Harold Ainsworth Peto [also known as Harold Peto] was born in Somerleyton, Suffolk, England on 11 July [or 11 June - sources differ] 1854. After leaving school, he trained as a joiner for about nine months with Lucas Bros., a building firm, and then for about a year in the offices of the architect John Louth Clemence (1822-1911) in Lowestoft, Norfolk, and for about two years with the architects Karslake & Mortimer in London.
Following a study tour of the Continent, in 1876 Peto formed a partnership, Ernest George & Peto, with Ernest George (1854-1933) in London.
After sixteen successful years, in which the practice designed numerous country houses and residences in Kensington and Chelsea, in 1892, for reasons of health, Peto withdrew from the partnership. He subsequently established an equally successful reputation as landscape designer and garden architect. He also received commissions to design interiors and in 1906 he designed the First Class accommodation for the ocean liner RMS Mauretania.
Peto was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1881 and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1894. He died at his home, Ilford Manor in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, on 16 April 1933.
Notable architectural projects by Ernest George & Peto included premises for Thomas Goode & Co. in South Audley Street, London (1875–76; Ossington Coffee Palace in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire (1881–82); and serveral country houses including Buchan Hill, Crawley, Sussex (1882–84); Batsford Park, Gloucestershire (1887–88), Shiplake Court, Oxfordshire (1889–91); Poles, Ware, Hertfordshire (1890–92); West Dean Park, Sussex (1891–93); Motcombe House, Shaftesbury, Dorset (1892–94); North Mymms, Hertfordshire (1893–98).
Peto's work as a garden designer included gardens for Garinish Island in Glengariff, Co. Cork, Ireland for John Annan Bryce; the Water Garden at Bruscot Park, Berkshire, for Lord Faringdon; Hartham Park, Wiltshire; Bridge House, Surrey; Wayford Manor House, Somerset; and West Dean House, near Chichester, Sussex.
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See also: Historic England - contains over 70 references to architectural projects by Ernest George & Peto [link below]
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
Grainger, Hilary. The Architecture of Sir Ernest George. Reading, Berkshire: Spire Books, 2011.
Grainger, Hilary Joyce. The architecture of Sir Ernest George and his partners, c.1860-1922. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1985
Gray, A. Stuart. Edwardian architecture: a biographical dictionary. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1985
‘Obituary’. The Builder vol. 144, 28 April 1933 p. 704
Whalley, Robin. The great Edwardian gardens of Harold Peto : from the archives of Country Life. London: Aurum 2007
Whalley, Robin. ‘Harold Peto: Shadows from Pompeii and the Work of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’. Garden History
Vol. 33, No. 2, Autumn, 2005 pp. 256-273