Axel Haig

Axel Herman Haig RE (; 10 November 1835 –23 August 1921) was a Swedish-born artist, illustrator and architect. His paintings, illustrations and etchings, undertaken for himself and on behalf of many of the foremost architects of the Victorian period made him "the Piranesi of the Gothic Revival."

Life Haig was born at Katthamra farm in the parish of Östergarn on the island of Gotland. His parents were Axel Hägg, a landowner and timber merchant, and Anna Margaretha Lindström. Haig was apprenticed as a shipbuilder at the government dockyard at Karlskrona. In 1856 he went to Glasgow for a further period of training at a firm of Clydeside shipbuilders. Haig produced a series of watercolour illustrations that were "an immediate sensation." as Burges designed his most important commissions, so Haig drew them. "In Haig, Burges, the architect of a medieval dreamland, had found an artist worthy of his dreams."

Haig also designed All Saints' Church, Grayswood, Surrey. It was built between 1901 and 1902 in a style described variously as Surrey Vernacular or "13th-century Gothic with Arts and Crafts elements". Haig is buried in the graveyard. The church is a Grade II listed building.

In a review of Haig's work published by the Royal Institute of British Architects in the year of his death, Maurice Adams wrote that "his architectural draughtsmanship ranks without a doubt amongst the foremost of his time and his graphic capability remains unique."

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