Chapter XVI: Queenborough Castle and Its Builder, William of Wykeham 269 (4)

During Tudor times the palace, with the neighbouring house of Pyrgo, fell gradually into disuse and disrepair, and a visit of Charles I. in 1637 is the last recorded occasion on which Havering received a royal guest. In the time of the Commonwealth, some twelve years later, we find it described as “being a confused heape of old, ruinous and decayed buildings” of value only as materials. Since that time the destruction has gone on till now no fragment of the old building survives.

The situation of Havering Palace is amongst the most beautiful round London. Some three miles north of Romford, it once crowned a rounded hill about 300 ft. high commanding an extensive view, and was surrounded by a park of 1,311 acres, many of the noble trees of which yet line the lanes and hedgerows of the country-side. The quiet village, with its broad green and ancient stocks, has the unusual merit of being not only entirely unspoiled but almost untouched by the modern builder. The royal demesnes of the Bower and Pyrgo are still represented by the great parks and seats which hem the village in on every side.

The plan of the ancient palace is preserved in its entirety in two drawings here reproduced—one showing the kitchen court and offices and published as long ago as 1814 in Ogborne’s “History of Essex,” and the second, from the Hatfield MSS., now printed for the first time, showing the main block of the palace buildings. The old royal manor-house was chiefly remarkable for its extreme irregularity, and it is difficult to determine its original form.

It is obviously a building of many dates and the subject of many additions and alterations. The windows of the smaller or private chapel with the bold buttresses appear to be indicative of a thirteenth-century building, while the wooden galleries and stairs are no doubt of Tudor date.

Most of the buildings shown are on the first-floor level. “The Presence Chamber” (40 ft. by 22 ft.) may be taken to represent the original hall with the screens at the west end. Running south from the dais end is “The Great Chamber,” a large apartment (originally 61 ft. by 24 ft.) communicating on the south with the Great Chapel (45 ft. by 16½ ft.) used by the parish and dedicated, in reference to King Edward’s adventure, to St. John the Evangelist.

This building was claimed by the tenants, at the time of the Commonwealth, as the parish church, on the grounds that they had used it time out of mind and, furthermore, that there was another chapel within the palace. They apparently gained their point, and the old edifice remained in part until the erection of the present building.

The plan shows a rectangular structure of three bays, the western one being occupied by the Royal Pew approached by a wooden staircase.

A view of this building, much altered, is given in Ogborne’s “Essex,” from which it appears to have been of fifteenth-century date and to have retained the timber annexe at the western end shown upon the plan.

The modern church which has now replaced it contains a square twelfth-century font and some leger-stones said to have come from the chapel of Pyrgo Palace long ago destroyed. It stands approximately on the site of its predecessor, and is consequently of value in determining the precise site of the palace buildings, which extended to the north-west, the Privy Garden adjoining Havering Green upon the west.

_From the British Museum._]

The Second or Private Chapel adjoins the south-west corner of the hall, and is shown in considerable detail. It was lit by four or five windows in the south wall and a trio of lancets with detached shafts at the west end, the whole building being only 32½ ft. by 14 ft.

_From the Hatfield MSS._]

The large block of buildings lying to the north of the Great Hall formed the private apartments of the sovereign and are called “the Queen’s Lodging.” They consist of a privy chamber, withdrawing chamber, bedchamber, closet, and two other apartments, with a private stair leading to the garden.

To the west of this range lay the courts and offices shown upon the second plan. (The original is said to be in the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum.) They include the privy kitchen and larder with a small court adjoining, with a long range of timber lodgings stretching southwards, and some of the ground-floor apartments of the main block being also indicated. The whole group forms an example of a large domestic plan of distinctively early type, uninfluenced by any considerations of military defence, and can only be paralleled by the buildings of old Westminster Palace.

The two plans are by the same hand, although the scales differ, for both are signed J. S., presumably standing for John Symonds, the well-known Elizabethan draughtsman, and the second is furthermore named and dated 1578 in Lord Burghley’s hand.

—A. W. C.

THE NEW EXCHANGE IN
THE STRAND

_Drawn by Smithson._]

X.

THE NEW EXCHANGE IN THE STRAND.

In reopening what to many readers may be a long-forgotten chapter in London’s commercial history, I wish to call attention to a beautiful little drawing from the Smithson Collection which has already been published[22] but has not been identified with any known building. It is apparently the original plan and half elevation (to a larger scale) of the New Exchange which the first Earl of Salisbury built in the Strand in 1608 as a rival to the Royal Exchange in the City. The fine drawing and delicate detail of the design will speak for themselves as an illustration of the work of the period, and its value is increased in that the later drawings of the Exchange bear out its general accuracy. The presence of the Cecil arms reminds us of that indefatigable builder Sir Robert or “Mr. Secretary” Cecil, whose activities were not exhausted by his work at Chelsea, Hatfield, and at his neighbouring house in the Strand.

[22] The drawing appeared in a paper by Mr. J. A. Gotch in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for Nov. 21, 1908. I am indebted to the author and to the Institute for their kind permission to use the block.

I shall not pretend to bring any new information, beyond the plan, to the wonderfully interesting history of this building, for a most exhaustive paper from the pen of Dr. T. N. Brushfield appeared as recently as 1903, and was published in the Journal of the British Archæological Association under the title of “Britain’s Burse or the New Exchange,” wherein the reader will find a very large amount of entertainment and instruction. It may, however, be of interest to recall one or two of the historical facts regarding the site and its surroundings, and to examine the available topographical material.

