interior, charming though this is; most of the rooms are panelled with
the large and boldly moulded panelling of the period (Fig. 139), and
there is one in which the effect is very happily enhanced by rich,
though subdued gilding. The unusual charm of the house springs from the
fact that very few alterations have been made, and that it retains its
old furniture, books, and pictures, which combine to produce a fine
feeling of old-fashioned comfort and culture.
From the plan (Fig. 138) it will be gathered that many of the rooms
communicate with each other and are, in fact, thoroughfare rooms; and
in this respect it must be granted that the comfort of those days
differed from that of our own. It will also be seen that the saloon is
lighted from one end only, an arrangement which, although rendering the
room by no means dark, yet detracts somewhat from its cheerfulness and
deprives it of all prospect.
An important point in the external treatment, differentiating this
house from most of those hitherto mentioned, is that the roof is not
visible. Webb made his roofs an important feature, bestowing much care
upon their proportion and pitch; here the cornice is surmounted by an
open balustrade, and the chimneys, instead of being made to attract the
eye, are as inconspicuous as possible.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.--DYRHAM, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
THE SMALL DINING-ROOM.]
[Illustration: FIG. 140.--CHATSWORTH HOUSE,
DERBYSHIRE, 1687–1706.]
Talman had adopted the same treatment at Chatsworth, which was being
built at this time[62] for the first Duke of Devonshire (Fig. 140).
Chatsworth is on a much larger scale than Dyrham, and is far better
known to the public. Indeed to many persons it presents itself as the
model of what a great nobleman’s seat should be. This is owing to its
simple and dignified treatment, and to its admirable situation and the
lordly nature of its lay out. When examined closely, it lacks interest
and variety in its detail. Some of the rooms, however, are finely
proportioned and are decorated with beautiful woodwork and plasterwork;
and there are two or three doorways with alabaster mouldings and
pediments of remarkable interest. Much of the wood carving, from its
style and workmanship, was ascribed for many years to Grinling Gibbons,
but the building accounts show that it was in fact executed by a
Derbyshire man of the name of Samuel Watson, of Heanor. This is another
illustration of the tendency to attribute, in the absence of definite
knowledge, any remarkable work to the best known master of the time.
It might have been expected that Wren’s manner would have been
continued in the work of his assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and to
a certain extent it was; but Hawksmoor was influenced largely by
Vanbrugh, who infected him with some of his own passion for the
grandiose. The most notable work of Hawksmoor in domestic architecture
is Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire, built for William, Lord
Lempster, of which a plan (Fig. 142) and elevation are given in
“Vitruvius Britannicus.” The principal block, containing the state
rooms, is flanked on the plan by outlying wings occupied by the stables
and offices, and beyond them the court is widened out, and eventually
completed by a monumental arcade or corridor, which obviously could
never have been of any practical use. There are no less than five
important approaches to the courtyard, through the wings and the
arcaded portion; the whole arrangement is designed for stateliness.
It is said that the wings were designed by Wren, and that Hawksmoor
added the house itself in 1702, some twenty years later.[63] Campbell’s
elevation certainly does not confirm the idea that Wren’s hand was
employed; there is nothing of his gracious dignity about the portion of
the wings there shown. Campbell says that the building was finished in
1713, and that he was indebted to Hawksmoor himself for the original
drawings of the house; he does not mention Wren. The central building
itself bears the date “A^o Sal. MDCCII” on the frieze, so there is
evidently some confusion as to the wings. These might have been built
after the house and finished in 1713, but in that case they could
hardly have been the work of Wren.
[Illustration: FIG. 141.--EASTON NESTON,
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, 1702.]
[Illustration: FIG. 142.--Plan of Easton Neston.]
It is noteworthy that the whole of the wings and courtyard were
subsequently pulled down,[64] and nothing remains of the original house
but the central block. The reason of this destruction was presumably
that they were found to be useless and extravagant, as indeed might
be expected. The effect has been somewhat spoiled, for the house,
unsupported by anything but some buildings wholly unworthy of it,
looks gaunt and abrupt; it seems too grand for its size (Fig. 141).
