Carter, John

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Carter, John (1748–1817). English pioneer of scholarly studies of Gothic. A fine draughts-man, he contributed an imaginative range of designs for The Builder's Magazine (1774–86) and drawings of medieval antiquities for several publications, including Gough's Sepulchral Monuments (1786). His The Ancient Architecture of England (1795–1814) was his major work, which attempted to set out the ‘Orders of Architecture during the British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman Æras’. He had a reputation in his lifetime as an antiquarian: his monument to Lord Frederick Campbell (1729–1816) in Sundridge Church, Kent (c.1810), is an early example of Gothic Revival based on archaeologically correct precedents. He designed Lea Castle, Worcs. (1809–16—demolished) in a castellated sub-Romanesque style.

Bibliography

Colvin (1995);
Crook (1995);
Eastlake (1970);
Jervis (1984);
ODNB (2004)

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