Sir Robert Cecil, who built his new house in the Strand in 1602 (where now stands the hotel named after him), was naturally interested in the adjoining property to the west—that occupied by the ancient courtyards of Durham House. The Bishops of Durham had lived in this house for many centuries until they were dispossessed by Henry VIII. Stow says that the house was built by Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham (from 1345 to 1381); but we know that Otho, the papal legate, lived here in 1238, and in the following passage the topographer Norden traces it back to the famous thirteenth-century bishop who built and fortified the manor-house of Eltham, afterwards the royal palace: “This howse, called Durham or Dunelme House ... was buylded in the time of Henry 3 by one Anthony Becke, Bishop of Durham. It is a howse of 300 years antiquitie, the hall whereof is stately and high, supported with lofty marble pillars. It standeth upon the Thamese veriye pleasantly.” Norden wrote in 1593, and he thus places the date of the aisled hall as the latter part of the thirteenth-century, a period which would agree with his reference to Purbeck marble shafts, and with the character of the windows indicated on a sketch-plan of 1626, which we shall consider later on.

The Bishops of Durham returned to the house for a brief period under Mary, and were finally reinstated by James I., after which they continued there until 1640. From 1584 to 1603, however, the house was tenanted by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, says Aubrey, “lived there after he came to his greatness.” He adds, “I well remember his study, which was on a little turret that looked into and over the Thames, and had the prospect which is as pleasant perhaps as any in the world.” During this period, in 1600, the buildings of the outer courtyard facing the Strand were destroyed by fire, and it was these ruins which Cecil replaced by his New Exchange when he purchased the frontage in the first years of the reign of King James.

_Drawn by Hollar. (Pepysian Library, Cambridge.)_]

_Map by Faithorne._]

_Map by Hollar._]

The principal apartments of Durham House lay right on the river bank and occupied the position of the present Adelphi Terrace. The relative position of this Gothic building and Salisbury House is well shown in one of Hollar’s charming little riverside views, a facsimile of which we reproduce here with the kind permission of the Trustees of the Pepysian Library, Cambridge. The drawing shows the gables of the New Exchange appearing over the top of the older buildings. Another drawing of Hollar’s—that beautifully executed map of the west-central part of London—gives us in its extreme south-west corner a good idea of Salisbury House, and the three buildings are shown with less care in Faithorne’s valuable panoramic map of London. A plan in Strype’s Stow (ed. 1720) gives miniature drawings of the buildings of the Exchange and Cecil’s house, and shows also the tower-shaped river gateway which stood in the garden of the latter, and of which particulars are preserved in the Record Office under date 1610, being a “Specification of a plan by a Mr. Osborne, for making a portico at the south end of the Earl of Salisbury’s garden in the Strand.”[23]

[23] _Vide_ Wheatley and Cunningham, _London Past and Present_.

Much, however, as we are helped by the skill of Hollar and Faithorne to feel some little of the atmosphere of this historic site on the river bank, we were fain to have some more detailed knowledge of the homes of Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh. Some fortunate chance may perhaps yet bring more information in the course of further research. Dr. Brushfield indeed has been able to take us one step in this direction in his discovery of a curious sketch-plan of Durham House and the New Exchange, made in 1626, and preserved in the State Paper Office. “It was apparently made,” he says, “to assist the enquiry into some tumultuary proceedings that took place on February 26th of that year at Durham House, then the residence of the French Ambassador, incident to the attempted arrest of some English Roman Catholics who had attended service in the Ambassador’s private chapel there.” As will be seen by the simplified tracing which is reproduced with this article, it is of the rather tantalising form which combines elevations with the plan, and which scarcely gives us accurate details of the arrangements. We can see, however, that it was once a noble house with two large courtyards and imposing gateways. Its great hall and lofty range of apartments towards the east are clearly indicated, and the position of the chapel is well shown, a building which we are just able to distinguish in Norden’s well-known view of Westminster. This plan of 1626, moreover, in giving us an idea of the fine thirteenth or fourteenth-century windows of the great hall, enables us to understand Hollar’s sketch of the river front more clearly. The arches, which Wilkinson, in his interpretation of Hollar in _Londina Illustrata_, took to be corbelled supports for the battlements, are clearly the windows of the hall which appear over the low curtain wall against the water’s edge. Wyngaerde’s view of London shows the river front[24] and also the Great Gatehouse.

[24] Wyngaerde’s view of Durham House has been sometimes described in error as the Hospital of St. Mary Rouncevall. The hospital is, however, more probably the small building which he shows to the west.

Nor are the suggestions regarding the way in which the rest of the site had been disposed less interesting. “Britain’s Burse” or the New Exchange fills that part of the frontage to the Strand which lies between “the Great Street Gate” and the boundary of the York House property on the west, while the “Common Passage from the Water’s Side” which passed along the rear of the Exchange and down the boundary to the Thames is plainly if not accurately indicated. This passage, shown also on the Smithson plan, led to the river stairs which Hollar places beneath the western tower of Durham House.

