author
Edmund Sharpe
1809–1877
Best known as a Victorian architect, he was also a lively writer on medieval buildings whose books helped ordinary readers see patterns and periods in English architecture more clearly.
1 Audiobook
The Seven Periods of English Architecture Defined and Illustrated
by Edmund Sharpe
About the author
Edmund Sharpe was an English architect, architectural historian, railway engineer, and sanitary reformer, born in Knutsford, Cheshire, on October 31, 1809, and dead in Milan on May 8, 1877. He is especially remembered for designing churches and for his deep interest in medieval architecture, a subject he explored both in buildings and in print.
After studying at St John's College, Cambridge, and traveling in Germany and southern France, he built a practice in Lancaster. Alongside his architectural work, he wrote books that explained and compared historic styles, including Architectural Parallels and later studies of English architecture and mouldings. His writing helped turn close-looking at church design into something systematic and accessible.
Sharpe's career did not stay within one field. He later worked as a railway engineer and was involved in public health reform, showing the same practical energy that marked his architectural career. That mix of designer, researcher, and civic-minded problem-solver makes him an especially interesting figure for readers drawn to the world of 19th-century Britain.