Roger Pratt 1620-1685
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Sir Roger PRATT 1620-1685
Biographical Note
Of Ryston Hall, Norfolk; son of Gregory Pratt (d.1640). Matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1637 and enteredInner Temple in 1639. An architect, Pratt was one of three commissioners appointed to supervise the rebuilding of the City after the fire of London in 1666. He married Ann (1643-1706), daughter of Sir Edmund Monins, in 1668 and with her had three sons, all of whom predeceased him.
Books
Pratt is known to have designed a library closet capable of holding ca. 400 volumes. Family papers refer to a number of book purchases in the 1650s and 60s; 69 books survive at Ryston today.
Characteristic Markings
The books held at Ryston are now in later (18th century) bindings and annotated with distinctive marginal pencil marks.
Sources
- Bold, John. "Pratt, Sir Roger (bap. 1620, d. 1685), architect." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Skelton, K. Reading as a gentleman and an architect: Sir Roger Pratt’s library, Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society 53 (2009), 15-50.
- West, S. An architectural typology for the early modern country house library, 1660-1720, The Library 7th ser 14 (2013), 441-464, 449-50.
- West, S. The development of libraries in Norfolk country houses (UEA Ph.D thesis, 2000).