ABSTRACT
William Buckland was born in Oxford, England. In 1748 he apprenticed as a carpenter-joiner to his uncle, James Buckland, in London. Gunston Hall's extraordinary design, however, is attributed to William Buckland as his first architectural composition in America. From Northern Virginia, Buckland traveled to Annapolis where he emerged as the major architect of his time. In Annapolis there were houses that did not conform to the traditional Georgian Virginia models. One house that stands out is the Rideout House of 1765. On George Mason arrival in Annapolis Buckland began working on the Chase Lloyd House. After the Chase Lloyd masterpiece was completed, he moved on to the Hammond Harwood House. This was his last known work, because of his untimely death at the age of forty, and it is perhaps his greatest. Annapolis was the scene of a new and profoundly daring architecture that celebrated creative rule breaking.
