Main Works
After returning to London Hardwick established a reputation as a church architect, designing the church of St Mary the Virgin at Wanstead (completed in 1790 – now a Grade I listed building), the Hampstead Road Chapel (1791–1792), St John's Church, St John's Wood High Street (1813–1814), and the church of St Barnabas (now St Clement) near Old Street. Arguably, his most notable work is the church of St Mary, Marylebone Road (1813–1817).
In 1813 he had began a chapel-of-ease, designed to accommodate a considerable congregation, on the south side of the New Road in London, for the parish of St Marylebone. It was a basically rectangular building, with two small wings placed diagonally at the liturgical east, and was intended to have an Ionic portico surmounted by a group of figures and a cupola. However, before completion, it was decided that it would make a suitable new parish church for of St Marylebone. Hardwick altered the design to create a suitably grand facade, with a Corinthian portico six columns wide, based on that of the Pantheon in Rome, and a steeple, its top stage in the form of a miniature temple, surrounded by eight caryatids. The interior, with two tiers of galleries supported on iron columns, was left unaltered.
In 1823 he restored St Bartholomew-the-Less in the City of London. An octagonal vaulted interior had been constructed within the church's medieval walls by George Dance the Younger using timber, but had succumbed to dry rot. Hardwick replicated it in more permanent materials, using Bath stone for the columns, and iron for the vaulted ceiling.
He restored Inigo Jones's St Paul's, Covent Garden; he was appointed in 1788 and the eventual 10-year-long restoration project survived an almost disastrous fire in 1795 which destroyed much of Jones’s original interior. He also restored Sir Christopher Wren's St James's, Piccadilly.
Beyond London, St John's Church, Workington was built in 1823 to Hardwick’s design and although built of local sandstone it bears some resemblance to the Inigo Jones St Paul's Church in Covent Garden which Hardwick had previously restored. As well as churches, he also designed some civic buildings, including the Shire Hall in Dorchester, Dorset. Built in 1797, this building (also now a Grade I listed building) retains the courtroom where the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation to Australia for their part in the early trade union movement in 1834.
Hardwick was appointed Clerk of Works at Hampton Court by King George III, following which he also work at Kew Palace and its gardens. He was a founding member of the Architects' Club; but never became an Associate of the Royal Academy.
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