=Old Kensington Palace Gardens.=
Before making our way to the public entrance to the state rooms of the
Palace, let us take a glance at the history of the gardens lying round
it, and the exterior of the building; and first as to the gardens on the
east and south of the building. The whole ground here down to the
highway was laid out quite early in the reign of William and Mary; but
its present uninteresting appearance gives us but little idea of how it
looked at that time. We find from the old accounts that large sums,
amounting to several thousands of pounds, were expended on garden
works--for levelling, gravelling, and planting, all in the formal Dutch
style, with figured beds and clipped trees--and also much ornamental
work, such as urns, stone vases, statues, and seats. There are, for
instance, many items such as these:
"To Edward Pearce for carving a chaire for the garden with a canopy
of drapery, £43 16_s._; more for carving 4 chairs and 2 seats with
Dolphins, scollop shells, etc., and other works done about the said
gardens, £43 2_s._ 4_d._--in both £86 18_s._ 4_d._"
We have also a contemporary account of the gardens as formed by William
and Mary, in a "View of the Gardens near London," dated December, 1691:
"Kensington Gardens are not great, nor abounding with fine plants. The
orange, lemon, myrtle, and what other trees they had there in summer,
were all removed to Mr. London's and Mr. Wise's greenhouse at Brompton
Park, a little mile from them. But the walks and grass laid very fine;
and they were digging up a flat of four or five acres to enlarge the
garden."
The northern boundary of King William's gardens is marked by two piers
of excellent red brickwork, evidently erected by Wren at that time. They
are surmounted by very fine vases of carved Portland stone; and are
perhaps two of the "Four great fflower-pots of Portland stone, richly
carved," for which, we find from the old bills, the statuary Gabriel
Cibber, the father of Colley Cibber, was paid £187 5_s._ Between these
piers, which stand 39 feet apart, there was probably, in old days, a
screen and gates of fine wrought iron. They stand at the south end of
what was called "Brazen Face Walk," and between them the visitor passes
to the public entrance to the Palace. The fencing in of this part of the
gardens is perhaps referred to in the following entry belonging to the
years 1692-95:
"William Wheatley for makeing and setting up Pallizadoes and gates
in and about the said Palace--£152 5_s._ 10_d._"
To the north of these piers lies the north-west corner of the now
so-called "Kensington Gardens," where were formerly situated that part
of the old gardens appurtenant to the Palace, laid out by Queen Anne.
The present bare uninteresting appearance of the ground round about is
now entirely different from what it then was.
[Illustration: Decoration]
=Queen Anne's Gardens.=
Bowack, in his "Antiquities of Middlesex," writing in the reign of Queen
Anne, in 1705, tells us of her improvements: "There is a noble
collection of foreign plants and fine neat greens, which makes it
pleasant all the year, and the contrivance, variety, and disposition of
the whole is extremely pleasing, and so frugal have they been of the
room they had, that there was not an inch but what is well improved, the
whole with the house not being above twenty-six acres. Her Majesty has
been pleased lately to plant near thirty acres more towards the north,
separated from the rest by a stately green-house, not yet finished; upon
this spot is near one hundred men daily at work, and so great is the
progress they have made, that in less than nine months the whole is
levelled, laid out, and planted, and when finished will be very fine.
Her Majesty's gardener had the management of this." Of Queen Anne's
"stately green-house" we shall speak in a moment.
Addison, also, in No. 477 of the "Spectator," expatiated on the beauties
of the gardens: "Wise and London are our heroick poets; and if, as a
critic, I may single out any passage of their works to commend, I shall
take notice of that part in the upper garden, at Kensington, which was
at first nothing but a gravel pit. It must have been a fine genius for
gardening, that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow
into so beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and
agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into."
The cost of these improvements amounted to several thousands of
pounds--in levelling, planting, turfing, gravelling. The appearance of
the east and south gardens in the reign of Queen Anne will, as we have
already said, best be conveyed by Kip's plate; the general plan of the
new enclosed garden to the north, north-east, and north-west, by
Rocque's engraving, published in 1736. From this we see that Queen
Caroline, who embarked in so many gardening enterprises, left Queen
Anne's new gardens substantially intact; though she made a clean sweep
of all the old fantastic figured flower beds and formal walks of William
III.'s _parterres_ to the south and east of the Palace; substituting
therefor bare and blank expanses of lawn and wide gravel paths.
