Richard Norman Shaw

Richard Norman Shaw RA (7 May 1831 – 17 November 1912), occasionally styled as Norman Shaw, was a Scottish architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings.

Shaw was born in Edinburgh, and trained in the London office of William Burn with George Edmund Street. Shaw attended the Royal Academy classes and received a grounding in classicism. There, he met William Eden Nesfield, with whom he briefly partnered in some architectural designs. In 1854–1856 Shaw travelled with a Royal Academy scholarship, collecting sketches that were published as Architectural Sketches from the Continent, 1858.

In 1863, after sixteen years of training, Shaw opened a practice for a short time with Nesfield. In 1872, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.

Shaw worked, among others, for the artists John Callcott Horsley and George Henry Boughton, and the industrialist Lord Armstrong. He designed large houses such as Cragside, Grim's Dyke, and Chigwell Hall, as well as a series of commercial buildings using a wide range of styles.

Shaw was elected to the Royal Academy in 1877, and co-edited (with Sir Thomas Jackson RA) the 1892 collection of essays, Architecture, a profession or an Art?. He firmly believed it was an art. In later years, Shaw moved to a heavier classical style which influenced the emerging Edwardian Classicism of the early 20th century. Shaw died in London, where he had designed residential buildings in areas such as Pont Street, and public buildings such as New Scotland Yard.

Shaw's early country houses avoided Neo-Gothic and the academic styles, reviving vernacular materials like half timber and hanging tiles, with projecting gables and tall massive chimneys with "inglenooks" for warm seating. Shaw's houses soon attracted the misnomer the "Queen Anne style". As his skills developed, he dropped some of the mannered detailing, his buildings gained in dignity, and acquired an air of serenity and a quiet homely charm which were less conspicuous in his earlier works; half timber construction was more sparingly used, and finally disappeared entirely.

Shaw died in London on 17 November 1912.

Cragside, Northumberland

St. Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park

Norman Shaw Buildings, London

Lowther Lodge, headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society

Adcote, Shropshire

Grim's Dyke, Harrow, London

Chigwell Hall, Essex

• 1–2 St. James Street, London, 1882–83
• Glen Andred, at Withyham, Sussex, 1867
• Leyswood, at Withyham, Sussex, 1866–69
• Knight's Bank, at Farnham, Surrey, 1868 (demolished 1932)
• All Saints’ Church, Youlgreave 1869 - 1870 (restoration)
• Gatehouse to Banqueting Hall, Jesmond Dene, Newcastle upon Tyne 1869-1870
• Cragside, at Rothbury, Northumberland, 1869/1870–1885
• Preen Manor, Shropshire
• Grim's Dyke, Harrow, London, 1870
• New Zealand Chambers, Leadenhall Street, London, 1871–73
• St Giles' Church, Longstone, Derbyshire 1872-73 restoration
• Pierrepont and Merrist Wood, Surrey
• Gorehill, Petworth, West Sussex, 1871
• Lowther Lodge, Kensington, 1873–75, headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society
• 6 Ellerdale Road, Hampstead, London, built for himself
• House of Bethany, St. Clement's Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, 1874–75
• Wispers, West Sussex, 1874–76
• 8 Melbury Road, Kensington, London, built for painter Marcus Stone, 1872–73
• Woodland House, 31 Melbury Road, Kensington, London, built for painter Luke Fildes, 1876–77
• Pierrepont House, Frensham, 1876–78
• Swan House, 17 Chelsea Embankment, London, 1875–77
• Ellern Mede, 31 Totteridge Common, Barnet, 1877
• Bannow, St. Leonard's Sussex, 1877–79, private house, now nursing home
• Bedford Park, London, the first "garden city" suburban development: housing, including St. Michael and All Angels Church, 1879–82
• Albert Hall Mansions, at Kensington Gore, London, 1879–86
• Tabard Hotel, Chiswick, London
• Adcote, Little Ness, Shropshire, 1876–81
• Flete House, Devonshire
• Greenham Lodge, Berkshire
• Dawpool, Cheshire (demolished, 1927)
• Bryanston School, Dorset, 1898
• Chesters, Northumberland
• Norman Shaw Buildings on the Thames Embankment, London, 1887–1906. Originally built as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, known as Scotland Yard. The buildings are now used as Parliamentary offices.
• Albion House, James Street, Liverpool, 1896–98
• House for Kate Greenaway, Frognal, London, 1885
• Swanscombe Church in Kent
• White Lodge and White Lodge West, Bingley, West Yorkshire
• Bannow, Residential Care Home, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, 1877
• Baldslow Place, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex 1888, originally the Ebden family home, now Claremont School
• 4 – 6 Page Heath Lane, Bickley, Kent, 1864
• The Corner House, 114 Shortlands Road, Beckenham, Kent, 1869
• 1 St. James's Street, London, 1904
• Bailiff's Cottage, Bromley Palace Estate, Bromley, Kent, 1864 (demolished)
• Town Hall, Market Square, Bromley, Kent, 1863 (unexecuted)
• Bradford City Hall extension, 1909
• Holy Trinity Church, Bingley, Yorkshire 1866–68 (demolished 1974)
• Holme Grange School, Wokingham, Berkshire East Sussex 1883
• Flora Fountain, Mumbai, India, 1864
• Highdown School, Emmer Green, Reading, Berkshire, 1878–80
• Alderbrook Park, Cranleigh, Surrey 1881 (house for Pandeli Ralli, demolished 1956)
• Trevanion, Totteridge Lane, Barnet, 1883–84
• Piccadilly Hotel, Piccadilly Circus, London, England, 1905–08; his last work
• Chigwell Hall, Chigwell, Essex, 1876. The building is now owned by the Metropolitan Police

• ^ John Bold; Tanis Hinchcliffe; Scott Forrester (27 January 2009). Discovering London's Buildings: With Twelve Walks. frances lincoln ltd. pp. 105–. ISBN 978-0-7112-2918-1. Retrieved 1 July 2012. 
• ^ "Survey of London: volume 37: Northern Kensington". British History Online. Retrieved 28 June 2012.