Sir Robert Cotton’s house presents at first sight a difficulty. It is shown on the plan of 1626 as lying westward of the boundary within the York House property, but this appears to be a draughtsman’s error. Dr. Brushfield cites the lease (1608–9) “to Thomas Wilson of the Strand” of what is evidently this plot of land “lyeinge and beinge on the south side of the new buildinge lately erected and new builte by the Lorde Treasuror where Durham Stables did stande towardes the west ende of the same new buildinge next to the wall which divideth Yorke garden from Durham Yarde.” The plot measured 8 yards from the New Exchange southwards, and 7 yards from the York garden wall eastwards towards Durham Yard, and Wilson covenants not to build within 6 ft. of any window of the new building. Wilson built his house on this diminutive plot, and in 1618 he sold it for £374, the conveyance, as quoted by Dr. Brushfield, giving further evidence of its exact position, thus: “All that messuage or tenement with a garden ... together with one little yard lying upon the west syde of Durham House ... abuttinge on Brittaine Burse there on the North, the garden of the capital messuage called York House on the part of the West and on the passage leadinge from Brittaine’s Burse to the Ryver of Thames on the parte of the East and South.” The last words show that the passage skirted Wilson’s garden on two sides, and this is borne out by the break in the wall of Durham Court shown in the Smithson plan, the site having evidently been enlarged by purchase since the date of that plan at the expense of the area of the outer courtyard. In the 1626 plan, Sir Thomas Wilson, who was in the service of Cecil and was the first manager of the Exchange, is shown as occupying another house near Durham House Chapel. He seems to have built it before he disposed of his first house, which, as we have seen, was occupied in 1626 by Sir Robert Cotton.

_Drawn by Smithson._]

_Drawn by T. Hosmer Shepherd._]

As regards the fabric of the New Exchange itself, we can see by the Smithson drawing that it was originally intended to be of two storeys in height, with elaborate central and end gables (apparently having false windows) and two small intermediate gables. The elevation to the Strand was skilfully designed, the building having two open arcades of six round arches on the ground floor placed between the end and middle blocks. The front was decorated with two orders of pilasters, superimposed, and the windows of the first floor were circular-headed where they appeared over the arches below, but were square below the gables. Entrances were arranged through the eastern and western arch of the arcade and through a similar archway in the centre.

That this design was carried out is evident from the careful water-colour drawing of T. Hosmer Shepherd, which, though drawn many years after the destruction of the building, must have been based on an actual view. The Exchange is here shown with an attic storey, and the Jacobean gables have disappeared in the general remodelling of the upper part, which, with its long cornice and dormer pediments, suggests the early part of the eighteenth century. An intermediate stage is represented in an engraving reproduced by Dr. Brushfield, where the attic storey is also shown, but the first-floor windows are still with circular heads, and the little medallions of the Smithson plan still appear. The pilasters, however, are lacking above the arcade, and it is possible that these were omitted from the first.

The internal arrangements of the Exchange show an inner and outer walk which was repeated on both floors, each walk being occupied with small booths or shops, the space allowed for the latter being 8½ ft. and for the walk 10 ft. A large number of small traders, such as jewellers and milliners, took advantage of this method of showing their wares, which was already in vogue at the Royal Exchange, and James I. followed Elizabeth’s precedent in regard to the latter building by opening it in person, naming it at the same time “Britain’s Burse.” At one time, notably at the Restoration, the place became very fashionable, and the trade was extremely brisk. A basement (the steps to which are shown at the back of the building in the 1626 plan, and are marked “the alehouse where the priest was taken”) was let as a tavern, and here, too, it seems that Pepys went for his daily glass of whey when that drink was in fashion. The “taverne underneath” is referred to in a series of verses entitled “The Burse of Reformation” (1658), written in alternate praise and depreciation of both the old (Royal) and the New Exchanges. The slope of the bank towards the river would probably raise this basement largely above ground and give the Exchange the appearance of an extra storey towards the south.

The New Exchange undoubtedly proved a great success, and its principle of including many shops under one roof has been often imitated down to our own day, although the great Stores are now doing the same thing more completely under one ownership. We are told that it fell in popularity after the accession of George I., and in 1737, after an existence of 128 years, it was taken down. As one of the well-known resorts of fashion of the seventeenth century it has an important place in the contemporary dramatic and periodical literature, and several books bear the imprint of publishers who hung out their signs at Britain’s Burse. The Smithson drawings are therefore a welcome addition to our information, and are interesting in giving us the architect’s own draft of a Jacobean building of somewhat singular requirements.

—W. H. G.

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM,
CLERKENWELL

_Drawn by Hollar._]

XI.

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, CLERKENWELL.

Of the numerous and varied by-products of the Crusading spirit, none possess a greater fascination and interest than those extraordinary associations known as the Military Orders. The combined influences of fanaticism and military ardour succeeded in uniting in them the ascetic and the soldier, with so marked a success that their vital force was not finally extinguished until ages after the whole fabric of mediævalism had crumbled away and the Knights of Malta were one of those hoary anachronisms which, like the Holy Roman Empire, were swept ruthlessly away by the new broom of the Napoleonic wars. Of the two great orders the Templars, largely, perhaps, owing to their early and tragic end, have always attracted a greater proportion of attention, and in London their name and memory are kept green by the church and precinct which are still with us. The Hospitallers, on the other hand, are in great measure neglected, as comparatively little is left of their London house to show the extent and magnificence of the great dwelling in Clerkenwell of the Grand Prior of England, who took precedence of all the temporal members of the House of Peers.

