Bastard brothers dating history

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John (ca 1688–1770) and William Bastard (ca 1689–1766) were British surveyor-architects, and civic dignitaries of the town of Blandford Forum in Dorset. John and William generally worked together and are known as the "Bastard brothers". They were builders, furniture makers, ecclesiastical carvers and experts at plasterwork, but are most notable for their rebuilding work at Blandford Forum following a large fire of 1731, and for work in the neighbourhood that Colvin describes as "mostly designed in a vernacular baroque style of considerable merit though of no great sophistication.". Their work was chiefly inspired by the buildings of Wren, Archer and Gibbs. Thus the Bastards' architecture was retrospective and did not follow the ideals of the more austere Palladianism which by the 1730s was highly popular in England.