EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTERIORS--THE
PALLADIAN STYLE.
Architectural design having become an elegant occupation founded on
so impracticable a basis, it is not surprising to find it pursued by
amateurs. Lord Burlington was the most eminent of these, and he tried
his hand, according to contemporary accounts, at a number of houses
as well as at some semi-public buildings, such as the Assembly Room
at York. Kent includes several in his book on Inigo Jones, where they
suffer somewhat by comparison with the genuine work of the master. The
well-known house in Burlington Street for General Wade was another of
his creations, of which Walpole recounts that being ill-contrived and
inconvenient, yet having a beautiful front, Lord Chesterfield said
that as the General could not live in it to his ease, he had better
take a house over against it and look at it. The villa at Chiswick was
yet another of his designs, borrowed, as Walpole says, from a villa of
Palladio’s. Though faulty in plan and arrangement, as that chronicler
admits, yet these blemishes could not “depreciate the taste that reigns
in the whole.” He then adds an observation which throws much light on
the motives that underlay the architectural design of the time. “The
larger court,” he says, “dignified by picturesque cedars, and the
classic scenery of the small court that unites the old and the new
house, are more worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur,
which our travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long
voyages.” It would seem that to have a bit of architectural grouping
that really reminded you of Italy more than compensated for damp,
draughty, and inconvenient rooms.
Henry, Earl of Pembroke, according to Walpole, was another of the
“men of the first rank who contributed to embellish their country
by buildings of their own design in the purest style of antique
composition.” William, Earl Fitzwilliam, designed a new front to
Wentworth Castle; General Conway erected a rustic bridge, of which
every stone was placed by his own direction; but from a reference in
one of Walpole’s letters to George Montagu, it was hardly a piece
of architecture, but rather a mere piling up of large stones; this,
however, the writer regarded as much superior to a regular Palladian
structure. Mr Chute, at his seat of the Vyne, in Hampshire, designed
and erected a theatric staircase. Dean Aldrich and Dr Clarke at
Oxford, and Sir James Burroughs at Cambridge, were also amateurs, but
they appear to have had more claim as designers than some of those
whom Walpole extols. The amateur architect of the eighteenth century
had, indeed, a long and even illustrious ancestry. Already in Charles
II.’s reign Sir John Denham, a poet, had been surveyor of the works
to the King. Wren, who succeeded him, was himself an amateur, in the
sense that he received no early training in architecture, and that
his reputation as a scientist was fully established before he turned
his attention to art. But Wren was a man of exceptional genius and
capacity, and soon mastered the technicalities of his new calling. Sir
John Vanbrugh was a poet before he was an architect, yet to him we owe
houses of the first importance, such as Blenheim and Castle Howard.
Besides these amateurs there were men who had received a definite
training as architects, John Webb, the nephew and son-in-law of Inigo
Jones; Nicholas Hawksmoor, the assistant of Wren; James Gibbs; Colin
Campbell; Thomas Ripley, of whom Walpole says that “in the mechanic
part, and in the disposition of apartments and conveniences,” he was
superior to Lord Burlington himself; and William Kent, the protégé and
friend of the same munificent and gifted nobleman. But even among these
professional architects the amateur spirit prevailed, and their clients
had to adapt themselves to the houses provided for them, instead of the
houses being adapted to the wants of the clients.
Other designers might be named of this period and of the preceding
half-century, as well as of later times, but the present object is
to trace in a brief way the gradual changes which took place in
houses themselves, without burdening the reader with many particulars
concerning their architects. The immediate source of inspiration for
all designers of this period was the Italian, Andreas Palladio; and no
designation has been more aptly bestowed on a phase of architecture
than Palladian upon that of the eighteenth century. Every type of
plan that was employed, every type of elevation, almost every kind of
feature that was adopted, has its prototype among Palladio’s designs.
In one instance, Mereworth “Castle” in Kent, Campbell, who designed
it, states that he copied it from a villa by Palladio built near
Vicenza for Signor Paolo Armerico. It is true that he introduced a few
variations, but substantially it is the same design; a design which had
already been adapted, with other variations, by the Earl of Burlington
in his villa at Chiswick. This is the most notable instance of direct
copyism; but a comparison of any of the published plans of that period
with those given by Giacomo Leoni in his “Architecture of A. Palladio,”
will show that they were all founded on Italian models, and derived
little (except the names of some of the rooms) from English tradition.