The loss that English architecture suffered by the destruction of this building can only be appreciated when one considers that the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem stood alone and unique. The requirements of the order demanded a building equally apart from the usual monastic plan and from the purely secular establishment, and the direct and continuous connection of the order with the East would argue the existence of ideas and arrangements more foreign and less insular than are observable in contemporary English work.

Up to the present the information available as to the buildings of the Hospitallers has been practically _nil_, a couple of drawings by the indefatigable Hollar being the only record of their appearance.

Amongst the MSS. of Loseley Hall, that collection which has already supplied so much information on London topography, is a short document giving a complete list of the buildings with their approximate dimensions. The survey is one of a numerous class taken at the time of the general suppression in order to arrive at a valuation of the lead from the roofs of the dissolved monasteries. That the surveyor did his work with great care and accuracy is evident from the minute nature of some of the entries, and even the gutters and down-pipes are all included in the estimate. The survey, of course, fails us in regard to the arrangement of the various buildings, and so little is known of structures of this class that it is impossible to argue by analogy. The buildings of the order at Rhodes have been the subject of a recent monograph, but here the “auberge” of the English “langue” is amongst the most fragmentary and ruinous, while the palatial dwellings and gorgeous church at Malta have little bearing on the subject, as they are of late construction and the English “language” was then extinct. Schloss Marienburg in Prussia, the headquarters of the Teutonic order, is perhaps the best preserved of these structures: and here the main building follows the ordinary monastic plan, with such modifications as were necessary to secure also a fortress of no mean strength.

The London church of the Hospitallers has passed through more vicissitudes than almost any other building in the city. Founded during the reign of Stephen, the first building had a circular nave 65 ft. in diameter and a short choir, with a crypt under, probably terminating in an apse.[25]

[25] The foundations of the “Round” have been partially uncovered, and it must have been similar in character and dimensions to the Temple Church. The remains of a third circular church, the first home of the Templars in London, were discovered, many years ago, on the south side of Holborn, so that the metropolis once possessed three buildings of this class.

1. c. 1150

2. c. 1185

3. c. 1540

_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

Towards the close of the century the proportions of the choir proved insufficient, and a large aisled structure, four bays long, was raised in its place, being duly consecrated by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in 1185. The church remained in this form until the rising of the commons under Wat Tyler in 1381, when the rebels, besides murdering the prior, set the house on fire, “causing it to burn by the space of seven days together, not suffering any to quench it.” The round nave was never rebuilt, its successor being a rectangular three-aisled building with a magnificent tower at the north-west corner. At the dissolution in 1540 the house was not touched, but a few years later the nave with the great tower fell a victim to Protector Somerset. The choir was walled in and again applied to its original purpose during Queen Mary’s reign, but once more desecrated under her successor. It served in turn as a private chapel and a dissenting meeting-house until 1721, when the remains, patched and repaired, became the parish church of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.

The crypt under the present church is the finest of these structures still standing in London. It is of two dates, the western portion of the central aisle being contemporary with the foundation. The quadripartite ribbed vaulting with broad responds and transverse bands between the bays belongs to the simpler type of Norman work. The two eastern bays with the flanking chapels were added when the aisled choir was built above (1185). The pointed vaulting springs from clustered shafts, and the whole is an elegant example of transitional work of the same date and character as the still existing “Round” of the Temple Church. Of the aisled choir above, the outer walls and the bases of the columns remain, but this part of the building underwent extensive alteration under Prior Thomas Docwra (1501–27), who inserted the windows and constructed two buildings against the south wall. Both of these can be identified from the Loseley Survey as the vestry on the east and “My lord Dockerys chappell.” The latter was entered by two wide brick arches piercing the side wall, the earlier buttresses between being pared away at the angles to form semi-octagonal piers.

The nave of the church was also of three aisles, the length of the leads being respectively thirty, twenty-nine, and twenty yards. The discrepancy of the north aisle is accounted for by the presence, at its western end, of the great tower, described by Stow as “a most curious piece of work graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great beautifying of the city.” The tower was evidently about ten yards square, and its position is still marked by a set-back in the existing building line; the lead from the steeple was about the same in quantity (five fothers) as that covering one of the side aisles.

The later work in the church all dates from the foundation of the parish in 1721. The massive carved hood over the west door is an admirable piece of woodwork of that date, the carved panel of the three Saints John in the door-head being a modern addition.

The simple and unpretentious reredos is a no less satisfactory example of early eighteenth-century work, but the remainder of the building calls for little remark, the plain west front and galleried interior presenting no features of special interest.

Turning now to the domestic portion of the “hospital,” we find an extensive range of embattled buildings, with a pleasantly diversified outline, depicted in Hollar’s view on the north side of the church, and there is little doubt that the principal apartments occupied this side.

