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INIGO JONES AND WREN 
 
 OR 
 
 THE RISE AND DECLINE 
 
 OK 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 NCSU Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/inigojoneswrenorOOIoft 
 
STAIkCASK, ASUnUKNHAM HOUSE. liV INICO JONES. 
 
INIGO JONES AND WREN 
 
 OR 
 
 RESERVEi 
 
 THE RISE AND DECLINE 
 
 MODERN ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 W. J. LOFTIE 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' A HISTORY OF LONDON, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1893 
 
WITHDRAWN p^ 
 eUFPALO 
 ••UBUIC LIBRARY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is, perhaps, necessary to explain why the term " Palladian " 
 is here chiefly used for the kind of architecture practised by 
 Inigo Jones and Wren, to which the following pages relate. 
 The only other possible word, "renascence," or " rennaissance," 
 is not sufficiently definite, and has moreover a foreign sound. 
 Some people speak of "Queen Anne," but the style was in 
 vogue here in the time of Queen Anne's great-grandfather, 
 nearly a century before her glorious reign. The art, as 
 described by Palladio, and as practised by himself at Vicenza, 
 and by his contemporaries and followers in Venice, Padua, 
 Genoa, Florence, Rome, and many other places, is easily recog- 
 nised. Its influence was nowhere more marked than in 
 England, which indeed may be termed its second home, and 
 where it flourished even better than in its birthplace. The 
 French, though their writers refer to the fact, seem never to 
 have cared for it as we have done ; and the work of their great 
 architects, Mansard, Perrault, Le Mercier, and their fellows, 
 differs in many important particulars, nay, in fundamental 
 
 99515 
 
viii Modern Architecture in England 
 
 principles, from that of Inigo Jones, Wren, Burlington, or 
 Chambers, whose art was essentially English, though founded 
 on Italian. As the word " Palladian " then conveys a definite 
 idea and is moreover easy to pronounce, and as after much 
 seeking I have found no other name so suitable, I hope I may 
 be excused for using it. " Queen Anne " has a limited, 
 " Italian " an unlimited meaning. True, the faults of Palladio, 
 as set forth, not so much in his drawings as in his actual 
 buildings, are easily discovered, though they hardly concern us 
 here. He was careless of details, his ornaments are often 
 coarsely cut, and though he had laid down such exact rules for 
 proportion he was always ready to break them himself when 
 occasion arose. It is perhaps this freedom as much as anything 
 which recommended his views on the Italian style, itself founded 
 on the Roman and that on the Grecian, to the admiring notice 
 of posterity. There can be but little doubt that the publication 
 of his book in 1570 led to its adoption here, as representing 
 learned or classical art as distinguished from Gothic. 
 
 Another excuse or apology I have also to make. This book 
 is not written for architects, nor is it by an architect. My 
 earnest hope in launching it upon the world is that it may reach 
 some of those by whom architects are employed. I do not 
 doubt my critics, if I have any, will object that I have not used 
 the correct terms in describing the architectural features of some 
 buildings. But I have been advised that such terms are often 
 
Preface ix 
 
 only a puzzle to the general reader ; that, as he is not about to 
 design, they are superfluous, and that much talk about friezes, 
 triglyphs, drops, modillions, architraves, entablatures, and so on, 
 would only be a weariness and interrupt the course of the 
 narrative or argument. At the same time, in several cases, I 
 have added a more complete and technical account of any object 
 which seemed to require it. 
 
 I should conclude this preface by saying that as I was writing 
 the last lines of my last chapter, the book on the question. 
 Is Architecture a Profession or an Art ? was put into my hands. 
 I feel obliged to agree with nearly every word of it, and especi- 
 ally with Mr. Norman Shaw's essay. I am glad to find so many 
 architects ready to recognise the place and importance of art in 
 design ; and though the volume came out too late to be of any 
 advantage to me, I feel it is a cause of deep satisfaction that so 
 powerful a movement should have been made, and by such 
 eminent artists, to lay down distinctly the very principles on 
 which every chapter of this book has been written. I cannot 
 but think that before long the employers of architects will be 
 brought to see that beauty in design is better than ornament, 
 and far less costly. 
 
 I am not an architect, as I have said, but a member of the 
 
 general public, though I belong to a profession the members of 
 
 which as a class give the most employment to architects. I 
 
 ought perhaps to apologise for venturing, even after many years 
 
 b 
 
X Modern Architecture in England 
 
 of study, to address the public on the subject ; but however 
 eminent an architect may be, it is not the architect but his 
 employer, the amateur, who is entitled to make the final decision ; 
 and it cannot be doubted that much if not all of the bad building 
 of the day is due to the ignorance or indifference of the archi- 
 tect's employers. 
 
 I have endeavoured, 1 hope with success, to unravel the 
 history of Inigo Jones's two great designs for Whitehall, 
 which have so completely puzzled previous writers, and I have 
 endeavoured also to apply similar principles to the elucidation 
 of the different schemes made by Wren for St. Paul's. 
 
 The illustrations are mainly from the plates published during 
 the golden age of English Palladian. They are, however, 
 largely supplemented by photographs, especially of those charm- 
 ing buildings of the transitional period which are to be found in 
 the west country, and where the Bath stone forms such a ready 
 vehicle for the expression of poetry in stone. Mr. R. Wilkinson, 
 of Trowbridge, has obligingly placed the results of many years' 
 photography at my disposal, and I beg to thank him warmly. 
 The London Stereoscopic Company have also permitted me to 
 have copies made from their productions, and I beg very 
 gratefully to acknowledge their courtesy. The two prints from 
 the works of Inigo Jones, which were published by the Society 
 for Photographing Remains of Old London, I owe to the 
 kindness of Mr. Alfred Marks. 
 
to 
 
 If) 
 CO 
 
 CONTENTS 
 I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Modern Gothic — Windsor Castle — Palace of Westminster — New Law Courts — 
 Detail and Proportion — Salisbuiy and Chichester — The City of London — 
 Ornament — Architectural Teaching — A Contrast — Churches — Gothic Churches 
 — Wren's Churches — Novelty — The Anomalous or Eclectic Style — The chief 
 want of Modern Architecture ..... Page 3 ' 
 
 II 
 
 THE DECAY OF GOTHIC 
 
 " An arch never sleeps " — Progress of the Pointed Arch — Objects of Gothic 
 
 Builders — Flat Arches — Rules — Modern Imitations — The Albert Memorial 
 
 N* — The last Gothic — The so-called " Debased Style " — Late Gothic at Oxford 
 
 <J — The Staircase at Christ Church — The Tom Tower — Late Gothic at Cam- 
 
 f bridge — Bath Abbey — Hospital at Corsham — Charles Church, PljTiiouth — 
 
 Hampton Court — "Peter Torrysany" — St. James's Palace — Middle Temple 
 
 Hall — Inigo Jones — Wren . . . . . .19 
 
xii Modern Architecture in England 
 
 III 
 
 ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 A Time of Change — A New Style — Elizabethan Houses — Examples — The Irregular 
 Type — The Regular Type — Haddon Hall and Longleat — The Duke's House, 
 Bradford — Cheshire Houses — John of Padua — The Masons — Lord Burghley. 
 
 I'agc 5 I 
 
 IV 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF PALLADIAN 
 
 The Beginnings of Palladian — The First Examples — Tombs by Torregiano — Sir 
 Anthony Browne's Monument — Mantelpieces — The Royal Exchange — Caius 
 College — Recent X'andalisms — The Gates of Humility, \'irtue and Knowledge, 
 and Honour — Palladian in Fashion — John Shute — Lomazzo — Birth of Inigo 
 Jones — Gothic and Palladian — Palladio — Vitruvius — Proportions of the ]irincipal 
 Orders ........ 79 
 
 V 
 INIGO JONES 
 
 A List — Parentage and Name — Birth and Baptism — Visits Italy — A Landscape 
 Painter — Proportion — In Denmark — With Prince Henry^ — A Scene Painter — 
 Surveyor-General — Numerous Drawings — Method of Working — Stage Experi- 
 ence — Arch Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields — Greenwich — Somerset House — York 
 House — Jones and Stone — New Palace of Whitehall — Design for James I. — 
 Design for Charles I. — The Banqueting Hall — A Reredos — Old St. Paul's — 
 St. Paul's, Covent Garden — Ashburnham House — Country Houses — School of 
 Inigo Jones — Death and Burial . . . . .109 
 
 VI 
 WREN 
 
 Wren and Oliver Cromwell— Wren and Webb— The Chapel of Pembroke College, 
 Cambridge — The Sheldonian Theatre— The Library, Trinity College, Cambridge 
 — Wren at Paris — The Great Fire — Windsor — Chelsea — Greenwich— The 
 Monument — Hampton Court — Kensington . . . . 151 
 
Contents xiii 
 
 VII 
 WREN'S CHURCHES 
 
 Obnoxious to Bishops — Many destroyed — Method of procedure Case of St. 
 
