Background
He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and left to train briefly in 1810 at Sir John Soane"s office, where his father no doubt placed him, but left for the office of David Laing.
He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and left to train briefly in 1810 at Sir John Soane"s office, where his father no doubt placed him, but left for the office of David Laing.
His first major work was the Wellington Monument, Somerset. Lee"s further work was characterised as "eclectic" by Howard Colvin, who instanced the pared-down Soanean neoclassicism of Arlington Court, Devonshire (1820-1823 for Colonel Justice of the Peace Chichester), the Tudor Gothic Eggesford House, Devon (1822 for Honorary Newton Fellowes. Now a ruin), several "Commissioners" Gothic" churches in Worcestershire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, as well as an unusually early neo-Norman one.
In 1826 he designed the Guildhall in Barnstaple (finished 1828 and currently being restored) which makes an impressive frontage for the later Pannier Market.
In 1834 he died in a swimming accident at Morthoe, near Barnstaple.