It suffers in fact from its grandeur; the large windows are suitable
enough for the large rooms, but where the exigencies of the plan
bring them into small rooms or passages, they are overwhelming. It
is interesting to find that Hawksmoor felt this himself, and that in
the two ends of the house he departs from the large scale of the main
façades. He has collected as far as possible his small rooms at the two
ends, and has given them smaller windows, contriving two floors here
in the height of one along the front. The plan of the house follows
the stately ideas of the time, which took little count of domestic
comfort. The hall was treated in an unusual way; it was formed of three
portions, but whereas the middle bay was carried up to the height of
two stories, the two end bays were of but one story. The effect was
rather fine, as may be seen from the view in Fig. 143. A large floor
space was obtained, and also the effect of noble height without the
overpowering result which would have followed from carrying the whole
of the hall to the height of two stories. But even this restraint left
a greater void than suits modern comfort, and the more lofty portion
has now been divided by a floor at the level of the cornice. Other
alterations, both of disposition and of decoration, have been made.
The original hall has become the dining-room, and a new hall has been
fashioned to the left of the entrance. The drawing-room, however,
retains much of its original treatment, including the elaborate ceiling
with figures in high relief in the middle panel, and the walls, which
are occupied by panels with rather extravagant frames (Fig 144).
[Illustration: FIG. 143.--Easton Neston. The Dining-Room (now
altered).]
[Illustration: FIG. 144.--EASTON NESTON. THE
DRAWING-ROOM.]
The bulk of Hawksmoors work was concerned with churches, and therefore
lies outside the scope of the present inquiry. He was a trained and
skilful architect, but contemporary with him figure others who had
not received the practical teaching which he enjoyed.
Almost ever since the publication of books on architecture had begun,
a certain number of wealthy Englishmen had taken an interest in the
subject. Lord Burghley had procured books from abroad in the time
of Elizabeth; and as the years went by more and more people studied
such publications as were procurable. Webb, it will be remembered,
referred to the fact that “most gentry in England at this day have
some knowledge in the theory of architecture,” and by the end of the
seventeenth century, it had become the fashion among the great and
wealthy to take an interest in the subject--that is, in the classic
architecture of the books. It is hardly necessary to say that the
interest was somewhat superficial, and concerned itself with appearance
more than with convenience; it was still the theory rather than “ye
practique,” as Webb phrases it, that was studied. The pursuit of
the most technical and utilitarian of the arts was thus taken up by
amateurs. Wren himself was an amateur when he first began to design.
His chief, Sir John Denham, was reckoned by Evelyn “a better poet than
architect,” but to do Sir John justice, he does not appear to have
advanced a claim to be an architect of any kind. Evelyn was a patron
of the arts, and especially of architecture, about which he wrote a
book. After him, in the eighteenth century, came Lord Burlington,
the most distinguished patron of architecture of that age. He was a
patron of architects, too; many of the best known men of the century
owed their start in life to the earl. He dabbled in design himself.
We are probably justified in calling it dabbling, but it was not so
considered at the time, and Horace Walpole, himself a dabbler, speaks
of him as a distinguished architect. It was through the munificence of
Lord Burlington that many designs of Palladio were published, as well
as those drawings left behind him by Webb, which, under the title of
“Designs by Inigo Jones,” had so great a vogue at this period.
[Illustration: FIG. 145.--A HALL OR PUBLIC ROOM, BY
WEBB.
From the Worcester College Collection, i. 37.]
Of the work usually attributed to Lord Burlington, it may fairly be
surmised that the practical part was done by one or other of the men
who were profiting by his generosity in their endeavours to become
architects. The theoretical part was really not very difficult,
for designers had a short way with architectural problems in those
days. The general purpose of a building having been considered,
its external appearance was then more or less suitably designed.