 Anthohn's— A Monstrous Falsehood — Classification — St. Paul's— Court Influ- 
 ence — A Protestant Design — An Artificial Design— Decorations — Parish 
 Churches — Two principal Patterns— Domed Churches— Gothic Churches. 
 
 Page 177 
 
 VIII 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF WREN 
 
 Vanbrugh—Hawksmoor—Gibbs— James — Archer — Burlington — Campbell — Kent 
 —Taylor— Chambers— Adam— Wood of Bath— Baldwin— Palladian in the 
 Provinces— Dublin— The Bank— The Four Courts— The Custom House- 
 Trinity College— Barr>''s Club Houses— The Grecian Style— The Reign of 
 Stucco — The New Gothic — Conclusion . . . . 215 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Staircase, Ashburnham House. By Inigo Jones. From a Photograph by 
 
 the Society for Photographing Remains of Old London . . Frontispiece 
 
 Church of St. Mar>'-le-Bo\v, by Wren, with the Norman Crypt. From the 
 Print pubhshed by the Society of Antiquaries 
 
 South Wraxall. From a Photograph by Mr. R. Wilkinson . 
 
 Saloon, South Wraxall. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson 
 
 Almshouse, Corsham, Wilts. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson 
 
 Charles Church, Plymouth. From a Photograph 
 
 Gallei-y, Haddon Hall. From a Photograph by the Stereoscopic Company 
 
 Jaggard's Manor-House, Corsham, Wilts. From a Photograph by Mr. 
 
 Wilkinson ....... 
 
 The Duke's House, Bradford-on-Avon. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson 
 
 Longleat. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson . 
 
 Stewart iNIonuments, Ely Cathedral. From a Photograph . 
 
 South Wraxall. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson 
 
 Gate of Honour, Caius College. From a Photograph 
 
 Thieni Palace, Vicenza. From Ware's Palladia 
 
 Almerico Palace, Vicenza. From Ware's Palladia . 
 
 Mocenigo Palace. From Ware's Palladia .... 
 
 Proportions of Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite Columns. From Ware' 
 
 Palladia ....... 
 
 Palace of Whitehall. As designed by Inigo Jones, 1619. From Miiller' 
 
 Print .....•■• 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields. From a Photograph by the Society for Photographing 
 
 Remains of Old London ..... 
 
 Part of Court, showing Banqueting Hall, WTiitehall. From Kent's Inigo 
 
 Jones . . . ■ ■ ■ ■ • .123 
 
 25 
 29 
 37 
 41 
 57 
 
 61 
 
 65 
 69 
 81 
 
 85 
 
 89 
 
 100 
 
 loi 
 
 102 
 
 103 
 
 117 
 
XVI 
 
 Modern Architcctiiye hi England 
 
 Portion of Design, Whitehall. From Kent's /wl^f/w/cf 
 
 Portico, Old St. Paul's. From Kent's Inigo Jones . 
 
 Covent Garden, Church and Piazza. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. ii, 
 
 Cobham Hall, Kent. From a Photoyrnph .... 
 
 Brympton. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson 
 
 Coleshill. From Vitruvius Britaiinicus, vol. v. . 
 
 Greenwich Hospital. From a Photograph .... 
 
 Part of Wren's First Design for Greenwich. From Vitruvius Britaiiiiicus^ \ol. i 
 
 Greenwich : Vanbrugh's Work. From a Photograph 
 
 The West Prospect of St. Paul's Church. From Vitruvius Britiinnicus, \ol. i 
 
 St. Paul's Cathedra! : Wren's First Design .... 
 
 St. Lawrence Jewry. From a Photograph hy the Stereoscopic Company 
 
 East Front of Blenheim. From Vitruvius Britivmicus, vol. i. 
 
 Public Buildings at Cambridge. By James Gibbs . 
 
 St. Mary-le-Strand. By Gibbs ..... 
 
 Spencer House, Green Park. By Vardy. From I'itruvius Brita?iiiitus,\o\. \\ 
 
 House by Lord Burlington for General Wade. From Vitruvius Britannicus 
 
 vol. iii. ■ . 
 Dormitory, Westminster School. By Burlingloii. From Kent's liiigo Jone 
 Assembly Rooms, York. By Burlington. From I'itruvius Iiritannicus,\o\.\\ 
 Burlington House. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. iii. 
 Gate, Burlington House. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. iii. 
 Wrotham, Middlesex. By Isaac Ware. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. v 
 Villa, Chiswick. By Lord Burlington. From Kent's Inigo Jones . 
 Section, Chiswick. By Burlington. From Kent's Inigo Jones 
 Holkham, Norfolk. By Kent. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. v. 
 South Front, Kcdleston. By Adam. From Vitruvius Britannicus, \ol. i\-. 
 Kedleston. By Adam. From Vitruvius Britannicus, vol. iv. 
 Prior Park, Bath. From a Photograph by Mr. Wilkinson . 
 
 Reform and Carlton Clubs, Pall Mall. From a Photograph by the Stereo 
 scopic Company ...... 
 
 Church at Glasgow. By Thomson. P'rom a Photograph . 
 
 PACE 
 129 
 
 137 
 
 141 
 
 •45 
 161 
 
 165 
 181 
 185 
 189 
 205 
 217 
 223 
 225 
 231 
 
 235 
 239 
 243 
 247 
 251 
 
 255 
 2S9 
 263 
 266 
 269 
 269 
 
 275 
 278 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 J. 
 
CHURCH OF ST. MAkV-LEliOW, BY WKliN, WITH THli NORMAN CRYPT. 
 
I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Modem Gothic — Windsor Castle — Palace of Westminster — New Law Coufts — 
 Detail and Proportion — Salisbur>' and Chichester — The City of London — 
 Ornament — Architectural Teaching — A Contrast — Churches — Gothic Churches 
 — Wren's Churches — Novelty — The Anomalous or Eclectic Style — The chief 
 want of Modem Architecture. 
 
 It may be assumed without much proof that the modern 
 attempt to revive Gothic architecture has been a failure. 
 Unfortunately, the influence of the movement has told also on 
 other styles. Up to the end of the sixteenth century, while 
 the old Gothic was still alive it was progressive. It never 
 rested. It was always seeking and often finding improvement. 
 The architects of the first buildings in the pointed style 
 bequeathed their traditions to their pupils, and the chapel of 
 Henry VII. is lineally descended from Salisbury Cathedral. 
 In the modern Gothic there was no such tradition. An 
 architect sat down to design. He did not say, " I will try if I 
 can improve on my last work, or, on the work of my pre- 
 decessor." Quite the contrary. He said, " I will design this 
 building in the style of the thirteenth century. I will design 
 that one in the style of the fourteenth. This church shall be 
 Decorated. That church shall be Perpendicular." All this 
 was essentially false in art. We should laugh at a painter or 
 
 D. H. l-iii_i_ LioriAHY 
 North Carolina State Colleiee 
 
Modern Architecttire in En <y land 
 
 05 ' 
 
 a composer who went to work in this way. Gothic architecture, 
 nevertheless, found favour with many people of taste, and was 
 eagerly taken up by architects. The reasons are easily found. 
 The great patrons of art hoped to obtain buildings like those of 
 the past. They thought architects who tried to imitate 
 mediaeval buildings would be able to build as Bishop Poore, 
 or as William of Wykeham built. But the architects constantly 
 disappointed their employers. The revival has not produced 
 one really good or beautiful building. The best, strange to 
 say, is Windsor Castle, which is universally abused as bad 
 Gothic. It may be so, indeed it would be hard to say it is not, 
 but Windsor Castle is essentially picturesque, and in this it 
 stands alone among the efforts of the modern Goth. Viewed 
 from a distance, it is a fair form in a fair landscape. Viewed 
 near at hand, it certainly has its faults of detail. The windows 
 of Salvin, and the so-called " restorations " of Scott have not 
 improved it; but from the gateway of Henry VIII. to the 
 uttermost verge of the east front, it is a long series of pictur- 
 esque and scenic arrangements, one feature enhancing another, 
 and affecting the mind of the visitor as no other modern 
 building can, whether Gothic, Grecian, or Palladian. 
 
