OTHER BUILDINGS: PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC
This volume has no claim to be a biography of Wren: still less is it a
_catalogue raisonné_ of his buildings. Familiar students of his work
will be merciful if they find a bare reference, or none, to something
they may regard as peculiarly satisfying and notably Wrennish. I can
but plead the limitations of a little book. But some of his buildings
not included in earlier chapters must be at least mentioned, if shortly
and in a disjointed list.
Amongst public works the Monument takes a prominent if rather
unsatisfactory place. The design was subjected to a good deal
of interference, for Hawksmoor records that the flaming urn was
substituted as a crowning feature for the intended statue of Charles
_contra architecti intentionem_.
Amongst the pedestals of equestrian statues in London, there is none to
compare with that of Charles I. at Charing Cross, which was probably of
Wren’s designing, but it has been attributed also to Grinling Gibbons.
Temple Bar was an interesting archway which now adorns Theobald’s Park
and is commemorated on its old site in Fleet Street by a melancholy
monument. There seems a good case for the return of Temple Bar to
some site in London. The neighbouring entrance to the Middle Temple is
one of Wren’s most charming achievements. His use of brickwork here
in conjunction with a stone base and pilasters is of an ideal modesty
and simplicity, matched within the Temple by the cloister of Hare
Court and rubbed brick doorways in King’s Bench Walk. Of these works
as of Kensington Palace Coventry Patmore’s words were abundantly true:
“Sir Christopher Wren could not build a common brick house without
impressing his own character upon it.” He might have added that it
needs a considerable artist to give character to a common brick house,
for the palette is limited. Wren’s work at Kensington has been a good
deal modified by later hands, but the Queen’s staircase and the Gallery
remain very typical. The exterior suffers greatly from the clumsy
additions of William Kent, which are too often accepted as part of the
original house. The lay-out should be restored, and the great alcove be
brought back from its present stupid position near the fountain. The
Orangery is a masterpiece of simplicity and reserve, and shows Wren
exercising the consummate taste which cannot in honesty be regarded as
a continuous characteristic. The attribution of various houses to Wren
rests either upon vague tradition or upon imaginary internal evidence.
The belief that he designed Belton is persistent but unsupported
by documents. The notable contributions made to its decoration by
Grinling Gibbons may have strengthened the tradition. Certainly Belton
is worthy of Wren. The same may be said of two houses in Chichester,
Pallant House and another which has long been called Wren’s House. Miss
Milman in her _Life_ printed a chronological list of works, and starred
those for which there was no documentary authority. But her stars must
be increased. The Chichester houses are cases in point.
It is unfortunate that Marlborough House has been so mishandled since
Wren’s day: the attic storey is a clumsy addition. As he planned
it, the disposition of the rooms showed no advance on the planning
of Inigo Jones and Webb. The main rooms were _en suite_ without any
corridor behind them, a march of convenience which Vanbrugh developed
at Blenheim, not otherwise a mirror of perfection. Sarah, Duchess, must
have been a client calling for all Wren’s skill in handling people.
When she quarrelled with Vanbrugh about his fees for Blenheim, she
quoted Wren as a pattern of moderation “content to be dragged up in a
basket, three or four times a week, to the top of St. Paul’s, and at
great hazard, for £200 a year.”
Groombridge Place, Kent, is another house of infinite charm which has
been attributed to Wren. The All Souls Collection of his drawings
includes some sketch elevations of houses. One sheet in particular
gives two alternative treatments for the same plan, but neither is
up to Wren’s best form, and it seems reasonable to assume that the
smaller domestic work for private clients had to be ignored in the
main because of his heavy public employments. Amongst his works which
have disappeared altogether are the Custom House, the Armoury and Mint
in the Tower of London (where his Storehouse has survived), Christ’s
Hospital, and the College of Physicians in Warwick Lane.
Not the least interesting of an architect’s designs are those which are
never carried to full fruition. The most notable of these was a great
Palace at Winchester, begun for Charles II. Not much of it was built,
for the King died before it was finished, and his successors did not
like Winchester. The uncompleted core was later adapted so drastically
for use as barracks that it ceased to have any Wren significance.
The Tomb of Charles I., for which Parliament voted £70,000, was
designed by Wren in 1678. The drawings preserved at All Souls show
a domed structure, which was to have stood at the east end of St.
George’s Chapel, Windsor. Within was to be a statue of the Martyr King
standing on a shield upheld by four allegorical figures. Alternative
treatments are shown for this group in marble and bronze. Grinling
Gibbons would no doubt have been the sculptor, but, as Wren’s title
of the drawings notes, it was _eheu conditionem temporum, nondum
extructum_. The _nondum_ gives a hint that Wren hoped that it might
later be done, but the £70,000 found less worthy employment. Wren’s
careful detailed estimates for the work are printed in Sir William
St. John Hope’s monumental _Windsor Castle_, with reproductions of the
drawings.