During the reigns of George III. and George IV. all the gardens were
allowed to become more and more uncared for; and at last those to the
north of the Palace were destroyed altogether. The "old Wilderness" and
"old Gravel Pit" of Queen Anne and the early Georges now exist no
longer--converted by an insane utilitarianism partly into park land, the
rest into meadow.
The old gardens to the east, already flattened out and spoilt by Queen
Caroline, now exist but in part; the small portion, which has not been
covered with hideous forcing houses and frames, is, however, to a
certain extent nicely shrubbed, and closed in by trees and hedges. The
site of the old south gardens, curtailed now to a small enclosure, which
retains little of the old English picturesque air, might with advantage,
we think, be less stiff and bare. There is here little more than a clump
or two of trees and shrubs, a wide gravel path, and two large vacant
lawns, separated from the public walk by a wire fence, and between this
and High Street mere expanses of grass. Fortunately, the devastating
notions of the "landscape gardener" whose one idea was so to arrange the
ground surrounding a house as to look as if it stood plump in the middle
of a park--for all the world like a lunatic asylum--are not quite so
much in favour as they were.
The blankness and barrenness of all the ground between the south front
and the street was even more painfully apparent in Leigh Hunt's time,
who in his "Old Court Suburb" drew attention to this salient defect
nearly fifty years ago. "The house," he remarked, "nominally possesses
'gardens' that are miles in circumference.... There is room enough for
very pleasant bowers in the spaces to the east and south, that are now
grassed and railed in from the public path; nor would the look of the
Palace be injured with the spectator, but rescued from its insipidity."
His suggestion has been acted on to a certain extent in recent times,
but too partially in our view.
=Queen Anne's Orangery.=
Queen Anne is the sovereign to whom we owe the erection of this
exceedingly fine specimen of garden architecture--one of the most
beautiful examples of the art of the Renaissance in London, if not in
England. If we could say with truth that there ever was a "Queen Anne
style," this would, indeed, be a representative and unrivalled example
of it--as it certainly is of Sir Christopher Wren's, which, developing
in the reign of Charles II., was definitely formed and fixed in that of
William and Mary.
To an artist like Wren to beautify the ordinary and useful was to give
expression to one of the highest functions of architecture; and
therefore in this mere store-house for the Queen's treasured plants and
flowers, probably also a place where Queen Anne liked to sit and have
tea, we have a building--unimportant though its object may be
considered--which attains the very acme of his art, exhibiting all his
well-balanced judgment of proportion, all the richness of his
imagination in design.
The building of this greenhouse was begun in the summer of the year
1704. A plan, prepared by Sir Christopher at Queen Anne's express
orders, was submitted to and approved by her, and the original estimate,
which is still in the Record Office, dated June 10th, 1704--probably
drawn up by Richard Stacey, master bricklayer, and entitled: "For
building a Greenhouse at Kensington" at a cost of £2,599 5_s._
1_d._--was accordingly laid before the officers of Her Majesty's Works,
Sir Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Benjamin Jackson, and Matthew
Bankes, for a report thereon. Their opinion, after "considering the
measures and prices," was that "it may be finished soe as not to exceed
the sum therein expressed, viz., £2,599;" and the Lord Treasurer was
accordingly prayed "to pay £2,000 into the Office of Works that it may
be covered in before winter, according to Her Majesties expectation."
The work was consequently put in hand forthwith, but there is some
reason to suspect that Wren's original intentions were departed from,
and that the estimate approved by the Board of Works was afterwards cut
down by the Treasury by a thousand pounds or so. This appears probable
from the fact that Richard Stacey, the bricklayer who contracted for the
work, and who, in a petition dated September 13th, was clamouring for
payment of £800, on account of money then already disbursed by him,
referred to that sum as part of a total of £1,560, "lately altered from
the first estimate."
Whether this is so or not, the details of the original estimate are
interesting. The bricklayer's charges came to £697; mason's, to £102;
"Glass windows, doors, and the window shutters, £340; Glazier for Crowne
Glass, £74; Carpenter, £363," etc.; added to which was: "More to be laid
out the next year: The mason to pave it with stone fine-sanded, £246;
more for stone steps to go up into it, £72; more for wainscoting and
painting the Inside up to the top, £264."
The last item is especially noteworthy, proving, as it does, that the
woodwork was originally painted.
The beauty of Wren's masterpiece of garden architecture seems to have
been thoroughly appreciated in the time immediately succeeding its
erection; but with the steady decline in taste during the Georgian
epoch, it fell more and more into disregard, until, when the court
deserted Kensington in 1760, it was abandoned to complete neglect.
