Sarah Losh [also known as Sara Losh] was born in Wreay, near Carlisle, England in c.1785 and baptised on 6 January 1786. Following the death of her father death in 1814 and of her sister, Katherine in 1835, she was financially independent and a land owner.
Nothing is known about her training as an architect. Most of her work as an architect was in the Wreay area from the 1820s. One of her most significant works is considered to have been St. Mary's Church in Wreay, designed between 1840 and 1842 which was much admired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti who described it as "an extraordinary work". He added that Losh "must have been really a great genius and should be better known". The architectural historian Nikolas Pevsner later described St. Mary's Church as one of the best examples of the best examples of church architecture from the Victorian period. Another significant architectural project by Losh was the restoration and extension of St John the Evangelist's Church, in Newton Arlosh, Cumbria in 1844
Losh died at her home, Woodside in Wreay on 29 March 1853
Bullen, J. B. ‘Sarah Losh, architect, romantic, mythologist’. Burlington Magazine vol. 143, no. 1184, November 2001 pp. 676-684
Button, Roger. Arts and Crafts Churches of Great Britain: Architects, Craftsmen and Patrons.. Settle, North Yorkshire: 2QT Ltd. (Publishing) Ltd., 2020
Darley, Gillian. ‘Prophet & Losh’. SPAB Magazine Spring 2013 pp. 35-40 [On St. Mary's Church in Wreay, designed by Losh between 1840 and 1842]
Green, Kate. ‘Remembering Sarah Losh’. Country Life vol. 210, no. 37, September 2016 14, p. 44.
Hamilton, Alec. Arts & Crafts Churches. London: Lund Humphries, 2020
Hill, Rosemary. ‘Romantic affinities. Crafts no. 166, September-October 2000 pp. 34-39
Matthews, Stephen. Sarah Losh and Wreay Church. Carlisle: Bookcase, 2007
Uglow, Jenny. The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, Forgotten Romantic Heroine - Antiquarian, Architect, and Visionary. London: Faber & Faber, 2012