Robert Stickells
Robert Stickells (died 1620) was an English architect and clerk of works.
Career[edit]
Stickells was first recorded working to clear obstacles from the harbour at Dover. In 1591 he supervised the panelling of Grocer's Hall in London.[1] He became clerk of works at Richmond Palace.[2] In 1597 Stickells made some memoranda and sketches referring to the contrast between ideas of Vitruvius and Gothic architecture, antique and the modern.[3] He is thought to have been involved in the construction of Lyveden New Bield from 1604, and made a drawing for the lantern roof.[4]
James VI and I began building a new Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace in 1607, probably designed by Robert Stickells.[5][6] A model for the roof was made by a Scottish designer, James Acheson.[7] William Portington was the carpenter, and Peter Street made a special augur to hollow out the columns.[8] King James visited the construction site in September 1607 and was displeased with the placing of pillars which obscured the windows. The building was used for court masques but burnt down in 1619.[9]
Stickells supervised masons working for Anna of Denmark at Oatlands Palace in 1617, interpreting the designs of Inigo Jones for walls and an external gate by "setting out the works for masons".[10]
Stickells made a will before his death in 1620, as a mason resident in Southwark St Olave.[11]
References[edit]
- ^ John Summerson, 'Three Elizabethan Architects', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 40 (1957), 216.
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 3 (London: HMSO, 1963), 413.
- ^ John Orrell, The Quest for Shakespeare's Globe (Cambridge, 1983), 112, 117, 139.
- ^ Mark Girouard, Robert Smythson (Yale, 1983), 10.
- ^ Simon Thurley, Palaces of the Revolution, Life, Death & Art at the Stuart Court (William Collins, 2021), pp. 91-3.
- ^ Simon Thurley, Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History (London: HRP, 1999), 79–80.
- ^ Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), p. 302.
- ^ John Orrell, 'Architecture of the Fortune Playhouse', Shakespeare Survey, 47 (Cambridge, 1992), 17.
- ^ Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624 (Rutgers UP, 1972), p. 99.
- ^ Howard Colvin, History of the King's Works, 4 (London: HMSO, 1982), 214: Herbert Horne, "Life of Inigo Jones, II", Hobby Horse, 7:2 (1893), 73.
- ^ John Summerson, 'Three Elizabethan Architects', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 40 (1957), 202–28.