 It is necessary here, however painful, to notice some other 
 results of the Gothic revival. Of these, the most successful is 
 the Palace of Westminster. No doubt it is marred by many 
 grievous faults, but it affords us a clue to the general failure 
 of this new Gothic style — a style I have elsewhere called 
 Vandalic, to distinguish it from the original pointed style, with 
 which, however, I have no special concern just yet. The 
 Palace of Westminster is successful in two respects. Wherever 
 Sir Charles Barry gave way to the Palladian tradition, in 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 which he had been brought up and Hved till then, he was 
 successful. Wherever, on the other hand, he gave way to 
 the new Gothic teaching, he failed. This can be proved in a 
 moment. The river front is allowed by all to be the worst 
 feature of the whole design. Here his Palladian instincts 
 would have prescribed an imposing central mass with wings, 
 not of necessity absolutely symmetrical. Instead, as the eye 
 travels toward the centre, the building becomes, or seems to 
 become, which is, of course, precisely the same thing, lower 
 and lower, meaner and meaner ; and the fine proportions of 
 the end towers are abandoned and lost. The successful parts 
 of the building are those in which proportion has been most 
 carefully calculated. The square tower, with its grand double 
 archway, and, in the interior, the lobbies of both houses, and 
 the houses themselves, have proportions of the simplest and 
 best kind. The lobbies are cubes, and the houses are, or were, 
 — for the House of Commons has been altered, — double cubes. 
 
 Another great Gothic building is a still greater failure. 
 The one fine external feature of the new Law Courts is the 
 lofty gable of the central hall ; but it is so masked and interfered 
 with by the crowd of minor buildings which surround it and 
 block it up, that it can hardly be distinguished. The interior of 
 the hall, though too gloomy, is unquestionably very fine, but 
 here, too, the absence of proportion makes it look smaller than 
 it is, and robs it of much of its effect. 
 
 The teachers of the new Gothic said, in short, that pro- 
 portion could take care of itself — that detail was everything. 
 This is the doctrine of Mr. Ruskin. It was the doctrine of 
 Sir Gilbert Scott and of Augustus Pugin. As a consequence, 
 we have such buildings as the St. Pancras Hotel and the 
 
6 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 Albert Memorial covered with ornament, but far indeed from 
 beine themselves ornamental. The heraldic shields on the 
 river front of the Houses of Parliament, alone must have cost 
 as much in thought, design, skill, and money as would have 
 made the front ornamental, without so much as a moulding. 
 But this attention to detail, this substitution of shadow for 
 reality, was characteristic of the work of the whole school. Mr. 
 Ruskin, for example, entitles his great architectural essay The 
 Stones of Venice, and the name exactly describes the book. 
 The bitterest scoffer could not have done it better. The 
 teaching is to think of the stones, of the marble, the porphyry, 
 the carving, the colour, the minute points of sentiment, and let 
 everything else — building, proportion, mass, stability, lightness — 
 take care of themselves. This was not the teaching of the 
 real Gothic architects. Look at Salisbury Cathedral for an 
 example, though it is a late work of the Early English School. 
 Though for a hundred years past a long succession of architects 
 of the modern so-called Gothic School, from Wyatt to Scott, 
 have done their worst, they have not been able to rob the 
 church of its admirable proportions. Nothing short of absolute 
 destruction can do that. We have a case in point. The spire 
 of Chichester Cathedral — a building almost contemporary with 
 Salisbur)^ and in some respects, though on a smaller scale, so 
 like it that a local proverb says, the master built Salisbury, the 
 man built Chichester — fell down bodily. Scott was entrusted 
 with the rebuilding. Every safeguard that could be devised 
 was set up to prevent his altering any detail of the old steeple. 
 But he eluded the vigilance of his employers, and changed the 
 proportions with disastrous effect ; nor was it possible to per- 
 suade him that a mere raising of the tower a few feet, a mere 
 
Introduction 7 
 
 lowering of the spire, could in any way influence the result. 
 The details, the tracer)', the mouldings are all the same : these 
 in Scott's mind, no doubt, were the essentials ; but the tower of 
 Chichester Cathedral, as the citizens fondly remembered it, is 
 a thing of the past. 
 
 The pernicious influence of this teaching has spread itself far 
 beyond the boundaries of the modern Gothic style. A walk 
 through the City of London is a painful exercise to any architec- 
 tural critic on this account. Millions have been lavished durine 
 the past few years on new buildings, — piles of offices, and banks 
 for the most part, — nearly the whole of the City has been rebuilt, 
 and money has evidently been no object in comparison with 
 magnificence ; and yet it may be safely asserted that not more 
 than three buildings possess any quality which would leave them 
 even tolerable if stripped of their ornamental details — polished 
 granite, coloured marbles, gilded bronze. 
 
 The fault, it must be acknowledged, is not wholly that of the 
 modern architect. It lies in the want of taste of the architect's 
 employers. \\'ren or Inigo Jones would starve at the present 
 day. Neither of them thought of ornament as an end in design. 
 No Stones of Venice existed in their day to wax eloquent over 
 the undercutting of a moulding or the meaning of a sculptured 
 bracket. The architect who wants to be successful must please 
 his public. If his public, like Swift's Yahoos, gloat on shining 
 and coloured stones, why should he trouble himself to see that 
 they have good classical proportions ? There are three pairs of 
 pillars side by side on the slope of a hill in Piccadilly. They 
 are all of polished Syenite, all in the Tuscan Doric style, and 
 each pair as we descend is a little longer than its predecessor. 
 The effect is more than frightful. It is aggressively hideous, like 
 
8 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 the instruments of an ordinary German band all tuned in 
 different keys. Even if any one pair of the pillars, — so elastic is 
 this Tuscan Doric, Wren's favourite style, for a reason I shall 
 endeavour to state further on, — might look well by itself, the three 
 pairs, "tuned," so to speak, "in different keys," set the teeth on 
 edge. The pursuit of ornament for its own sake is not therefore 
 to be wholly attributed to the architects of the day. True, the 
 teachers of the young architect are able to do nothing for the 
 education of his taste. They were themselves brought up on the 
 principles of the modern Gothic style. They have no chance of 
 learning, still less of teaching, anything better. A short while 
 ago I made a careful inspection of the drawings submitted by 
 the younger generation of architects for an important prize. 
 There was one Palladian design — it was for a town house — in 
 which, though it was far from perfect, the student had drawn his 
 inspiration from Burlington or Wren. This drawing, which 
 showed no ornaments, was not even mentioned by the judges. 
 The prize went to a design which was wholly devoid of propor- 
 tion, wholly devoid of "style," wholly commonplace and vulgar; 
 but the conipetitor had plastered his work all over with friezes, 
 with mouldings, with wreaths, busts, jars, urns, and especially 
 with bosses of coloured and polished granite and marble. He 
 hit the taste of the day, the taste which has given us the new 
 Natural History Museum, the Imperial Institute, St. Thomas's 
 Hospital, and scores of other buildings in which ornament, the 
 more anomalous the better, is predominant, style and proportion 
 nowhere. 
 
