MILLER, Sanderson
(b. 1716, Radway, d. 1780, Radway)

Artificial castle ruin

c. 1747
Photo
Hagley Hall, Worcestershire

Until the mid-eighteenth century, British architecture was wholly dominated by Palladianism. However, the supremacy of the Palladianism was on the wane in the second half of the century. The roughly simultaneous "discoveries" of both Greek Antiquity and the Middle Ages (the Gothic architecture) around the mid-eighteenth century brought with them a a basic, revolutionary change in historical perceptions of the time. When British architects and patrons now looked for a model for the design of their buildings, there was no longer a universally valid standard such as there had been in Palladianism up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Now there were different styles of equal status from which one could choose.

In 1747, an artificial castle ruin was built on a hill in Hagley Hall by the founding father of Gothic Revival, Sanderson Miller. It was used to house the park keeper.