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28-539: Henry Peto was in partnership with another building contractor, John Miles, as Miles and Peto. Thomas Grissell was an apprentice in their business and after Miles' death in 1825, Grissell was invited into the partnership. Morton Peto had also been an apprentice but his apprenticeship ended shortly before his uncle's death. Henry Peto was considered strict with his nephews. Others besides the nephew were objects of Henry Peto's kindness. One day Henry Peto asked William Woods (an old waiter at his favourite lunch-time dining room,

56-460: A number of occasions. Today the Custom House is used by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs . The address is 20 Lower Thames Street , EC3 . Custom House is neighboured on the waterfront by Sugar Quay to the east and Old Billingsgate Market to the west. Until 1814, the Custom House stood at Sugar Quay in the parish of All Hallows Barking, immediately to the east of the present site. The site

84-613: A number of other houses in central London. Ripley was active in promoting the scheme to build Westminster Bridge and was also involved in Richard Holt's failed attempt to develop artificial stone. Nevertheless, he seems to have been an eager investor, being one of the few to make a fortune out of the South Sea Bubble . Despite the dull and sometimes ill-proportioned character of his public buildings, his pragmatic approach and undoubted skill at managing large projects ensured that Greenwich

112-424: A site immediately to the west of Ripleys's building, where Bear Quay, Crown Quay, Dice Quay, and Horner's Quay had once been. Laing had held the position of surveyor to HM Customs since 1810. On 12 February 1814, the old building was destroyed by fire, resulting in the explosion of gunpowder and spirits. As a result, papers were retrieved from as far as Hackney Marshes . The northern front of Laing's new building

140-419: A small balance. There was also a continuing lawsuit regarding the Custom House. In his will he left his building business to his two nephews, Thomas Grissell and Morton Peto. The will was contested by Henry's widow on the grounds of undue influence by the two nephews as they and the solicitor were the only people present when Henry signed the will just a few days before his death. Henry's widow eventually lost in

168-530: The Custom House in the City of London. The original estimate had been for £209,000 but Miles and Peto won the contract by giving the lowest tender at £165,000. John Miles died in the early stages of construction, leaving Peto to deal with the difficulties. To cut costs Peto dramatically reduced the specification of the work he undertook with the outcome that part of the building collapsed. The ensuing investigation found

196-494: The 1st Lord Walpole and was chiefly responsible for converting a formal park into a naturalised landscape. Until 1731 he was in charge of the major alterations at Raynham for the Townshend family. Ripley was also involved in various speculative adventures, mainly in central London. In 1726 he was the original lessee of the west side of Grosvenor Square , and although his contribution there was limited to 16 Grosvenor Street he built

224-468: The Blitz , the east wing of the building was destroyed. In the early 1960s the wing was rebuilt in contemporary style behind a recreated historic façade. In 2001, HMRC sold a 175 year lease on the building to Mapeley as part of a wider sale of HMRC assets. The sale included a 20 year agreement for HMRC to continue occupying the building, which expired in 2021. The government announced the proposed closure of

252-460: The HMRC office in 2018. In 2020 proposals were published for the building's conversion into a hotel, but planning permission was refused in 2022. In 2023, the long lease on the building was purchased from Mapeley by Jastar Capital, who have launched consultations for a revised luxury hotel conversion. Thomas Ripley (architect) Thomas Ripley (1682 Yorkshire – 10 February 1758, London )

280-757: The King's Works , largely to the influence of Walpole. Walpole also engineered an additional appointment as Surveyor of Greenwich Hospital which was completed by him. Buildings for the Office of Works included the Custom House (1718) and the Admiralty (1723–6), known as the Ripley Building, in London as well as the Queen Mary Block and chapel at Greenwich from 1729–1750. In 1739 he was collaborating with William Kent on designs for

308-590: The King's Works im Zeitalter des Neopalladianismus. Berlin, New York, Paris 2000. Axel Klausmeier: Having a great quantity of planting amongst it. Wolterton Hall in Norfolk - Zu einem frühen Landschaftspark in Norfolk. In: Die Gartenkunst, Heft 1/2000. pp. 131–153. Axel Klausmeier: Houghton, Raynham and Wolterton Hall: On Thomas Ripley's major works in Norfolk - Architectural success amidst political tensions. In: Norfolk Archaeology, Norwich 2001. pp. 607–630. Axel Klausmeier: Wolterton Hall in Norfolk by Thomas Ripley: On

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336-603: The New Houses of Parliament and between 1750–54 he made a great number of changes to Kent's designs for the Horse Guards . His appointment as executant architect at Houghton was the first of a number of Walpole commissions. Here his responsibility for the applied portico and the opening of the colonnades to the garden on the west side demonstrated that he was more than a project manager. From 1725 he designed and built Wolterton Hall in Norfolk for Sir Robert's younger brother Horatio,

364-645: The Rainbow Chophouse in Fleet Street) whether he would like to keep a hotel. Woods replied there was nothing he would like better, but that he could not afford it. Henry Peto installed Woods at a hotel in Furnival's Inn which he had just built and which he owned. Woods Hotel was so successful that William Woods retired allegedly with a pension savings of £180,000. This expected exaggerated. (equivalent to £21,250,000 in 2023). Miles and Peto had tendered to rebuild

392-536: The courts and the two nephews, now in partnership as Grissell and Peto were free to begin building up the business. Custom House, City of London The Custom House , on the north bank of the Thames in the City of London , is a building which was formerly used for the collection of customs duties . A custom house has been present in the area since the 14th century, and a building on its current site has been rebuilt on

