The 'Thorpes' freemasons/stonemasons
of Kings Cliffe,London,Uppingham and Leicester.
John Thorpe as he appears on the Albert Memorial and on
the front of the V&A Museum London
.
John was a famous Elizabethan architect/surveyor. Born in Kings Cliffe Northamptonshire the son of Thomas one of the most respected stonemasons/freemasons in England.
Thomas built Kirby Hall in about six miles from his home village in 1570 and it was John at the age of seven who laid the foundation stone.
Kirby
Hall inside main quadrangle looking outwards.
It is thought that John was chosen by William Cecil Lord Burghley who owned the forest (bailwick of Cliffe). He lived at Martin's in the Fields in Little Church Lane Westminster, where the hub of government was headed by Lord Burghley.
His work as surveyor sent him to many parts of the country working as a young man with the most famous of cartographers Robert Treswell and John Norden.
The Kings Cliffe family was headed by Thomas great grandfather, Thomas grandfather and Thomas father. Their memorial in All Saint's Church states that the ancient family came from Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk. Thomas father had eighty grandchildren from his three sons and six daughters.
Many fine builders/stonemasons appear in the family line from Ashwellthorpe, Kings Cliffe, London, Uppinham.
In the 1851 Census there are no Thorpes in the village of Kings Cliffe as the masons had moved to Uppingham in Rutland where in 1851 the Thorpes are the largest family in the town with as many as 18 stonemasons.
Emma
was called a masons daughter in the census. Here her effigy is cut in stone
and mounted in the gable end of Thorpe Terrace in Uppingham.