Simon Basil - Summary

Simon Basil was a surveyor active in the UK in the late-16th and early-17th centuries. He is recorded in 1590, working under the surveyor Robert Adams, drawing a plan of Ostend in the Netherlands. Later, he became Clerk of Works at Richmond, London, England. In 1597 Basil is known to have designed for Lord Burghley and to have become, that year, Comptroller of the Works. He was later employed by Robert Cecil, in the Strand at Salisbury House, in 1601, and the New Exchange, in 1608-09, and in Herefordshire, at Hatfield House, in 1607-12. He is known to have drawn a plan of Sherborne Castle for Sir Walter Raleigh sometime between 1600-1609. It was during this period, in 1606, that he became Surveyor of the King's Works, a post he held until his death in September, 1615.

Sources:

Baggs, A.P., 'Two Designs by Simon Basil', Architectural History,
Vol. 27, Design and Practice in British Architecture: Studies in
Architectural History Presented to Howard Colvin (1984), pp. 104-110.

Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 108.