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

_Photograph by H. W. Fincham._]

Remains of vaulted substructures, on the opposite side of St. John’s Square, prove, however, that the buildings extended far beyond the destroyed nave in this direction. The Loseley Survey apparently starts with the buildings shown by Hollar and passes westward. The first building mentioned is a house called the Priests’ Dorter, 120 ft. long, and evidently the dormitory of the knights; next follows the “Armoury,” 54 ft. long, and very narrow, as the roof measures only 9 ft. on either side of the ridge. The great chamber with other apartments formed a block 120 ft. long, with the great staircase, 24 ft. by 18 ft., at one end of it. Connected with these buildings were numerous smaller chambers, the use of which is generally unspecified, but evidently offices, as they include a “stillitorne,” or distillery, a “comptyng house,” and the wardrobe. The Prior’s Lodging contained a parlour and “my lordes chamber,” and the great hall was a magnificent apartment 105 ft. in length.

Towards the end of the list mention is made of “a tyled rooffe which was called the Yeoman’s Dorter,” so that the house at Clerkenwell contained definite accommodation not only for the knights but also for a lower grade, the yeomen, who were perhaps body servants and attendants.

The great gate of the precinct which still spans St. John’s Lane was built by Prior Docwra, and though drastically restored is still in outward appearance largely as he left it. The finely ribbed vault to the gate itself is untouched, and the interior contains many remains of ancient work. Chief among these is the handsome carved fireplace originally in the “Baptist’s Head” tavern, and bearing the arms of Sir Thomas Forster, who died in 1612. The carving on the frieze is of considerable delicacy, and the design is quite unusual.

It is a singular fact that only two representations of members of the order have survived in English monumental art, namely, an emaciated figure to Prior Weston in St. James’s, Clerkenwell, and the effigy of Prior Fresham at Rushton (Northants). The former died within a few months after the suppression of his house, and the remainder of his monument was removed when St. James’s Church was rebuilt.

The smaller establishments of the Knights Hospitallers in England have suffered even more than the mother house, and their remains are few and inconspicuous. The circular church of Little Maplestead, Essex, is, however, an exception, and the building has suffered far more from restoration than decay. The three “Early English” chapels at Moor Hall (Middlesex), Swingfield, and Sutton-at-Hone, Kent, are also relics of the order, and the little establishment at Chibburn, Northumberland, is still almost complete; but though not lacking in individual interest, they were at best but granges of the great dwelling at Clerkenwell, which was the combined recruiting and receiving house of the order in England.

—A. W. C.

NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE,
STRAND

_Photograph by London Stereoscopic Co._]

XII.

NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE, STRAND.

Of olden time London’s great highway was the Thames, and this important fact must be remembered when we would cast our minds back to the times of Hollar, who portrayed our picturesque city with such infinite art. So busy was the traffic that Stow tells us in the year 1598 “that, omitting to speak of great ships and other vessels of burthen, there pertaineth to the cities of London, Westminster, and the borough of Southwark, above the number, as is supposed, of two thousand wherries and other small boats, whereby 3,000 poor men, at the least, be set on work and maintained.” Nor does this include, presumably, the barges of state and those of the noblemen and rich citizens, to whom the barge was as important a possession as the motor-car of to-day, and an object of even greater pride. The changed position and character of the main artery of the city’s life and movement is responsible—perhaps as much as the passing of its ancient buildings—for the difficulty which we of the present day experience in attempting to enter into the spirit of mediæval and Tudor London.

As was natural, the northern bank of the great highway of the Thames held the most coveted sites for the residences of kings, nobles, and prelates. William FitzStephen, in his oft-quoted description of London towards the end of the twelfth century, tells us that “nearly all the bishops, abbots, and magnates of England are, as it were, citizens and freemen of London, having there their own splendid houses to which they resort, where they spend largely when summoned to Great Councils by the King or by their Metropolitan, or drawn thither by their own private affairs.” From the “Palatine Castle”—the Tower of London—in the east, to the western limits of the city and its liberties, the bank was furnished with fine buildings. “Also upwards to the west the Royal Palace [Westminster] is conspicuous above the same river, an incomparable building with ramparts and bulwarks, two miles from the city, joined to it by a populous suburb.”

As early, then, as 1190 the Palace of Westminster was joined to Temple Bar by a “populous suburb” of houses, described later by Stow as “memorable for greatness,” that looked on to the fair “river of Thames.” The Elizabethan chronicler gives us an interesting account of them in his day. After the new Temple, going westwards, one came upon Essex House, formerly built by the Bishops of Exeter and again new-built by an Earl of Leicester before the Earl of Essex lodged there and gave it the name which the street on its site still bears. Next was Arundel House, first built by the Bishop of Bath, and increased under the occupation of Lord Thomas Seymour, Admiral. Here again the present Arundel Street preserves the name of the Earl who lived there in Stow’s time. West of this was Somerset House, built first by Edward Duke of Somerset in 1549—a building of princely size, upon the site of which stood formerly an Inn of Chancery called Strand Inn—and the three houses of the Bishops of Llandaff, Chester, and Worcester. Beyond the Bishop of Worcester’s stood the great Hospital of the Savoy, founded by Henry VII. on the ruins of the beautiful palace which had had a chequered history since its erection in 1245 by Peter of Savoy. Next came the Earl of Bedford’s house, formerly the London home of the Bishop of Carlisle, and adjoining it the large and stately house of brick and timber the work of Sir Robert Cecil, builder of Chelsea House and Hatfield. The great hotels, the Savoy and the Cecil, still witness to the importance of these river sites, the beauty of which, however, has in such large measure departed. Another bishop, the Bishop of Durham, had the next house to Cecil’s. (_Vide ante_ p. 154.) Then came the house formerly of the Bishop of Norwich, but in Stow’s time belonging to the Archbishops of York, and called of them York House. It came later into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, and the little water-gate in the Embankment Gardens—still called York Stairs—together with the names of Buckingham and Villiers Streets, commemorates its vanished glories.

