[15] Although he never went beyond Turkey, the art and architecture of the East, both Near and Far, had a significant impact on him;[16] his fascination with Moorish design found ultimate expression in the Arab Room at Cardiff Castle, and his study of Japanese techniques influenced his later metalwork.

[20] His early architectural career produced nothing of major note, although he won prestigious commissions, which remained unbuilt, for Lille Cathedral,[21] the Crimea Memorial Church[22] and the Bombay School of Art.

[23] His failed entry for the Law Courts in the Strand,[24] if successful, would have given London its own Carcassonne, the plans being described by the architectural writers Dixon and Muthesius as "a recreation of a thirteenth-century dream world [with] a skyline of great inventiveness.

[35] The listed status of the Maison Dieu was reclassified as Grade I in 2017 and Dover District Council, the building's owner, is seeking grant funding to enable a restoration, focussing on Burges's work.

"[56] Through his ability, by the careful leadership of his team, by total artistic control, and by vastly exceeding the intended budget of £15,000,[45] Burges produced a building that in size is little more than a large parish church but in impression is described in Lawrence and Wilson's study as "a cathedral becoming such a city and one which posterity may regard as a monument to the Almighty's praise.

His main sculptor was Thomas Nicholls who started with Burges at Cork, completing hundreds of figures for Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, worked with him on his two major churches in Yorkshire, and undertook all of the original carving for the Animal Wall at Cardiff.

[62] William Gualbert Saunders joined the Buckingham Street team in 1865 and worked with Burges on the development of the design and techniques of stained-glass manufacture, producing much of the best glass for Saint Fin Barre's.

[76] The architectural writer Michael Hall considers Burges's rebuilding of Cardiff Castle and the complete reconstruction of the ruin of Castell Coch, north of the city, as representing his highest achievements.

It rises two storeys high and has an internal balcony that, through an unbroken band of windows, gives views to Cardiff docks, one source of Bute's wealth, the Bristol Channel, and the Welsh hills and valleys.

The decoration of these large rooms is less successful than in the smaller chambers; much was completed after Burges's death and Girouard considers that the muralist, Lonsdale, "was required to cover areas rather greater than his talents deserved.

Illustrated in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig,[90] the staircase was long thought never to have been built but recent research has shown that it was constructed, only to be torn out in the 1930s,[79] reputedly after the third Marchioness had "once slipped on its polished surface.

[102] Severely damaged during Welsh rebellions in the early fourteenth century,[104] Castell Coch fell into disuse and by the Tudor period, the antiquary John Leland described it as "all in ruin no big thing but high.

[119] McLees views it as "one of the greatest Victorian triumphs of architectural composition",[119] whilst Crook writes of Burges "recreating from a heap of rubble a fairy-tale castle which seems almost to have materialised from the margins of a medieval manuscript.

Drawing on his rare knowledge of medieval techniques and working with his meticulous attention to detail, Burges created a chapel that Crook describes as "almost unique amongst High Victorian ecclesiastical interiors.

[129] Almost all[130] of Burges's work in the Hall was lost in a redevelopment of the 1960s in which Wyatt's designs were reinstated, although the fireplace was removed to Knightshayes Court and the East Window, above the high table, was restored circa 2009.

Pevsner describes St Mary's as "a dream of Early English glory"[153] and Crook writes, "[although] Cork Cathedral may stand as Burges's greatest Gothic work, Studley Royal is his 'ecclesiastical' masterpiece.

[165] But the approach Burges took to its construction was on a grand scale: the floor depths were sufficient to support rooms four or five times their size and the architect Richard Norman Shaw wrote of the concrete foundations as being suitable "for a fortress.

[165] As was usual with Burges, many elements of earlier designs were adapted and included, the street frontage from the McConnochie House, the cylindrical tower and conical roof from Castell Coch and the interiors from Cardiff Castle.

"[188] Another example of the works that Burges created for Lady Bute as a present for her husband, was a silver cruet set, in the form of two medieval retainers carrying tiny barrels of salt and pepper; the answer to the question of "what to give a man who (could) afford everything.

"[193] Burges also designed more utilitarian articles which were nonetheless imbued with his love of allusion and punning, including silverware featuring mermaids, spiders and other creatures[187] and a set of knives and forks for the Tower House, with the handles, carved by Nicholls, showing symbols of "meat and vegetables, veal, venision, onion, pea and so on.

[199][200] The whereabouts of some of Burges's most important pieces are unknown,[201] but discoveries are sometimes made: a brooch which he designed as a wedding present for his friend John Pollard Seddon was identified on the BBC television series Antiques Roadshow and subsequently sold at auction for £31,000 in August 2011.

Ten of the panels were put on display at Cardiff Castle, and eight were used in the model of the chapel in the attic room of the Well Tower at Castell Coch; the two purchased by Cadw were considered lost until they failed to sell at auction in Salisbury in 2010.

[214] The Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Cadw, speaking after their purchase, said, "The panels show a variety of Welsh and British saints and key biblical figures and are of the highest quality Victorian stained glass.

In his major study of English domestic architecture, Das englische Haus, published some twenty years after Burges's death, Hermann Muthesius wrote of The Tower House, "Worst of all, perhaps, is the furniture.

John Betjeman, later Poet Laureate and a leading champion of the art and architecture of the Victorian Gothic Revival, was left the remaining lease on the Tower House, including some of the furniture, by E. R. B. Graham in 1961.

The Higgins Art Gallery & Museum, Bedford, holds a particularly fine collection, begun with a large number of purchases from the estate of Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read, including the Narcissus washstand,[231] Burges's bed and the Crocker Dressing Table.

[f] On his death, John Starling Chapple, Burges's office manager and close associate for more than twenty years, wrote "a constant relationship ... with one of the brightest ornaments of the profession has rendered the parting most severe.

[263] Burges's own words on Saint Fin Barre's, in his letter of January 1877 to the Bishop of Cork, sum up his career, "Fifty years hence, the whole affair will be on its trial and, the elements of time and cost being forgotten, the result only will be looked at.

"[73] On Burges's death in 1881, his contemporary, the architect Edward William Godwin, said of him that "no one of the century of this country or any other that I know of, ever possessed that artistic rule over the kingdom of nature in a measure at all comparable with that which he shared in common with the creator of the Sphinx and the designer of Chartres.

[272] In his preface to Architectural Designs Pullan expressed the hope that illustrated volumes of his brother-in-law's work "would be warmly welcomed and thoroughly appreciated, not only by his professional brethern, but by all men of educated taste in Europe and America.