Chapter XXI: Introduction (6)

In one of his houses, at any rate, Vanbrugh did not resort to his usual devices for producing his effects. This was Kimbolton Castle, in Huntingdonshire, which, except on one front which has a great columnar portico, is as gaunt and plain as anyone could desire; and it was made so of set purpose, for Vanbrugh writes to his client, the Earl of Manchester, in July 1707, “I thought it was absolutely best to give it something of the castle air, though at the same time to make it regular, ... so I hope your Lordship will not be discouraged if any Italian you may shew it to, should find fault that it is not Roman; for to have built a front with pilasters and what the orders require, could never have been done with the rest of the castle. I am sure this will make a very noble and masculine show.” And again in the following September, “I shall be much deceived if people do not see a manly beauty in it, when it is up, that they did not conceive could be produced out of such rough materials; but it is certainly the figure and proportions that make the most pleasing fabric, and not the delicacy of the ornaments, a proof of which I am in great hopes to shew your Lordship at Kimbolton.”

There is much sound sense in all this, and every architect will agree that no amount of ornament can redeem a badly proportioned building; but Vanbrugh’s reason for the omission of pilasters, and what the orders require, would have had more point if there had been anything preserved of the ancient castle beyond its name. So far as can be seen there is nothing older than the house itself, and although it was built of the old stones, as Vanbrugh says (and this may be the real reason for so plain a treatment), there is no evidence of earlier working visible upon them.

A casual remark in another letter is of interest, as showing what people thought of some of these large houses. He is speaking of Blenheim in a letter of July 1708. “He (Sir John Coniers) made mighty fine speeches upon the building, and took it for granted no subject’s house in Europe would approach it, which will be true if the Duke of Shrewsbury judges right in saying, ‘There is not in Italy so fine a house as Chatsworth,’ for this of Blenheim is, beyond all comparison, more magnificent than that.” He is certainly right as to magnificence, if not also as to the general pleasurable effect.

Vanbrugh’s houses may be taken as the highest manifestation of the spirit of the age in house building; the exaltation of social grandeur, the scenic magnificence of architecture. That they rather missed the mark in respect of comfort and convenience, as we understand those qualities, was not held to be a great drawback. Yet even contemporary voices were raised in protest, as may be gathered from Pope’s verses on “The Duke of Marlborough’s House at Woodstock,” wherein, after listening to an admirer’s description of its splendour, he suddenly interrupts him:--

“Thanks, Sir, I cried, ’tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?
I find by all you have been telling,
That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”

From an Engraving by Jean Rigaud.]

Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the thirteenth of his admirable Discourses, remarks that Vanbrugh “was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of the time”; and we can heartily concur in his opinion as a painter, that Vanbrugh, “had originality of invention, he understood light and shade, and had great skill in composition.”

In all these great houses the lay out helped the general effect; the gardens and the groves were designed in the same spirit as the houses which they surrounded. Those at Stowe were the most famous of their time. There was but little formality about them, although they were traversed by a few straight walks and vistas (Fig. 156). They embodied, indeed, the new idea which eschewed formality, and sought to gain the help of nature without apparent effort (Fig. 157). They covered a considerable amount of space, and were diversified by undulations of varied steepness, and by great masses of trees. The landscape thus provided by nature was improved by art. A stream was made to fall here, to wind there, to broaden out into a lake elsewhere. Paths were contrived to pass through thickets, to descend a dell, to curve beneath a lofty mound crowned with a “temple,” to undulate along the edge of a copse and overlook meadows sloping down to the lake. The whole was studded at intervals with buildings, each of which had a character of its own. There were grottoes, temples, arches, rotundas, and columns, designed by Vanbrugh, Leoni, Kent, and others. They were so placed amid the trees, the meadows, and the water as to remind the spectator of pictures of Italian scenery. Half Italy was squeezed into two hundred acres of English countryside. A Corinthian arch admitted the principal approach from Buckingham. There were many temples; among them one to Venus, one to Bacchus, others to the Ancient Virtues, to the Modern Virtues (in ruins--a costly piece of satire which must speedily have palled), to British worthies, to Concord and Victory, to Friendship and to other deities and abstractions. There was Dido’s cave in one place, and St Augustine’s in another, a Fane of Pastoral Poetry elsewhere; there were monuments to people of more or less eminence, archways commemorative of royal visitors, artificial ruins, bridges over artificial waters, a Gothic temple, and a large tablet to a dead dog.

From an Engraving by G. Bickham.]

Most of these buildings were furnished with inscriptions on which were bestowed much ingenuity, scholarship, and neatness of versification. For thirty or forty years monuments were added as occasion arose, either to commemorate the death of a distinguished acquaintance, or the visit of some royal personages. Horace Walpole was half repelled, yet wholly attracted by this curious panorama. The modern visitor is filled with much the same emotions. The mere catalogue sounds inane, yet the whole idea is carried out with so much skill, the buildings themselves are so charming that, once we accept the artificial atmosphere of the place, we wander from point to point with unabated interest and admiration. Nowhere else can we gain so vivid an insight into the laborious elegance of the age.

