SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--PERSONAL DESIGN--TRANSITIONAL
TREATMENT.
With the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century there
opens a new chapter in English Architecture. Hitherto it had been
largely impersonal; now it began to be personal, and its finest
manifestations were henceforth to be linked with great names, with
Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, and others.
The main cause of the change is to be found in the pursuit of the
Italian ideal. Up to this time the erection of houses and churches
had not been thought of as “architecture,” but merely as “building.”
The processes employed, both in regard to design and to construction,
were the outcome of tradition. We have already seen how tradition had
been modified in the sixteenth century by the introduction of Italian
features, and the imperfect study of Italian models, in obedience to
the prevailing fashion of the day, which demanded that particular
form of decoration. But it must have been obvious to all instructed
eyes that the efforts of English designers, so far as they aimed at
a faithful transcript of the foreign copy, had been very wide of the
mark. This was only to have been expected from the nature of the
circumstances. There was no single mind at work controlling the whole
of the design in all its branches. It is true that surveyors were
employed to give a general superintendence. These men usually supplied
a plan of the house, and not infrequently an elevation. This, at any
rate, was the case during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, although
there is little evidence that it had been the custom in earlier times.
To the surveyors, of whom John Thorpe was the most remarkable, must
accordingly be attributed the credit of the houses as a whole; of their
arrangement, and of their general appearance. But the details of the
treatment were left to artificers in the various trades, to the masons,
the carpenters, the plasterers, and the plumbers. It is obvious that
these men could not all be equally skilful, or equally conversant with
the foreign fashion; and we may well be grateful that it was so, for
from their diverse limitations sprang the quaint, piquant, and charming
work of the period, endless in its variety yet throughout essentially
English; in no other country is just the same development to be found.
But the tide of fashion was flowing strongly in the Italian direction.
This can be gathered not only from the appearance of the work itself,
and from subsequent developments, but from the drawings of Smithson,
the surveyor (or architect), made about 1618, among which are designs
for “Italyan wyndowes,” “Italyan gates,” an “Italyan grate,” and
a “pergular.” Thorpe, although he had studied foreign books on
architecture, and had made careful drawings of the “orders,” makes
no reference to “Italyan” features, nor do his details show anything
like the same striving after “correct” design that is evident in
Smithson’s. A considerable number of young men travelled to Italy for
the express purpose of studying the buildings of that country, some
being sent thither by wealthy noblemen. A few of their names have been
preserved, either through their having, like John Shute, published
the results of their labours, or through their having written, as
Charles Williams did to Sir John Thynne at Longleat, to offer their
services in doing work “after the Italian fashion.” But among all
those who went none made such good use of his opportunities or was so
gifted by nature to take advantage of them as Inigo Jones. It is to
him that we owe the establishment of the matured Renaissance manner
in England, the handling of Italian features with real knowledge and
skill, the introduction of the full “Classic” style as distinguished
from the tentative “Renaissance.” With him, too, started the personal
architecture of the designer who controlled the decoration throughout,
as opposed to the impersonal architecture of the independent craftsmen
who preceded him. The change was a momentous one; whether it resulted
in a more pleasing type of building will probably always remain a
matter of individual taste.
One notable result of the change was the dividing of house design
into two streams: one academic and stately, the other traditional and
homely. The one dealt with great mansions and public buildings, and
was guided by men of eminence, who studied architecture as a fine art.
The other dealt with the smaller houses, with schools, almshouses,
and other buildings of less importance, and was guided by men of no
especial culture, who probably underwent no more training than could
be obtained in a builder’s yard. Hence in out-of-the-way places houses
may be found dated in the early years of the eighteenth century
closely resembling those built in the early years of the seventeenth.
But gradually the early traditions died out; the new classic manner
permeated the whole of the building world, and even the smallest
houses, so far as they had any pretensions to design at all, complied
with the prevailing classic taste.
In the larger buildings there was a tendency to become more and more
academic, to design more and more according to rule. Men of genius,
like Inigo Jones and Wren, bent these rules to their own purposes;
but their successors of the eighteenth century found it easier to let
the rules have the mastery, with the result that much of their work
is tame and insipid. At the same time they pursued architecture in
the abstract, without due regard for its application to house design.
The consequence was that most of their efforts, although striking
as architectural compositions, are inconvenient as dwelling-houses.