 If by any means taste could be improved, even a little, not 
 so much in the architects as in their employers, there would 
 be some hope for the future of English architecture. The supply 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 of good design would speedily rise to the demand. But the rich 
 man in want of a house deliberately prefers what is bad. In the 
 Bayswater Road there is at this moment an example which seems 
 as if it had been specially constructed for my use here. I will 
 not refuse it. About twenty years ago, an architect who under- 
 stood his art built a house facing Kensington Gardens, and, 
 being really an architect, not a mere ornamental builder, he , 
 made it what a moderately large town house ought to be — plain, 
 solid, well-proportioned, but without any exterior ornament, or 
 anything to attract and retain London soot. Driving past, one 
 always looked out for it as an oasis in a desert of stucco and 
 brown brick. There came a rich tradesman and built a house 
 next door. It has carvings, wrought and cast iron railings, oriel 
 windows, bulls' eyes, and a medley of architectural features of 
 all kinds mixed up in a frantic but futile effort to attain the 
 picturesque. One almost pities the architect. He has piled on 
 everything he can think of — mullions, broken pediments, dormers, 
 string-courses, cornices — and all in vain. One thing is lacking — 
 proportion. The plain house next door eclipses it utterly. It 
 is a costly eyesore, a thing to avoid, a house that may be com- 
 fortable enough to inhabit but is hideous to look at. Though 
 loaded with ornament, it is not in the least ornamental — very 
 much the reverse. When John Opie advised a young artist 
 to mix his colours with brains, he hit the ordinary defect in 
 all unsuccessful design, whether in pictures or in architecture. 
 The Gothic revival injured architecture just for the reason that 
 brains were not necessary in order to build as its votaries built. 
 All the more difficult branches of the art were neglected. At 
 first the public objected, and modern Gothic was not immediately 
 popular. But by degrees it superseded every other style for 
 c 
 
lo Modem Architectiiyc in E/i inland 
 
 ^>' 
 
 churches, and even prevailed occasionally for private houses and 
 public buildings. I feel great hesitation in stating my opinion 
 that the style is unsuitable, except in one particular, for churches. 
 It is said to be cheaper than any other, and as churches have but 
 too often to be built where money is scarce, if this is true there 
 is little more to be said. But a handsome Gothic church is as 
 expensive as any other building can be, and a plain Palladian 
 church like Wren's chapel recently ruined at Cambridge is very 
 cheap as far as money cost is concerned, though it is expensive 
 in thought and calculation and all those other necessaries which 
 have become so scarce at the present day. In building Gothic 
 churches, as for example St. Mary Abbots at Kensington, the 
 architect has, in order to make his work look mediceval, to 
 surround it with chapels and side aisles and so forth ; but he 
 builds them in the same style as the central church itself, and 
 so at once destroys any illusion he may have created, because 
 in a genuine ancient Gothic church the chapels must of 
 necessity be of a different date and therefore of a different 
 style. 
 
 But apart altogether from any question as to Gothic examples, 
 the more abstract question remains as to which is the best style 
 for churches. For Roman Catholic worship the Gothic style is 
 very suitable, though not certainly the best. Our beautiful old 
 English parish churches were designed for the celebration of 
 masses. It may, however, be remembered that many beautiful 
 churches, in Italy and elsewhere, were designed for the selfsame 
 purpose in the various forms of the Palladian style. But for 
 Protestant services one of Wren's patterns, such as St. Lawrence, 
 is very preferable. Wren used the Gothic plan for some of his 
 finest efforts ; but even in them it is evident that he aimed at 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 making a place suitable for reading and preaching, not a place 
 suitable for the celebration of masses. 
 
 From this point of view, modern Gothic churches with mock 
 side chapels are a failure. When we enter such a church, we 
 see that the chapels only exist on the outside. They are 
 " ornamental " features only. The whole interior forms one 
 large chamber cut up into aisles by columns which only serve to 
 intercept the view and interrupt the voice. Nothing, as I have 
 said, seems to me so suitable for Protestant, and especially for 
 Church of England worship, as one of Wren's city churches. His 
 object always was to accommodate the largest congregation in 
 such a way that all should be able to see and hear. In this 
 respect the chapel of Pembroke College, Cambridge, came as 
 near perfection in convenience as it was possible. When 
 convenience could be combined with architectural beauty, as in 
 St. Stephen's, Walbrook, the result was absolute perfection. 
 Both these buildings have been senselessly altered of late years, 
 and Wren's proportions lost, but we can still judge with an effort 
 of what they formerly were, and wonder also that any one calling 
 himself an architect could be found willing to lay his sacrilegious 
 hands on them ; but it is probable that in neither case did the 
 architect, brought up in the modern school of architecture, know 
 what he was doing;. 
 
 This brings me to the last point I need touch upon in this 
 preliminary chapter. The education of the modern architect 
 teaches him anything except architecture. He may learn all 
 about specifications. He sometimes knows beforehand what a 
 building will cost, though even in this he often fails, as in a 
 celebrated recent case. After the building, sanitary work, 
 materials, and other mechanical parts of his design have been 
 
12 Modem Ardiitectiire in Eii^land 
 
 <b' 
 
 settled, his functions cease. But some there are who aim at 
 novelty. It is this idea of seeking for originality which gives us 
 the worst things which deface our streets. A new style has 
 unquestionably been invented. It consists chiefly in a rebellion 
 against old authority. Its professors, I believe, term it " eclectic." 
 It might better be called the anomalous style. No rules of art 
 exist which it does not break. It has hitherto been accepted as 
 an axiom that an architect should make a chamber look larger 
 than it is, and masonry stronger than it is. Every effort should 
 be used to enhance size and give an idea of security. The new 
 school believes in none of these things. A solid building, they 
 think, should be made to look as flimsy as possible. Above all, 
 anything savouring of style must be avoided. The new Town 
 Hall at Manchester is an excellent example. By contrivances of 
 exceeding subtlety, the architect has managed to make it appear 
 so low that you instinctively bow your head lest you should hit 
 the roof You read with surprise and incredulity that it is some 
 forty feet high or more. It is so cleverly designed that it does 
 not look seven. The art of sinking in architecture is further 
 illustrated by the new Natural History Museum. It looks as if 
 a breath would blow it away. Yet, for all I know to the contrary, 
 it is as solid, and, I fear, as durable as any other building in 
 London. Mr. Waterhouse usually designs in what I understand 
 he is pleased to call the Gothic style. Besides the Town Hall, 
 there are other buildings of his at Manchester, and some also by 
 pupils. The Manchester streets are oppressed by the heavy 
 mouldings, the shallow windows, the general air of having been 
 not built but cast, that pervades all their work. Mr. Collcutt, one 
 of the pupils, follows him after a fashion. I f Mr. Waterhouse seeks 
 to pick out all that is least to be admired in Gothic, Mr. Collcutt 
 
Introduction 1 3 
 
 applies the same process to the so-called Italian style, and we 
 have a new theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, to say nothing of the 
 Imperial Institute at South Kensington, in which the rare 
 architectural features appear to be chosen not for their beauty, 
 not for their fitness, but absolutely for their ugliness. The 
 theatre occupies a place in a circus and its front is accordingly 
 crescent shaped, the architect unfortunately forgetting that his 
 building was to face the north. There is therefore no play of 
 light and shade, and the front looks simply crooked, or as if the 
 builder had been distracted. There is an immense display of 
 absolutely unmeaning ornament culled from all sources. The 
 windows are jDlaced where they give a feeling of weakness, and 
 there are oriels and turrets where they can produce no effect 
 except to make the whole composition look as small as possible. 
 The result is certainly original. There is not an axiom of 
 the older architects that is not violated. The theatre 
 looks cheap, and is dear. It looks low, and is tall. It is 
 covered with ornament, and is ugly. Yet this is the 
 "eclectic" style, and the architect has been commissioned 
 to design one of the largest and most conspicuous edifices 
 in the west of London. 
 
 Ignorance of the fundamental rules of proportion, as they 
 were understood by Inigo Jones and Wren, is the great fault 
 of the modern architect. His Gothic training has turned his 
 attention to detail only. He thinks beautiful or well-imitated 
 parts must produce a beautiful whole. He flounders about 
 among small features and is surprised to find that the wildest 
 combination will not result in picturesqueness, just as pressing 
 down the whole key-board of a piano will not give harmony. 
 Until proportion is again acknowledged and sought for as the 
 
14 Modern ArcJiitectnre in England 
 
 most needful thing in architecture, and as something which may 
 be reduced to mathematical rules like those which govern the 
 sister art of music, we may have buildings, but we cannot have 
 architecture. The Parthenon did not depend for its beauty 
 on its sculptures. Its frieze and pediments are in the British 
 Museum, yet it remains one of the most beautiful buildings of 
 antiquity. Salisbury Cathedral has gained no picturesqueness 
 by the restoration of its sculptured ornaments. St. Paul's 
 would still be what it is in form and majesty if all Grinling 
 Gibbons's flower wreaths were hacked away. But remove the 
 carving and the moulded brick from a modern street front, and 
 what would be left ? It is a truism which cannot be too much 
 insisted upon or too often repeated, that no amount of ornament 
 will make an ugly building ornamental. 
 
