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John Harvey penned a short biography of Thomas Berty (hereafter Bertie)1for his book, English Medieval Architects: a biographical dictionary down to 1550, which was first published in 1954. Harvey offered an expanded version in the 1987 edition of English Medieval Architects, building on his short essay on the 'Barty' family that had appeared in 1978.2He also provided a number of attributions of building works to Thomas Bertie not previously mentioned.3This essay revises Harvey's commentary and explores the wider scope of Bertie's work, most of which appears to have been carried out in Hampshire. The problem concerning the attribution and date of the building of the presbytery aisles in Winchester Cathedral is also explored here in some detail, with particular reference to work carried out in 1532-3. The structure of Harvey's essay has been retained: first exploring the documentary evidence for Bertie's life and then assessing his architectural career.
Thomas was the eldest son of Robert Berty, a mason, businessman and smallholder, of Bearsted, Kent. He was under twenty-one years of age when his father made his will (proved 17 February 1501/2).4Thomas and his younger brother were left the reversion of the property at Bearsted, after the death of their mother Marion, and also their father's 'working toles such as be for macyns craft', indicating that both sons were being trained as masons. Their sister, Johane, was left a small sum of money.5Harvey considered that Thomas Bertie was born c 1485 and thought that he was no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age when his father died, but Harvey provided no evidence or rationale to support this claim.6Robert Berty's will simply offers the information that Thomas was not then twenty-one years old, suggesting that he was born sometime in the early 1480s.
Following the accession of Henry viii, Marion Berty was recorded as having paid a fee to be enrolled on the general pardon roll; this records that she was then (June 1509) living in Colchester, having been domiciled for a time at Godstone, Surrey.7The small village of Godstone, on the North Downs in Surrey, was significant in the medieval period for the quarrying of Reigate stone,...