Sharpe, Paley and Austin

The firm's commissions were mainly for buildings in Lancashire and what is now Cumbria, but also in Yorkshire, Cheshire, the West Midlands, North Wales, and Hertfordshire.

The practice used a greater variety of styles when working on country houses, including Elizabethan and Jacobean elements as well as Gothic.

[3] He had received no formal training in architecture, gaining his knowledge from studying and drawing buildings during a tour of Germany and France between 1832 and 1835.

His most important architectural work in the domestic field was his remodelling of Capernwray Hall (1844–48),[17] and in Knutsford he designed a house for the governor of the gaol (1844).

[25] The first secular work undertaken during this period was the remodelling of Hornby Castle between 1847 and 1852,[26] including its "expansive" symmetrical frontage.

The largest deposits of iron ore had been discovered in about 1850 by Henry Schneider in land owned by William Cavendish, who was at that time the 2nd Earl of Burlington, and who also played a part in the industry.

[35] In addition Paley designed a country house, Abbot's Wood (1857–59) for Ramsden, a large and complex building with Gothic and Tudor features.

Although the High Victorian style was becoming popular elsewhere, it played little part in Paley's designs, other than more elaborate decorative features, such as the embellishment of the principal rafters at Quernmore.

[42] During this decade, before the arrival of Austin, he designed churches for the industrial towns of Lancashire, one of the largest being St James, Poolstock (1863–66).

[46] Secular commissions during this period included the restoration of the medieval tower at Dalton Castle (1859), and buildings for the Lancaster Carriage and Wagon Works (1864–65).

Hubert Austin had worked for three years in the office of George Gilbert Scott, and before he joined the Lancaster practice had designed Christ Church, Ashford, Kent (1855–56).

[59] In Astley Bridge, Bolton, they built two churches, which are described by Hartwell et al. as being "remarkable";[60] these were All Souls (1878–81), which is now redundant, and St Saviour (1882–85), which was demolished in 1975.

[65] For the Furness Railway they designed stations, goods sheds, workers' cottages and, probably, the circular water tower at Seascale.

[71] In 1886 Edward Paley's son, Henry (who was and is usually known as Harry), became a partner in the practice, which continued to work much as before, with ecclesiastical and secular commissions.

[77] Brandwood et al. say that it is a "Perpendicular building entirely characteristic of the firm"[78] but, being built in Runcorn sandstone from Cheshire, Pevsner considered that it was "completely alien in Herts".

[79] This period also saw the finest church design to be executed by the practice, St George, Heaviley in Stockport (1892–97), which is considered to be the solely the work of Austin.

[80] Brandwood et al. describe it as "the largest, grandest and most expensive church the practice ever built and is the masterwork of Hubert Austin".

It is not clear how much Edward Paley had been contributing to the work of the practice in his later years; it is likely that by then Austin had been "the chief creative force".

The practice continued to carry out work for the Lancaster and Skerton Cooperative Society, designing numerous shops in the local area.

[86] Hubert Austin's eldest son, Bernard Tate (1873–1955), studied architecture in the firm, but had a disagreement with his father and left in 1902 to work as an architect for Lever Brothers.

[111] During the 1850s Paley introduced what was to become one of his favourite features, the traceried oculus window, in Christ Church, Bacup (1854) and St James, Wrightington (1857).

In church architecture, Paley had already started to introduce Perpendicular features in some of his designs, and this trend was to continue and increase after the arrival of Austin.

[40] Early examples of what the authors consider to be part of what they call "the Perpendicular revival in the North"[113] are the rebuilding of the bodies of St Mary, Leigh, (1871–73) and All Saints, Daresbury (1870–72).

[123] What became a "favourite feature" for Austin and Paley were carved inscriptions, usually black, sometimes in Latin and sometimes in English; examples can be in St John, Crawshawbooth, and Christ Church, Waterloo (both in Merseyside).

[128] Sharpe's work came to the notice of the Bishop of Chester, Rt Rev John Bird Sumner, whose diocese at that time included Lancashire as well as Cheshire.

[13] The relationship the practice developed with the major entrepreneurs in Barrow-in-Furness, James Ramsden, and Henry Schneider, resulted in the many commissions for buildings in the town and for the Furness Railway.

In addition to him being an entrepreneur, establishing a practice that lasted for more than 100 years, he was a railway engineer and developer, a public figure who pioneered sanitary reform in Lancaster.

[132] Edward Paley also took an active part in the civil life of Lancaster, while Hubert Austin had a more retiring personality, concentrating more on his work in the practice and with his family.

He commented on English architecture and architects, and in his book Die neuere kirchliche Baukunst in England (1901) he placed the works of Austin and Paley on a par with Bodley and Garner, James Brooks, J. D. Sedding, Norman Shaw, and George Gilbert Scott, junior.

[137][i] Referring to the late Victorian churches designed by the practice, Pevsner stated that they were "of the highest European standard of their years".