 If the foregoing remarks are just, unconsciousness of pro- 
 portion and harmony is the crying sin of the modern architect. 
 If I could reach the ears of the patrons, the employers of the 
 modern architect, I should not have protested in vain. But as 
 long as the public taste is not offended by such horrors as the 
 mock Gothic west front of Westminster Hall, or the mock 
 Palladian of the National Liberal Club, or the utterly indescrib- 
 able ugliness of the new School of Music, it is of little use 
 to preach. When sound taste prevails, good design will be 
 demanded, and, we may be sure, will be produced. It exists, 
 but no one cares for it. True, an architect lately announced 
 his brilliant discovery that some of our older public buildings 
 owed almost all their charm to their delicate proportions, and 
 that he was inclined to think that proportion would be better 
 than ornament to beautify a building. So bold an innovator 
 was, of course, pooh-poohed. His tone was considered almost 
 
Iiityoduction 1 5 
 
 offensive to his brother architects, and his views, if acted upon, 
 would necessitate their learning mathematics and such like 
 rubbish. Nevertheless, there are signs that both the 
 public and their architects are beginning to see the necessity 
 of proportion, and also the possibility of taking up the 
 Gothic tradition where it was left by Wykeham and Bray. 
 Besides the new church in Sloane Street by the lamented 
 Mr. Sedding, which may be mentioned as one example 
 among several, we may note that lately a Soane medal was 
 given to a young architect for the design of a chapter house 
 on similar principles. Some architects also have plainly 
 recognised that the Palladian style admits of an inexhaustible 
 series of harmonious combinations. 
 
 I know that what I have said may not be well received by 
 the ordinary modern architect. I shall be told that I am flippant 
 and ignorant, as I have often been told before. Of this kind 
 of criticism I can accept any amount with equanimity. As to 
 my ignorance, it is my own concern. As to flijapancy, I can 
 honestly assure any one who does me the honour to read these 
 pages that, so far from that, I am moved sometimes almost to 
 tears when I think of what is being done in all directions under 
 the name of architecture. A large building in a provincial town 
 is greatly admired there, chiefiy on account of its size and cost. 
 I did not offer my opinion on it, but I suppose it would be 
 called flippancy that made me reply, when asked direcdy if I 
 admired the architecture, that I saw no architecture — only a 
 great deal of mixed building. The new town halls and muni- 
 cipal buildings in half-a-dozen English cities are in what, for 
 want of a better term, must be called the South Kensington 
 style. Architectural e.xhibitions are full of them and their 
 
1 6 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 unmeaning details. All betray the same absolute ignorance 
 of architectural principles, coupled with the same feebleness 
 when attempting to obtain picturesqueness. What, therefore, 
 with new buildings, and what with the restoration of old ones, 
 the present prospects of sound architecture arc truly deplorable. 
 
II 
 
 THE DECAY OF GOTHIC 
 
 D 
 
II 
 
 THE DECAY OF GOTHIC 
 
 " An arch never sleeps " — Progress of the Pointed Arch — Objects of Gothic builders 
 — Flat arches — Rules — Modern imitations — The Albert Memorial — The last 
 Gothic — The so-called "Debased Style" — Late Gothic at Oxford — The Staircase 
 at Christ Church — The Tom Tower — Late Gothic at Cambridge — Bath Abbey 
 — Hospital at Corsham — Charles Church, Plymouth — Hampton Court — " Peter 
 Torrysany" — St. James's Palace — Middle Temple Hall — Inigo Jones — Wren. 
 
 There is an oft-quoted Arab proverb to the effect that "an 
 arch never sleeps." Its weight is, we know, constantly acting 
 on its supports. If they are not strong enough to resist thrust, 
 as it is called, they are pushed asunder, and the whole edifice 
 eventually falls to pieces. The Saracenic saying is true, in a 
 wholly different sense, of the progress and development of 
 English architecture. The arch of the mediaeval Gothic archi- 
 tect never stood still. It was always changing, sometimes for 
 the better, more often for the worse. The round Norman arch 
 developed into the thirteenth - century lancet. The Early 
 English style gave way to the Decorated, and both to the 
 Perpendicular. Finally, the Perpendicular yielded to the 
 Romanesque, and there is a return to the round arch of the 
 Norman period, modified by the many accidents which marked 
 the course of its long history. Between each pair of Gothic styles 
 there was a transitional style. One kind of arch superseded 
 
20 Modern Ai'chitectttre in England 
 
 another very gradually. Their inventors were constantly seek- 
 ing for something, and often seem to have thought they had 
 already attained. But they were never long satisfied. If we 
 inquire what it was they so diligently sought, we may be led to 
 some curious and perhaps unexpected results. The inquir\' is 
 greatly complicated by the amount of sentimental gush which 
 has concerned itself with the origin and progress of Gothic 
 architectural art. The answer, so far as I think I have reached 
 it, may not commend itself to others, for it abolishes sentiment 
 in dealing with the subject ; and, if it is correct, it also gives 
 us a reason for the failure of the modern Gothic movement or 
 revival to fulfil the requirements of those who employ architects: 
 to obtain, in short, the confidence of the public. The objects of 
 mediaeval builders in England were not, it seems to me, to attain 
 any measure of mere beauty. In Early English, for example, 
 they did their best, but they built in a particular way because 
 they could not help it. They knew of nothing better, or we 
 may be sure they would have tried it. They saw before them 
 exquisite Norman work. The Galilee at Durham, the noble 
 nave of Ely, the staircase at Canterbury, were admirable to the 
 mind of every lover of art. But they noticed a serious defect 
 in it all. The Norman could vault a narrow aisle, but, in the 
 examples I have mentioned, and in many more — at St. Albans, 
 Hereford, and Southwell — the roof was Bat and of wood. There 
 were other points which may be neglected here. The great 
 thing was to vault a wide space. This difficulty had been 
 surmounted partially in the little chapel of the Tower of London, 
 where what may be called brute force was used to form a vault, 
 the thrust of which was slight and was amply compensated by 
 the narrow side aisles and by the enormous thickness of the 
 
The Decay of Got /lie 21 
 
 outer walls. Then the pointed arch suggested itself. I do not 
 say it was suggested, but it grew from the attempts of Norman 
 builders at Canterbury and in a few other places, who rejected 
 the barrel vault of the Tower, made intersecting vaults, and 
 found that of themselves they took, in a way more or less 
 pronounced, the pointed shape. This is the transition from 
 Norman to Early English. It was soon found that a consider- 
 able lightness might be imparted to a vaulted building without 
 in any way impairing its stability. The next difficulty was with 
 the windows. Glass was rare and dear. There was no use 
 in making openings only to close them again with stonework 
 or shutters. So the lancet window commended itself to the 
 designer of Salisbury, and a somewhat different shape, in which 
 the open space was diminished to the utmost by so-called " plate 
 tracery," found favour at Westminster and in France. It will 
 thus be seen that, so far as we can judge, the pointed arch was 
 first used not for its beauty but as a constructional e.xpedient. 
 By its use arches of different spans could be made of the same 
 height. The first pointed style naturally gave way, when men 
 could build better and had better materials and cheaper glass, to 
 the Decorated style, and that again was superseded in England 
 by the most distinctively English style of all, the Perpendicular, 
 and in France by the Flamboyant. Both, as we shall see, 
 lent themselves easily to the return of the Romanesque, the 
 renascence which eventually brought in the Palladian. There 
 is thus a succession, without a missing link, between the almost 
 savage power of the Tower chapel through Salisbury and 
 Westminster to the chapel of Henry VII. and to St. Paul's 
 Cathedral. 
 
