Alumni and guests are invited to join the Cambridge Society of Dorset for an online talk by Dr. John Davies on William Arnold, Architect, and Master Mason.

The gifted and creative Master Mason, William Arnold, was born in Somerset and is thought to have been responsible for about twenty houses in Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, including Montacute for Sir Edward Phelips, Cranborne Manor House for Robert Cecil and Wadham College, Oxford for the Somerset resident, Dorothy Wadham, between 1580 and 1637.  By way of introduction, John explains that Master Masons in the 16th century were the forerunners of the architects of today, though trained, initially, just as working masons and having little formal education. The names of most have been lost to history but their legacy remains in the buildings they created.  However, not only have all William Arnold’s buildings survived, but many are still occupied by descendants of the original owners. The talk covers the life of William Arnold by looking at his handiwork and the architecture of his buildings.

John Davies’s interest in architecture was kindled in West Kent where he grew up surrounded by wonderful country houses such as Hever Castle, Penshurst Place, Knole, and Ightham Mote. This passion was further fostered when he went to Cambridge to read Medicine in 1966, where he was absorbed by the varied architecture from medieval 14th-century buildings to the stark additions created in the 1960s.  He also met his future wife in Cambridge; her home was in Dorset and through her, he came to know the many wonderful country houses in the county that were built with the golden stone from Ham Hill. Tragically, his wife died just before he retired from thirty-four years of medical practice in Winchester, but he continues to live in his wife’s family home in West Dorset from where he has consolidated his interest in architecture by completing a research degree at the University of Buckingham under the supervision of Adrian Tinniswood, the acclaimed author of several books on the English Country House.  The subject of John Davies’s thesis was William Arnold.