An exceptional antique mid 18th century statuary marble chimneypiece in the manner of renowned English architect James Paine (1717–1789) .  

The jambs with tapered half pilasters under paterea blocks and ionic capitals, the frieze with fluted panels and urn centre plaque carved in high relief, all under an egg and dart cornice shelf. 

This very fine fireplace features in a book ‘The English Fireplace’ by L.A. Shuffrey, published in year 1912. (see additional images)

Provenance: Halton House, Hastings 

Circa 1750-60

Images taken before removal, now restored and in great condition.

James Paine (1717–1789) was an English architect. He worked on number of country houses such as Chatsworth House, Thorndon Hall and Kedleston Hall.

It is thought that Ware introduced him to the third earl of Burlington and his circle of friends. Paine’s first professional job, aged only nineteen, was as the Clerk of Works supervising the building of Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (c.1737–1750), designed by Colonel James Moyser, a friend of Lord Burlington. Essentially a Palladian, Paine was to work on many other projects in the area including Heath House in the village of Heath in between Nostell Priory and Wakefield.

Paine lived in Pontefract whilst working at Nostell Priory, and whilst working on that project, he was also commissioned to design the Mansion House at Doncaster, Yorkshire between 1745 and 1748.[1]

From the 1750s, he had his own practice, and designed many villas, usually consisting of a central building, often with a fine staircase, and two symmetrical wings. The most important house which he was involved with was Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire where he succeeded Matthew Brettingham from 1759 to 1760 and suggested the colonnaded hall, but he was himself displaced by Robert Adam, who altered his designs.

At around the same time, he designed the very grand stables at Chatsworth House in the same county. He was a favourite architect of the powerful Catholic families of the time. In the 1760s he was commissioned to rebuild Worksop Manor for the Duke of Norfolk as well as the new Thorndon Hall (1764–70) in Essex for Lord Petre and his house on Park Lane, London. From 1770 to 1776, he built New Wardour Castle in Wiltshire (which featured as the Royal Ballet School in the film Billy Elliot).

Paine held various posts, some sinecures, in the Office of Works culminating in appointment as one of the two Architects of the Works in 1780 but lost the post in a reorganisation in 1782. He was appointed High Sheriff of Surrey for 1783.

His practice declined in his later years as he refused to participate in the Neoclassical fashions established by the Adam brothers. He published much of his own work in his two volumes of Plans, elevations and sections of Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Houses (1767 and 1783).

In 1789, Paine retired to France, where he died in the autumn.