York House seems to have been the last of the great houses on the riverside until one came to the precincts of the Palace at Whitehall, but between it and the Palace we learn there were “divers fair tenements lately built,” and also “an Hospital of St. Marie Rouncivall by Charing Cross where a fraternity was founded in the fifteenth of Edward IV., but now the same is suppressed and turned into tenements.” Thus Stow describes the site on which, within seven years of the date of his survey, was to rise the magnificent house of the Earl of Northampton, afterwards occupied by the Percies, and since known as Northumberland House. It remained the principal landmark at Charing Cross until its ruthless destruction in 1874, when it followed the fate of the old hospital, being in its turn “suppressed” and its site disposed among the buildings of the new Northumberland Avenue.

Much as we may regret the sacrifice of this commanding building and all the associations which clung to its fabric, we must remember that it had suffered considerable rebuilding since its first erection in about the year 1605, and even the famous front to the Strand was chiefly an eighteenth-century restoration. The history of the mansion has been hitherto far from clear, but the recent discovery of a contemporary plan of what appears to have been its original arrangement affords an opportunity for a new examination of the little evidence which we have. The plan referred to, and reproduced here by the very kind permission of its present custodian, belongs to the interesting collection of drawings, attributed to one of the Smithsons (a well-known family of architects of the reigns of Elizabeth and James), which was once in the possession of Lord Byron and is now preserved by Colonel Coke at Brookhill Hall, Alfreton. It will be remembered that Mr. J. A. Gotch brought these drawings before the notice of the architectural world some short time ago, by reading a most instructive paper upon them before the Royal Institute. Mr. Gotch was kind enough to draw my attention personally to this plan, which was entitled “The Platforme of my Lord of Northampton’s house in London.” The plan was not dated, but other drawings in the same collection bear dates ranging from 1599 to 1632, and it therefore seems pretty certain that it refers to the house built in the Strand by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, about the year 1605. Since, on Northampton’s death in 1614, the house changed its name to Suffolk House, we can safely refer the drawing to the period between 1605 and 1614—and its careful delineation of the garden makes it probable that it is a copy of a drawing prepared to show the design for the general lay-out of the grounds. There is a MS. note by Inigo Jones in his copy of Palladio which is preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, to the effect that the frontage of Northumberland House towards the Strand was 162 ft. long, and that the courtyard was 81 ft. square. The former measurement is exactly borne out by the plan, but the courtyard is drawn and figured as 90 by 86 ft. It is possible that Inigo Jones’s figures were taken between the projecting bay windows and porch.

Of the exterior of Northumberland House in its earliest days we have no drawing, but among a very precious little collection of diminutive drawings by Wenceslaus Hollar, preserved in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge, is a delightful sketch of Suffolk House as it was then called. Wilkinson in his _Londina Illustrata_ published an engraving based on this drawing, but I do not know that the original has been reproduced before. I have, however, been able to obtain by the kind permission of the trustees a direct photograph of Hollar’s sketch, which is reproduced here with Wilkinson’s engraving, and shows, even with so slight a rendering, the charming delicacy and picturesqueness of the artist’s work. Hollar seems to have made these and the companion sketches with a view to his large panoramic drawing of London which was published shortly after the Great Fire, and in which one can easily see how the sketch has been utilised in regard to this particular subject. It would represent the house, therefore, some fifty years after its first building.

_Drawn by Hollar._]

Before examining the plan and drawings in detail it may be as well to state briefly the successive occupants of Northumberland House, as we shall have something to say on the changes which certain of the owners are credited with having made in the form of the building. The builder of the house was, as already stated, Henry Howard first Earl of Northampton, the son of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey the poet, and the founder of the three hospitals dedicated to the Holy Trinity at Castle Rising, Clun, and Greenwich. (_Vide_ p. 229.) Letters from the Earl are known to have been written from the house in 1609, and in 1614, at his death, the property passed by will to his nephew Thomas Howard Earl of Suffolk, one of the heroes of the Armada. Northampton House changed its name to Suffolk House during its occupation by himself and his son the second Earl, and soon after the death of the latter it passed by the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland. The new owner of the house—called by Clarendon the proudest man alive—was a son of the “Wizard Earl” who spent sixteen years of captivity in the Tower of London because of his supposed connection with the Gunpowder Plot, and in 1612 the son had joined his father in the Tower in order that his education might be properly supervised. The ninth Earl had moved his home from Blackfriars to Russell House, St. Martin-in-the-Fields (perhaps the same mansion which was called by Stow “Russell or Bedford House,” formerly the Bishop of Carlisle’s “Inn,” to which we have already referred), and had also resided for some time in Essex House. Another river residence, Syon House, Isleworth—still one of the seats of the Duke of Northumberland—was also presented to the “Wizard Earl” by James I., the year after his accession; and when Lord Hay, the future Viscount Doncaster and Earl of Carlisle, was courting Northumberland’s daughter he took a little house in Richmond Park, and we read that his barge came and went twice a day between Richmond and Isleworth.