When the elevation was perfected according to the rules of art,
the plan was made to fit it, and if the plan did not answer all
the purposes for which it was intended, those concerned had to put
up with the deficiency. The oft-quoted saying of Lord Chesterfield
illustrates this, for when Lord Burlington had designed a beautiful
but inconvenient house for General Wade, Lord Chesterfield advised
the latter if he could not live in it to his comfort, to take a house
opposite and look at it. It should not have been difficult for Lord
Burlington to design this particular house, for he had all Webb’s
drawings to help him, and among them many examples of this type.
So with the Assembly Rooms at York; the large hall is a crib from
Palladio’s illustration of a hall after the Egyptian manner, but
influenced by a rendering of the same subject by Webb. Webb’s version
consists of an oblong room, having a row of columns set some eight feet
from the walls, thus forming an aisle all round the room (Fig. 145).
The columns carry a wall which is pierced with windows, and which in
its turn carries the roof. The outside walls of the ground floor stop
short below the windows, and are crowned with a balustraded parapet
masking the flat roof over the aisle. Lord Burlington adopted this
idea wholesale (Fig. 147), but he made his room much narrower than
Webb’s, although of about the same length, and he kept to the general
proportions of Palladio. When, however, the treatment of the end of
the hall (which was the source of inspiration) was lengthened nearly
fourfold to do duty for the sides, the effect became monotonous and
poverty-stricken; this is apparent on Burlington’s section (Fig. 146).
To the main room he added others of less account, but they are nearly
all too long and too narrow, whether for appearance or for use.
Another well-known work of his is his villa at Chiswick (Fig. 148),
which was copied from a design of Palladio’s for a villa near Vicenza,
but spoilt in the process. Here again there is no originality, and the
practical drawbacks are so great as to arouse even Walpole’s criticism,
to which, however, he adds the illuminating observation that its
faults were condoned by the fact that here, without any trouble, might
be obtained picturesque views better worth seeing than many of those
fragments of ancient grandeur which travellers sought with infinite
labour--an interesting testimonial to scenic architecture.
[Illustration: FIG. 146.--Section of the Assembly Room, York.]
[Illustration: FIG. 147.--Plan of the Assembly Room, York.]
The other works attributed to Lord Burlington are the dormitory at
Westminster, a school and almshouses at Seven-oaks, both illustrated by
Kent in his “Designs of Inigo Jones,” and Burlington House, Piccadilly.
Of these the dormitory at Westminster was a bald and mutilated version
of a design by Wren, and Burlington House was probably designed by
Campbell.[65]
But although Burlington cannot be regarded as an architect who did
anything great in design, he was a munificent patron of the art and of
those who pursued it more practically.
Contemporary with him, and indeed starting a little before him, was
another well-known but more skilful amateur, the witty dramatist, Sir
John Vanbrugh, who has left behind him some of the largest and most
ponderous houses ever built in England. His patrons and friends among
the nobility were all esteemed good judges of architecture, and to
their judgment he submitted at least one of his largest designs.
Among the noblemen who employed him was the third Earl of Carlisle,
who conceived the idea of making himself a magnificent home at Castle
Howard, in Yorkshire, to replace the ancient castle of Hinderskelf,
which had been brought into the family by marriage with one of the
co-heiresses of Lord Dacres. The scheme embraced not only a new palace,
but a large lay out of plantations, vistas, lakes, temples, obelisks,
lodges, and other objects of interest, such as had been employed by
Le Nôtre at Versailles and elsewhere. The completion of his scheme
is recorded in verses too bald (one would imagine) to be any but his
lordship’s, engraved on an important obelisk. They give the date of
commencement as 1702, the inscription is dated 1731, so that year may
be held to have witnessed the fulfilment of the main project.
But the house had been occupied long before this; for in 1714 Lady Mary
Wortley Montague wrote from Yorkshire to her husband, professing to
be “in a great fright” about attempts from Scotland in favour of the
Pretender. “The four young ladies at Castle Howard,” she says, were
as much alarmed as she was, for their father had gone away and was
not likely to return for months. They had asked her to join them, a
suggestion which she was inclined to comply with, since Castle Howard
would be a safe retreat, although rather like a nunnery, as no mortal
man ever entered its doors in the absence of the father.
