John Nash was born in September 1752 [1], probably in Lambeth, Surrey [now London], England and in c.1766 entered the office of the architect Sir Robert Taylor (1714-1788) as an indentured pupil. By 1775 he had left Taylor and within a couple of years had set up his own architectural and building practice in London. He also formed a partnership with Richard Heaviside, timber merchant and carpenter to the Board of Ordnance. His first completed projects as an architect date from this time: 66-71 Great Russell Street, London for Sir John Rushout, and 16-17 Bloomsbury Square, London (both 1777-78).
The next five years did not go well in his business and private life and in 1783 he was declared bankrupt. By about 1785 Nash had moved to Carmarthen in Wales where he formed a new partnership with Samuel Simon Saxon (1757-1831), who had previously been a pupil of Sir William Chambers (1722-1796), and over the next decade re-established his business. In 1788 he designed his first public building, the County Gaol in Carmarthen (1789-92). By 1793 he was employing two refugees from Revolutionary France - Augustus Charles Pugin (1769-1832) as a draughtsman, and Robert George, as his assistant.
After building several properties in Carmarthen, as well as rebuilding the west front of St David's Cathedral (1791–93),and designing a stone bridge over the River Rheidol at Aberystwyth (c.1797–1800), in 1797 he left Wales and returned to London.
He had already formed a partnership with Humphry Repton (1752-1818) in 1795. Repton was by then a well established and fashionable landscape gardener with connections among the aristocracy and landed gentry and provided Nash with many opportunities to obtain architectural commissions. The partnership was dissolved in an atmosphere of acrimony in 1800 with Repton accusing Nash of not paying him a fair share of the business. By then, however, Nash was well on the way to being one of the most successful architects in England.
In 1806 Nash was appointed architect to the Office of Woods and Forests, A government department responsible for managing the crown estate. One of his first acts was to prepare a plan for the layout of Marylebone Park, north of London. This was to become Regent's Park. The scheme included a number of private villas designed by Nash. It also led to the creation of a major new thoroughfare, Regent Street which linked the park with the West End and Westminster, and Nash designed many of the buildings along its route.
Nash's work at Regent's Park drew the attention of the Prince Regent [later George IV], who commissioned him to design a series of royal residences. In 1815 Nash together with John Soane and Robert Smirke, was appointed an Attached Architect in the Office of Works, and that year was commissioned by the Prince Regent to remodel the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. In Nash's hands, the building, which had originally been designed by Henry Holland in a restrained manor, was transformed into "a riotous, Mughal-inspired extravaganza." [DNB]. The project took seven years to complete.
Following the prince's accession to the throne in 1820, he commissioned Nash to reconstruct the largely 18th-century Buckingham House into the principal royal residence in London. Work on what was to become Buckingham Palace began in 1825. It was to be Nash's last significant project, although it was not appreciated at the time. When George IV died in 1830 the building was subject to considerable criticism on architectural and financial grounds. Politics also played a part in its denigration. The completion of the building was taken out of Nash's hands and he was dismissed from the Office of Works. Thereafter, Nash's career as a public architect effectively came to an end. Nash died at his country house, East Cowes Castle, Isle of Wight, on 13 May 1835.
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[1] Date of birth given in the Dictionary of National Biography Online
For a detailed list of works by Nash see: Colvin pp. 731-737
Images of Works by Nash
Buxton, Pamela. ‘Inspiration: Nash Mile, completed 1809-1833’. Building Design no. 2054, 28 March 2013 pp. 12-15.
Churchill, Penny. ‘Nash's Welsh masterpiece’. [Ffynone, near Boncath in north Pembrokeshire, designed by John Nash and built between 1790 and 1796] Country Life vol. 210, no. 29, 20 July 2016 pp. 74-75
Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840. New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press, 4th edition, 2008
Cornforth, J. ‘Kentchurch Court, Herefordshire - I.’ [Description of Scudamores, a Medieval house, largely rebuilt between 1795 and 1825 to the designs of John Nash and Thomas] Tudor. Country Life 15 December 1966 pp. 1632-1635.
Cornforth, J. ‘Kentchurch Court, Herefordshire - III’ [Description of Scudamores, a Medieval house, largely rebuilt between 1795 and 1825 to the designs of John Nash and Thomas] Tudor. Country Life 29 December 1966 pp. 1734-1737
Cornforth, J. ‘Kentchurch Court, Herefordshire - II’ [Description of Scudamores, a Medieval house, largely rebuilt between 1795 and 1825 to the designs of John Nash and Thomas] Tudor. Country Life 22 December 1966 pp.1688-1691
Crook, J. Mordaunt. London's Arcadia : John Nash and the planning of Regent's Park. London : Sir John Soane's Museum, 2001.
Cullen, G. ‘Nash, brash and Soho’. Architects' Journal 29 September 1960 pp. 459-464
Darley, Gillian. ‘The making of a model village: Blaise Hamlet and the picturesque’ [Architect: John Nash, built 1810-1812] Country Life vol. 158, no. 4088, 6 November 1975 pp. 1218-1219.
Davis, Terence. John Nash: the Prince Regent's architect. Newton Abbot : David & Charles, 1966 [re-ssued with corrections, 1973]
Hajba, Anna-Maria. ‘John Nash in Ireland: patronage and legacy’. Architectural History vol. 63, 2020, pp. 111-142
Hetherington, Paul and Bradney, Frederick. ‘The architect and the philhellene: newly discovered designs by John Nash for Frederick North's London House’. Burlington Magazine vol. 156, no. 1336, July 2014, pp. 445-452.
