885 (ed. F. A. Crisp).

Thorpe was generous in his historical assistance to (1678–1735) [q. v.], [q. v.], and other scholars, and gave medical aid to many poor in his district. He edited the ‘Itinera Alpina Tria’ of Scheuchzer, and published a sheet containing a list of lands contributory to