Thomas Hardwick

In 1769, aged 17, he enrolled at the new Royal Academy Schools, where he studied architecture under Sir William Chambers, for whom he later worked during the construction of Somerset House.

In his early twenties Hardwick travelled to Europe at his own expense, visiting Paris and Lyon, before heading for Italy accompanied by artist Thomas Jones (1742–1803).

He lived in Naples and then Rome for two years from 1776, filling his notebooks with sketches and measured drawings and gaining a grounding in classical architecture which was to influence his own neo-classical style.

It was a basically rectangular building, with two small wings placed diagonally at the liturgical east, and was intended to have an Ionic portico surmounted by a group of figures and a cupola.

Hardwick altered the design to create a suitably grand facade, with a Corinthian portico six columns wide, based on that of the Pantheon in Rome, and a steeple, its top stage in the form of a miniature temple, surrounded by eight caryatids.

An octagonal vaulted interior had been constructed within the church's medieval walls by George Dance the Younger using timber, but had succumbed to dry rot.

During the young artist's training Turner made a drawing of Hardwick's design of St Mary the Virgin, Wanstead and later sold some of his early works to his popular tutor.