Architect. Paine appears to have studied in London at the St Martin's Lane Academy. Here he met Isaac Ware and was introduced to the circle of the third Earl of Burlington. His first professional task was to supervise the erection of Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (c.1737-1750). While still engaged on this project he was commissioned to design a prominent public building in the area, the Mansion House at Doncaster, Yorkshire (1745-48). In 1746 he returned to live in London. Here he built his reputation on designing a large town house in Whitehall, for Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh (1754-58). He was one of several architects involved with the work at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (1759). During the 1770s and 1780s he erected a number of bridges in the Thames valley, the finest being that over the Thames at Richmond, Surrey (1774-77). He was a pioneer of the compact, centrally planned Palladian villa as a country-house form, in particular exploiting the practical and visual potential of the central top-lit staircase and the practical advantages of the 'villa with wings'.