After becoming draughtsman of Sir Christopher Wren (until 1700) with whom Hawksmoor notibly worked on Winchester Palace, he then went on to work closely with Sir John Vanbrugh on reputable architectural works such as Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace. Vanbrugh came to work in architecture through literature and with Hawksmoor they developed proportional theories which surpassed influencing others of that period. Hawksmoor himself held a balanced, professional working relationship with his stone masons and workmen as well as Queen Anne, overseeing projects and even picking up designs where others had been laid off.
2.  The Queen’s Office of Works asked Hawksmoor to design six churches in the city of London as part of the 1711 Toleration Act. ‘Occasional Conformity’ as regard to the raise in hypocrisy among those in English parliamentary power allowed those to ‘subscribe’ in, or out of the church. Fifty churches were planned, only tweleve were built. One by James Gibbs, two by Thomas Archer and six by Nicolas Hawksmoor (a further two with John James).
3.  During this period of Monarch reformation, starvation and disease in England was pervading. Crop failures and raising rents set forth the first waves of emigration to America’s New England.

4.Hawksmoor’s logic to construction is demonstrated in his church designs, dominated by prominent, heavy, deep forms and most often stripped of external ornamentation. He was a man of his own number palette, his calculations in stacking forms, layering straight and circular areas of motif, reflect spheres of geometry. His solid judgment in design, typical of Roman medievalism, was an act of pre-brutalist permanence. Although during his working relationship with Vanbrough they worked loosely on Palladian themes, in his own work he often broke up the theory, avoiding the obvious craze by discretely placing pediments beyond layers, or raising arches into pediments themselves based on a late Roman motif, he frequently challenged embellishment. He also had taste for Michelangelo’s sunken window system and often chose for dense 1½ diameter intercolumnisation (Pycnostyle).

5.His churches are all planned around six intersecting axes based on straight lines and rectangles. ‘This means that their relation to the circular or oval centrally planned churches of the Renaissance and Baroque – and even to those on a Greek cross plan of four equal arms – is visibly limited and genetically indirect’.₂
6.  Hawksmoor also designed South Stoneham House (1708), a grade II listed manor in the city of Southampton, now owned by the university, however currently abandoned and considered derelict due to an additional seventeen-storey asbestos housing tower. The building is up for sale. The ponds at the rear of the building are mentioned in the Domesday book.

7.Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford Dr. John Fell asked Hawksmoor to design the Clarendon building (1715) for Oxford University, beside the Sheldonian building (Wren, 1669).₄|₅ Designed to house the Clarendon Press and the ‘Fell Types’, one wing of the building was called the Learned Side, the other wing was called the Bible Side.₆ John Fell employed Dutch type founders to work for the press which remained there until 1830. Today, the Press is located on Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford. An extension to the building was designed by John Fryman (1969) of the Architects Design Partnership.
8.  Much of what we have learnt about Hawksmoor pays tribute to Kerry Downes (1930–2019), former Professor in Art and Architectural History at the University of Reading. It is thanks to him (before his passing) that I came to appreciate the work of Architect Nicolas Hawksmoor.