420-451: The customs. In 1825, the timber pilings which served as foundations for the custom house gave way, leading to a partial collapse of the building. On investigation, it soon became clear that the building contractors Miles and Peto had grossly underestimated the cost of the work and had started to cut corners. The foundations were totally inadequate, even though the ground was known to be unstable. Mile and Peto had used beechwood piles in

448-522: The foundations rather than the oak that had been specified to counter the alternate damp and dry, and where the original plans had required nine piles under the twelve piers supporting the Long Room, they had only provided four under some and three under others - with only two piles under two of the piers. The piles were also found to be too narrow and so crooked they were impossible to drive properly. Further investigation showed: The poor quality of some of

476-538: The freehold passing through various hands. Its replacement was erected under the direction of William Paulet , Marquess of Winchester, the Lord High Treasurer. A print from 1663 shows it as a three-storey building, with octagonal staircase towers. This structure was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The post-fire replacement was on a rather larger scale, to the designs of Christopher Wren . The original estimate

504-512: The new building, however, had the same plan as Wren's, and may have re-used its foundations, but was of three, rather than two storeys. With the growth of trade, the opening of the docks, and the increases in duties during the Napoleonic wars, larger premises became necessary in the early nineteenth century. To meet this need, a new building to the designs of David Laing was begun in October 1813, on

532-644: The public scorn of Alexander Pope . His works include Houghton Hall for Sir Robert Walpole , which was first designed by the Palladian architects Colen Campbell and William Kent . These designs were greatly altered by Ripley. His appointment in 1715 as Labourer in Trust at the Savoy marked the beginning of his continuous rise through the Office of the King's works. In 1721 he succeeded Grinling Gibbons as "Master Carpenter" and in 1726 he succeeded Vanbrugh as Comptroller of

560-457: The royal arms by figures of Ocean and Commerce. The riverfront was 488   feet 10 + 1 ⁄ 2   inches long, and the building cost £255,000. As originally built, the interior contained warehouses, cellars, about 170 offices, and a "Long room", measuring, 190 by 66 feet. On the ground floor was the "Queen's warehouse", with a rib-vaulted ceiling. The cellars in the basement were fireproof and used to store wine and spirits seized by

588-693: The true extent of the poor workmanship, prompting questions in Parliament in 1825. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared the most scandalous frauds had been practiced . Peto was censured for neglect and poor workmanship that a good builder would carefully have avoided . The stress of the Custom House contract led to the death of Henry Peto on 15 September 1830. Although he left a considerable estate, with income of about £12,000 per annum, there were mortgages of between £7,000 and £8,000 per annum and some annuities (i.e. pensions) of about £3,000 per annum, leaving only

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616-529: The workmanship prompted questions in Parliament in 1825 with the Chancellor of the Exchequer declaring the most scandalous frauds had been practised . Miles and Peto were censured for neglect and poor workmanship that a good builder would carefully have avoided . The central section was rebuilt on new foundations, with Ionic columns, to Robert Smirke ’s design, at the cost of £180,000. Sculptural elements were by William Grinsell Nicholl and cost £80. During

644-506: Was an English architect . He first kept a coffee house in Wood Street, off Cheapside , London and in 1705 was admitted to the Carpenter's Company. An ex-carpenter, he rose by degrees to become an architect and Surveyor in the royal Office of Works . He was influenced by the Palladian style, but never lost his provincial manner, which earned the private derision of Sir John Vanbrugh and

672-622: Was buried in Hampton, but no memorial survives. A portrait by Joseph Highmore is in the National Portrait Gallery and his Mastership of the Carpenter's Company (1742–3) is commemorated by a plaque at the Guildhall, London . One of his sons moved into a house he had designed on Streatham Common now called Ripley House, at 10 Streatham Common South. de:Axel Klausmeier : Thomas Ripley, Architekt. Fallstudie einer Karriere im Royal Office of

700-683: Was completed and fulfilled its function. Ripley always retained a craftsman's concern for practicality. At his masterpiece at Wolterton this resulted in a building of controlled austerity which demonstrated how convenience and dignity could be achieved through subtle planning. Wolterton's ground plan anticipates those of many villas of the 1750s. On 17 November 1737 his first wife died and on 22 April 1742 he married Miss Bucknall of Hampton , Middlesex , an heiress said to be worth £40,000. Ripley died at his house in Old Scotland Yard on 10 February 1758, aged 75, leaving three sons and four daughters. He

728-460: Was for £6,000, but the eventual cost was more than £10,000. The new building was short-lived: in January 1715 a fire, which began in a nearby house, damaged it beyond repair, and a new, larger structure was built to the designs of Thomas Ripley , "Master-Carpenter" to the board of Customs. This necessitated the acquisition of ground to the north, fronting onto Thames Street, and the east. The main body of

756-508: Was long known as "Wool Quay", and, from the medieval period, a custom house was necessary there to levy the duty payable on exported wool. Such a building is recorded as early as 1377. The quay and the buildings on it were privately owned. Around 1380, one John Churchman built a custom house there to collect dues for the City of London, and in 1382 the Crown came to an agreement to use its facilities. Churchman's custom house remained in use until 1559,

784-462: Was plain, but the south front towards the river had wings with Ionic colonnades and a projecting centre section. The attic storey of the latter was decorated with terracotta figures in bas-relief by John Charles Felix Rossi and J. G. Bubb representing the arts and sciences, commerce and industry, and inhabitants of various countries of the world. A clock dial, nine feet in diameter, was supported by colossal figures symbolising Industry and Plenty, and

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