Henry Clutton was born on 19 March 1819, the son of Owen and Elizabeth Goodinge Clutton. He studied with Edward Blore between 1835 and 1840, but began his own practice in 1844. He became an expert in French medieval architecture. Clutton also worked with William Burges. John Francis Bentley was a student of Clutton.
In 1855, Clutton and Burges won the competition to design Lille Cathedral; however, the idea of entrusting the construction of a church in honour of the Virgin to foreign architects of an Anglican confession raised objections. Therefore, the project was given to a local architect.[3]
Between 1858 and 1860, Clutton built Minley Manor in the French chateau style for Raikes Currie, a partner in Glyn Mills' Bank and a member of the Currie family who benefited substantially from slavery in the British West Indies.[4] It was later used by the Royal School of Military Engineering.
After Cliveden House burned down for the second time, around 1859, George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland commissioned Clutton to design a nearby water tower. The 100-foot (30m) clock tower was added in 1861 and still provides water for the house today. It is rendered in Roman cement like the rest of the house, and features four clock faces framed by gilded surrounds and a half-open staircase on its north side. It was described by the architectural critic Nicholas Pevsner as "the epitome of Victorian flamboyance and assertiveness."[5]
In 1865, William Duke of Bedford, decided to build a Chapel of Ease linked to the Anglican parish church of St. Eustacius, Tavistock, Devon. This chapel was to accommodate the miners pouring into Tavistock to work at the Great Consoles copper mines to the west of Tavistock. After the mines were worked out, the need for this church diminished and it closed. In 1953 the Catholic Diocese of Plymouth purchased the church and it is now the parish church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Mary Magdalene.
Illustrations of Medieval Architecture in France, from the Accession of Charles VI. to the Demise of Louis XII: With Historical and Professional Remarks