 But I have not done with the mediaeval builder. I have 
 
22 Modern ArcJiitccturc in Ens^land 
 
 endeavoured to show that the pointed arch was, in a sense, 
 forced on him by circumstances. With it only could he fling 
 aloft those soaring vaults in which he so delighted. There are 
 Norman arches in some places, as for instance at Norwich, as 
 tall as the arches of Westminster or Salisbury, but the pointed 
 vaulting which crowns them only dates from the fifteenth century. 
 The builder of pointed arches and pointed vaulting did not use the 
 style only because he liked it best, but because he had no choice. 
 Mr. Stevenson has well said [Ho2ise Architecture, i. 131) that 
 " by breaking the round arch into two parts, attached by a point 
 at the top, the arch could be widened or narrowed like a pair 
 of compasses." When the builder had a choice, he speedily 
 availed himself of it. That he did not, at any rate, always 
 prefer it, is, I think, proved by a consultation with one of the 
 sister arts. I have gone through an immense number of 
 illuminated manuscripts of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
 fifteenth centuries without finding a single pointed arch 
 represented, except here and there by an accidental attempt 
 to obtain a perspective effect, or where the narrowness of the 
 space to be occupied has forced the artist to point his arcading. 
 It is quite evident that the Early English artist had no special 
 bias in favour of Early English architecture, as we call it. He 
 thought he was building in the Roman style. But further, the 
 tendency of every change, of every transition, was not to narrow 
 the vaulting or to make the arch more and more pointed. Quite 
 the reverse : every successive architect endeavoured to make his 
 arch wider and wider, and to depress the point more and more. 
 At last he reached the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. The 
 point has nearly disappeared. One step more : at Gloucester 
 it is gone. The place formerly occupied by the pointed head of 
 
The Decay of Gothic 23 
 
 the vaulting is flat. In the chapel of Henry VII. there is no 
 example of a really pointed arch : the architect has attained the 
 goal at which every successive architect from Poore at Salisbury 
 to Bray at Windsor had aimed. He could build a roof as flat 
 as the timber roof of the Normans. It has been well remarked, 
 " The pointed arch had been gradually flattened till it became a 
 straight lintel." There is a typical example at South Wraxall. 
 We may ask why this had not been done long before. The 
 answer, I suspect, lies in several circumstances with which we 
 need not trouble ourselves now, such as improvements in 
 masonry, in masons' tools, in quarrying, in means of transport 
 for large blocks, in machinery, in canals and roads. But the 
 moment the new Romanesque was presented to his mind the 
 architect turned to it with avidity. It spread so rapidly that in 
 fifty years, or less, it had taken nearly all England back to the 
 place from which it had started three hundred years before. The 
 exceptions, as we shall see, were chiefly in the Universities, and 
 a few examples of great interest also occur in places where — as 
 in Wiltshire and Somerset — the best building stone was to be 
 found. But unquestionably the return of Romanesque was the 
 proximate cause of the decay of Gothic. The arch which had 
 never slept was finally put to rest. The Gothic tradition 
 slumbered, and slumbers still, notwithstanding the efforts of the 
 modern so-called Gothic school to awaken it. 
 
 An art which has ceased to be progressive has ceased to 
 live. Had a mediaeval architect been told of the "rules" of 
 Gothic architecture, he would have directed all his efforts to 
 breaking them. Whatever it might cost, he was determined to 
 obtain the greatest effect he could with the materials at his 
 disposal. He went on from strength to strength. He never 
 
24 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 turned back. For him there was only one style, namely, the 
 best. There was only one rule, namely, to make his building 
 stable. There was only one limit, namely, material. He had 
 to cut his coat according to his cloth. That any one with the 
 wealth of material at our disposal should turn his back on 
 progress and improvement, and deliberately set himself to build 
 as they built, say, in the thirteenth century, would have been 
 to him a thing incredible. I saw, the other day, a street front, 
 the upper part of which, three storeys high, some twenty-five 
 feet from the ground, was highly ornamental, in banded brick 
 and stone. The whole structure, from the aforesaid twenty- 
 five feet upwards, rested on an iron girder, supported only at 
 the ends. The empty space below was waiting for a shop 
 window of gigantic size to be prepared for it. Let us suppose, 
 for an instant, that Robert Poore, and William the Englishman, 
 and Sir Reginald Bray could have had cast-iron girders, to 
 what a noble use they would have put them. Their edifices 
 would have rivalled the pyramids. As it is, the modern architect 
 has been able to make nothing of them, except to build a few 
 such monstrous structures as the Prince Consort Memorial in 
 Hyde Park. Any one with eyes can see that not only does 
 the memorial not look as strong as it is, but it looks as if it 
 could not stand an hour. There is an enormous and weighty 
 canopy, in gables, surmounted by metal roofing, carrying a lofty 
 bronze spire ending in an immense gilt cross. This canopy is 
 supported on four attenuated columns, made of granite in two 
 colours, as light and slender as if they only held up an awning. 
 The whole thing would fall to pieces instantly, but for the iron 
 girders concealed within the masonry of the canopy. The 
 result is most unfortunate. The cross may stand for many 
 
SOUTH WR-VXALL. 
 
The Decay of Gothic 27 
 
 years ; as long, in fact, as disintegration from damp or any 
 other cause does not affect the iron. Thus, then, the modern 
 Gothic architect conceals his construction, builds a gigantic 
 sham, and forgetting that, as I have said, the true Gothic arch 
 never slept, really or metaphorically, he expects his wonderful 
 building to be described as in the Gothic style, and to be 
 admired as an effort of architectural mesmerism. It may be 
 eno-ineerino-, but I deny that it is architecture. A true architect 
 would have said that, as such a building would and must look 
 unsafe, at least a semblance of buttresses, even though they 
 micrht not be at all needful, should be added, if only to prevent 
 the sightseer from being afraid to approach. 
 
 A few examples of this kind show how futile it was to 
 try to revive a style that depended entirely on circumstances 
 which have now ceased to influence architecture. When a 
 litde engineering can make such a structure as the Albert 
 Memorial stand upright, and when a vault can be built of 
 any required width or height, the necessities and principles 
 of the thirteenth century are no longer active forces. It 
 is as utterly hopeless to try to revive them as to try to 
 revive the thirteenth century itself. But if our architects, 
 on discovering what those principles were, had applied them 
 to the improvement of their own art, who can tell what they 
 might have done? Instead, they have chosen to imitate the 
 old work, to forget that "the arch never sleeps," and as a con- 
 sequence, which most of us are inclined to regret deeply, they 
 have discredited Gothic in the minds of the general^ pubHc, 
 while they have themselves made no progress in originality 
 
 or skill. 
 
 The old succession of Gothic architects did not die out until 
 
 ■ D. H. Hii-J- i_ia«ARY 
 
 North Carolina State Coilene 
 
28 Modern Architecture in Emrland 
 
 the modern so-called revival had actually commenced. Perhaps 
 the very last work not of the nature of a restoration which was 
 designed according to what was left alive of the true Gothic 
 tradition was the north transept of Westminster Abbey. It 
 was very recently destroyed, under the name of "restoration," 
 a name of such terrible meaning in the history of architecture. 
 It was dated 1722, and was built under the influence of Sir 
 Christopher Wren. The architect employed is generally said to 
 have been a pupil named Dickenson, but Wren expressly men- 
 tions the design as his own. By 1722, the year before Wren's 
 death, he saw it finished. The western towers, finished in 
 1 735, show that the flicker of twelve years before had finally died 
 down and gone out — in London, at least ; for about the same time 
 Hawksmoor was doing excellent Gothic work in Oxford at All 
 Souls'. It is not difficult to show that the work at Westminster 
 was carried out on the old tradition. If we take Cardinal 
 Wolsey, in Hampton Court, and in the Hall and some other 
 buildings which he designed at Christ Church, Oxford, as the 
 last professor of Gothic before the irruption of the full-blown 
 Italian or Palladian style, we can follow the succession to Inigo 
 Jones, Wren, and Hawksmoor without a break. At Cambridge 
 the old style also flickered long, but its influence is less clearly 
 marked. At Oxford, the dissolution of the monastic orders, and 
 the promulgation of the reformed religion, found many great 
 Gothic designs actually in progress ; and gave an impetus to 
 others. Wolsey's college was not complete at his death in 1530 ; 
 but one architect after another carried on the work, some of 
 them, no doubt, great ecclesiastics, to whom the old traditions 
 came through Wolsey from William of Wykeham, as part of the 
 liberal education of the day. Wadham College continued and 
 