Britton and Brayley, writing in 1810 in their "Beauties of England,"
refer to it regretfully: "The whole is now sinking into a state of
unheeded decay." Soon after this, however, it seems to have undergone
some sort of repair, so, at least, wrote Faulkner, ten years after, who
added: "It is now filled with a collection of His Majesty's exotic
plants." He called it a "superb building," and clearly regarded it with
a much more appreciative eye than did its official guardians, who
probably about this time perpetrated the barbarism of cutting windows in
the north wall, right through the fine panelling and cornice!
Faulkner, nevertheless, was of course quite wrong in declaring, as he
did, that "it was originally built by Queen Anne for a Banqueting House,
and frequently used by Her Majesty as such." There is absolutely no
foundation whatever for either part of this statement, though it has
often been repeated and was improved upon by Leigh Hunt, who asserted
that "balls and suppers certainly took place in it." Funny "balls" they
must have been on the old brick floor! Hunt has nothing more to say of
it than rather scornfully to call it "a long kind of out-house, never
designed for anything else but what it is, a greenhouse." In so great
contempt, indeed, does it appear to have been held about this time, that
it is said the idea was once seriously entertained by some official
wiseacre of pulling it down and carting it away as rubbish! And this
while the State was annually devoting hundreds of thousands of pounds to
art education, art schools, art teachers, and art collections, leaving
one of our most precious monuments to perish from decay! "Out-house" and
"greenhouse" though it be, we would rather see it preserved than half
the buildings of recent times.
=Terrace of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
Before examining the orangery in detail, let us stand a moment in front
of it, on the terrace, platform, or _estrade_--by whichever name we may
call it--of Portland stone, with steps going down from it in front and
at both ends. Here formerly stood, in the summer, some of Queen Anne's
choicest exotics; and here Her Majesty doubtless often sat to have tea,
gossiping with the Duchess of Marlborough or Abigail Hill. In front the
steps led down into a formal parterre.
Now, however, the most prominent objects to the eye here, are the
glass-houses, and the tops of the forcing frames, in which the whole
stock for the bedding out in the park and gardens has been reared for
the last thirty or forty years. It is truly an amazing thing that a
piece of ground, situated as this is, close under the windows of the
Palace, and opposite this orangery, should have been appropriated to so
grossly disfiguring a use. This particular spot is the very last, one
would have supposed, which would have been pitched on for the purpose.
It will not be long, we trust, before the whole ground will be cleared,
and devoted once more to an old-fashioned sunk formal garden, with such
quaint devices as clipped shrubs, trimmed box, figured beds, sundials,
leaden vases--such as still survive in many an old country house.
Nor do we see why such restorations should stop here, nor why much of
the ground around the Palace should not be laid out in the old English
style, with some, at any rate, of the many embellishments for which
Evelyn pleaded as suitable for a royal garden: "Knots, trayle work,
parterres, compartments, borders, banks, embossments, labyrinths,
dædals, cabinets, cradles, close walks, galleries, pavilions, porticoes,
lanthorns, and other _relievos_ of topiary and horticulan architecture,
fountaines, jettes, cascades, pisceries, rocks, grottoes, cryptæ,
mounts, precipices, and ventiducts; gazon theatres, artificial echoes,
automate and hydraulic music!"
Barring the last half dozen items, something in the antique formal style
would, indeed, be a relief from the tedious monotony of modern
"landscape" gardening.
=Exterior of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
As a specimen of an unaffectedly ornamented exterior of brick, this
elevation to the south, aiming rather at simplicity and plain dignity
than magnificence or grandeur, is to our view admirable.
In the centre is a compartment, more decoratively treated than the rest,
with four rusticated piers or pillars of brick, supporting an
entablature of the Doric order, mainly in stone. The cornice, though
probably modelled on the original, must be modern, for it is in Roman
cement, a material which did not come into use in England until about a
hundred years ago; and it so happens that the date, 1805, has been found
on part of the woodwork adjoining. Above the cornice, over the central
window, or rather doorway, is a semi-circular window, apparently to give
light into the roof. On each side of the central compartment are four
high windows, with sashes filled with small panes; and at each end are
slightly projecting wings, or bays, with window-doors, extra high, and
reaching to the floor level, to admit tall-grown oranges and other
plants. These are flanked by plain rusticated piers of bright red
brick; beyond which are plain brick niches, with small brackets above
them.
