William Railton

William Railton (1800–77) was an English architect, best known as the designer of Nelson's Column. He was based in London, with offices at 12 Regent Street for much of his career.

He was born in Clapham (then in Surrey) on 14 May 1800, the son of Isaac Railton and his wife, Margaret Maria Railton, née Scott. He was a pupil of the London architect and surveyor William Inwood.

In 1825 Railton set off for a tour of Greece and Egypt. On his return to England he prepared for publication some drawings he had made of the remains of the recently excavated temple at Kardaki on Corfu. They were printed as a supplementary volume to James Stuart's Antiquities of Athens under the title of The newly-discovered Temple at Cadachio Illustrated.

In the mid-1830s, Railton carried out several commissions for Ambrose March Phillipps, a Leicestershire landowner who had converted to Catholicism at an early age. On his marriage his father, Charles March-Phillipps of Garendon Park, had given him one of the family's other Leicestershire estates, on which stood the ruins of the priory of Grace Dieu. There, Railton built a neo-Tudor manor house, complete with chapel. Meanwhile, Ambrose Phillipps bought - with borrowed money - a tract of land in nearby Charnwood Forest to build a monastery for a community of trappist monks, to be named Mount St Bernard. Railton designed a church and monastic buildings, once again employing a neo-Tudor style. The church was consecrated in October 1837. Railton's buildings were, however, soon replaced by a much more ambitious monastic complex to plans by Pugin. For Charles March Phillipps, Railton designed lodges and gatehouses for Garendon Park, which have survived the demolition of the main house.

Railton also designed two identical Anglican churches in Charnwood Forest, at Copt Oak and Woodhouse Eaves, (consecrated on 3 September and 5 September 1837). He built further churches nearby at Groby (c.1840) and Thorpe Acre (1845), the latter on land donated by Charles March Phillipps. Also in Leicestershire, he designed Beaumanor Hall for the Herrick family.

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