Miles Thompson (1808-1868)
Written by Jean Warburton
Occupation: Architect
Life and family
Miles Thompson was born in Kendal on 8 February 1808 and christened on 16 March 1808. His father was John Thompson (1780-1869) who was originally in the building trade as a slate merchant or stone mason, but who was by 1851 describing himself as a whitesmith. He was the son of Thomas Thompson and his wife Ann. In 1802, in Kendal, John Thompson married Betty Troughton (1785-1838), the daughter of Miles Troughton and his wife Margaret.
Miles Thompson was the third of five children. He had three brothers John (1805-1886), Robert (1810-1881) and Marcellus (1816-1886) and two sisters, Agnes (1806-1839) and Elizabeth (b. 1819). Miles Thompson did not marry. He was not, however, deprived of the company of young people. His brother, Robert, had nine children and brother, Marcellus, had eight children in whom their uncle Miles took a close interest. Miles Thompson was very supportive of his immediate family, providing accommodation for a number of his relatives; initially simply for their occupation and later by gifting the property. Thus, he built premises for his brother, Robert, on Beast Banks at the top of Collin Croft in Kendal, which he sold to Robert in 1864 for five shillings. He similarly provided houses in Kendal for his nephew, John, and niece, Elizabeth, subsequently leaving them the properties in his will.
Miles Thompson lived all his life in Kendal and, from at least 1851, at The Lound with his father. He died of bronchitis on 26 August 1868 at The Lound and was buried in Parkside Road Cemetery in Kendal.
Architect
In about 1825, Miles Thompson joined the architects Francis (1767-1827; DCB) and George Webster (1797-1864) as a draughtsman, having shown an early talent for drawing. Although he remained an employee, Miles Thompson carried the business when George Webster took extended visits to Europe in 1836 and 1841 and to Greece and Middle East in 1843. George Webster took Miles Thompson into partnership in February 1845, the firm to be known as Webster & Thompson. That partnership was dissolved in March the following year when George Webster retired. The firm was then known as Thompson & Webster although George Webster had little involvement with the business. By 1856, the ‘& Webster’ was dropped and Miles Thompson carried on business under his sole name. He continued to use the old firm’s premises in Bridge Street but by 1858 he had his main office in Lowther Street but had another at his house at The Lound. The practice changed very little once Miles Thompson became independent. He continued working for the same clients, for example, designing a village at the gates of Holker Hall for the Duke of Devonshire, a client of the former firm when he was the Earl of Burlington. Thompson also used the same styles: Grecian, Jacobethan, Italianate and Gothic as George Webster.
Miles Thompson employed John Starkey (1839-1912) as his assistant from 1852 to 1864. He also took his nephew, John (1848-1907), son of Marcellus, as a pupil in 1866. However, when Miles Thompson died in 1868 the practice was left to neither and the goodwill was put up for sale by his executors. However, John Thompson did set up his own architectural practice which in 1875 was based at his uncle’s former premises in Lowther Street, Kendal.
Miles Thompson’s practice was mainly confined to the area of what is now Westmorland and Furness but he did design buildings in Lancashire and North Yorkshire. He created a great range of buildings including houses, hotels, churches, chapels, parsonages and schools. He also designed public buildings, such as market halls and banks with a small number of industrial buildings including Gatebeck gunpowder works. A number of monuments were also designed by Thompson. It can be difficult to determine which buildings were designed by him in the absence of clear correspondence or signed plans, although attribution becomes easier after the retirement of George Webster in 1846. In all, he probably designed around a hundred buildings.
It is well-nigh impossible to look at any one building and say with certainty that it was designed by Miles Thompson because of the number of styles of architecture he employed and his continuation of the practice of George Webster. The range of his buildings can be seen in one square mile to the west of Kendal. In All Hallows Lane is the former Public Baths, now a public house, which he designed in 1863. Off Beast Banks, in Collin Croft, he designed domestic premises for his brother Robert. On Fellside is the Gothic All Hallows Chapel designed in 1864-6, with an east window copying the Perpendicular design of the parish church window. On Beast Banks itself is Monument House, for which he designed a summer house and then remodelled about 1860 into the Picturesque style. Finally, at the top of the hill is a villa at the end of Cliff Terrace designed in 1866 with an Italianate tower.
