architect; there was his acquaintance, Robert Hooke, three years his
junior, and, like himself, the son of a parson. Hooke was almost as
versatile a genius as Wren, but it was as a mathematician that he
achieved most reputation. He was connected with the Royal Society at
its inception, and was appointed curator of experiments. The great
fire of London appears to have turned his attention to architecture;
indeed that event, owing to the necessity it imposed of a vast amount
of urgent rebuilding, seems to have led into the paths of architecture
men whose previous training, although not architectural, qualified them
even slightly for the work. Doubtless Hooke’s mathematics pointed him
out as being not unsuitable to become a city surveyor, besides which he
had submitted a plan to the Royal Society for the rebuilding of London,
which received much commendation from the lord mayor and corporation,
who asked that it might be submitted to the king. In this direction,
however, he had been forestalled by Wren with his fine scheme. In the
end nothing came of either of the suggestions.
Hooke appears to have made a considerable fortune as a surveyor, and
he is credited with the design of three important buildings, all of
which have disappeared. One of these was Montagu House, in Bloomsbury,
for Ralph, Lord Montagu, whose country house at Boughton is presently
to be described. Hooke’s house did not last long; it was begun in 1675
and burnt down in 1686, its successor being designed by the French
architect, Puget, whom Lord Montagu may have known during his long
residence in France. The second building ascribed to Hooke is the old
Bethlem Hospital, likewise begun in 1675 and pulled down in 1814 (Fig.
116); and the third is Aske’s Hospital at Hoxton, begun about 1688.
Engravings of the last two buildings (there is no record of the first
Montagu House) do not lead to the opinion that Hooke was a great master
of architecture, although it is true that the long front of Bethlem
Hospital is handled in a simple, straightforward manner. He was far
behind Wren, but he is interesting as being another whose training led
him, under the special conditions of the time, into active practice.
[Illustration: FIG. 118.--SOUTH OR PRINCIPAL FRONT OF
ALBEMARLE HOUSE, LONDON, 1664.
From an Engraving by R. Sawyer, Jun.]
Lord Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, built a fine house during
the heyday of his prosperity, on a site in Piccadilly, opposite the
top of St James’s Street (Fig. 118). It was highly extolled by Evelyn
(especially when writing to Lord Cornbury, the chancellor’s eldest
son), and after him by Pepys, who went to see it, “hearing so much from
Mr. Evelyn of it.” He declared it to be the finest pile he ever did see,
and on a subsequent visit he climbed with some trouble to the top, and
there found the noblest prospect that ever he saw, Greenwich being
nothing to it. The engraving hardly bears out this extravagant praise,
but it must have been a stately house. The architect was Roger Pratt,
afterwards knighted, another of the men whom the great fire appears to
have brought into the service of architecture.[58] Evelyn mentions him
more than once; he was a fellow commissioner of his in the inquiry as
to the rebuilding of St Paul’s, and Evelyn had met him years before in
Italy. The house was begun in 1664, and was approaching completion in
November 1666. But misfortune dogged it from the outset. The populace,
with whom Clarendon was no favourite, dubbed it Dunkirk House, in
allusion to his supposed connection with the sale of that town to the
French. The chancellor occupied it but a single year before he fled the
country; his son occupied it for another year or two, and it was then
let on lease to the Duke of Ormond. After Clarendon’s death at the end
of 1674, it was sold to the second Duke of Albemarle, and became known
as Albemarle House; he again sold it some three years later to a kind
of building syndicate, who in a few years pulled it down and laid out
its site and the surrounding land in streets, one of which was called
Albemarle Street, and another Bond Street, after Sir Thomas Bond who
was one of the principals concerned in the transaction. The house was
regarded as an unwarrantable extravagance, and Clarendon himself is
reported to have eventually looked upon the building of it as a “vanity
and folly.” But after all it only cost £50,000, which was a small sum
compared with the cost of many houses both before and since. It is
interesting because of its short life--less than twenty years from
foundation to demolition--and from the character of the design, which
follows the lines laid down by Jones and Webb.
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--Staircase of a House between Love
Lane and Botolph Lane, London (demolished in 1906).]