The marriage settlement of 1642 between Algernon Percy, the tenth Earl of Northumberland, and his bride, the Lady Elizabeth Howard—who was, by the way, granddaughter of the Earl of Northampton—arranged for the transference of Suffolk House to the bridegroom in return for the sum of £15,000. Gerald Brenan in his _History of the House of Percy_ states that the name of the mansion was straightway changed to Northumberland House, but we have the evidence of Evelyn’s Diary and Hollar’s inscription which testify to the persistence of the name of Suffolk House for many years later. Algernon Percy was succeeded by Josceline the eleventh Earl, who died in 1670 and left an only daughter Elizabeth. The house passed out of the Percy family with her marriage in 1682 to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Since there was already a Somerset House in the Strand it is probable that the mansion was still called Suffolk House, but in 1749 the Duke’s son Algernon, who had succeeded his father the year before as seventh Duke of Somerset, was created Earl of Northumberland with remainder to Sir Hugh Smithson, who had married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, his only surviving child. Sir Hugh on his succession to the earldom assumed the name and arms of Percy, and in 1766 he was raised to the dukedom. From this time the house was certainly called Northumberland House until the time of its compulsory sale in 1873 and its demolition in the following year. Thus on three occasions an heiress of the name of Elizabeth carried the mansion with her dower.

With this historical framework before us, let us now examine briefly the plans and drawings of the building. It has been freely stated that the plan of “Northampton House” as first built constituted only three sides of a quadrangle, and that Algernon Percy, the tenth Earl of Northumberland, added the fourth side towards the river, employing as his architect Inigo Jones. The reason given for this enlargement was that the principal apartments formerly faced the Strand, but that the Earl, desiring greater privacy, removed them to the river front. On the face of it this story seems highly improbable, for a house of this size and position would naturally be approached by a gateway on the north side towards the Strand, and its great hall would be as certainly in the southern range. The plan from the Smithson collection shows this arrangement just as we might expect—the hall, a noble apartment of 73 by 43 ft., having the mediæval form and shape and being screened by a loggia or “cloyster” quite in keeping with the fashion during the opening years of James I.’s reign. It seems scarcely possible that the planning of the southern range as shown here could be by Inigo Jones, especially at so late a date in his career as 1642, and indeed all the evidence of the plan, besides its inscription, tends to support a much earlier period. It remains only then for the sceptic to suggest that the original design of the house was not completed, but we must remember that we have Hollar’s evidence for the southern staircase towers, and it seems more than probable that any work by Inigo Jones must have taken the form of a rebuilding or merely a new facing to the front. The Strand elevation became so famous that Walpole attributes its design to Bernard Jansen and Gerard Chrismas. It must originally have been as fine a composition as any Jacobean building could show. The centre or gatehouse of four storeys, flanked on either side by bold double pilasters, each pair separated by niches, was furnished with a fine oriel window over the archway like those at Burghley and Bramshill.

At the extremities of the front rose the two characteristic towers, carried up two storeys above the roof and furnished with fine lead cupolas; and between the towers and the gateway the intervening wall was divided into three storeys, the upper two being pierced with windows and the ground floor having recessed niches set in square frames. Above was a parapet formed of letters, for Evelyn tells us, when on a visit to Audley End (August 31st, 1654), that “instead of rails and balusters there is a border of capital letters as was lately also on Suffolk House, near Charing Cross.” From the register of burials in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields we learn, too, that at the funeral of Anne of Denmark a young man was killed by the fall of the letter S from this parapet. It has been stated that part of the letters C Æ remained after the removal of the rest, and Vertue, and Walpole following him, interpreted them as standing for “Chrismas ædificavit.”

It is quite possible that in 1642 the Earl of Northumberland employed Inigo Jones to design some alterations in the house, the more so as we find the general dimensions figured in the famous architect’s own handwriting in his copy of Palladio already mentioned. But I very much doubt whether he really rebuilt the garden front. Inigo Jones died in 1652, and on June 9th, 1658, we find the following note in Evelyn’s Diary: “I went to see the Earl of Northumberland’s pictures, whereof that of the Venetian Senators was one of the best of Titian’s.... This was in Suffolk House: the new front towards the gardens is tolerable, were it not drowned by a too massy and clumsy pair of stairs of stone without any neat invention.” Evelyn is evidently referring to work which had just been executed, and not to an alteration of some fifteen years before. Hollar’s view, too, suggests that the earlier design had been little altered, and his drawing was probably not executed until after Inigo Jones’s death.

_Engraved in Londina Illustrata._]

We have now to come to eighteenth-century records. An engraving by J. Maurer of Charing Cross in 1740 is the earliest view of the Strand front. The very beautiful drawing by Canaletto, an engraving from which is reproduced on p. 176, shows the same view in 1753, apparently after the front had been rebuilt by Daniell Garrett in 1748–50. The famous lion of cast lead appears here over the centre of the building. It was erected in 1752, and is now preserved at Syon House. On March 18th, 1780, the street front was badly damaged by fire, and was again rebuilt. Its final appearance can be seen from the photograph, with its towers lowered one storey and its whole appearance reduced in picturesqueness, save perhaps where some lingering suggestion remains of its past beauty, within its central group of bold pilasters.