A very similar arrangement of windows and niches is repeated at the east
and west return ends of the building; where, however, the large window
is surmounted by a small semi-circular recess or panel, and the whole
overhung by the deep, wide eave of the gable of the roof.
The total exterior length of the building is 171 feet, the width 32
feet.
=Interior of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
It is not, however, the exterior of this building, but the interior,
which will arouse in those who behold it the greatest admiration, for it
is here that we can appreciate Wren's imaginative and constructive
genius at its very best. The longer we know and contemplate it, the more
supremely beautiful does it strike us, both in the mass and in its
details. We will not describe it with any minuteness; but content
ourselves with recording that the central portion of each wall, is
treated more elaborately than the rest, being ornamented with Corinthian
columns, supporting a richly carved entablature. The rest of the walls,
both between the windows on the south side, and on the unbroken surface
of the opposite north side, are panelled in deal wood, with beautiful
carved cornices above. At each end, both east and west, there is an
arch, flanked with panelled niches, and surmounted by festoons of
Gibbons' carving. These, we may observe in passing, proved, after being
cleaned, to be so worm-eaten, as to necessitate their being
repainted--mere staining not being sufficient to prevent their falling
to pieces. They are now in fact, held together by the coatings of new
paint.
The dimensions of this main portion of the interior are: 112 feet long
and 24 feet wide between the brick walls, three inches less each way
between the woodwork. The height to the ceiling is 24 feet 6 inches, and
to the top of the cornice 22 feet 9 inches.
=The Alcoves of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
Fine, however, as is the main and central portion of this interior, the
alcoves, into which we pass through the arches at each end of it,
impress us still more with their admirable proportions, their supreme
grace of design, the exquisite beauty of their decorative detail.
Their shape is circular, with fluted Corinthian columns, supporting
highly-carved architraves and cornices, and flanking the entrances, the
windows opposite these and on the south, and the panelled spaces on the
north wall. There are also intervening niches with semicircular heads,
springing from richly carved imposts. The ceilings, which are circular,
rising in coves from behind the cornices, are "saucer-domed."
The dimensions of these alcoves are: east one, diameter, 24 feet, west
one, 24 feet 4-1/2 inches; height to the centre of the dome, 24 feet 2
inches, to the top of the cornice 20 feet.
=Restoration of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
The whole of this beautiful interior, however, now presents a very
different appearance from what it did when taken in hand about a year
ago.
This is how it was described in an interesting article in "The Times" on
the 28th of January, 1898: "The exquisite interior has been the victim
not merely of neglect, but of chronic outrage. For, as the little garden
between this and the Palace has been found a convenient place on which
to put up the glasshouses, frames and potting-sheds necessary for the
park gardeners, what more natural, to the official eye, than that the
Orangery close by should be pressed into the same service? Accordingly,
at some time or other, which cannot have been very many years ago, more
than half the beautiful high panelling of this building was torn down
and has disappeared, the gardeners' stands have been let into the walls,
and there the daily work has proceeded with no thought that it was daily
desecration."
The work of restoring all these beautiful carvings, which has been in
progress during the last fifteen months, has now put an entirely
different aspect on this interior, and not in vain has every piece of
old carving been treasured up, cleaned, repaired, and patched in, with
scrupulous care.
When this work was completed, the question arose, whether the woodwork
was to be all painted over white, as it doubtless originally was, or
merely lightly stained. White painting would, perhaps, have been
artistically, as well as archæologically, the preferable course. But it
was thought that white paint, in the smoky, foggy atmosphere of modern
Kensington, and with the clouds of dust particles from the tread of
numberless visitors, would soon take on the dirty tinge of London mud;
and thus have required such frequent renewal as eventually to choke up
again all the sharpness of the delicate chiselling of the foliated
capitals, architraves and cornices.
The decision eventually come to, therefore, was to stain it, with a tone
of colour like oak, which gives full prominence and clearness to the
carved surfaces. This staining alone, apart from the previous cleaning,
has involved no less than eight distinct processes: (1) washing down;
(2) vinegaring over to take out lime stains; (3) the same repeated; (4)
sizing to keep the stain from penetrating the wood; (5) the same
repeated; (6) staining; (7) varnishing; (8) flat-varnishing.
[Illustration: Decoration]
=Kensington Gardens.=
The modern so-called "Kensington Gardens" are, as we have already
explained, identical with the original domain of old Nottingham House,
increased by the addition of some hundred acres or more taken from Hyde
Park. When William III. first acquired the Nottingham estate he
appointed his favourite, Bentinck, Earl of Portland, "Superintendent of
Their Majesties' Gardens and Plantations within the boundary lines of
Their Majesties' said house at Kensington"--an office distinct from that
of Ranger of Hyde Park--and some planting and other improvements seem to
have been carried out at that time in these "plantations."