Apart from the large houses which were built for wealthy persons,
the new London which sprang up after the fire must have been widely
different from the old. The houses which were burnt down were, many
of them, built of wood and plaster--relics of mediæval times. Their
fronts leaned across narrow lanes, each story projecting over the one
beneath it, after such a fashion as may still be seen, though ever less
frequently, in some of our ancient country towns. The houses which
replaced them followed in most cases the old frontage lines, but their
fronts were vertical and admitted as much light and air as the width
of the street allowed. Nevertheless, the width was frequently but
little, and houses of great size and finely treated within, were built
in streets and lanes which in the present day we should regard as mere
alleys, and which, indeed, would not be permitted under any modern
by-laws. London still preserves many of these old houses (Fig. 117),
although they are gradually being improved away. They are generally
built of brick, with very little relief to their fronts save a good
doorway and a good cornice, and perhaps a few touches in some ironwork.
The same general treatment prevailed for half a century or more, with
a tendency, however, to even greater simplicity; the result was that,
although in the city where the narrow lanes were crooked and had here
and there unexpected projections, the effect was interesting, yet
where the same plain treatment was applied to long straight streets,
the effect became dull and monotonous. Most of these houses had
interesting detail within them, many of them were actually sumptuous,
and of a richness suitable to the merchant princes who dwelt there.
They had fine staircases and ceilings like those in a house in Botolph
Lane (Figs. 119, 120), and good doorways and panelling like that in a
house in College Hill (Fig. 121).
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--Ceiling in a House between Love and
Botolph Lanes.]
[Illustration: FIG. 121.--HOUSE IN COLLEGE HILL.
DETAILS.
Lawrence Furniss, _del._
Illustration reproduced by permission of Messrs Technical Journals,
Ltd.]
[Illustration: FIG. 122.--THE GREAT HOUSE, LEYTON.
Edwin Gunn, _del._]
A fine example of the treatment, prevalent at this period, of a
staircase and hall was to be seen, before its destruction, at the
Great House at Leyton, in Essex, not far from London (Fig. 122). It is
designed in a broad, simple, yet monumental manner, which, however,
has led to the dividing of the lower part of the staircase into two
separate flights, which merge into a single flight of the same width at
the half-landing. The treatment is not quite logical, but--which was
held to be more important--it is symmetrical. The Great House was built
by Sir Fisher Tenche, Bart., whose father was an Alderman of London,
and it is a good example of the houses built by wealthy citizens out in
the country, but within reach of the city.[59]
[Illustration: FIG. 123.--ST LAWRENCE, JEWRY. DETAIL OF
CARVING IN VESTRY ROOM.
Silver Medal Drawing by David Wickham Ayre.]
[Illustration: FIG. 124.--ST LAWRENCE, JEWRY. DETAIL OF
SIDE OF VESTRY ROOM.
Silver Medal Drawing by David Wickham Ayre.]
[Illustration: FIG. 125.--BREWERS’ HALL.]
Although, strictly speaking, rather outside the subject of domestic
architecture, the city halls and churches should not be overlooked,
as they contain splendid specimens of decoration in wood and plaster
of the same kind as those to be found in houses. At the period under
consideration, as in former times, the same sort of embellishment
was applied to churches as to houses; it is quite a modern idea,
born of revivals and restorations, to consider it necessary that a
church should be Gothic in style; to think of Gothic as essentially
ecclesiastic and of Classic as secular. Accordingly in Wren’s churches
there are admirable bits of woodwork, which illustrate the methods of
design then in vogue in houses. So, too, in the halls of the great city
companies. All this work was the consequence of the destruction of
the older buildings by the great fire. The new church of St Lawrence,
Jewry, was begun in 1671, Wren being the architect, and it was opened
in 1677. The woodwork of the interior is as fine as anything that this
age of fine woodwork produced, and that of the vestry is designed
after the same fashion as the panelling and doorways of a large house
(Fig. 124); it is, if anything, more superb. The carving (Fig.
123) is almost certainly the work of Grinling Gibbons. St Lawrence is
one of the best furnished of Wren’s churches, but many others possess
admirable fittings such as pulpits, pews, organ-cases, galleries, and
doorways, boldly designed and richly decorated, which show what a high
excellence the joiner’s art had achieved under Wren, Gibbons, and their
chief craftsmen.
[Illustration: FIG. 126.--Brewers’ Hall.]
[Illustration: FIG. 127.--Girdlers’ Hall, London.]
