Page 10 - Oundle Life Issue 7 May 2021

Unpicking the evolution of a building can be a difficult task. Take Cobthorne for example; a mighty house, set back from West Street with a gravel courtyard to the front and the longest and widest of private gardens to the rear. At first glance this magnificent house is similar in style to Thorpe Hall, located to the
west of Peterborough and built just
a few years before Cobthorne. This
begs the question: Were these two great
houses built by the same team?
1658 – although others have suggested dates of 1656 and 1700 for its origin.
Pevsner also pondered the similarities between Mills’ Thorpe Hall (top right) and Cobthorne but he went on to suggest that Thorney Abbey House (c. 1660) (top left) and
They were certainly built for men
who knew each other; both were Parliamentarian ‘big wigs’ during
the Commonwealth period in the
mid-C17. According to Summerson’s ‘Architecture in Britain 1530-1830’ Thorpe Hall was designed by Peter Mills and completed in 1656. Mills was a City of London Bricklayer and a pupil of renowned classical architect Inigo Jones. Cobthorne doesn’t get a mention by Summerson but Pevsner described it as ‘the most exciting House in the town’ dating it at
Pevsner described it as ‘the most exciting House in the town’
Peterborough Guildhall (c. 1671), both have more in common with Cobthorne. But why? Sadly, Pevsner doesn’t say but H. M. Colvin’s ‘Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840’
states that Thorney Abbey House and Peterborough Guildhall were built by local Mason John Lovin. Could Lovin have built Cobthorne too?
Stylistically all of the above present many characteristics of ‘Artisan Mannerism’
– an English architecture created by masons
(rather than architects) in the period c. 1615-c.1675, and based on Italian Mannerist pattern-books. Such craftsmen were not trained in the theory and vocabulary of the Classical language of architecture, so their
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