Thomas Lainson
| Thomas Lainson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1825 Brighton |
| Died | 1892 Brighton |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Practice | Lainson & Sons |
| Buildings |
Brighton and Hove Co-operative Society Repository, Hove; Bristol Road Methodist Church, Brighton; Brooker Hall, Hove; Middle Street Synagogue, Brighton; Palmeira House, Hove; Pelham Institute, Brighton; Reading Town Hall, Reading (extension); Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children, Brighton |
| Projects | Adelaide Mansions, Hove; Norfolk Terrace, Brighton; Sillwood Road, Brighton; Vallance Estate, Hove; Wick Estate, Hove |
Thomas Lainson (1825–1898) was a British architect. He is best known for his work in the East Sussex coastal towns of Brighton and Hove (now part of the city of Brighton and Hove), where several of his eclectic range of residential, commercial and religious buildings have been awarded listed status by English Heritage. Working alone or (from 1881) in partnership with two sons as Lainson & Sons, he designed buildings in a wide range of styles, from Neo-Byzantine to High Victorian Gothic; his work is described as having a "solid style, typical of the time".
Lainson was born in 1825 in the Brighton area. He set up an architecture practice there in 1860 or 1862, during a period when the fashionable seaside resort's architectural style was evolving from the Regency and Classical forms of the early 19th century towards new forms such as Italianate, Renaissance Revival and (especially in Hove's rapidly developing suburbs) brick-built Olde English/Queen Anne Revival.
His first commission may have been a 13-house terrace on the west side of Norfolk Terrace, on the Brighton/Hove border, which has been dated to the mid-19th century. The road was developed in several stages from the 1850s. Lainson's design was in the Italianate style, popular at the time because of the fashionable influence of Queen Victoria's Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. (Lansdowne Mansions, now a hotel, has been attributed to Lainson, but its construction date of 1854 predates his entering into practice.) In about 1870 he built another terrace of Italianate houses nearby on Sillwood Road, adjoining Charles Busby's Western Cottages of nearly 50 years earlier. The whole street was renamed Sillwood Road when Lainson's 16 houses were finished. Adelaide Mansions, a four-storey seafront development in Hove, followed in 1873.
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