William Stukeley and the origins of architecture

William Stukeley (1687-1765), fellow of the Royal Society, founding member and first secretary of the Society of Antiquaries and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians is best known for his archaeological investigations of Avebury and Stonehenge. He also, with some antiquarian friends, formed the Society of the Roman Knights which was dedicated to the preservation of Roman and Celtic remains in England. Stukeley's best known work is Stonehenge a Temple Retor'd. The original research and development of his plans for his reconstruction were executed in 1721-24. By the time it was printed in 1740 Stonehenge a Temple Retor'd had became a Druidic fantasy that Stonehenge still suffers from today. However, his original work on Stonehenge in the early 1720s was significant and his plans of the remains of Stonehenge were the most accurate of the time. Also, in the early 1720s Stukeley was working on a manuscript entitled The Creation, Music of the Spheres K[ing] S[olomon's] Temple Microco[sm]- and Macrocosm Compared &C. Here he delineated his theory of the development of sacred architecture and the origins of the art of architecture, which was influenced by his work on Stonehenge. In his reconstruction of Stonehenge the Druids had applied a basic knowledge of 'Vitruvian' principles, not from knowledge of De Architectura, but derived from nature. Stukeley argued that the oak groves were the first models of sacred architecture and that this was the model followed by the Druids in Stonehenge. However, it was in the Temple of Solomon that building became the art of architecture, and with it the development of the architectural orders and the norms of architecture which were later copied by Vitruvius in De Architectura. This paper examines the details and the basis of Stukeley's theories. Although these theories are funamentally flawed, both historical and architecurally, they were significant to the history and development of ideas in the English Enlightenment.