[Illustration: PLATE XII
TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY, CAMBRIDGE: RIVER FRONT.]
Noble as this design was, I confess I take more pleasure from Wren’s
design for a monument (also in All Souls Library) which Sir Reginald
Blomfield reproduces[C] with the note that it was probably drawn by
Grinling Gibbons. It shows a lady reclining on a couch, not unlike
Raggi’s Lady Cheyne in Chelsea Old Church, but she points with a lively
gesture to cherubs flying above her in a burst of rays and clouds. It
shows Wren in his most baroque mood, and is perhaps his reminiscence of
old Bernini’s monumental manner.
In Scotland he did nothing; but the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, near
Dublin, is attributed to him with some reason. In 1679 he was ordered
to view the site, but no record remains of his visit, and this Irish
variant of Chelsea Hospital is not claimed by his son in the list
of works. The building is simple and dignified with open cloisters
round a big quadrangle. Probably Wren did designs for it and left
some assistant or local architect to supervise its building. The best
evidence for his authorship is that there was no architect in Ireland
who could have produced such a design, with the possible exception of
the designer of Beaulieu, near Drogheda.
Another charitable foundation, Morden College, Blackheath, is
certainly Wren’s. It is an enchanting piece of brickwork with a
pedimented centre-piece and lantern.
As Cambridge was the locus of his first _completed_ work of importance,
Pembroke Chapel (the Sheldonian is called in the _Parentalia_ “the
first publick Performance of the Surveyor,” but it was finished later
than the chapel); it also gave him the opportunity for one of his
greatest achievements, the Library of Trinity. His first design was
for a circular building with a domed roof, but this soon gave place to
the scheme that was carried out. A long memorandum by Wren explains
his reasons for the design, which was limited by the need of joining
the new Library to the extension of Neville’s Court, a junction which
was not very happily achieved. The governing consideration of the
elevation to the Court was the maintenance of the Library floor on the
same level as the adjoining chambers. Unfortunately Wren would use two
Orders despite the fact that the structure of the work was in conflict.
Evidently he was forcing a design, naturally of a Palladian type, of a
_piano nobile_ on a lower storey which would be the podium of an Order.
It is a case where his ingenuity overbore his artistic sense, and he
resorted to the doubtful expedient of a range of arches, the tympana
of which are filled in solid. The river front has been criticised on
the grounds of an undue austerity, but I find it difficult to follow
this: it is surely a miracle of dignity. For the interior of the
Library there can be nothing but praise. Ideal in dignity and ideal in
convenience, Wren’s book presses have the additional merit of showing
Gibbons carving of peculiar excellence, and he must not be charged
with the overcrowding of the floor by smaller cases needed by modern
accessions of books.
Wren was less happy in his chapel and cloister at Emmanuel College. The
breaking of the pediment of the central feature by the lantern turret
is not in his usual vein, but the lantern itself is a very charming
composition. Another related work is the Honywood Library and Cloister
at Lincoln Cathedral, but the Library itself is a rather low and not
specially distinguished apartment.
I bring this slight catalogue of Wren’s miscellaneous works to a close
with a return to Oxford. It is difficult to determine how far he was
responsible for the Library at Queen’s College (1693) because Hawksmoor
was mixed up with him there, but the whole College must be regarded as
a Wren building. There is nothing of Hawksmoor’s more faithful to his
old master’s ideas, and less influenced by Sir John Vanbrugh’s, the two
poles between which the lesser man was always oscillating. Sir Reginald
Blomfield is strongly against attributing the Ashmolean to Wren, but
it is difficult to believe that such a building at such a time could
have been entrusted to anyone else. Similarly Trinity College Chapel
(1694) is somewhat of a mystery. It has been said that Dean Aldrich
was the architect and that Wren was only called in to advise. The
quality of the design suggests that Wren was the senior partner in the
combination. There is no confusion with regard to Tom Tower. Dr. Fell,
Dean of Christ Church, commissioned him to build a tower over Wolsey’s
gateway. The result is something certainly not Tudor, but quite
certainly a picturesque composition of a high order. Wren’s detail is
little like that of the sixteenth century below it, but he did the one
thing needful: he provided a dignified and picturesque portal for the
College, and it is folly to rebuke a late seventeenth-century architect
for not entering into the spirit of his predecessors of the early
sixteenth. The study of the spirit of Gothic work, alike systematic and
sympathetic, is a growth of less than a hundred years. Wren was of his
age.