John Nash (architect) - Retirement and Death

Retirement and Death

Nash's career effectively ended with the death of George IV in 1830. The King's notorious extravagance had generated much resentment and Nash was now without a protector. The Treasury started to look closely at the cost of Buckingham Palace. Nash's original estimate of the building's cost had been £252,690, but this had risen to £496,169 in 1829 the actual cost was £613,269 and the building was still unfinished. This controversy ensured that Nash would not receive any more official commissions nor would he be awarded the Knighthood that other contemporary architects such as Jeffry Wyattville, John Soane and Robert Smirke received. Nash retired to the Isle of Wight to his home, East Cowes Castle.

On 28 March 1835 Nash was described as 'Very poorly and faint'. This was the beginning of the end. On 1 May Nash's solicitor John Wittet Lyon was summonsed to East Cowes Castle to finalise his will. By 6 May he was described as 'very ill indeed all day', he died at his home on 13 May 1835. His funeral took place at St. James's Church, East Cowes on 20 May, where he was buried in the churchyard, where the monument takes the form of a stone sarcophagus.

His widow acted to clear Nash's debts (some £15,000), she held a sale of the Castle's contents, including three paintings by J. M. W. Turner painted on the Isle of Wight, two by Benjamin West and several copies of old master paintings by Richard Evans these were sold at Christie's on 11 July 1835 for £1,061. His books, medals, drawings and engravings were bought by a bookseller named Evans for £1,423 on 15 July. The Castle itself was sold for a reported figure of £20,000 to Richard Boyle, 4th Earl of Shannon with in the year.

Nash's widow retired to a property Nash had bequethed to her in Hampstead where she lived until her death in 1851, she was buried with her husband on the Isle of Wight.