Queen Anne's inclosure of a hundred acres from Hyde Park to form a
paddock for deer we have already noted.
Faulkner's exaggerated statement that nearly three hundred acres were
taken in and added to Kensington Gardens by Queen Caroline has been
confuted by Mr. Loftie; but he has gone to the other extreme in
declaring that no alteration whatever was, at any time, made in the
boundary between the park and the gardens. Nevertheless, it is still
doubtful whether Queen Caroline is to be held responsible for any
"rectification" of these frontiers. The reference already quoted, in the
Treasury Papers of the year 1729, for an allowance of £200 to the ranger
"in consideration of loss of herbage of that part of the said park,
which is laid into His Majesty's gardens at Kensington," may of course
refer to the portion previously taken in by Queen Anne.
=Queen Caroline's Improvements in Kensington Gardens.=
To Queen Caroline, however, is certainly due the main credit of the
creation of Kensington Gardens, as we now know them; for it was her
reforming and transforming zeal which made the great "Basin" or "Round
Pond;" turned a string of small ponds, in the course of the "West
Bourne," into the Serpentine; laid out the "Broad Walk," and designed
the diverging and converging vistas and avenues of trees intersecting
the grounds in all directions.
In all these extensive works of improvement Charles Bridgeman, the
King's gardener, was employed; and we find from the old Treasury Minute
Book that in 1729 no less a sum than £5,000 was due to him "for works in
the paddock and gardens at Kensington."
About the same date, Queen Caroline, during one of George II.'s absences
in Hanover, issued an order that:
"The King's ministers being very much incommoded by the dustiness
of the road leading through Hyde Park, now they are obliged to
attend Her Majesty at Kensington, it was her pleasure that the
whole of the said road be kept constantly watered, instead of the
ring in the Park; and that no coaches other than those of the
nobility and gentry be suffered to go into or pass through the
Park."
Kensington Gardens in the Nineteenth Century.
At that period the gardens were opened to the public only on Saturdays,
when the company appeared in full dress. This was the time of the great
fashionable promenade. During the reign of George III. they were opened
every day in the week, summer and winter, under certain regulations,
"and the number of the gatekeepers," says Faulkner, writing in 1819,
"have lately been increased, who are uniformly clothed in green." He
adds: "The great South Walk, leading to the Palace, is crowded on Sunday
mornings in the spring and summer with a display of all the beauty and
fashion of the great metropolis, and affords a most gratifying
spectacle, not to be equalled in Europe."
In the middle of this century the tide of fashion set back towards
Rotten Row and Hyde Park Corner; and Kensington Gardens have, for the
last sixty or eighty years, been very little frequented by the "world."
Their attractions, however, have not suffered on this account in the
view of the poet, the artist, and the lover of nature. "Here in
Kensington," wrote Haydon the painter, "are some of the most poetical
bits of trees and stump, and sunny brown and green glens and tawny
earth."
But it is not within the scope of these pages, confined as they are to
topics directly connected with Kensington Palace as a new public resort,
to describe these two hundred and fifty acres of delightful verdant
lawns, sylvan glades, and grassy slopes. We must resist the temptation,
therefore, to wander away into the attractive prospect, which unfolds
itself beneath our gaze when looking out from the windows of the state
rooms, or into which we can saunter when we quit the Palace. Moreover,
their charms, as they were and are, have been drawn by too many master
hands--by Tickell, Leigh Hunt, Thackeray, Disraeli--to encourage any
attempt at their description here. In our own day they have still been
the favourite resort of many a jaded Londoner, in which to snatch a few
hours of quiet and repose, out of the whirl of the great city around.
Matthew Arnold's charming poem, "Lines written in Kensington Gardens,"
will occur to many, especially that stanza:
"In this lone open glade I lie,
Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand;
And at its end to stay the eye,
Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine trees stand."
[Illustration: Decoration]
[Illustration: SOUTH FRONT OF KENSINGTON PALACE IN 1819.
(After Westall.)]
=South Front of the Palace.=
We may look upon this façade as architecturally the most interesting
portion of the existent Palace of Kensington, for it shows us the
exterior almost exactly as finished by Wren for William and Mary, about
the year 1691. While unpretentious and plain, it is well and solidly
built, and altogether appropriate to the purpose which it was intended
to serve, namely, that of a comfortable, homely, suburban residence for
the King and Queen and the court.