Walpole’s lively account of his visit to meet the Princess Amelia, in July 1770, gives an excellent idea of the impressions the place made upon him. The view through the archway, erected in honour of her royal highness, he describes as “a tall landscape framed by the arch and the embowering trees, and comprehending more beauties of light, shade, and buildings, than any picture of Albano I ever saw.”[68] “Twice a day we made a pilgrimage to almost every heathen temple in that province that they call a garden; and there is no sallying out of the house without descending a flight of steps as high as St Paul’s.” He describes an _al fresco_ supper, which they attended in state, in one of the grottoes on a cold evening. It reduces to very human dimensions the lordliness of the great scheme. A large concourse of people from Buckingham and the district came to behold the distinguished company at their revels. Before this crowd the house party descended the vast flight of steps leading from the house. “I could not help laughing as I surveyed our troop, which, instead of tripping lightly to such an Arcadian entertainment, were hobbling down by the balustrades, wrapped up in cloaks and great-coats for fear of catching cold. The earl, you know, is bent double, the countess very lame; I am a miserable walker, and the princess, though as strong as a Brunswick lion, makes no figure in going down fifty stone stairs.”

Stowe, and Hagley in Worcestershire, which both owe much of their character to the taste and judgment of Lord Chatham, are perhaps the best examples of lay outs which are not so much gardens, as a collection of landscape pictures to which interest was imparted by the introduction of classic buildings, and from which symmetry and formality were excluded.

In contrast to the free treatment at Stowe, which brought a tract of countryside into the curtilage of the house, is the formality at Bramham Park, some ten miles from Leeds, which carried the ordered symmetry of the house into the gardens. Of the two methods, the formal was the earlier, but during the eighteenth century it gradually gave way to the other.

The gardens at Bramham are among the most satisfactory of the large lay outs of the period (Figs. 162, 163). They were devised for Robert Benson, afterwards Lord Bingley, about the year 1710.[69] There are the usual vistas converging upon the house; there are various buildings in imitation of the antique, both classic and Gothic; there are memorials to pet animals; but the number is reasonable, and the scheme is more easily grasped than that of Stowe. The principal walk runs parallel to the garden front of the house, near which it ends against a “temple,” which is the chapel of the mansion. In the opposite direction it merges into an avenue which leads the eye across the park to a distant monument. Just before quitting the garden the vista crosses an elaborate arrangement of ornamental water, comprising a large basin flanked by subsidiary pools and cascades, all symmetrically planned. The walk is led from one level to another by monumental steps, producing picturesque groups of garden architecture, and the large water basin is the starting-point of fresh vistas.

H. Inigo Triggs, _del._]

The garden buildings form an interesting commentary on the architectural literature of the time, for whereas those in the classic style are quite good, owing to the numerous examples in books, those in the Gothic style are lamentable, since there was nothing to guide the designer but his own study and observation; and nobody at that period had any but the merest nodding acquaintance with Gothic work.

The adoption of a dignified lay out, large or small, to every house of any pretensions at this period, is exemplified in many contemporary prints and books, notably in Kip’s “Britannia Illustrata” and Campbell’s “Vitruvius Britannicus.” Many of these formal gardens have been destroyed, submerged by the wave of landscape gardening, on which “Capability” Brown floated to fame; but there still remain admirable examples besides those already mentioned. There are the placid canals of Wrest, in Bedfordshire (Fig. 158); the sloping vistas of Melbourne, in Derbyshire; the terraces of St Catherine’s Court, in Somerset; and the pleached walks and broad parterres of Drayton, in Northamptonshire (Fig. 159), where the forecourt with its beautiful gates and screen of ironwork, the steps from one level to another, and the lead vases, placed on the terrace walls, or raised on pedestals as a dominating part of the scheme, all combine to render the lay out one of the most fascinating of its kind (see plan, Fig. 160). Indeed, examples may be found in every county, although not a tithe of what once existed; and on their terraces, amid their canals and straight walks may be found groups of figures, delightful temples, monuments, urns, and garden houses, like that at Croom’s Hill, Greenwich (Fig. 161), which are not only charming in themselves, but give point to the whole conception. And those conceptions are the most satisfactory which are on a scale moderate enough to enable the mind to grasp them on the spot, without the aid of a plan.