[Illustration: 161. House in St James’s Square, London (1772).]
This planting of Italian villas on English soil, where they were
subjected to a climate wholly different from that of the land of
their origin; this handling of the plan and elevation with a view
to architectural effect, instead of with a view to the comfort of
daily life, was of a piece with the artificiality of the age in other
directions. Among the letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne is one written
in 1739 to a friend whom he designates Philotes. In it he describes
how he had lately visited another friend (Euphronius), who was shortly
going to the wars in Flanders. As the warrior was not one of those who
preserve the chance of fighting another day by running away, there was
some probability of his never returning. Accordingly he had caused his
portrait to be taken after a manner designed by his father-in-law.
He was portrayed as Hector, his wife as Andromache, his sister-in-law
and little boy as the nurse holding Astyanax. So much was the writer
pleased with this “uncommon family-piece,” that he could wish it were
the fashion to have all such pictures executed in some such manner.
Architects, it is clear, were not the only designers who drew their
inspiration from classic sources.
But however mistaken their ideals were, the architects of George I.’s
time went a long way towards achieving them. Stateliness within and
without, noble proportions, careful and refined detail--all these
they produced in plenty. Possibly their noble clients, the “persons
of quality,” the “persons of distinction,” were satisfied with the
results, and were content to forego the comforts of home for the
opportunity of living the stately life. Yet from contemporary observers
we get occasionally a word of protest. After hearing a description of
Blenheim, Pope says,
“’Tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?
I see from all you have been telling
That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”
He tells Lord Burlington, too, that his noble rules would fill half the
land with imitating fools, who, among other things,
“Shall call the wind thro’ long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art.”
The rules of art were supreme. They had achieved their supremacy
by the time that George I. came to the throne. Inigo Jones was too
original a thinker, too close to the old traditions, to be entirely
fettered by them. Wren was too powerful a genius, too much occupied
in solving constructional problems, to become their slave. He was too
busy surmounting real architectural difficulties to occupy his time
in half-hearted attempts to translate Italian villas into terms of
English mansions; and some at least of his contemporaries refrained
from the favourite pursuit of his successors. In the second half of the
eighteenth century architects gave themselves a little more freedom of
treatment, while still conforming to the very careful proportions of
the classic styles. The brothers Adam, for instance, while indulging
in no great flights of fancy, bestowed great care on the proportions
and the detail of their work. The house, No. 20 St James’s Square (Fig.
161), is a good example of the refined manner of Robert Adam, although,
compared with the productions of the early part of the century, it may
be considered a little insipid.
[Illustration: 162. Boughton House, Northamptonshire (_cir._
1700).]
Boughton House in Northamptonshire lies outside the usual run of
classic houses of its period. It was built, or rather rebuilt,
by Ralph, Duke of Montagu, who incorporated in his new house a
considerable portion of his ancestral home, which had been first
erected in the middle of the sixteenth century. Montagu had been
ambassador at the court of Louis XIV., and on his return to England
towards the end of the seventeenth century, he built his house, as one
chronicler affirms, after the model of Versailles. It was a very modest
version, it is true; but there is a French feeling about it, in rather
refreshing contrast to the innumerable Palladian mansions of later
years (Fig. 162). The “long arcade” is there, but there is a welcome
absence of overpowering columns and cornices, and the windows are all
adequate for their purpose. Its restrained treatment, indeed, leads the
casual visitor to pronounce it dull; but its very simplicity produces
dignity, and its detail is refined. Within, it has ranges of noble
rooms (Fig. 183), which, like those at Hampton Court, have the drawback
of leading one into the other without the help of a corridor. They are
all panelled with large panels, and are full of fine furniture of the
period, and fine pictures. There are several excellent staircases, of
different and somewhat unusual design; and many of the ceilings exhibit
the masterpieces of Verrio or his school (Fig. 209). The house was the
centre of a vast and magnificent lay-out, in which great avenues, sunk
gardens, canals, lakes, cascades, and statuary all played their part.
The whole place, in spite of the decay of the gardens, retains much of
its original interest, and gives a vivid idea of the home of a great
noble of the time of William and Mary.
[Illustration: 163. The Entrance, Drayton House, Northants (_cir._
1700).]