The long lower building of two main storeys, in deep purple-red brick,
to the left, forms the south range of the chief courtyard; and there is
every reason to believe that it is a part of the original Nottingham
House, altered and improved by Wren. The loftier building, to the right,
of three storeys, in bright red brick, is unquestionably entirely
Wren's, and in the old accounts is referred to as "the new Gallery
Building." All the windows on the top or second floor here, except the
two on the extreme right, are those of the "King's Gallery" (described
on page 117). The floor beneath consisted, and consists, of the
sovereign's private apartments. The four fine carved vases of Portland
stone, surmounting the four pilasters of the same, are probably those
mentioned in the old accounts as carved by Gabriel Cibber for _£_787
5_s._
Wren's Domestic Style.
Those who are at all acquainted with Wren's style and inclinations will
not be surprised at the marked plainness of his work here--so little
accordant with ordinary pompous preconceived notions of what befits a
regal dwelling-house. In planning habitable buildings we find he always
mainly considered use and convenience--adapting his external
architectural effects to the exigencies of his interiors. Ever ready,
indeed, to devote the full range of his great constructive genius to
the commonest works, rendering whatever he designed a model for the use
to which it was to be put, he was, in these respects, essentially a
"builder" before all; not only a designer of elevations and a drawer of
plans, but a practical worker, thinking nothing useful beneath his
notice. There was, in fact, nothing of the lofty, hoity-toity architect
about him; on the contrary, absorbed with questions of adaptability and
convenience; searching into details of material and workmanship; we find
him in his seat at the head of the Board of Works rigorously testing,
sifting and discussing estimates, values, specifications and
"quantities." It is due to this side of his mind that so much of his
work has endured intact to this day; while we owe it to his positive
intuitive genius for rendering his creations well-proportioned and
dignified, as well as convenient and comfortable; to his wonderful skill
in arranging positions, sizes, and shapes to meet the exigencies of
light and air, that his houses still remain so habitable, and are
distinguished by so homelike an air.
=East Front of the Palace.=
This aspect of Kensington Palace, which we almost hesitate to dignify
with the name of "Front" consists mainly of two distinct portions:
first, the "return" or end of Wren's "Gallery Building," on the left,
distinguished by its fine red brickwork and its deep cornice, similar to
the same on the south side; and on the right, the building tacked on to
it, built for George I. by Kent, as already mentioned on page 23, and
further referred to on pages 86, 93, and 99. We must frankly say--and
few are likely to differ from us--that Kent's building here is about as
ugly and inartistic as anything of the sort could be. It is not alone
the common, dirty, yellow, stock brick with which it is built, but the
whole shape and design, with its pretentious pediment, ponderous and
hideous, the prototype of acres upon acres of ghastly modern London
structures in the solid "workhouse" style. It is amazing that Kent,
with so excellent a model of plainness and simplicity in Wren's
buildings on each side, should have stuck in this ill-formed, abortive
block between them. Fortunately, his taste as a decorator was greatly
superior to his powers as an architect, so that the interior portions of
this building of his, which consists of additional state-rooms, are not
entirely deficient in merit, as we shall see. The three central windows
are those of the "King's Drawing Room," (see page 99).
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE STATE ROOMS KENSINGTON PALACE.]
To the north-west of the structure comprising Kent's state apartments
lies another of the older parts of the Palace, a low building of two
storeys, in deep russet brick, of uniform appearance, with fifteen
windows in a row on the first floor. This range, built, or, at any rate,
altered and improved by Wren, and forming the east side of Princess's
Court, comprises the state and habitable rooms of Queen Mary and Queen
Anne. At its extreme north end is the "Queen's Staircase," now the
public entrance to the state rooms.
=Public Entrance to the Palace.=
Access to the state rooms open to the public being by way of the
"Queen's" or "Denmark Staircase," situated in the northernmost angle of
the building, visitors approach it from the north-west corner of
"Kensington Gardens," where, as we have already explained, were formerly
situated those parts of the old formal gardens attached to the Palace,
which were laid out by Queen Anne, called the "Old Gravel Pit," the
"Wilderness," etc. The path here, leading straight up to the present
public entrance, was then known as "Brazen-face Walk." Going along it
southwards, we pass between a pair of fine gate-posts of red brick,
surmounted by richly-carved vases of Portland stone, evidently designed
by Wren, already referred to in our account of "Old Kensington Palace
Gardens" on page 48; and then between a privet hedge and a wire fence up
to the public doorway into the "Queen's Staircase."