IX

GEORGIAN HOUSES

Reference was made in the last chapter to the influence of architectural books in stimulating the interest of wealthy amateurs in the matter of building. The eighteenth century saw a considerable increase in the number published, and of these two of the earliest and most important were Lord Burlington’s, or rather Kent’s, “Designs of Inigo Jones,” and Colin Campbell’s “Vitruvius Britannicus.” Kent put his name to the former, and no doubt rightly, as being the collector and editor of the materials comprised in the two volumes; but Lord Burlington was the “only begetter” as well as the paymaster of the venture. The first volume is devoted almost entirely to one of the designs for the palace at Whitehall, which have already been dealt with in Chapter IV. The second volume consists of designs for houses of all sizes, nominally by Inigo Jones, but actually by Webb. Plans, elevations, and some sections are given, but there is an air of unreality about them, and, as a matter of fact, very few of them were actually built. They are mostly exercises in design in which the convenience of the plan is a secondary consideration. The Thorpe collection is very different in this respect. There most of the plans have the rooms named, a genuine effort being made to get a workable design, with all its parts suitably related one to the other. In Kent’s book none of the rooms are named; there appears to be no effort to achieve a workable result. The space enclosed within the outside walls is divided into rooms, and the rooms are carefully proportioned; but so far as the designer is concerned any room might be put to any purpose at the fancy of the occupant. The relation of the dining-room to the kitchen, for instance, is held of no account: aspect and prospect are alike neglected. Sanitary provision there is none. Bath-rooms, of course, were unknown: indeed, from the few allusions to such matters as occur in the literature of the time, it is evident that our ancestors of the eighteenth century had deplorable ideas as to cleanliness and sanitation; and the provisions now made in these respects, which are one of the pivots upon which a modern plan turns, were then undreamed of. When all practical considerations were left to take care of themselves, planning a house was a very simple matter, and one which an amateur could undertake with a light heart. The principal aim of designers was to achieve a scenic success. The rooms were to be well proportioned, and so arranged as to produce a stately effect, both in themselves and in the passing from one to the other. They were also so disposed as to result in a fine exterior, where the length should be duly proportioned to the height, the windows should be regularly placed and of a size agreeable to the eye. Every part was to be symmetrical, and the whole was to be a neat piece of architecture. There seems, in looking through these designs, to be no essential reason why one should have differed from another, except for the sake of variety. Yet every modern architect knows that a house properly planned to meet one set of circumstances can never be utilised for another without drastic alterations; that every fresh house presents a fresh problem. But this springs from the modern way of looking at house designing, namely, that a house ought to satisfy the wants and even the idiosyncrasies of the owner, and that its disposition must be modified by considerations of aspect, prospect, soil, surroundings, and a score of other things.

From Gibbs’s “Book of Architecture,” pl. 57.]

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library, Oxford.]

But the outlook of the eighteenth century being what it was, the designers were successful in compassing their object, and they produced many charming houses, often stately and always dignified. This result was owing in a large degree to a study of Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones.”

Campbell’s “Vitruvius Britannicus” is an epitome of the more important houses of the last twenty years of the seventeenth century and first twenty of the eighteenth.[70] The ideas underlying it are those which have already been mentioned. There is a short descriptive account of each subject. In these, Campbell dwells on the proportions of his rooms, on the truly classic treatment of the elevations; he explains how one subject is treated in the “palatial” style, another in the “temple” style; another in the “theatrical.” The principal rooms are all stately, the family rooms in some cases are in the attics, lighted from the leads. In one design he plumes himself on not having his windows “crowded”; and indeed the amount of wall space between the lower and upper windows is so ample that either the lower must be far below the ceiling, or the upper far above the floor. It would be tedious to multiply instances; anyone can find them for himself by looking through his volumes. The point is that many important houses of that time were built for state and show, rather than for comfort and convenience; and they afford a striking commentary on the difference in outlook on daily life between that period and our own among the wealthy classes.

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.]

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.]

These particular manifestations were not merely a passing fashion; they were too widespread and too lasting for that; yet that they were in fact the outcome of fashion is proved by Pope’s Epistle to Lord Burlington (the fourth of the “Moral Essays”) which is in effect a vindication of common sense as opposed to extravagance in buildings, gardens, and entertainments. Pope credits Lord Burlington with the qualities he commends, yet in none of the buildings attributed to that nobleman is common sense very conspicuous.

Another book on architecture was published by James Gibbs, a contemporary of Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh, but somewhat younger, and who was one of the numerous architects encouraged by Lord Burlington. He deservedly enjoyed a large practice, and designed many churches and houses. He was skilful and ingenious, and showed more originality than most of his contemporaries, particularly in his churches; his houses go very little outside the lines which were universally accepted as being appropriate for gentlemen’s residences. Like several of his fellows he commended himself to the public by publishing (in 1728) a large folio volume of his designs. These are well worth study, for they were all either actually built or were intended to be built, the erection of some being prevented by the death of the client or by some other cause. They have therefore a more vital interest than most of those in Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones.”

His Introduction is interesting. The work was undertaken, he says, at the instance of several Persons of Quality, who were of opinion that it “would be of use to such Gentlemen as might be concerned in Building, especially in remote parts of the Country, where little or no assistance for Designs can be procured.” He suggests that, furnished with his book, these remote gentlemen can employ any workman who understands lines to build them a house, and even make alterations in his designs if guided by a person of judgment. But he (very rightly) warns his readers against employing only ignorant workmen in the management of buildings of great expense, lest they undergo the mortification of finding the result condemned by persons of taste, entailing even the drastic remedy of pulling the building down. He also warns them against extravagant and misapplied ornament, “for it is not the Bulk of a Fabrick, the Richness and Quantity of the Materials, the Multiplicity of Lines, nor the Gaudiness of the Finishing, that give the Grace or Beauty and Grandeur to a Building; but the Proportion of the Parts to one another and to the Whole, whether entirely plain, or enriched with a few Ornaments properly disposed.” It is to be feared that his readers must have felt that what he gave with one hand in offering them his book, he took away with the other by showing how hazardous it was to use it without training and experience.