Another house with much work of the same period is Drayton, in the same
county. This is an interesting edifice dating back to the beginning of
the fourteenth century. The early roof of the great hall has already
been illustrated (Fig. 84). Considerable alterations were made in the
reign of Henry VI.; a long wing was added in Elizabeth’s time; and the
close of the seventeenth century left perhaps the most lasting mark of
all. The hall was refronted and furnished with a fine doorway (Fig.
163), and enormous sash windows. At the ends of the front courtyard
columned arcades were introduced. A chapel was contrived against the
ancient windowless wall of fortified times. Most of the old mullioned
windows were replaced by sashes. Two venerable towers were crowned
with cupolas on columns, which lift themselves up against the sky and
proclaim the identity of the house at a glance. New staircases were
contrived, one covered with a coved ceiling on which Lanseroon tried
his skill. Many rooms were panelled with the large panels of the
time. The long gallery in the attic of the Elizabethan wing was made
into a library with rows of carefully designed shelves. A little room
leading out of the library was fitted up as a boudoir for the Duchess
of Norfolk; its ceiling was coved and gilt, and a mirror placed in the
central panel; the walls were partly panelled and partly fitted with
cases of curious Chinese objects; the floor was covered with a charming
design in parquetry, where formal patterns were interspersed with
dainty little birds, admirably drawn. The great hall was ceiled below
the ancient open-timber roof. The whole place was renovated within
and without, and newly furnished with fine chairs, settees, tables,
and beds, which remain to this day in the house where they went when
they were new. Nor was this all. The gardens were rearranged; stables
were built; long walls of enclosure were raised, pierced with gateways
into which splendid iron gates were hung. The front court was enclosed
on one side with a long stretch of excellent iron railings. Quaint
flights of steps led from one level to another. Innumerable lead urns,
large and small, but all bearing delicately modelled designs, were
placed at intervals along the balustrades, or mounted on great stone
pedestals as worthy to form central objects in the various quarters
of the garden. The whole place is another admirable example of how
noblemen housed themselves in those days, and it has this advantage
over Boughton, that it preserves its gardens, and that it has a longer
and more varied history to look back upon.
Shortly after the work at Boughton and Drayton was finished, Sir John
Vanbrugh was laying his “heavy loads” on the earth in various parts of
the country. Heavy they may be, but no one can deny them vigour and
force. Vanbrugh, like his contemporaries, troubled himself little about
the niceties of planning from the point of view of daily life, nor did
he even provide rooms of a size and dignity proportionate to the vast
palaces he designed. But no architect of the time succeeded better in
pleasing the passer-by with his stately buildings. Blenheim, the gift
of a grateful nation to her most distinguished hero, was rivalled by
Castle Howard (Fig. 164), the private enterprise of a wealthy nobleman.
Eastbury in Dorset was nearly as large, and from the outset must have
been something of a white elephant to its owners. At the end of the
eighteenth century its possessor is said to have offered an annuity of
£200 to any one who would live there and keep it in repair. Finding
nobody willing to undertake the responsibility, he finally pulled down
all but one wing. Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, though not so
large, was still on an extravagant scale. The central block, a fine
and massive piece of building, had nevertheless no great amount of
accommodation, and it has never been rebuilt since it was burnt down
in 1752. Both the outlying wings remain; the kitchen was in one, many
yards distant from the dining-room; and some of the bedrooms in this
block have to this day no direct communication with the outer air. The
other wing contained, as usual, the stables; but so vast are its spaces
that the standings within it that are used have had to be enclosed in
order to keep them warm.
[Illustration: 164. Castle Howard, Yorkshire (1714).]
The plan of Castle Howard (Fig. 165) shows what splendour Vanbrugh and
his clients aimed at. The house itself, with a long extending garden
front, a lofty hall, and the prevalent curved colonnades flanking the
chief entrance, is supported by two projecting wings, containing on one
side the chapel, and on the other the kitchen and other rooms called
the “hunting apartments.” Outside each wing is a large court--the
stable court on one side, the kitchen court on the other, the whole
disposition producing a frontage of 660 feet. Blenheim by the same
reckoning extended 850 feet. The bird’s-eye view of Castle Howard (Fig.