This doorway, on the north wall, is very commonplace; with a porch in
the later Georgian style, consisting of a couple of pillars of Portland
stone, glazed between, and supporting a hood above.
Round the corner, however, on the east wall, is a very different
doorway, both interesting and picturesque. It is the one which
originally gave access to the staircase, and was designed and built by
Sir Christopher Wren, probably in the year 1691. The space within the
hood or circular pediment above the door is filled with beautiful stone
carving, in the centre of which is a shield or panel bearing the
initials W. M. R. Above this is a brick niche with a bracket, on which
stands an old urn or flower-pot. Something very similar probably stood
here formerly, and was thus charged for in the old parchment accounts
for the years 1689-91:
"Henry Long for a large vase of earth (terra-cotta) wrought with
handles and festoons painted with gilt £6 10_s._"
=Queen's Staircase.=
This forms the entrance by which the public are admitted into the State
Rooms. Built by Sir Christopher Wren for Queen Mary on the "Queen's
Side" of the Palace, it was called the "Queen's Staircase," while being
situated in that part of the Palace which was at one time occupied by
Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, it has also been
occasionally known as the "Denmark Staircase," as this portion of the
building itself has been called the "Denmark Wing."
* * * * *
In the view of the ordinary Londoner, with eye too much dazzled and
demoralized by the tawdry vulgarities of the over-gilded,
over-looking-glassed, blazing, modern "Restaurant" style of decoration,
this beautiful staircase, in its just proportions and its subdued
simplicity, may appear plain, if not mean.
Yet as an example of the genuine, unaffected old English treatment of
oak wainscoting, as a cover and ornament to large wall spaces, nothing
could be more pleasing and more appropriate. The deep rich, almost
ruddy, tone of colour of the wood, the admirable proportion and balance
of the stiles and rails to the sizes of the panels, their adjustment to
the rise of the stairs, and their fitment to the various spaces on the
walls, produce an effect of soundness and comfort, most admirable and
nowhere to be matched.
Old Oak Wainscoting of the Staircase.
When the work of cleaning down this woodwork was taken in hand last
autumn, it was, as the phrase is, "as black as your hat;" and it was
then supposed to have been smeared over, at some time or other, with a
black stain. It proved, however, to be only ingrained with dirt and
dust, which had been coated over with red-lead and boiled oil, and which
quickly yielded to cleansing.
Nevertheless, the oak is not English, but probably Norwegian, which
seems to be richer in the grain than our own native tree. It is clear
that the wood must have been carefully cut in such a way as to show as
much "figure" as possible--the cuttings being, with this distinct
object, as nearly as possible radiating from the centre of the trunk of
the tree--the "medullary rays" of the wood being, in fact, sliced
through, instead of intersected transversely. This has the effect of
displaying the largest amount of the grain.
Window Sashes of the Staircase.
The visitor should notice the difference in the sashes of the two
windows on the left-hand side of the stairs as you go up, as compared
with the other two on the landing at the top. The first two windows have
had large panes of glass--2 feet 1 inch high by 1 foot 2-1/2 inches
wide--and thin bars, substituted for the original smaller panes--12-1/2
inches high by 9-1/2 inches wide--and the thick moulded bars, which
still remain in the landing windows. This side by side comparison
enables us to estimate how deplorable and stupid was the want of taste,
which led to the destruction here, as elsewhere in this Palace, of the
picturesque, well-proportioned spacings of the window panes, to insert
instead ill-proportioned panes and thin bars.
Not until the time of George II. did this foolish, inartistic fancy come
into vogue. Wren, of course, knew what he was about when he selected the
sizes of the spaces and bars. He determined them on definite principles
of scale and proportion, according to the sashes they were intended to
fill, and according, also, to the dimensions of the room, and the plan
and shape of the surrounding wainscot. He had, in fact, eight or ten
different types of sashes--the mouldings, as well as the widths and
sizes of the bars varying, and the shapes of the panes--square or
upright--varying also; not like your ingenious modern builder, who runs
out "mouldings" at so much a foot, mitres them up into equal spaces,
and, regardless of scale and proportion, sticks in the same sized
sashes, panes, and bars everywhere, in large lofty rooms or small low
ones--all alike.
The dimensions of this staircase are 24 feet 3 inches long by 22 feet 10
inches wide, and 25 feet high.
