Harry Benjamin Inigo Triggs was born in Chiswick, London, on 28 February 1876, to parents James Triggs, carpet agent, and his wife Celia Anne, née Bryant. The architect Inigo Jones was a distant relative. In 1907 he married Gladys Claire. In 1910 Triggs bought the property then called Fry's Farm, in Liphook, Hampshire. He re-designed the farmhouse and gardens as his home and renamed it Little Boarhunt, based on a legend about King John hunting boar in the district. The house is now a Grade II listed building, being a representative romantic house of the Arts and Crafts Movement. H Inigo Triggs died on 9 April 1923 in Taormina, Sicily, Italy. A memorial tablet is dedicated to him in St Mary's Church, Bramshott. His older brother was Arthur Bryant Triggs, born in Chelsea, who in 1887 emigrated to Australia, becoming a wealthy New South Wales grazier and collector of art, books and coins.
Career
Triggs designed many formal gardens and later some country houses, mostly in southern England. He specialised in historical research and in re-creating gardens of the past. His books influenced the Italian mode of the Arts and Crafts style in England. He also designed Cooper's Bridge at Bramshott and the War Memorial in Petersfield High Street in 1922. In 1906 he was awarded the Godwin Bursary, presenting two reports: "The planning of public squares and open spaces", relating to the cities of Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Munich, including public monuments and fountains; "Le Petit Palais, Paris", a detailed description of the Musée des Beaux-Arts building, Avenue Winston Churchill, designed by Charles Girault and built between 1897 and 1900. In the 1910s Triggs was in partnership with the architect William Frederick Unsworth, and his son Gerald Unsworth, in Petersfield, Hampshire. W. F. Unsworth had previously designed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1879, which was destroyed by fire in 1926 and replaced in 1932 with the present Royal Shakespeare Theatre. In 1919, Triggs was tasked by The Whiteley Homes Trust to plan and supervise the landscaping of the area around Whiteley Village, Walton on Thames, Surrey, constructing tree-lined avenues and turfed walks, with fruiting trees and shrubs and lavender borders.
Houses
Little Boarhunt House and gardens Liphook, Hampshire including a sunken Elizabethan garden.
Restalls, Steep, Petersfield, Hampshire. The home of W F Unsworth, Inigo Triggs' business partner.
Garden Hill, Steep, Petersfield. The house was designed by W F Unsworth. The garden is believed to be by Triggs.
Ashford Chace, Steep, Petersfield, Hampshire. near Petersfield, Hampshire, for Aubyn Trevor-Battye
Memorials
Steep War Memorial. This was the first village war memorial to be dedicated in the country. It contains the name of Edward Thomas, the Poet. It is listed of Historic Importance Grade II.
Some Architectural Works of Inigo Jones A series of measured drawings and other illustrations together with descriptive notes; a biographical sketch and list of his authentic works, B T Batsford publishing. With Henry Tanner.
Their Planning And Arrangement, Architectural And Ornamental Features, B T Batsford publishing, 63 pages. Republished 1988.
Longmans publishing, 135 pages. Republished 1942 and 2007.
with 173 illustrations, Methuen & Co, 334 pages. Second edition in 1911.
C Scribner's Sons publishing, 332 pages. Republished 1933 and 2008.