164) shows the stately treatment of the exterior seen from the front;
while Fig. 166 (from a photograph) shows the garden façade. It is a
palace rather than a private house. The general view also shows how the
buildings that compose the wings are treated absolutely alike, although
their purposes are widely different. This practice must have resulted
in extravagance and inconvenience at one end or the other, probably at
both. Doubtless this aspect of the question occurred to the designer,
but it must be remembered that the early eighteenth century frankly
built for show rather than for use. Pope points this moral in his
letter to Burlington--
“You show us Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use.”
The settled proportions in which architects then delighted, the
double cube, Campbell’s _sesquialtera_ and _sesquitertia_,
resulted in fine apartments, of which the double cube room at Wilton
in Wiltshire is the most notable. There is another room of similar
proportions, but rather smaller, in the same county, in the Bishop’s
palace at Salisbury. This is the drawing-room, built over some of
Bishop Poore’s twelfth-century vaulting. It is 50 ft. by 25 ft., a fine
apartment, well adapted for the semi-private functions which diversify
the daily life of a great Church dignitary, but perhaps a little too
large for ordinary family use. On the opposite side of the close is
a house which aptly illustrates the type of plan familiar in the
architectural folios of the time. It is a large square house of almost
stately appearance. A flight of steps leads up to the spacious entrance
hall, which is two storeys high, and contains an excellent staircase.
Straight across the hall is the dining-room, of reasonable size. To
the left lies a room which extends the whole depth of the house from
front to back, a distance of between 30 and 40 ft., while its width
is not quite half as much. There can be little doubt that the room is
too long for its width, and that there would have been more comfort
had the architect been less ambitious. For the purposes of daily life
the occupants prefer a smaller room on the other side of the hall. The
bedrooms are few in number, and the actual accommodation of the house
is by no means so large as its appearance suggests, much space being
sacrificed for the hall.
[Illustration: 165. Castle Howard, Yorkshire. Plan of Principal Floor.]
Another example of the fine houses of the eighteenth century is
Campbell’s Wanstead in Essex (Fig. 167), built shortly before 1720.
In his “Vitruvius Britannicus” he gives three designs for this house,
two in the first volume and one in the third. The second design,
somewhat modified in detail, was carried out; these modifications
are shown on the third design, which also includes a tower at each end
of the façade; it was, however, quite as well that these towers were
not built, for they would have been no improvement. The view here given
was taken from the house itself, which was pulled down in 1822. It is
a dignified composition, one of the least extravagant of its period,
but the plan, although more compact than many, is ill-adapted for the
ordinary routine of household life.
[Illustration: 166. Castle Howard, Yorkshire. The Garden Façade.]
[Illustration: 167. Wanstead House, Essex (built shortly before 1720).]
If we leave the architecture of the masters and of their books, and
turn to the ordinary houses of the time, we find something much more
home-like and convenient. These smaller houses reflect, though dimly,
the stately handling of their more pompous contemporaries. They are
generally a complete and symmetrical whole, and if in the course of
time their owners wish to enlarge them, it becomes a problem of some
difficulty how to do so without spoiling their appearance. The entrance
door is in the middle of one front, and is flanked on either hand by
three or four sash windows, spaced so as to fall into groups. The group
over the door is often surmounted by a pediment, or has some special
treatment, as at Rothwell manor house (Fig. 192). The angles of the
building generally have quoins, the roof is hipped every way, and at
the eaves there is a projecting cornice of varying degrees of richness.
The chimneys are gathered together in large solid stacks; the roof
surface is broken by dormers. The whole effect is simple and quiet. The
large spaces of plain walling, the large area of the window openings,
the large chimney-stacks are all in complete contrast to the lively
windows, steep gables, and detached chimney-shafts of Elizabethan and
Jacobean houses. There are innumerable examples of this kind throughout
the country. Every old-fashioned town has two or three, occupied by
leading inhabitants, the doctor, the solicitor, the maiden ladies. Not
a few manor houses are of the same type, with rooms of reasonable size
and height, and the eating-room within easy reach of the kitchen. A
good specimen of a small house is Fenton House, Hampstead, of which
the plan is given in Fig. 168, and the side elevation in Fig. 169. The
plan is compact and well arranged, there is no attempt at grandeur, and
the rooms are accordingly disposed with a view primarily to comfort;
yet both within and without the effect is handsome; there is nothing
pretentious on the one hand, nor mean and makeshift on the other. The
elevation follows the usual simple lines mentioned above.
