Samuel Pepys Cockerell

SAMUEL Pepys Cockerell, 1754—1827, was an admirable architect and in his own day earned an impressive reputation, but he is now virtually forgotten and little of his work has survived. Like his more famous contemporary colleague, John Nash, Cockerell was employed for a time in West Wales, but his work here has been largely ignored. He was commissioned by a single patron, Sir William Paxton, a Carmarthenshire magnate, designing and building Middleton Hall for him between 1793 and 1795, and ten years later designing a tower, erected by Paxton at the north end of the park in memory of Lord Nelson. In 1805 he also built public baths at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, to facilitate, and encourage the sea bathing of which Paxton was a pioneer, and rebuilt them five years later when they were destroyed by fire.