The American Architect
Vol. CXV
Wednesday, April 9, 1919
Number 2259
The Sparrow House and the Rabbit House
By Joy Wheeler Dow
HAPPILY, there is going to be no shortage in our supply of architectural inspiration,
even if the Germans do destroy some mediaeal churches, and devastate parts of Flanders and France;—but every subject is not, at once, so remarkable, so “busy” and so beautiful as is the ancient Sparrow house in the Butter Market at Ipswich, England, erected in A.D. 1567. For a chance acquaintance with it, as far back as 1893, I am indebted to the interest taken in me by a friend who had made a collection of Wolseyana, i. e., literature and prints relating to Henry VIII’s great cardinal—the erstwhile butcher-boy of Ipswich.
There were comparatively few architectural photographs published in 1893, and none of the universal post-cards. There were no half-tones of the Sparrow house with its marvelously pargeted facades, its tremendous eaves and frowning overhang, published in books, as there are today; and therefore it was little known except to people whose affairs or love of discovery carried them into out-of-the-way corners of England like Suffolk. From a steel engraving which I borrowed, representing the Sparrow house as it appeared in the time of William Sparrow, Esquire, and before it was turned into an emporium and sadly dismantled within, I made a
Copyright, 1919, The Architectural & Building Press (Inc.)
THE SPARROW HOUSE IN THE STREET VIEW, IPSWICH, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND
Vol. CXV
Wednesday, April 9, 1919
Number 2259
The Sparrow House and the Rabbit House
By Joy Wheeler Dow
HAPPILY, there is going to be no shortage in our supply of architectural inspiration,
even if the Germans do destroy some mediaeal churches, and devastate parts of Flanders and France;—but every subject is not, at once, so remarkable, so “busy” and so beautiful as is the ancient Sparrow house in the Butter Market at Ipswich, England, erected in A.D. 1567. For a chance acquaintance with it, as far back as 1893, I am indebted to the interest taken in me by a friend who had made a collection of Wolseyana, i. e., literature and prints relating to Henry VIII’s great cardinal—the erstwhile butcher-boy of Ipswich.
There were comparatively few architectural photographs published in 1893, and none of the universal post-cards. There were no half-tones of the Sparrow house with its marvelously pargeted facades, its tremendous eaves and frowning overhang, published in books, as there are today; and therefore it was little known except to people whose affairs or love of discovery carried them into out-of-the-way corners of England like Suffolk. From a steel engraving which I borrowed, representing the Sparrow house as it appeared in the time of William Sparrow, Esquire, and before it was turned into an emporium and sadly dismantled within, I made a
Copyright, 1919, The Architectural & Building Press (Inc.)
THE SPARROW HOUSE IN THE STREET VIEW, IPSWICH, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND