The origin of architecture
Subtitle: with the rise and progress of the pointed arch, accompanied by nine lithographic drawings
By: by T. Stackhouse
Publisher: Printed and published by T. Inchbold
Published: 1831
Place of publication: Leeds
Language: eng
Notes: No copy of plate V has been seen (see Notes below).

Signature: 2:̲ A⁴ B1. [5 leaves, unsigned].

: This work is not recorded in any of the lists of Stackhouse's writings. No copy has been traced in the NUC or NSTC, at the Bodleian, Cambridge, Soane, Avery, CCA, Royal Academy or National Art Library, nor in the databases RLIN and OCLC. Although the work was formally published, by T. Inchbold of Leeds, it was probably printed in a small edition and received very limited circulation. The text is likely to be based on a lecture, and the plates may well represent the drawings originally used to illustrate it (see the Notes to No. 3146). It concerns Stackhouse's rather conservative theories of the origins of architecture. He rejects the common view in which 'rustic cottages have been formed, of trunks of trees and transverse beams; bearing such a striking resemblance to the finished colonnade ... as never could have entered into the mind of any one who had not seen such a structure' (p.[1]). Stackhouse looks first at the obelisks and pyramids of the Egyptians, and sees in the former a refinement of 'the unhewn pillars of the Patriarchs' and in the latter a natural progression from the 'turf clad tumulus' (p.[1]; he refers on the same page to his own 'work on the ancient British tumuli', proving that the present author is the same Thomas Stackhouse identified above). He then turns his attention to the colonnade, and sees this prefigured in the 'trilithic' structure of such simple temples as Stonehenge. Once the colonnade has been achieved 'quadrangles may be formed connected with each other, and made to cover a vast extent of ground' (p.3), and from this basis grand buildings can naturally be constructed. Stackhouse brings a theologian's eye to the subject, and equates the Temple of Solomon and other Christian sites with refined architecture, and pagan temples in Britain, Egypt and India with more debased forms. The growth of Saxon and Norman architecture in Britain, which he discusses in the penultimate section, was achieved only after a conversion to Christianity, at which time the invaders regretted having destroyed the earlier 'churches of the Britains, and even some of the temples, and other buildings of the Romans' (p.5). The pointed arch is discussed last, and here Stackhouse makes use of Rickman's An attempt to discriminate the styles of English architecture ([1817]; No. 2764) in classifying and tracing its history.! %tThe work was issued in plain paper wrappers, and the BAL copy retains a section of the upper wrapper, with a hand-written cover label reading 'Stackhouse on the origin of Architecture 1831'. Plate V is missing from this copy and, since no other has been traced, this plate has not been seen.

The columns of text are divided by double rules.

C20th red buckram, with the remains of the publisher's front wrapper bound in. Imperfect: wanting plate V, and with plate [VIII] misbound in its place. With some pencil annotations throughout.