Hill, Judith. ‘Mysterious majesty. Lough Cutra Castle, County Galway: the home of the Gwyn-Jones family.’ [Designed by John Nash and built in the 1810s] Country Life vol. 213, no. 2, 9 January 2019 pp. 42-47.
John Nash and Regency architecture: a selected bibliography. Compiled by the staff of the Bibliographic Research Library. Monticello, Ill. : Vance Bibliographies, 1984.
John Nash: architect of the picturesque. Edited by Geoffrey Tyack Swindon: English Heritage, 2013.
Kay, Sarah. ‘Lord Berwick and John Nash at Attingham’. John Nash's work at Attingham Park in Shropshire for the second Lord Berwick is discussed] Context no. 128, March 2013 pp. 47-49.
Knox, Tim. ‘Llanerchaeron, Ceredigion’. [Discusses the restoration of Llanerchaeron, Ceredigion, Wales designed by John Nash] Country Life vol. 201, no. 28, 12 July 2007 pp. 74-79.
Mansbridge, Michael. John Nash: a complete catalogue. Oxford : Phaidon, 1991.
McKendry, Jennifer. ‘The attitude of John Nash toward the Gothic Revival style’. Society of Architectural Historians. Journal vol. 47, no. 3, September 1988 pp. 295-296
Morris, A. E. J. ‘Renaissance urbanism in Bath and Edinburgh, and the impact of John Nash on early 19th century London’. Official Architecture & Planning January 1970 pp. 67-72
Nash, John. Views of the Royal Pavilion. Introduction and commentary by Gervase Jackson-Stops; foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. [Reproduces the complete series of aquatints commissioned in 1820 by King George IV from John Nash, and drawn by Augustus Charles Pugin] London : Pavilion, 1991.
Passino, Carla. ‘The fickle finger of fate.’ [On the reputation of the architect John Nash] Country Life vol. 221, no.. 31, 2 August 2023 pp. 86-88
Service, Alastair. The Architects of London and their buildings from 1066 to the present. London: The Architectural Press, 1979
Stamp, Gavin. The English House 1860-1914. Catalogue of an exhibition of photographs and drawings. London: InternationalArchitect and the Building Centre Trust, 1980 p. 7
Stamp, Gavin. ‘Architecture: John Nash.’ Apollo, vol. 177, no. 609, May 2013, pp. 88-89.
Suggett, Richard. John Nash: architect in Wales Aberystwyth : Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, 1995
Suggett, Richard. ‘Done after the fantastic order': John Nash's restoration of St David's Cathedral’. Georgian Group Journal vol. 21, 2013 pp. 106-122
Summerson, John. The Life and work of John Nash architect. London : Allen & Unwin, 1980.
Summerson, John. ‘John Nash’. ROBA Journal 22 December 1934 pp. 225-236
Temple, Nigel. John Nash and the village picturesque, with special reference to the Reptons and Nash at the Blaise Castle Estate, Bristol. Gloucester : Sutton, 1979
The diaries of John Nash, architect, 1832 and 1835. Edited and annotated by Malcolm Pinhorn; introduced by John Summerson. Leominster : Pinhorns, 2000.
Tropp, Rebecca. ‘For dowager or disability? John Nash's designs for the Countess of Shannon’. Georgian Group Journal vol. 30, 2022, pp. 149-160.
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘East of the park: John Nash, the Park Village and Cumberland Basin’. Georgian Group Journal vol. 31, 2023, pp. 167-178
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘John Nash and the Park Village.’ Georgian Group Journal 1993, pp. 68-74.
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘Longner Hall’.[Architect: John Nash] Georgian Group Journal vol. 14, 2004, pp. 199-213.
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘Nash the incomparable’. Country Life vol. 199, no. 25, 23 June 2005 pp. 112-117.
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘Vanquishing devils: Sandridge Park, Devon’. [Architect: John Nash]. Country Life vol. 206, no. 47, 21 November 2012 pp. 40-44.
Tyack, Geoffrey. ‘Xanadu-on-sea’. [On the restored Royal Pavilion at Brighton, transformed by John Nash in 1815-22] Country Life vol. 207, no. 33, 14 August 2013 pp. 34-41.
Tyack, Geoffrey.’Conckhill, Shropshire’. [Architect: John Nash] Country Life vol. 198, no. 8, 19 February 2004 pp. 62-67.
Ware, D. ‘John Nash. Biographical notes’. Official Architect November 1949 pp.65-617
‘Carlton House terrace and gardens’ [Architect: John Nash]. Architects' Journal vol. 77, 8 February 1933 pp. 204-205.
‘Carlton House terrace and gardens’ [Architect: John Nash]. Architects' Journal vol. 76, 14 December 1932 pp. 755-756.
‘Carlton House terrace and gardens’ [Architect: John Nash]. Architects' Journal vol. 76, 7 December 1932 pp. 730-733.
‘Carlton House terrace and gardens’ [Architect: John Nash]. Architects' Journal vol. 76, 30 November 1932 p. 691
‘Great British architects: John Nash, 1752-1835.’ Country Life vol. 203, no. 34, 26 August 2009 pp. 52-53
‘The Royal Pavilion in Brighton (1815-1822)’. [Architect: John Nash] A&U no. 1, January 1979 pp. 125-132