W. Gibbs Bartleet

W. Gibbs Bartleet
Saint Laurance, Upminster, largely rebuilt by Bartleet.
Born	1829 Handsworth, Birmingham, England
Died	10 March 1905(1905-03-10) (aged 75–76)
Nationality	British
Known for	Architect

W. Gibbs Bartleet (1829 – 10 March 1906)^[1] was an English Victorian architect.

Bartleet was born in Handsworth, Birmingham. He moved to Brentwood, Essex in the early 1860s^[2] and later to Beckenham.^[3] During his career, he was based in the Old Broad Street in the City of London, and in Brentwood.^[1]

He was honorary surveyor of the German Hospital at Dalston, where he is mentioned as having carried out extensive repairs by 1857.^[4]

In 1870, he added a chancel and south transept to Alexander Dick Gough's St. Saviour's Church, Herne Hill (built 1856, demolished 1981).^[5] At Upminster he largely rebuilt the medieval church of St. Laurance in 1863,^[6] and in 1872-3 remodelled Hill Place for Temple Soanes in a restrained Gothic style, of diapered red brick with stone facings.^[7] He also enlarged or rebuilt the churches of St Mary, Dunton, Essex, St. Mary the Virgin, Shenfield and St. Michael and All Angels, Wilmington Kent.^[8]

In London, he built offices for the Promoter Life Assurance Company in a neo-Renaissance style in Fleet Street,^[9] and in 1873 refronted a pair of eighteenth century terraced houses in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden in an Italianate style for the London and County Bank.^[10] He designed several other branches for the bank, including one at Guildford (1886).^[11] At Chigwell, Essex, he designed Woodlands (later renamed Woodview) as a large country house for the brewing magnate, Philip Savill, in 1881.

Between 1885 and 1887, he carried out a grandiose rebuilding of St. George's Church, Beckenham (1885-1887), formerly a "humble medieval village church."^[12] The tower, however, was not completed until 1902-3.^[13]

His son, Sydney Francis Bartleet, (fl. 1879-1927), also an architect, was taken into the partnership in 1891.^[1]