Roger Pratt (architect)

The following year he inherited his father's property in Ryston, Norfolk, but opted to leave the country to avoid the English Civil War, which broke out in 1642.

Departing England in April 1643, he travelled in France, Italy, Flanders and Holland, studying architecture, and befriending the writer John Evelyn in Rome.

Although a less effective example of the planning and the organization of circulation that Pratt was so interested in, the grand two-story staircase and the use of central corridors on each floor meant that suites of apartments could be separated and prevented private rooms having to act as passageways through the house.

Most probably inspired by his travels, the house is a mix of Italian, French, Dutch and English architectural ideas and includes features such as the rooftop platform and cupola, dormered attics, half-sunk basement, astylar elevation, and symmetrically placed apartments.

Palladian details are evident in the windows and cornices, and the "double-pile" plan is derived from Jones' Queen's House in Greenwich (1614–1617).

The prominent chimneys and dormers, and the rusticated basement, are more French in inspiration, while the equal proportions of the storeys were an innovation, compared to the Palladian manner of emphasising a piano nobile, or principal floor.

Refining his ideas and correcting the problem Coleshill’s corridors caused with accidental contact between family, visitors and servants, a complication addressed by many seventeenth century architects, Pratt adapted his plans.

Clarendon represented the most developed form of Pratt's ideal, and was "among the first great classical houses to be built in London".

Along with three representatives of the City of London (Robert Hooke, Edward Jerman and Peter Mills), they were charged with surveying the damage, and promoting methods of rebuilding.