[Illustration: FIG. 148.--Lord Burlington’s Villa at Chiswick.
Drawn by A. C. Bossom.]
It must have been early in the year 1699 that the earl called Vanbrugh
to his assistance, for the latter writes on the 25th December that he
had been that summer at Lord Carlisle’s, and had visited most of the
great houses of the North. Amongst others he had been to Chatsworth,
where he stayed four or five days, and had shown to the duke all the
designs for Castle Howard, which he “absolutely approved.” Since then
they had been submitted to a great many other critics, and as no
objection had been raised to them, the stone was already being quarried
and the foundations were to be laid in the spring. A model of the house
was being prepared in wood, which was to be sent to Kensington for the
criticism of the king.[66] Thus fortified with general approval the
design was carried out, the works extending over some thirty years. The
cost must have been very great, and in a later letter Vanbrugh tells
how it was met in part, for in July 1707 he says that Lord Carlisle
had “£2,000 from the Sharpers, and is gone down to lay it out in his
buildings.”[67]
Although the whole of Vanbrugh’s design was not carried out the house
is of great size and of palatial magnificence (Fig. 150). Indeed no
modern person can be incessantly as grand as the grandeur of the
building demands. It requires innumerable servants to keep it in order,
innumerable guests to make it cheerful. It involves a great drain upon
the owner’s resources, both of temperament and of purse, to fill it
with enough people to prevent its being dull, and to maintain it in
suitable repair and tidiness. From a practical standpoint the corridors
are too many and are out of all proportion to the rooms they serve.
There are indeed no rooms of a size commensurate with the outside
grandeur; most of them appear small and narrow, their height is as
great as their width (Fig. 152), and this must have tended, before the
introduction of modern heating, to make them cold. The finest apartment
is the hall (Fig. 151), so large and lofty as to occupy an undue
proportion of space compared with what is devoted to domestic use. Its
effect is more nearly allied to what we are accustomed to associate
with a large museum or other public building than with a house.
The view in “Vitruvius Britannicus” does more justice to Vanbrugh’s
conception than does the building itself. The house is there shown with
a subsidiary court on each side, one being devoted to laundries and
so forth, and the other to stables. In front there was to have been a
forecourt enclosed by a monumental fence with the main entrance gates
on the axial line. Actually but one of the side courts was built, and
the forecourt was not carried out. The road, instead of approaching the
house directly opposite to the centre of the façade, thus giving the
visitor a _coup d’œil_ of the whole vast composition, approaches
it laterally, close to the end of one of the wings, and it is only on
passing the corner of the wing that the visitor is suddenly aware at
close quarters of the recessed entrance front.
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--Castle Howard. View from the
Mausoleum.]
[Illustration: FIG. 150.--Castle Howard, Yorkshire. The Garden
Front, 1702.]
The one subsidiary court which was built contains the laundries, and
it is in the nature of a shock to see laundry-maids at work amid
surroundings almost massive enough for Diocletian himself.
The lay out is of corresponding scenic magnificence. From one direction
the house is approached along a far-stretching avenue, which leads up
hill and down dale, then beneath a gateway in a long, symmetrically
designed range of building crowned with a sturdy pyramid, and so
onwards towards a lofty obelisk, the meeting-point of several roads,
one of which leads to the house. The formal gardens close to the house
surround a large basin, in the midst of which is Atlas bearing up the
world, amid the encouragements of four huge tritons who raise great
horns towards him across the water. The broad gravel walk along the
garden front leads in one direction to the walled fruit gardens; in
the other to a smooth grass track which slopes upwards to a copse of
beeches. Curving away from this is another grass track which, passing
an ordered row of lead figures, comes eventually to a classic temple.
Beyond are undulating fields skirting an artificial lake, across
which is flung a massive bridge which deserves, even more than that
at Wilton, Walpole’s epithet of “theatric,” for it serves no purpose
but to adorn the landscape. It spans a sheet of water contrived for
little else than to provide the opportunity to build it. Its roadway,
deep-grown in grass, leads from nowhere to nowhere. The Palladian
bridge at Prior Park, near Bath, illustrated in Fig. 154, is almost an
exact replica of that at Wilton.