D 
 O 
 
 o 
 o 
 
The Decay of Gotliic 3 1 
 
 improved the buildings bequeathed to it by the Austin Friars ; 
 but the typical example is Brasenose, where the pointed and 
 round-headed arches appear side by side ; and most picturesque 
 effects are produced, in a kind of transitional style which certainly 
 does not deserve the epithet of " Debased" bestowed on it by 
 Mr. Bloxam and other respectable authorities. The interior of 
 the chapel, though much " restored," is particularly pleasing and 
 picturesque. Much of this college dates from the reign of Henry 
 VIII. and his immediate successors, before the end of the six- 
 teenth century. St. Alban's Hall, adjoining Merton College, 
 was built in 1600, and is a good example of this delightful style. 
 Oriel is a little later. The Bodleian, in its several parts, is of a 
 very composite character, much of it having the old Gothic 
 feeling, with a few pointed, but more round arches, here and 
 there breaking out into Classical, but preserving a unity in its 
 delicate beauty not to be surpassed. The architect chiefly em- 
 ployed seems to have been Thomas Holt of York, who designed 
 much else at Oxford, where he died in 1624. University 
 College is mainly in the same style, but a little earlier ; for the 
 tower over the entrance is known to have been built by the 
 master Hamsterley, while Henry VIII. was still on the throne. 
 Some further building was in progress in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 much of it with pointed arches. 
 
 A most interesting paper on the late Gothic of Oxford was 
 read in 1850 before the Royal Archaeological Institute, by Mr. 
 Jewitt, who added a list, arranged chronologically, of those 
 buildings whose date he was able to verify. He is certainly not 
 too enthusiastic when he characterises some of them as "highly 
 picturesque," and adds that the occasionally incongruous details 
 "produced great richness of effect." He specially names and 
 
32 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 illustrates the Bodleian Library, which I have spoken of above. 
 The mixture of styles is very apparent in the gateway of the 
 schools; but Mr. Jewitt judiciously observes that when every 
 other trace was lost, the windows still retained their Gothic form, 
 or their Gothic tracery. 
 
 The inner quadrangle of Merton College is said to have been 
 built by Bentley, one of the builders of the schools. The chapel of 
 Exeter College, built in 1624, contained some beautiful windows ; 
 but it was unfortunately pulled down in favour of a design by 
 Sir Gilbert Scott in 1868. 
 
 Among the best known of these late Gothic designs at Oxford 
 are the staircase and entrance gateway at Christ Church and the 
 garden front of St. John's. The staircase is, in fact, one of the 
 most admired buildings in the whole University. Peshall has 
 reported that it was designed by a London architect named 
 Smith. I cannot help hazarding the guess that by Smith he 
 must have meant Jones. Be that as it may, the staircase, with 
 its tall slender pillar and fan-work vaulting, was certainly built in 
 1640, for Dr. Samuel Fell, who was then dean. We know that 
 Inigo Jones was building at Oxford in the Gothic manner in 
 1635 ; and the beautiful garden front of St. John's, with its 
 exquisite oriel windows, is certainly his, and was designed for 
 Archbishop Laud. We shall see, in enumerating the London 
 buildings of this style, that, though perhaps not so authoritatively, 
 the names of the archbishop and the architect were connected 
 there about the same time. It seems strange that Smith of 
 London should have been practising in a method so exactly like 
 that of Jones of London, at the very same time, or within four 
 years, and both at Oxford. It should be noted that Peshall calls 
 Smith an " artificer," not an architect. In which case the design 
 
The Decay of Gothic 33 
 
 might be Fells ; or a supposition may be true which was hazarded, 
 to the effect that Wolsey left a design which Smith, at Fell's 
 instance, carried out. But the style of the vaulting is very 
 different from that Wolsey used in the adjoining church, where 
 there are groining ribs, as in the chapel at Hampton Court. 
 There are, strictly speaking, no ribs in the staircase. We find 
 fan-work vaulting at Hampton Court, but it is not of Wolsey 's 
 time ; and even if Wolsey had left a design, it would have been 
 carried out in the style of the time of Fell. The probability that 
 he left working drawings which Fell's artificer could use seems 
 to me extremely slight ; and judging by Inigo Jones's work at 
 St. John's and other fragments of Gothic at Oxford in which 
 Wolsey could not possibly have had any hand, it is safer to 
 come to the conclusion that Fell, or Smith or Jones for him, 
 designed the Christ Church staircase. 
 
 Building seems to have been almost or quite at a standstill at 
 Oxford during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. True, 
 the chapel of Brasenose was founded in 1642, but it was not 
 finished till after the Restoration. The Library was opened in 
 1663, and the chapel of University, begun in 1639, was conse- 
 crated in 1665. The fan-work in this college is somewhat like 
 that of Christ Church, and must be of about the same time or 
 later, thus helping us to bridge over the period which elapsed 
 between the building of the staircase and that of the " Tom 
 Tower " and the entrance gate. 
 
 This beautiful building, one of the glories of the University, 
 has never received the admiration to which it is entitled. Re- 
 garded from the historical point of view, it is interesting as one 
 of the last attempts at Oxford to carry on the old Gothic tradi- 
 tion which Wren had inherited and had strengthened by his 
 
 F 
 
34 Modern Architecttirc in England 
 
 practice on some of the churches of the burnt city of London. 
 From the artistic point of view, it is equally worthy of notice. It 
 is, in fact, almost impossible, as we view it, to avoid the perfectly 
 futile speculation as to whether Wren might not have designed 
 a still grander dome of St. Paul's in the style which he chose for 
 Christ Church. Naturally, this building does not appeal to 
 critics of the modern schools of Gothic. It is no imitation of 
 the thirteenth or of the fifteenth century. But it is what so 
 few of the architects of the past fifty years have succeeded in 
 grasping — an application of the strictest rules of harmony and 
 proportion to the Gothic form carried forward and upward by 
 a genius in its maturity which, as we shall see, even in its 
 beginnings "touched nothing that it did not adorn." 
 
 There is a place in all great art, whether that of Raphael, 
 of Handel, or of Wren, to mention only three mighty names, 
 in which genius and experience meet and coalesce. Sir 
 Gilbert Scott or Mr. Street could not admire a building at 
 once so purely original and so obviously oblivious of the rules 
 and regulations which they had laid down as necessary to the 
 Gothic style. But Wren perceived what they did not : that art, 
 to be living, cannot stand still — that, in short, as we have so often 
 had occasion to remark, the arch never sleeps. It is curious to 
 read the following sentences in some very pertinent remarks by 
 the late Mr. Burges on the sister art of heraldry. They are in 
 the volume of Gleanings from Westminster Abbey, where he 
 observes that in the thirteenth century people were hardly so 
 particular about the details of a shield of arms as they became 
 at the end of the fifteenth century " ivhcn, like other arts in a state 
 of decay, it became a science. '' It is curious that the writer never 
 perceived that in this sentence he condemns the methods of the 
 
TJie Decay of Gothic 35 
 
 whole school of architects of which he himself was such a brilliant 
 member. The " Tom Tower " was built expressly for the re- 
 ception of the old bell of Oseney Abbey, called " Great Tom of 
 Oxford," and is in every way appropriate to its purpose. It is 
 octagonal in plan, with an ogee cupola of charming proportions, 
 and is as much a feature in every view of Oxford as the tower 
 of Magdalen, and the dome of the Radcliffe Library. 
 