One of the most interesting of the city halls is that of the Brewers’
Company, in Addle Street. It has undergone restoration and some amount
of alteration, but the principal floor, which contains the hall and
council chamber, still retains much of its original flavour. The walls
are panelled in large panels (Fig. 125), the hall is entered through
a screen with a splendid doorway (Fig. 126), and the council chamber
has a fine fireplace. This is as good an example as could be found of
the manner of panelling and decorating large rooms which prevailed at
the time it was built, namely, 1673. The Stationers’ Hall has as fine
a screen and doorway as those of the Brewers, and indeed most of the
city halls, in spite of modern renovations, retain good work of this
period, among the less known examples of which is the rich panelling at
Girdlers’ Hall, in Basinghall Street (Fig. 127).
[Illustration: FIG. 128.--The Deanery, Wells.]
Outside London there was a large amount of work done during this
period, much of it fresh and interesting. Stapleford Park, in
Leicestershire, a house with a long history and possessing some unusual
detail of the date of 1633, was considerably altered and enlarged about
the time of Charles II. by Bennet, Lord Sherard, who was in possession
from 1640 to 1700. The exterior is plain, but in the interior are
two rooms, with charming woodwork; the door of the dining-room is
illustrated in Fig. 130, and that of the library in Fig. 129. The two
doors differ, but they are alike in that each is placed on a slight
projection which causes a break in the main cornice of the room. The
dining-room has large panels with a boldly carved bolection moulding.
The door has a broken pediment in the gap of which is placed a shield
connected by heavy swags to the surrounding work. This was a common
feature of the period. The library door is of much the same type, but
instead of a shield there is a bust. The panels on the walls are formed
by a bold moulding, which is broken backwards and forwards into a
pattern that recalls the busy treatment of Jacobean work.
[Illustration: FIG. 129.--Stapleford Park, Leicestershire.
Doorway in the Library.]
[Illustration: FIG. 130.--Stapleford Park, Leicestershire.
Doorway in the Dining-Room.]
In the Deanery at Wells is a fine panelled room attributed to Sir
Christopher Wren, and certainly wrought after his style if not actually
designed by him. The walls are divided into bays by heavy Ionic
pilasters, the spaces between which are filled with large panels.
Here, too, the bolection moulding is carved, as well as several other
members, the whole effect being rich and handsome (Fig. 128).
Melton Constable stands in a park amid the undulations of the western
part of Norfolk. It is a fine simple house of about the year 1680
(Fig. 131). The eaves cornice gives it its chief character; the rest
of the detail is correct, but strikes the modern eye as being a little
hackneyed; but this is the fault, not of the original architect but of
his successors, who, if they did not copy this actual work, drew, one
after the other, upon the same well of inspiration.
These examples serve to illustrate the progress of house design
during the later years of the seventeenth century; they show how the
fully developed classic manner had superseded the homely treatment of
Jacobean times. Its further career of grandeur and stateliness demands
a fresh chapter for its consideration.
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--MELTON CONSTABLE, NORFOLK.]
VIII
GREAT HOUSES AND GARDENS OF THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Twenty-five years after his restoration Charles II. died; James II.
passed uneasily across the scene to his inglorious exit, and William
and Mary succeeded him on the throne. But it is not to the sovereigns
that we must look as pioneers in house building, although at Greenwich
and Hampton Court fine work was accomplished. It is rather to the
great nobles, or at least to aristocratic and wealthy families, that
we owe the most notable specimens of domestic architecture of the
time. At this period the gulf between the upper and lower classes was
wide and deep: its widening was perhaps one of the reactions from the
conditions of the Commonwealth when many persons of humble origin
fought their way to eminence. The distance between the heads of a
great household and their retainers had been increasing all through
the century; the increase has already been indicated in the type of
plan adopted by Jones and Webb. The great hall, where the whole family
used to meet on common ground and with common objects, had disappeared.
The great noble of Elizabeth’s time lived among his retainers; the
grandee under William and Mary relegated his servants to a distant
part of the building or to the basement. The great ones of the land
now housed themselves in splendid buildings, and surrounded themselves
with splendid gardens. Nobody grumbled; the whole community concurred
in this exaltation of birth combined with wealth. Men whose names to
us are household words sought the patronage of others whose names and
doings are hardly recorded outside the pages of the “Complete Peerage.”