Of the house and its courtyard Seymour, following Strype, wrote in 1735: “A noble and spacious building, having a large square court at the entrance, with buildings round it, at the upper end of which court is a Piazza with buildings over it sustained by stone pillars, and behind the buildings there is a curious garden which runneth down to the Thames.” There is a view of the south front by S. Wale (1761), which if it shows anything of the work which Evelyn criticised will explain the half-hearted praise which it met with from this competent critic. In it we miss the southern towers, which had no doubt been destroyed, but two ungainly wings extend themselves at either side towards the river. A pavilion and wings were designed by Mylne, and a drawing-room by Robert Adam. From Skinner’s _History and Description of London and Westminster_ (1795) we learn that the two wings extending towards the river were 100 ft. long or over; indeed, the left wing was “a state gallery or ballroom, 106 ft. long, the breadth being a fourth part of the length and the height equal to the diagonal of the square of the breadth”! This room had nine windows towards the garden, and over the cornice another row of lights. Altogether the house had 140 rooms, and the last disposition of its buildings may be seen on Horwood’s large plan of London (1799). The pretty garden of the Smithson plan, which afterwards Evelyn commended for its tastefully arranged terraces and copses, had become but a “fine lawn surrounded by a neat gravel walk and boarded next the walls by a border of curious flowers, shrubs, and evergreens.” It was this garden which Evelyn specially mentioned as the occasion of his quaint little work entitled _Fumifugium_, where he speaks of its flowers as “wrapped in a horrid cloud of smoke, issuing from a brewery or two, contiguous to that noble palace.” We fear the smoke, in spite of his serious protest, is still with us, but the more substantial palace has disappeared and is but a memory.

Robert Adam’s contribution to the sumptuous design of the various interiors of Northumberland House must have been of a very important character. We owe to the painstaking and minutely particular drawings of the Adam brothers, and to the care of Sir John Soane, the fact that the substance of the chief designs executed there remains in safe keeping. Adam was employed by the Duke of Northumberland on very extensive schemes, both at Alnwick and at Syon, and it was evidently intended that his London residence should not be overshadowed by either of his country seats. At the Soane Museum are drawings of the ceilings of both the drawing-room and the dining-room, from which we may see that the former apartment measured 35 ft. 10 in. by 21 ft. 9 in., and the latter 45 ft. 4 in. by the same width. The designs for the ceilings are very elaborate—there being two drawings for the drawing-room, the richest of which is marked as executed. In addition to the last-named there are internal elevations of the drawing-room, showing on one side four lofty windows with mirrors between, and on the other side an elaborate fireplace. Three other drawings for this fireplace are also included, showing quite a different design in considerable detail, even to a complex pattern in marble for the hearth, and this is the one that seems to have been carried out. The drawings show Adam’s fertility of invention and deftness in arrangement at their best, and if any of the features of these rooms have been preserved it would be interesting to compare the charming character of the drawings with their actual execution in marble.

One other relic of the house is said to exist in the East End. In the gardens of Tudor House, Bromley-by-Bow, is a large stone gateway, which, it is stated, was removed from Northumberland House at the time of its demolition (_vide_ _The Parish of Bromley-by-Bow_, The Survey of London, Vol. I.).

—W. H. G.

THE ABBEY OF BARKING,
ESSEX

_Photograph by A. P. Wire._]

XIII.

THE ABBEY OF BARKING, ESSEX.

The Benedictine nunnery of Barking stood upon the eastern bank of the river Roding, about a mile above its confluence with the Thames. The precise date of its original foundation is a little uncertain, but probably the correct date is that given in the Chertsey register, namely 666.[26] In any case, it was before the founder, St. Erkenwald, became Bishop of London in 675. The Venerable Bede gives the following account of the circumstances:—

This man (St. Erkenwald), before he was made bishop, had built
two famous monasteries, the one for himself and the other for
his sister Ethelburga, and had established them both in regular
discipline of the best kind. That for himself was in the County
of Surrey, by the River Thames, at a placed called Chertsey: that
for his sister, in the province of the East Saxons, at the place
called Barking, wherein she might be a mother and a nurse of
devout women.

[26] Brit. Mus., Cott. MS., Vit. A. 13.

Bede makes but slight reference to the buildings of the convent, but mentions “the narrowness of the place where the monastery is built,” which hardly seems applicable to the present site. It is possible, therefore, that the first position was subsequently abandoned. It may be gathered, further, that the chapel of the convent was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin and that the nuns’ cemetery lay to the west of it.

The next event in the architectural history of the house is its destruction by the Danes in 870. The pagan army had destroyed the convents of Northumbria and, passing southwards, had devastated the great Fen monasteries, Barking sharing the same fate shortly afterwards. It lay waste for about a century, until the reign of Edgar the Peaceable, when one of that monarch’s recurring fits of repentance moved him to rebuild the abbey. He had taken, it appears, a certain nun, Wulfhilda, by force from the abbey of Wilton; and, in reparation, he refounded and endowed the convent at Barking, placing Wulfhilda at its head. Probably, at this period, the name of the first abbess, St. Ethelburga, was included in the dedication.

The house was almost certainly rebuilt early in the twelfth century, when, under a succession of royal and distinguished abbesses, it enjoyed the zenith of its prosperity. The final dedication of the abbey church took place in the time of abbess Mabel de Bosham (1215–1247).[27]

[27] Dugdale’s _Monasticon_, i., p. 441: 1817.