=Queen Mary's Gallery.=
Queen Mary and Queen Anne are the sovereigns with whom this gallery is
mainly associated; and indeed, it is now--since the restorations of the
last twelve months, which have mainly consisted in repairing the
panelling, and removing the paint with which it was all smeared over in
the reign of George I.--to be seen for the first time for a hundred and
seventy-four years, exactly as it appeared in their time. It remains,
indeed, more intact than any other room in the Palace; and with its
beautiful deep-toned oak panelling, its richly-carved cornice, its
low-coved ceiling, and its closely-spaced, thick-barred window-sashes,
it has a most comfortable, old-fashioned air.
There is no storey above this gallery, but only a span roof; and it was
originally--we do not know exactly when--a true "gallery" in the old
English meaning of the word, that is, a long chamber with windows on
both sides. The window spaces or recesses, on the right or west side,
still remain behind the panelling, and are exactly opposite the existent
windows on the left or east side. We may observe, also, that the room
seems at one time to have terminated just beyond the sixth window,
reckoning from the entrance, the line of the wall behind the wainscot on
the right, setting back at this point about a foot; while on the left
side, both inside and out, there is a straight joint in the brickwork,
and a break in the line of the wall.
Wainscoting and Carvings of Queen Mary's Gallery.
The wainscoting, as we have already indicated, was fixed here in the
early years of the reign of Queen Mary. The panels, which are very thin
and of unusual breadth, nevertheless have remained but little twisted or
buckled to this day, owing to Wren's particular and invariable
insistence that only the best seasoned wood should be used in all the
work under his charge. In the course of the restorations, it has,
however, been necessary to take it all to pieces in order to repair the
injuries of nearly two centuries of misusage and neglect. Here, as in
the staircase, are to be noticed the extreme richness in grain of the
old oak, and its deep warm tone of colour.
From the old enrolled parchment accounts of the years 1689-1691, we find
that Henry Hobb and Alexander Forst were the joiners who made the
wainscoting, as well as the "shashes," shutters, window-boards,
chimney-pieces, picture frames, shelves, etc.; while Nicolas Alcocke,
William Emet, and Grinling Gibbons carved "1,405 feet Ionick medallion
and hollow cornish; 942 feet of picture frame over the doors and
chimneys, and 89 feet of astragall moulding, about the glasses in the
chimneys." Another item of payment in the same accounts, also relating
to the work here, is the following:
"To Gerard Johnson, Cabinet maker, for severall pannells of
wainscot, covered with looking-glass for chimney pieces in the
King's dining-roome, the gallerie, and over the doors, and for
putting them up--£100."
Among others here referred to were doubtless =the looking-glasses= over
the two chimney-pieces in this gallery. These are particularly fine and
worthy of notice. When the restorations were begun last summer, they
were literally dropping to pieces, falling in shreds, we might say. The
greatest care has been taken to piece the bits together; and to replace
the missing portions. Only such patched and added parts have been
regilt; the old gilding still remaining almost as bright and untarnished
as when these glasses were first put up, two hundred years ago, by
Gerard Johnson, cabinet maker, and Robert Streeter, serjeant painter.
Honour to their names, as two good old English handicraftsmen, whose
honest work thus survives to this day!
Over each of the four doors are long richly-carved brackets of oak,
similar to those on which rest the looking-glasses over the
chimney-pieces. We know from Pyne's drawing in 1818, that these brackets
over the doors then still supported looking-glasses, with richly carved
frames. Unfortunately, all trace of them has now disappeared.
=The chimney-piece= of the first fire-place on the right as you enter
the gallery is the original one of Wren's design, of marble streaked and
veined blue-grey. The second, of white marble streaked with red,
technically known as "Breche-violett-antico," is new--copied from the
first. This fire-place was, until last summer, filled with a common
cooking range, inserted many years ago for the use of the soldiers, when
this gallery was used as a barrack!
=The window-sashes= in this gallery are of the charming old-fashioned
type, divided by thick, deeply moulded bars, into small rectangular
spaces. Through these windows we have a pleasant view eastward of the
private gardens of the Palace, and of Kensington Gardens beyond.
The dimensions of this gallery are: 88 feet 4 inches long by 22 feet
broad by 13 feet 3-1/2 inches high to the top of the cornice, and 17
feet 13 inches high to the highest part of the ceiling.
=Pictures in Queen Mary's Gallery. Portraits of the Time of William and
Mary to George II.=