William Eden Nesfield

William Eden Nesfield (2 April 1835 - 25 March 1888) was an English architect, designer and painter.

W. E. Nesfield was the eldest son of the landscape architect and painter William Andrews Nesfield. He was educated at Eton and then articled to the architect William Burn in 1850, transferring after two years to his uncle by marriage, Anthony Salvin. He travelled widely in the 1850s and published his fine drawings in Specimens of Mediaeval Architecture (1862). He started his own architectural practice around 1860 but soon linked up with his friend Richard Norman Shaw, with whom he was in a formal partnership between 1866 and 1869, though they kept their jobs separate.

Nesfield and Shaw contributed greatly to the new domestic styles of English architecture which began in the 1860s and flourished in the 1870s, notably the Old English and Queen Anne styles. Many of Nesfield’s clients were aristocratic friends of his father’s, and his designs tended to be more extravagant and ornamental than Shaw’s. Notable examples were additions to Combe Abbey, Warwickshire (1862-5, mostly demolished); Cloverley Hall, Shropshire (1866–8, demolished); Kinmel Hall, Flintshire (1871–4) and Bodrhyddan (1872–4). He also designed many charming small lodges and cottages, most famously a lodge in Regent’s Park (demolished), and another at Kew Gardens (1866–7), both in London.

Nesfield gave up architectural practice around the time his father died in 1881, and retired to Brighton, where he died at the age of 53. He is usually considered one of the most original of the Victorian domestic architects, but he was not interested in publicity. He preferred to pursue his career privately and enjoy himself with his bohemian friends, many of them artists.