He concludes by saying that his designs had been done in the best taste he could form upon the instructions of the greatest masters in Italy, supplemented by his own observations upon the ancient buildings there during many years’ study; adding, as a sly dig at the amateurs, “for a cursory View of those August Remains can no more qualify the Spectator, or Admirer, than the Air of the Country can inspire him with the knowledge of Architecture.”

It is a characteristic pronouncement, with its reliance on the authority of the Italian masters, its insistence on proportion, its omission of any reference to domestic comfort, its intention that the book should help the unlearned, coupled with the warning that unless the user had taste and judgment of his own, he must seek those qualities in an expert.

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.]

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.]

The illustrations give a good idea of what was expected in a country house in those days. The plans are all symmetrical, and each front is regular and intended to be seen; there was no thought of giving the house a back for the use of servants and tradesmen. Indeed there were hardly any tradesmen to be considered. Every house was self-sustaining and provided its own bread, meat, and vegetables. This is an important point to bear in mind; it accounts for the numerous outbuildings which form part of old houses, inasmuch as places had to be provided for storing most of the things which are now retained by the shopkeeper until his carts take them to his customers. It also partly explains how it was possible to have each side of the house a show-front, for there was less outside traffic when there were no tradesmen’s carts, although there was always a staff of servants going in and out. The servants are placed either in a basement or in an outlying wing, never in proximity to the principal rooms; at the same time, in order to gain their rooms in the attics, they generally had to cross either the hall or one of the rooms intended for the family. The effect of this was that they were less conveniently placed for service than they are in the present day, and yet they could not gain their bedrooms without the risk of intruding on the family.

In many instances the kitchen with its dependencies occupied an outlying wing, and the food had to be brought a long distance, and frequently through an open corridor. The inconvenience of this arrangement must have outweighed the advantage of getting the smells and noise of the kitchen away from the house. The family rooms were the chief concern of the designer, and his aim was to make them stately. The arrangement most often adopted was to have a large entrance hall, and beyond it a dining-room; on either side were two or more rooms with a staircase between them. The hall occupied two stories in height, being as much as 30 ft. or 36 ft. high, and it must have been cold and cheerless, if grand. The principal rooms were lofty, and over each was another of the same size; in some instances small rooms of less height were placed next to the staircases, thus enabling others over them to be reached from a landing half-way up--“intersoles,” as Gibbs calls them. The same device had already been adopted by Hawksmoor at Easton Neston. The symmetrical disposition of the rooms favoured the placing of their doors in a straight line so that long vistas could be obtained, and although Gibbs prides himself on providing passages which rendered every room private, there were usually doors of intercommunication, and many of the rooms suffered from a multiplicity of entrances. The passages were evidently a concession to modern ideas, and were often ill-lighted from openings into the hall. The observance of strict symmetry sometimes led to the provision of two equally important staircases where one would have been enough for practical purposes. It also resulted in the stairs crossing windows, the outside harmony of which was held to be sacred; and a further consequence was the introduction of many sham windows for the sake of uniformity.

In spite of such drawbacks, which sprang from the formality of the treatment, Gibbs’s plans are ingenious and well devised. He attaches great importance to privacy, and frequently introduces a number of “apartments,” as he calls them, each apartment comprising a bedroom and dressing-room, with occasionally a third or ante-room. The demands of those times were, of course, far simpler than our own, and Gibbs was as skilful as any of his contemporaries in satisfying them. He was able to do this within walls which were treated in a strictly classic manner, founded on instructions of the Italian masters. Whether he could have met the complex wants of the present day in so simple a fashion is open to question.

Many of Gibbs’s original drawings are preserved in the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, some of these being included in his “Book of Architecture.” Two of them are reproduced here, one (Fig. 164) is plate 57 of his book, the other (Fig. 165) has not been published. The first is an example of a house with a forecourt and wings connected by open corridors to the central block; in the left-hand wing are the kitchens, in the right the stables. The house is entered through a large hall beyond which is a gallery, with small rooms at each end. To the left of the hall is presumably the dining-room, as it lies nearest to the kitchens, to the right is a room of the same size. There are two large staircases resembling each other in all respects, that on the left being probably the back stairs. Grouped on each side of the staircases are small rooms over which might have been the “intersoles,” although Gibbs does not expressly mention them. In this instance the hall was but one story in height with a room over it, and there were three rooms over the gallery. The same disposition obtained on the top floor, which may have been devoted to guest chambers, as it would appear that the servants were lodged in the kitchen wing, judging by the size of the staircase.

From the Gibbs Collection in the Radcliffe Library.]

The other and unpublished design (Fig. 165) is of a somewhat different type. The centre of the house is occupied by a vast and lofty staircase mainly lighted from a cupola. Round this is a broad corridor giving access to the various rooms, which are of fine dimensions. The same disposition appears to apply to all three floors, save that on the topmost the corridor is omitted, and thus an open space is provided which gives light to the hall on one side and to a passage on the other, which is taken off the width of the rooms. There is no indication where the kitchens lie; the section shows no basement, and there are no indications of separate wings.