Miles Thompson did not restrict his business activities to that of architecture. He was an insurance agent, had a small marble business and was a slate merchant. On the 1851 census he gave his occupation as ’Architect and Slate Merchant’ and was so described in trade directories at the time. Surprisingly, he gave his occupation solely as ‘Slate Merchant’ on the 1861 census although he was clearly designing a large number of buildings including churches, parsonage houses and schools. Some of his buildings in the early 1860s were built of slate, for example, Bridge House in Staveley but dealing in slate was far from his sole occupation. Miles Thompson acquired a large number of properties over the years, some of which were to make provision for his family. He also acquired land for housing. In some cases, he designed the houses himself and in others he sold the plots for development by others.
Property
Miles Thompson owned a considerable amount of property in Kendal, much of which was used to make provision for his wider family. By 1851, Miles Thompson was living at the Lound in Kendal and Hoggarths 1853 plan of Kendal shows that he owned the whole of the area of the Lound, from the river to the canal, including a foundry. In 1861, Miles Thompson lived at No 3 the Lound with his brother Marcellus, at No 16 and his brother, John, at No 1. In 1842, he had bought his father’s property in Collin Croft and then built premises there for his brother, Robert. He also acquired a house at Abbot Hall gates for his niece Elizabeth and a house a Church Gates, Kirkland for his nephew, John. In addition, he owned the house he used as his office in Lowther Street and land on Beezon Fields. Thompson also bought commercial properties, owned Eden Mount quarries at Grange and land at Burneside and Grasmere. In 1862, he bought the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in Great Langdale and added a three storey wing.
It was in Windermere, with the coming of the railway, that saw Miles Thompson dealing in land. The impetus was his designing of the railway station in Windermere in 1846 as the terminus of the Kendal and Windermere Railway. The Railway Company had purchased a large plot of land near the station and Thompson assisted the directors in laying out the land in building plots. He recognised the value of the land in the vicinity of the station and bought 36 acres on the west side of the turnpike road from the station to Ambleside. He divided the land into lots of 1 to 4 acres which were sold for villa residences. He then designed many of the houses, such as Hazelthwaite and Willowsmere, which were built on the plots. He did not restrict his residential development activities to Windermere and in 1850, he sold plots for five houses in Bowness.
Character
Miles Thompson is an enigma. He was a man very interested in his family but who did not marry. He was an architect who, at times designated himself solely as a slate merchant. He was a prolific architect but it is impossible to know with any measure of certainty precisely which buildings he designed. He bought properties and engaged in housing development but left an estate valued at under £5,000. Today, he is remembered as an architect of note, particularly in Kendal where the Civic Society have placed plaques on some of his buildings. In his own day, he was relatively unimportant in the eyes of the citizens of Kendal, to the extent that no obituary was published in the local press on his death. A terracotta figure of an architect, thought to be Miles Thompson, was placed on the apex of a building on Beast Banks, Kendal and subsequently replaced by the Civic Society after it was blown down: it is on a building designed by John Thompson.
Sources
- England and Wales Census 1851-1871
- England and Wales Select Births and Christenings 1538-1975
- England Select Marriages 1538-1973
- England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index 1837-1915
- UK and Ireland Find a Grave Index 1300-Current
- National Probate Calendar Index of Wills and Administrations
- CRO WDRG 5831/22
- Kelly’s Directory Cumberland and Westmorland 1858
- P J Manners, History, Topography and Directory of Westmorland 1849
- Bolton Chronicle, 19 June 1847
- Soulby’s Ulverston Advertiser and General Intelligencer, 7 February 1850, 21 January 1875
- Arthur Nichols, ‘Miles Thompson of Kendal’ in Trevor Hughes (ed), Aspects of Kendal (2016)
- M Hyde and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England Cumbria (2010)
- Angus Taylor and Janet Martin (ed), The Websters of Kendal (2004)
- Ian Jones, The Off-Comers of Windermere (2022)