Background
John Wells-Thorpe was born in 1928 in Brighton, East Sussex, England.
John Wells-Thorpe was born in 1928 in Brighton, East Sussex, England.
He attended the Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School. He graduated from the University of Brighton (then called the Brighton College of Art), followed by three international scholarships to Rome, Northern Italy and Moorish Spain.
He is best known for the breadth of his design capability in both the United Kingdom and numerous locations overseas. He designed the Church of the Ascension in Westdene, Brighton, in 1958. In 1968, he designed the Holy Cross Church in Woodingdean.
Five years later, in 1973, he added an extension to Street Wilfrid"s Church in Chichester.
In 1974, he designed Hove Town Hall. He also designed a "relocatable church", a television studio in the Arabian Desert, and financial headquarters next door to Street Paul"s Cathedral in London.
He served as Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and President of the Commonwealth Association of Architects. He also served on the Advisory Board of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He was founding Chair of South Downs Health National Health Service Trust.
In the 1995 New Year Honours he was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to architecture.