This point will be more fully dealt with in its chronological order,
meantime we must return on our steps and take up the story where it was
left at the close of the reign of James I.
[Illustration: 147. Plan of Raynham Park, Norfolk (_cir._
1630–36).]
[Illustration: 148. Raynham Park, Norfolk, The West Front.]
[Illustration: 149. Plan of Coleshill, Berkshire (1650).]
The two tendencies in design just mentioned may already be observed
during the lifetime of James, for in 1622 was built the Banqueting
Hall at Whitehall, designed by Inigo Jones as part of a vast palace
for the King, of which the rest was never undertaken. It is perhaps
the most classic building of that century, quite devoid of any trace
of Elizabethan detail. At the same time, and indeed for another ten or
twelve years, were being built houses which still retained all the old
characteristics. Such is Aston Hall, near Birmingham, which has the
curved gables, the turrets, the chimneys, the mullioned windows, the
ribbed ceilings, the busy staircase, which had been customary in fine
houses for the last fifty years. Yet Aston Hall was not completed till
1635. The most significant sign of change at Aston is the disposition
of the hall, which, as already stated, is no longer intended as a
living room, and is entered in the middle of its length instead of
at one end through the customary screens. The change of habits which
this alteration implies, coinciding as it did with the advent of more
accurate knowledge of Italian ways, undoubtedly helped forward their
establishment. It was no longer necessary to provide on the ground
floor a great hall suitable for a living room, and dividing the family
apartments from those where the servants worked and lived. The whole
ground floor was devoted to the family, who were provided with a suite
of salons surrounding the hall, which itself became a large vestibule
leading to them. The servants were relegated to the basement; not
indeed for the first time, for Smithson has several plans in which this
arrangement was adopted, and so has Thorpe; but these were exceptions
to the general rule. The long gallery and the great chamber went out
of fashion. These rooms had been upstairs, the long gallery sometimes
on the topmost floor, while not a few of the rooms on the ground floor
had been “chambers” or “lodgings,” that is in effect bedrooms. It now
became more customary to devote the ground floor to the day-rooms, and
the upper floor to bedrooms, especially in houses of medium size. In
great mansions complete suites of living and sleeping rooms were still
provided on the same floor. The plan of Raynham Park (Fig. 147), built
according to various authorities either in 1630 or 1636, and attributed
to Inigo Jones, shows the change that had taken place in domestic
habits. So too does the plan of Coleshill in Berkshire (Fig. 149),
built in 1650 from designs by the same master; but in this case some
of the ground-floor rooms are still intended to be used as bedrooms,
and the dining-room is upstairs.
[Illustration: 150. Coleshill House, Berkshire.]
These two houses illustrate equally well the new methods adopted in
treating the exterior. Elizabethan and Jacobean houses were picturesque
and busy in their appearance owing to the varied outline of their
plan, and to their irregular and broken sky-line caused by the gables,
turrets, and chimneys with which they were furnished. The many lights
of the mullioned windows also added much to their lively effect, while
bay windows were used with great skill to give rhythm and interest to
the design.
[Illustration: 151. Houses in High Street, Southwark.
(Now destroyed.)]
The two most distinctive characteristics of the new style were the
absence of gables and the substitution of sash windows for the old
mullioned form. Both these changes had a sobering effect on the
appearance of a house. In the absence of gables roofs had to be hipped,
thus compelling a greater simplicity in their plan, and a much plainer
sky-line. The sash window was more stubborn of treatment than the
mullioned window. The latter could be either lengthened or widened by
a row of lights and yet be in harmony with its neighbours; the sash
window was not susceptible of such variation; it had to be of the same
width and height as others of the same range. For these reasons it lent
itself ill to the forming of bay windows; it was too wide and too high,
and altogether too large a feature to be adapted to the purpose, and
accordingly bay windows went out of fashion. The elements of design
being thus greatly restricted, they required much skilful handling,
and a keen sense of proportion to render the result satisfactory. It
was just in these points that Inigo Jones’s natural gifts and careful
training enabled him to succeed.