Still further on, crowning an eminence, stands a huge mausoleum, a
noble building designed by Hawksmoor (Fig. 153). It rests on a lofty
and spacious platform of irregular symmetry, whereon the friends and
tenants of deceased earls may have gathered to await the arrival of
the funeral procession as it made its slow way along the grass walks,
and after halting at the temple, wound across the rolling fields. Long
stone benches suggest the scores of horsemen who dismounted and left
their horses to be tended on the ample spaces of the platform. The
mausoleum itself is a circular domed building, surrounded by disengaged
columns; within it are two chambers; the lower level with the platform,
contains the vaults; the upper is the chapel. The latter is approached
by long flights of steps, and is itself circular and covered at a great
height with a coffered dome. The sweep of the walls within is relieved
by eight recesses for an altar, the clergy, and the chief mourners.
The vaulted apartment below is massively constructed, and in the
thickness of the masonry are contrived many recesses for the reception
of coffins. But few have been utilised, and, as the visitor discovers
by the light of his taper cavern after cavern still unoccupied and
unlikely ever to be filled, as he stands in the chilly spaces of the
chapel with its dome soaring far overhead, as he gazes from an angle
of the platform across the fields and the grass-grown bridge on to the
distant house (Fig. 149), he realises how vastly things have changed,
how entirely this fine conception has lost its point, how empty is the
pomp of architecture when the habits to which it ministered have ceased.
[Illustration: FIG. 151.--CASTLE HOWARD. THE HALL.]
[Illustration: FIG. 152.--CASTLE HOWARD. THE TAPESTRY
ROOM.]
[Illustration: FIG. 153.--The Mausoleum at Castle Howard, as
seen from the Platform on which it stands.]
Castle Howard was a private undertaking. Immense though it was--its
total length was to have been 660 ft. had both its courts been
built--it was exceeded in size by the palace of Blenheim, which was a
national monument to the glory of the British arms, although actually
a gift to the Duke of Marlborough. Here Vanbrugh must have been in
his element. There was presumably to be no unreasonable limit to the
cost; the result was to be monumental. Convenience of arrangement,
internal effect, the amenities of daily life were minor considerations.
The nation wanted a monument; it should have something which should
impress the thousands who would see the exterior, rather than the
scores who might possibly see the interior. The house itself was
flanked, as at Castle Howard, by two huge courts, one for the stables,
the other for the kitchens; the total façade was 850 ft. in length.
The approach was along the axial line over a splendid bridge, finer
in every way than that at Castle Howard; indeed, it is the most
satisfactory piece of design at Blenheim. The house is overwhelmed
by its own size (Fig. 155). The eye cannot grasp it in its entirety,
and when it studies isolated portions they do not suggest thoughts of
domestic pleasures; the colonnades and the turrets are not consecrated
by daily use, they are there for scenic effect; the statues are cold
abstractions, they are no more germane to Blenheim than to any other
grand house. How different is this effect from that of even the largest
of the Elizabethan palaces. There grandeur itself was homely. The
difference cannot be attributed to increase in size; the absence of
homeliness springs not even from the inevitable difference between
a palace and a manor house. It is inherent in the changed views
prevalent both as to life and as to architecture. The aloofness of the
great noble accounts for something, but the desire to produce scenic
architecture in preference to creating a home, accounts for more. It
underlay nearly all Vanbrugh’s efforts, as indeed it did those of his
contemporaries and successors. At Stowe House, near to Buckingham, it
is apparent in the sacrifice of the bedroom windows on the south front
to the desire for an appearance of solidness and simplicity; it is
still more obvious in the treatment of the gardens, presently to be
described. Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, is perhaps Vanbrugh’s
most pleasing production, but even here convenience and common sense
gave way to display, and the house itself, having been burnt down some
few years after it was built, no one has thought it worth while to
reinstate it. No one could be comfortable in it if he did.