Manners, customs, dress emphasised this condition at the time;
architecture reflects it to-day.
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--Boughton House, Northamptonshire.
Plan of the Upper Story, 1736.
From a Plan preserved in the house.
The front at the bottom of the plan faces north. The house lies
to the right of the plan, the stables to the left. The entrance
to the house is between the two wings on the north front.
Remains of the original house are to be found in the great hall
situated at the north end of the oblong court, and in the two
sides of the same court.]
Boughton House, near Kettering in Northamptonshire, is a good example
of a home of one of the great nobles of the time of William and Mary.
Ralph Montagu (afterwards Duke of Montagu) succeeded his father as Lord
Montagu of Boughton in 1681. In 1669 he had been appointed ambassador
extraordinary to France, and during his stay in that country he lived
for a considerable period at Versailles. One of his biographers[60]
says that “here it was his Grace formed his idea of building and
gardening, erecting his seat at Boughton, in Northamptonshire, after
the pattern, and as his Dimensions would allow, after the very model
of Versailles.” In 1695 he entertained King William and Queen Mary
at Boughton for fifteen days. He had been created Earl of Montagu by
William in 1689, and in 1705 he was created Duke of Montagu by Queen
Anne. He was, therefore, a great personage, and he made his house and
its surroundings of a magnificence suitable to his dignity.
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Boughton House. North Front of
House, with Stables beyond.]
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--Boughton House. A Corner of the
Entrance Front.]
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--Boughton House. One of the State
Rooms.]
An ancestor had already, in the middle of the sixteenth century,
built a fine house at Boughton, with a great hall covered by a roof
of unusual beauty and excellence, and with wings and adjuncts of
considerable extent. Ralph, Lord Montagu, proceeded to overlay this old
house with his new work so completely (see plan, Fig. 132) that it is
only here and there, on the removal of panelling, or in the course of
some minor alteration such as must from time to time occur in these old
houses, that traces of the original building can be found. Fortunately
the roof of the hall was preserved, but it was hidden, and remains
hidden, by a new plaster ceiling on which Cheron painted a large and
elaborate composition. The old house was taken as the nucleus of the
new, but it was extended in various directions, especially on the
north side, where a range of state rooms was erected with two boldly
projecting wings (Fig. 133). It is this part of the house which is
reminiscent of Versailles, if the lofty windows and Mansard roofs can
really be said to remind one of that vast and much more ornate palace.
But the style of this particular work bears a certain resemblance to
the grand stable buildings at Versailles; it is large in scale, sober
and dignified in treatment (Fig. 134). Indeed, it is so severe as to be
thought dull by the casual visitor.
This reproach is not brought against the interior. The rooms are large
and stately; their walls are panelled with the great, boldly moulded
panels of the period (Fig. 135); their ceilings are painted with the
gay mythological subjects of Verrio and his school (see Figs. 310,
311); the floors are filled with the tables, chairs, settees, cabinets,
and bedsteads of the time. Portraits of the family[61] hang on the
panelling, there are mirrors in which their glories were reflected,
and knick-knacks which they handled. In other wings are rooms of less
stateliness, intended for daily use; in the attics are long rows of
still plainer rooms intended for the servants.
At the time it was built the house, no doubt, answered its purpose
admirably; but times change and we change with them; and eventually the
rooms were found to be cold, draughty, and inconveniently arranged--one
leading, as a rule, out of another. There was space enough, but there
were none of the comforts of modern life; no baths nor even any supply
of water laid on; it all had to be carried long distances. The house
became less constantly in use, and to this fact is largely owing the
preservation of its ancient character. Nothing brings home to the
mind the changes that have taken place in manners and customs during
the last two centuries so forcibly as an attempt to live in an old
unaltered house, where even the cooking appliances, although on a grand
scale, are ill-adapted to modern needs; and it is only by drastic
alterations in some of the less notable rooms that Boughton has been
fitted for modern occupation.