The section gives an adequate idea of the internal treatment; it shows the great hall and its lighting, as well as the very simple decoration of the rooms, far plainer in this case than in most of those published in his book. The rooms are usually panelled somewhat after the manner shown in Figs. 166 and 167. This gives an air of distinction to them, but it severely limits (and perhaps not unhappily) the number of pictures and prints which can be hung on the walls. A very similar treatment is applied to the staircases (Fig. 168). In one instance the walls were apparently to be painted with an architectural composition, which introduces a touch of poetry into the practical prose of Gibbs’s ordinary handling (Fig. 169). There is a house in Dean Street, Soho (Fig. 171), where the staircase walls are decorated with figure subjects by Hogarth, somewhat after the fashion of Gibbs’s drawing, but more elaborate in design. The decoration of the rooms already illustrated includes in each case the chimney-piece, but a further example, to a larger scale (Fig. 170), will serve to show the kind of design which was widely adopted, not only by Gibbs but by most architects during the first half of the eighteenth century.

Campbell was also a practising architect as well as an illustrator of the art, and he was consulted in the erection of Houghton Hall, in Norfolk, which is one of the finest examples of the great houses of its period, a period when nobles and wealthy gentlemen were vying with one another in building fine homes in the fashionable Italian manner, and surrounding them with equally fine gardens. It was the celebrated Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who built Houghton; and Colin Campbell supplied him with the design in the year 1722.[71] It would appear, however, that Campbell did not carry out the work himself, but that his designs were handed over to Ripley, who altered them in many respects while following the general idea pretty faithfully. The sizes and disposition of the rooms were varied, both in the central block and in the wings. The proportions of the windows were altered, and Campbell’s projecting portico was omitted, the columns being attached to the wall instead of standing some fifteen feet in front of it. The attic stories of his corner pavilions were also changed into domes. On the whole these slight alterations tended to improve the appearance, but in spite of these variations, Campbell must have the credit for the design (Fig. 173).

The whole arrangement is of the prevalent type. There is a noble main building flanked on each side at some distance by a subsidiary block, connected to the house by colonnades which are curved on one face and rectangular on the other. The south wing contains the kitchen and servants’ quarters; the north wing is occupied by a picture gallery and chapel, but much of this particular building has been destroyed by fire.

The house itself is of three stories, including the basement, which is used in part for domestic purposes, but serves in the main to raise the principal floor well above the ground. This floor (see plan, Fig. 172) contains the fine stone hall, a cube of 40 ft., a saloon somewhat smaller and less lofty, a dozen fine rooms and some staircases, of which the chief one is magnificent. All these rooms are symmetrically arranged, and the doorways are so disposed as to produce long vistas when the whole series is opened. The four rooms in the corners can only be gained by passing through other rooms. The whole effect is stately both inside and out, and although in the present day there may be a certain lack of comfort, yet the house fully met the needs of the time when it was built, and it provided the atmosphere of splendour which was demanded by all great persons of the period. The whole façade is over 500 ft. long, the central block has a frontage of 165 ft., and the wings 110 ft. These are handsome dimensions; they are indeed so large that it is not easy for the eye to include the whole group at once from any ordinary viewpoint. The illustration (Fig. 173) only shows the house and its colonnades, beyond which the reader’s imagination must add the wings, which are strictly subordinated in height to the main building.

The interior decorations are attributed to Kent, who was assisted in the plasterwork by the Italian, Artari. But the stone hall (Fig. 174) follows Campbell’s drawing in the main, as may be seen by comparing it with his sections in “Vitruvius Britannicus.” The ceiling is a remarkable _tour de force_, and the cove, with its children disporting themselves among the wreaths, is much admired. There is plenty of movement and variety in it, but the figures are a little inclined to obesity. The whole work perhaps suffers from being in too high relief, but its vigour and freedom of design are incontestably admirable. One of the principal rooms is called the marble dining-room, and it was intended to be lined with marble throughout, but one side only was carried out in this manner (Fig. 175). It includes a fine chimney-piece, characteristic of the grander type then in vogue; on either side of it are marble-lined recesses in which are placed marble sideboards to correspond with their surroundings. The panel of the chimney-piece contains a figure subject, a sacrifice to Bacchus, carved by Rysbrach, and the decoration, both here and in the ceiling, consists largely of grapes, a form of ornament highly appropriate to a room devoted to entertainments in which deep drinking played an important part. The woodwork throughout is exceedingly handsome; it is executed for the most part in mahogany, a precious wood which had not previously been used in great abundance. The doorway of the green state room is an example of a rich treatment (Fig. 176), and Sir Robert’s dressing-room one of a plainer handling (Fig. 177). The principal staircase has an exceedingly massive mahogany balustrade (Fig. 178), and the walls are decorated with figures and subjects in monochrome, by the hand of Kent himself. Sir Robert is said by Walpole, in his “Anecdotes of Painting,” to have purposely restricted the artist to this vehicle, having lively misgivings as to Kent’s exploits in brighter and more varied pigments.