[Illustration: 168. Fenton House, Hampstead.
Ground Plan.]
It is seldom that these houses are dated, and they have not been
considered of sufficient importance for any one to record the year of
their building; it is therefore not possible to place the examples
here illustrated in chronological order, except in the case of the
house at Burwash in Sussex (Fig. 170), which bears the date 1699 in
a plaster panel on the soffit of the hood over the front door. Two
features which agree with the date, and place it earlier than the other
examples, are the wood mullioned windows and the panelled chimneys.
The next three illustrations (Figs. 171, 172, 173) were probably all
built during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. They have
sash windows of which the wood casing forms a broad white margin to the
opening. One has architraves to its windows, one merely key-stones by
way of ornament, and one has no relief of this kind. Varieties such as
these, unpretending as they are, impart a certain amount of character.
The remaining two examples (Figs. 174, 175) date from towards the end
of the century. They show how formal and spiritless house design was
growing. The absence of a wide overhanging cornice seems to deprive
them of half their character. On the other hand, they are too simple
and unpretentious to excite that active dislike which some of the more
laboured houses of yet later times arouses.
[Illustration: 169. Fenton House, Hampstead.
Side Elevation.]
[Illustration: 170. “Roppynden,” Burwash, Sussex (1699).]
[Illustration: 171. The Rectory House, Burford, Oxfordshire.]
[Illustration: 172. House at Horsham, Sussex.]
[Illustration: 173. Heale House, Middle Woodford, near Salisbury.]
[Illustration: 174. House at Faversham (late 18th cent.).]
[Illustration: 175. House at Colchester (late 18th cent.).]
[Illustration: 176. Drayton House, Northamptonshire.
Gates in the Side of Fore-court (_cir._ 1700).]
[Illustration: 177. Drayton House.
Gates at the End of the West Avenue (_cir._ 1700).]
The iron gates and railings of the period from William III. to George
II. afford some of the finest specimens of craftsmanship which the
country can boast. Those at Drayton House have already been mentioned.
They were mostly wrought for the Duchess of Norfolk about the year
1700, and much of the work bears her monogram. From the wealth of
examples which the gardens and park offer, two have been selected,
one from the side of the front court (Fig. 176), and one from the
broad avenue which runs westward from the entrance front (Fig. 177).
In the former the device of placing the massive hammered leafage
in the tympanum of the arch, with the bright sky as a background,
is singularly happy. In the latter the combination of the delicate
ironwork with the lofty stone piers crowned with large lead urns
produces a noble effect, which is heightened by the remote position
of the group from the house at the end of an avenue never meant for
traffic. It was only a lordly munificence which could place so notable
a feature where in the ordinary way it would be but dimly visible.
[Illustration: 178. Gates at Eaton Hall, Cheshire.]
[Illustration: 179. Railings and Gates at Carshalton House, Surrey
(1723).]
At Eaton Hall in Cheshire is another fine example (not, however, in
its original position) of somewhat unusual design (Fig. 178). Here,
too, the more elaborate part of the work is high up, where it now
shows against the sky; the lower parts are plain, and veil, without
obscuring, the view. The pillars instead of being in stone are built up
of ironwork. Clever as the idea is, the effect is not so monumental as
when the delicacy of the metal is bounded by the solidity of stone or
brick.
There is a splendid range of gates and railing at Carshalton in Surrey,
erected in 1723 (Fig. 179) as part of the embellishments of the
gardens and park of Carshalton House, which was to have been built
for Sir Thomas Scawen from the designs of Giacomo Leoni. It never
was built, however, and these gates (of which the designer is not
known), together with some others of less pretension, and a bridge,
are all that remain of an ambitious scheme. The stone piers at either
end, surmounted by lively lead figures, help the monumental effect,
an effect which would perhaps have been even finer had the range of
ironwork not been quite so long.
[Illustration: 180. Gate to a House in High Street, Richmond, Surrey.]
But it was not only large houses to which these fine adjuncts were
applied. The neighbourhood of London abounds in charming specimens
attached to houses of quite small size, such as that in Fig. 180;
and even in London itself there are still left interesting examples,
many of them yet retaining the extinguisher used by the linkboys
after piloting their patrons through the difficulties of the dark and
ill-paved streets.