Ralph was succeeded in 1708 by his son John, the second duke, who
carried on such work as his father had left unfinished. He is
responsible for several fireplaces, among other things, on which he
made a considerable display of heraldry. The difference between the
_motif_ of Duke John’s heraldry and that of a hundred years
earlier is that in the earlier work the aim was as much decorative as
historic, while in the latter it was mainly historic. In James I.’s
time the family arms were found to be excellent objects for ornamenting
important panels, and if at the same time they ministered to family
pride, so much the better. In Duke John’s case the aim of the heraldry
is not so much to provide decoration as to set forth the descent of
the ducal family and its alliances, especially the last alliance of
all, the marriage of the Duke of Montagu with a daughter of the great
Duke of Marlborough. It not inaptly illustrates the attitude of mind
of the nobles of the time, their assumption of qualities which placed
them on a plane above the rest of mankind, where “grandeur hears with
a disdainful smile the short and simple annals of the poor.” The rest
of mankind, however, concurred in the assumption, especially those
who stood in need of patrons, and the literature of the eighteenth
century makes it clear that noblemen and persons of quality wielded an
influence which made their goodwill worth cultivating.
It was only fitting that such notable personages should be worthily
housed, and at Boughton the first two dukes surrounded themselves with
suitable magnificence. The splendour was not confined to the house,
it pervaded the surroundings as well. The first duke planted a grand
double avenue as wide as the whole façade of the house. He laid out the
gardens on a large scale with parterres and wildernesses, long canals
and _jets d’eau_ (Fig. 136). The water of the canals fell over a
cascade of five stages into an ornamental pond. Intricate walks, some
curved and some straight, were left among the young trees. Statues gave
point to the vistas. The second duke carried on the work both inside
and outside the gardens. He planted a network of avenues extending for
many miles in all directions; some of them centred on the house, others
pointed to neighbouring churches, yet others converged upon an ancient
oak marking the spot where, according to tradition, the last wolf in
England was killed. They all linked up the ancient woods, remnants of
the old forest of Rockingham. Many old plans are preserved at the house
showing the growth of the scheme. There is also an ancient plan of
St Cloud in France showing the forests and avenues with which it was
enclosed, and from the strong likeness between the English maps and the
French, it is not difficult to guess whence the duke’s inspiration was
derived.
[Illustration: FIG. 136.--BOUGHTON HOUSE. _Bird’s-Eye View
of the Gardens and Lay Out, about_ 1735.
From a Drawing preserved at Boughton.]
[Illustration: FIG. 137.--DYRHAM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE,
1698.]
The grandeur of the gardens has long been dismantled; the statues
have disappeared, and some may be seen adorning other people’s fields.
The parterres are obliterated, and the intricate walks can no longer be
traced; indeed time alone would have rendered them an overgrown tangle.
But the great avenues still remain, still centre on the house, still
point to the churches, still converge on the ancient oak, still link up
the ancient woods. The canals are there, and would yet fall over the
cascade were the floodgates lowered. Many of the little trees which
formed curious patterns on the plans have grown into giants. Here and
there a path survives, following part of its allotted route, enough to
show that the original design was not merely a visionary scheme but was
actually carried out.
[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Plan of the Ground Floor of Dyrham.]
Dyrham, in Gloucestershire, is another but somewhat smaller house of
this period; it was built in 1698 from the designs of “the ingenious
Mr. Talman,” as Campbell calls him, for William Blaythwayt, who was
Secretary of State to William III. The property had come to him some
thirty years before by a marriage with the heiress of the Wynters,
whose ancient house was removed to make way for the new one. The site
lies towards the base of a steep hill down which the road winds through
a park, presenting a bird’s-eye view of the house for some time before
it is reached. The buildings stand on a level platform contrived among
the declivities of the park, and from a terrace at the back a fine
flight of steps leads down to the gardens. The entrance front (Fig.
137) is lengthened by the adjoining orangery, forming a façade of some
220 ft., of which the house itself occupies 130 ft. In the middle of
this part is the front door, which opens into a hall (see plan, Fig.
138). Immediately opposite is the door into the saloon, beyond which is
a second hall, which leads out to the terrace. A vista is thus formed
through the house and on to the gardens. The terrace is flanked on one
side by the stable buildings and on the other by a corridor leading
to the ancient church. The whole arrangement is symmetrical, stately,
and interesting. Being on a reasonable scale the effect is dignified
without being overpowering. Time has dealt kindly with the place, and
there are no modern restorations to interfere either with the tone or
the sentiment of the surroundings.