Another of the imposing houses of the eighteenth century is Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, a seat of the Earl Fitzwilliam, which must not be confused with Wentworth Castle, near Barnsley, a smaller house, but still a fine one, built by Thomas, Earl of Strafford, in 1730. Wentworth Woodhouse was designed in the year 1740 by Henry Flitcroft for Thomas, Earl of Malton, who succeeded some six years later to the barony of Rockingham, and was thereupon created Marquis of Rockingham. His biographer[72] says that he “rebuilt the ancient family seat, now called Wentworth House, in a very elegant manner, where he died on 14th December 1750.” His eldest daughter, Anne, married Earl Fitzwilliam, and carried Wentworth House into her husband’s family in 1769. Flitcroft published a drawing of the principal front of the house at the end of the 1770 edition of Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” and in the main this design was carried out. The central and chief part of the façade was executed as drawn, but the two wings, while preserving their original disposition, were considerably improved.

The stately front (Fig. 179) is some 600 ft. in extent, and is the more striking in that it is a continuous façade, and not broken up into the usual three parts, consisting of the house and two outlying wings. The memory of the old curved colonnades is preserved in the convex portions which connect the end towers with the front. The central block is not so much an adaptation as a copy of Campbell’s second design for Wanstead (“Vit. Brit.,” i. 24, 25), with the omission of the cupola and of one window in the length of the wings. It is rendered personal to the builder by the introduction of his arms in the pediment, and the Wentworth motto, “Mea gloria fides,” in the frieze. To whatever extent Flitcroft may have borrowed his materials, it cannot be denied that he has blended them together with noble results.

In the interior there is a fine saloon (Fig. 180), which recalls Campbell’s stone hall at Houghton. Its variety of treatment is in strong contrast to the cold-looking hall which contains the staircase (Fig. 181). Both these apartments have the defect of their qualities. There is so much architecture that there is scarcely room for those homely touches which endear a house to its occupants. The architect is more in evidence than the family. The splendour which stimulates the admiration of the stranger palls upon the eye that sees it daily; the feelings cease to answer to the stimulus. Grand rooms like these seem to demand an impossible series of grand functions, or at the least that old-fashioned custom of keeping open house which once prevailed at Wentworth Woodhouse.

The ceiling of the hall was opened up by Goodridge, who added the
balustrade in 1829.]

Another of the great mansions built about the same time as Wentworth Woodhouse was Prior Park, near Bath, and here again the result would appear to owe something to Campbell’s second design for Wanstead in so far as the great hexastyle portico is concerned. The architect was John Wood, of Bath, who designed it in 1736 for Ralph Allen, an extremely capable man, who, from being a clerk in a Bath post office, became one of the wealthiest men of his time. He established a lucrative system of posts, and he exploited the quarries of the district. It is said, indeed, that Prior Park was built in order to advertise the excellence of Bath stone; if true, it was a noble form of advertisement. The house stands high up on a hillside, and is flanked at a distance by stables and other buildings to which it is joined by low rusticated arcades of the same height as the basement story (Fig. 183). The whole façade is slightly curved concavely in order to follow the conformation of the ground. From the terrace on which the house stands a fine flight of steps, partly straight and partly curved, leads down to a lower level, but this is a later addition, carried out by H. E. Goodridge, of Bath, in the year 1825.

It is interesting to find so splendid a house built for a self-made man, but as Allen left no family, it has not acquired the intimate charm of most great houses; it was for many years a Roman Catholic college, but has now been taken over for purposes connected with the war. The interior has suffered from fire, but the great hall retains its imposing appearance (Fig. 182). Like most halls of the period, it is, perhaps, too grand to be home-like, but it is admirably suited for the present uses of the house. If, as is said, Allen was the prototype of Fielding’s Mr. Allworthy, he must have been an amiable as well as a capable man. The man himself may have stood for the portrait, but Fielding placed Allworthy in circumstances of his own invention. He was made of ancient descent, and although his seat was in Somerset, and occupied a site comparable to that of Prior Park, the house itself was a noble product of the Gothic style; “there was an air of grandeur in it that struck you with awe, and rivalled the beauties of the best Grecian architecture; and it was as commodious within as venerable without.”

Do we not see in this description signs of a revolt from the prevailing worship of the classic type? Fielding published “Tom Jones” about 1744, but there were still many years to run before the classic idea ceased to dominate domestic architecture.

Wood himself certainly did nothing to divert architectural design from its accustomed channel. He, and his son after him, stamped Bath with its particular character, and made it the finest city in England. It had become a fashionable resort early in the eighteenth century, largely owing to the exertions of Beau Nash, and it is a fortunate circumstance that when it had to expand there was so accomplished a man as John Wood on the spot to control the expansion. He it was who first designed streets and squares and rows of houses as definite architectural conceptions. There is much to be said for this idea, especially when the work is new and the design still retains the colour and disposition intended by the architect, and while the buildings are occupied for the purposes for which they were built. But with the lapse of time inevitable changes occur. The property falls into different hands; each owner treats his portion after his own will. It may be that one paints his part of the façade one colour, while another paints his of a different tint, the lines of demarcation having no relation to the architectural treatment. Some of the tenements may become business premises, with large indications of their purpose exposed to catch the public eye. Others may even be rebuilt in a fashion wholly out of keeping with the original design. In short, although a square may be built as one architectural conception, it is impossible to preserve it as such in perpetuity, and when once the original idea is destroyed by the march of events, the effect is worse than if it had never been conceived.