Raynham Park (Fig. 148) is a link between the two styles; its
projecting wings, finished with gables, are reminiscent of the past;
its sash windows and its bold, carefully profiled cornice are a
foretaste of the future. Coleshill (Fig. 150) has left Elizabethan
times far behind, and retains nothing of their peculiarities either in
plan or appearance. There are no gables, the roof is hipped at each
corner and starts from a widely projecting cornice. The chimneys are
gathered into large stacks, symmetrically placed; not into groups of
single, slender shafts. The dormers have no stonework about them; they
belong to the roof, not to the walls. The designer, having eschewed
picturesque details, had to rely for his effect upon proportion and
the careful spacing of his windows. Coleshill may be regarded as
typical of the style adopted for large country houses down to the end
of the seventeenth century. Up Park, Squerries, Melton Constable, and
many others built towards the close of this century or in the first
years of the next, are of the same type, although somewhat varied in
treatment. There were many intermediate steps between Jacobean houses
and houses like Coleshill. Some of these steps have been attributed to
Inigo Jones himself--taken by him, the chroniclers assert, before his
visit to Italy. Such are St John’s College, Oxford, and the house at
Houghton Conquest, in Bedfordshire, built for the Countess of Pembroke,
“Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.” But expert opinion is now
inclined to doubt the correctness of such attribution. If Inigo Jones
made no use of a transitional style, others did so.
Swakeleys in Middlesex (Fig. 152) is a case in point. Here mullioned
windows are still retained, but the cornices, breaking out into
pediments, and the gables crowned also with pediments, indicate the
impending change.
[Illustration: 152. Swakeleys, Middlesex (_cir._ 1630).]
[Illustration: 153. Houses in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields
(1640).
(From a Drawing by J. Nash, about 1840.)]
[Illustration: 154. Sparrow’s House, Ipswich.]
[Illustration: 155. Cold Overton Hall, Leicestershire.
(Late in first half of 17th cent.)]
It would seem as though the small size of the lights of mullioned
windows had begun to be irksome before the solution of the difficulty
by the adoption of sash windows. Accordingly round-headed lights of
double the usual width were sometimes introduced among the small
oblong lights, as may be seen in the drawing of the house of wood
and plaster which formerly stood in High Street, Southwark (Fig.
151). Gables are still retained here, and also the old fashion of
bringing forward the upper storeys beyond the lower. But indications
of the change to a later treatment are to be found not only in the
round-headed lights with their wood key-stones, but in the character of
the ornamental plasterwork. If this street front is compared with that
in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, by John Webb (Fig. 153),
the completeness of the impending change will be more readily grasped.
In the later example there are no gables, no mullioned windows, no
lead-lights. Instead we have a well-developed classic cornice with a
row of dormers above it, sash windows, and bold pilasters, carefully
proportioned. If again Sparrow’s House at Ipswich (Fig. 154) were
remodelled, as alleged, subsequently to the Restoration, it is a
striking instance of the survival of the old-fashioned methods of
treatment. But in the absence of any definite evidence it is probable
that whatever was done in the time of Charles II., including the
modelling of his arms in plaster, was merely a renovation. In style, at
any rate, it is a step later than the house in Southwark. The windows
in both cases are of the same family, but instead of the walls being
finished by gables, they are crowned with a heavy classic cornice.
[Illustration: 156. The Vicarage, Burford, Oxfordshire (dated 1672).]
Another example of the transition is to be seen at Cold Overton in
Leicestershire (Fig. 155), an interesting although somewhat plain
house built among the grassy slopes beloved of hunting men. Here the
mullioned windows are survivals from the ancient ways; even more so is
the projecting porch, with its round-arched doorway flanked by columns
and surmounted by a four-light window; while the plain flat bands which
replace the old profiled strings, and the wide, flat-pitched gable
belong to the newer methods of design. The date of this house is not
known, but it must be in the earlier half of the century, and some of
the work inside, notably the staircase with its dog-gate (Fig. 144),
is frankly Jacobean in character. The survival of old ways in remote
places is well shown in the vicarage at Burford in Oxfordshire, a house
dated 1672 (Fig. 156). Here there is no attempt at pronounced classic.
The roof is gabled, it has no cornice of any account; the windows
are mullioned, and the dormers retain some of the fantastic curls of
the early years of the century. Nevertheless, in the plainness and
precision of the whole treatment, in the flat shape of the mullions,
and in the ovals of the dormers, the experienced eye can detect the
march of Time. When it is remembered that this house was built when
Wren was in the midst of his career, it will be realised how distinct
were the two streams of design already alluded to--the stately, guided
by great artists; the homely, guided by unknown artisans.