From an Aquatint by Thomas Malton.]

Town-planning on architectural lines can be studied at Bath better, perhaps, than anywhere, but all towns are not equally fortunate in preserving the original character of their buildings. Pulteney Street, attributed to Thomas Baldwin, was laid out about 1780 with good residences, and to close its vista there was a carefully designed house, pleasant to look upon. Eventually, however, this house fell into decay, the character of the street changed, and its general aspect, instead of being fine, became depressing. Its very virtues emphasised its decline. The house has now been restored, and the whole street has once more become cheerful. But local enterprise is not everywhere so vigorous as at Bath, and decay in a scheme of this kind cannot always be arrested. Pulteney Bridge, which leads to the street of the same name, carries a row of narrow shops on each side, and presents much the same appearance as shown in Fig. 184. But the shops are necessarily small, low, and shallow, and they can have no chance of expanding or of keeping pace with other premises not thus restricted. Their relative importance is therefore much smaller than it was at the time when they were built. An example of a row of houses dealt with as a piece of architecture, and one which has suffered little, if at all, from change, is the Royal Crescent (Fig. 185). It was designed by the younger Wood in 1769.

The abundance and excellent quality of the stone in the Bath district greatly facilitated the erection of new houses both in the city and the neighbourhood. It was susceptible of delicate detail, and lent itself admirably to the classic work then in vogue, which indeed could never have obtained a footing save through the medium of stone. Throughout the district there are to be found good houses of the time of the Woods, houses which are not large, which have no pretensions to vie with Prior Park, yet which are handsomely treated, and have had considerable skill and some learning bestowed upon their design. Such a one is Widcombe Manor House (Fig. 187), of which, however, it must be observed that it would be useless to undertake such a house unless one were prepared to spend a considerable amount for the sake of architectural effect. It is interesting to contrast with this product of the stone district a house in the adjoining county of Wilts.--Reddish Manor, Broad Chalk (Fig. 186). The walls here are of brick and the ornament is of stone, but apparently either the stone or the money gave out by the time the roof was reached, for the cornice and the pediment are of brick, and it is seen at once how impossible it was to carry out classic detail in the ordinary brick of the district, and with the limited skill of the ordinary workman. Nevertheless the result is attractive, and it prompts the somewhat disconcerting question, whether the fancy is not as much tickled by the efforts of the obscure and half-educated designer, as by the correct and skilful handling of the trained architect? Accidents of colour and situation, the effects of time and weather, and above all, individuality of treatment, are as potent factors in impressing the imagination as book-learning and careful adherence to rules of proportion; and in admiring the great houses of the eighteenth century, and Campbell, Gibbs, and the hierarchy of architects who produced them, one longs to meet some unexpected difficulty successfully surmounted, some state of things not contemplated in the books, which should prove that the man had an invention, an imagination, one might almost say a soul, of his own.

The custom of building large houses with detached wings survived well into the middle of the eighteenth century. It will be remembered that Isaac Ware, in his “Complete Body of Architecture” (1756), gives elaborate rules for the proportions and disposition of such edifices; Holkham Hall, in Norfolk, designed by Kent about 1734, and Kedleston Hall, in Derbyshire, designed by James Paine in 1761, are two notable examples still in existence.

Holkham is the most important piece of domestic work of the fashionable architect, William Kent, who was the favourite protégé of Lord Burlington. Like most of his contemporaries, Kent passed several years in Italy before doing any work in England. He was of lowly origin, as were many architects of the time. As a start in life he was apprenticed to a coach-painter; Ripley walked to London at the onset of his career, and obtained work with a journeyman carpenter; Carr, of York, began as a working mason; all three were Yorkshire men. Kent early impressed men of position with his unusual capacity, and it was through their kindness that he was enabled to study in Italy, where he appears to have lived from 1710 to 1719. At this time he was studying painting, a pursuit in which, by general consent, he achieved no distinction--at any rate no enviable distinction. Sir Robert Walpole’s opinion of his powers in this direction has already been indicated (p. 256). During his stay in Rome he became acquainted with Lord Burlington, who, according to Horace Walpole, “discovered the rich vein of genius that had been hid from the artist himself.” He came back to England with his new patron, and thenceforward his success was assured. An apartment was assigned to him in Burlington House as long as he lived, and on his death “he was buried in a very handsome manner in Lord Burlington’s vault at Chiswick.”[73]

Endowed with natural abilities above the average, which had been cultivated during nine years in Italy, and fortified by the most powerful patronage of the age, it is no wonder that Kent was able to cut a good figure in the world of art. He became the fashionable decorator of the time in many directions, especially in relation to great houses and their surroundings. Walpole had a poor opinion of him as a painter, admired him as an architect, and praised him highly as a garden designer. To us in the present day he appears as a man of considerable ability and culture, who seldom rose above mediocrity, especially in his architecture, which, however sound and correct, is wanting in vivacity. Holkham is a case in point. There is nothing novel about the plan (Fig. 188), save that the wings are closer to the main building than usual; but in spite of this the kitchen is a long way from the dining-room. The rooms are not particularly striking: the finest are the entrance hall, and the sculpture gallery or “statue gallery,” as it is called on the plan in “Vitruvius Britannicus.” The house was designed for the reception of the numerous works of art which the owner and builder, Thomas Coke (afterwards created Earl of Leicester), collected in Italy. The collection of pictures, statues, antiques, books, and manuscripts ranks among the finest in England. The opinions of critics on the house are by no means unanimous. Sir William Chambers, for instance, remarks how difficult it is to give pleasing proportions to rooms of differing sizes, but which are all of the same height, and so to arrange the smaller as to contrive suitable mezzanines above them. “Holkham,” he says, “is a masterpiece in this respect, as well as in many others. It deserves much commendation, and does credit to the memory of Mr. Kent, it being exceedingly well contrived both for state and convenience.”[74] Ferguson, on the other hand, says: “We are left to conjecture whether the noble host and hostess sleep in a bedroom 40 ft. high, or are relegated like their guests to a garret or an outhouse, or perhaps may have their bedroom windows turned inwards on a lead flat.” He goes on to say that although the house may be “a monumental whole, yet the occupants would probably prefer rooms of appropriate dimensions, where they could get fresh air and a view of the park.”[75]

Both opinions are, or were, probably right. At the time it was built, and for the wants of that period, Holkham was no doubt both convenient and stately. But Ferguson’s criticisms find a ready echo in our own bosoms, and they are a measure of the difference between the ideas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as to domestic comfort.

The exterior of Holkham (Fig. 189), although a departure from the customary treatment, is hardly an improvement upon it. It is a little monotonous, and the large extent of plain wall above the windows of the principal floor has a dull effect. The plain turrets and the thin cornice of the wings impart a meagre appearance, which is heightened by the fact that the walls are of white brick, a material which remains _triste_ to the end, although centuries may have endeavoured to mellow it, as they have in vain at Hengrave Hall, in Suffolk.

Kent’s versatility is evidenced at Holkham in the furniture, most of which was designed by him. It is characterised by a solidity and massiveness, both of construction and decoration, in striking contrast to the attenuated elegance of his successors.

Kent died in 1748, long before the house was finished; the Earl of Leicester died in 1759, still leaving much to be completed. The manner of his death brings home to us the changes which have taken place in habits and customs even more vividly than does his house. Lord Leicester had spoken slightingly of the militia at his own table, a topic of general comment at the time; his remarks were taken ill by George Townshend, his neighbour at Rainham, who challenged him to a duel. Townshend was young and a practised duellist; Lord Leicester was a staid gentleman of sixty-five. The result was a foregone conclusion, and the older man died of his wound.[76]

Lady Leicester carried on the works at Holkham with the help of Matthew Brettingham, of Norwich, who had been a pupil of Kent’s and had acted as his assistant and clerk of the works. After the work was ended he published the plans and elevations of the house in a book dedicated to Lady Leicester, and claimed the whole credit of the design. But it belongs in reality to Kent, and Holkham is an interesting example of the work of one man, alike as to the house, its decoration and its furniture.[77]

Although Holkham is his most notable achievement--unless we except the Horse Guards, which has some resemblance to it in general treatment (Fig. 190)--Kent was fully employed during his thirty years of active work. He designed many houses and many gardens. One of the most pleasing of the buildings at Stowe, the Temple of Ancient Virtues, was his. His help was obtained in directions other than architecture, and Walpole tells us that he designed birthday gowns for two ladies, to which he gave a decidedly architectural turn. He must have spent much time in producing “The Designs of Inigo Jones,” and it is not improbable that he was the power behind the throne in respect of the architectural efforts of Lord Burlington.

Brettingham had a certain connection with Kedleston, as he seems to have designed and built one of the wings. He was succeeded by James Paine, to whom the general design is attributed, which followed the lines started by Brettingham. The house was to have had four outlying wings, much after the fashion of Holkham, but only two were carried out. The original plan looks very striking on paper (Fig. 191), but it is one further proof of the way in which comfort was sacrificed to grandeur by the architects of that time. All the principal rooms are noble, those, that is, which were to be used on grand occasions; the others are quite subordinate. The basement, which contains rooms in daily use, seems overweighted by the superstructure, and is in fact too low to allow the light to penetrate freely to the remoter parts of the entrance. The bedrooms were, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who visited the house with Boswell in September 1777, “but indifferent rooms.” The hall is a lordly apartment with a row of lofty columns down each side (Fig. 192). Some of the columns are monoliths, and one is of alabaster from the locality. Dr. Johnson thought the house “would do excellently for a town-hall; the large room with the pillars would do for the judges to sit in at the assizes; the circular room for a jury-chamber; and the room above for prisoners.” It is quite true that many of these large houses produce an impression similar to that created by public buildings.