 One other building in the Gothic style is almost as conspicuous 
 as the " Tom Tower." It is considerably later, but shows Wren's 
 influence strongly. This is the double tower and front in the 
 north quadrangle of All Souls' College by Hawksmoor. As we 
 enter the college, we are welcomed by a charming little domed 
 porch in a style which can only be described as that of Wren at 
 Christ Church. The two towers and the adjoining buildings 
 may well have received the approval of the master, as they were 
 in full progress several years before Wren's death. Ingram, 
 writing about sixty years ago, is quite enthusiastic about them. 
 " Nothing," he says, "can exceed the astonishing effect produced 
 by the assemblage of so many striking objects as are here 
 blended in one magnificent, though not harmonious whole. 
 Many of its component parts will not bear criticism ; yet who 
 can stay to criticise them ? The graduated stages of Hawks- 
 moor's diminishing turrets, together with other characteristics, 
 exhibit a fantastic air of continental Gothic ; but they seem to 
 disdain all comparison, and to stand in unrivalled stateliness, 
 challenging our admiration." Undoubtedly, these towers and 
 the adjoining buildings form a worthy, and indeed splendid con- 
 clusion to the long list of fine Gothic buildings at Oxford. 
 
 It had not lingered so long at the sister university. The 
 tower of " Great St. Mary's " at Cambridge was designed by 
 
36 Modern ArcJiitecturc in England 
 
 John Warren, in or before 1608. It has little merit, though it 
 is 131 feet in height. The chapel of Peterhouse was begun in 
 162S by Matthew Wren, afterwards Bishop of Ely, the uncle 
 of Sir Christopher. The curious gable ends, with a kind of 
 pediment, contain very simple perpendicular windows, the 
 general effect being unquestionably picturesque, and very 
 superior to the mock Gothic of Gisborne Court, built in 1825. 
 The grand chapel of King's College was not complete in 1524, 
 when it would seem that Italian workmen were introduced ; and 
 the wood carving shows strong traces of their handiwork, 
 affording the same picturesque effects of contrast as we see 
 in parts of the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster. Some 
 further work in panelling, much more Gothic in design, was 
 put up as late as 1595. 
 
 Some of the most interesting buildings in the slowly dying- 
 style are naturally to be found where good, easily carved oolite 
 abounded. Great Chalfield Manor- House is in genuine Per- 
 pendicular Gothic, having been built in or about 1490. The 
 manor-house of South Wraxall, already mentioned, a couple 
 of miles off, shows in its purely Perpendicular gateway an 
 example of a perfectly flat lintel. The Gothic tradition was 
 further kept alive in this neighbourhood by the gradual com- 
 pletion of Bath Abbey, as it is called. It was in hand in 
 1499, but was not finished till 1616 ; the style being preserved 
 throughout without deviation. It is too uniform, too featureless, 
 to be very interesting. So completely, however, did the 
 architect get rid of any feeling of the necessity of pointing the 
 openings that the great east window is actually square, or, as 
 it is sometimes termed, cottage -headed, though it is 50 feet 
 high and 20 feet wide. 
 
D 
 
 D 
 
 O 
 
The Decay of Gothic 39 
 
 One of the latest buildings in which the Gothic tradition 
 ruled the design, is in the same oolitic region. This is the 
 Hungerford, properly the Halliday Hospital, a little almshouse 
 with a chapel, at Corsham, a few miles from Bath. It contains 
 no pointed arches, but is purely Gothic. The windows of the 
 chapel have mullions, and an attempt at tracery, and over 
 each is a dormer, which has a singular effect. A similar 
 and very interesting effect was produced by the building of 
 a side aisle and gallery in the parish church, but was scrupu- 
 lously removed at the "restoration" a few years ago. The 
 porch of the hospital has an attempt at Ionic pillars on 
 either side of the doorway. Above, and also on the north 
 front, are shields of arms, and an inscription from which we 
 are surprised to learn that the date of the building is 1668. The 
 almshouse was founded by a widow who is described as " Lady 
 Margaret Hungerford," and who evidently intended it more 
 as a memorial of her father and her grandfather than of herself 
 or her husband, Sir Edward Hungerford of Corsham Court. 
 She was the daughter and coheir of William Halliday, or 
 Hollyday, an alderman and sheriff of London in 161 7, by 
 Susan, his wife, daughter of Sir Henry Rowe, or Row, Lord 
 Mayor in 1607. The arms of Halliday are represented above, 
 with the crest and a little shield of Hungerford higher up still. 
 The Halliday arms — three helmets, and the motto, " Quarta 
 Salutis " — are an excellent example of Jacobean heraldry. 
 
 The whole of this region abounds in old houses and churches 
 containing monuments worthy of the architect's study. It is 
 common to fix a date for the discovery and introduction of 
 oolite as a building stone ; but it was used here from time 
 immemorial ; and here, as we have just seen, the Gothic tradition 
 
40 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 continued to linger even after the outward form had been wholly 
 changed. 
 
 At Fulmer, in Buckinghamshire, there is a Gothic church, 
 Ijuilt in 1610, of brick, which shows that even where there was 
 no stone the old custom still obtained. 
 
 A very interesting church is at Plymouth. It is generally 
 said to have been consecrated in honour of "the Blessed King 
 Charles the Martyr," but this is a mistake. The parish in which 
 it stands was separated from St. Andrew's by Act of Parliament 
 in 1640, and designated, after the name of the reigning King, 
 "the parish of Charles." The church is therefore not "the 
 church of the Blessed King Charles," but "the church of the 
 parish of Charles." It bore this name all through the Civil War 
 and the Commonwealth down to the Restoration. It was com- 
 pleted in 1657, according to an inscription on the tower, so that 
 we have here an example of a building in the Gothic style 
 commenced on the eve of the Civil War and carried to com- 
 pletion under the rule of the Protector. The authorities of 
 Plymouth are not worthy of the interesting church in their care. 
 A determined attempt has been made during many years at 
 intervals to Gothicise its features, and, unfortunately, with but 
 too much success. It is, therefore, difficult to obtain a view in 
 which its true merits may be fully discerned. The proportions 
 are more carefully calculated than is usual in ancient Gothic work, 
 and still less in its modern imitation, the relation of height to 
 width in the nave being especially satisfactory. Most of the 
 windows have had pointed openings forced upon them, but this 
 is not so apparent within as without. A row of arches, only one 
 of them pointed, divides the nave and side aisles, and the roof, 
 in a barrel-shaped ceiling, with ribs of dark oak, accords well 
 
/ 
 
The Decay of Gothic 43 
 
 with the dehcately carved fittings. The mouldings of the 
 arches are much better, in undercutting, than is usual in the 
 modern mock Gothic style ; and the whole design, so far as we 
 can still judge of it, was evidently well thought out by an 
 architect who deserves better of posterity than to have his 
 name forgotten, and his work handed over to some modern 
 Vandal, who thought he could improve it. At Tavistock, 
 not far off, is another church, with an aisle in the same style 
 dated in 1670. There are three aisles in late Perpendicular, 
 and the fourth, with interesting carved granite capitals, round 
 arches, and two south doors, is strictly Gothic, in spite of the 
 shape of the arches. 
 
 Nearer London, the later Gothic was more common, but 
 much of it has disappeared. Some has been destroyed bodily. 
 Some has been "restored" out of knowledge. Beginning with 
 the period of the suppression of the monasteries and the begin- 
 nings of Italian art in England, we may visit Hampton Court, 
 where one of the finest and most typical of Gothic buildings is 
 the Great Hall. Here Italian details are numerous, but the whole 
 design does not differ materially from that of Eltham and other 
 halls of earlier date. Mr. Law, in his History of Hampton Court 
 (i. 155), shows that the architect in all probability was Henry 
 Williams, a priest, who was "surveyor of the works." Mr. 
 Gotch, in a paper read before the Architectural Association in 
 March 1892, has proved that "surveyor" meant the same as 
 architect, and shows that this is the Shakespearean use of the 
 word i^Henry IV., pt. 2). It subsisted at least until the time 
 of Sir Christopher Wren. The strong similarity of the hall at 
 Hampton Court and that at Christ Church suggests that they 
 are both by the same architect. The hall at Christ Church is 
 
44 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 dated by the best authorities, including Mr. Papworth {Renais- 
 sance and Italian, p. 6), in 1529 ; while that of Hampton Court is 
 known for certain to have been commenced in 1530. To build 
 it, an older hall by Cardinal Wolsey was pulled down. The 
 probability seems to lie in identifying Williams as an archi- 
 tectural pupil of Wolsey, and conversant with the principles on 
 which his master would have planned such a building. The 
 details, which are very Italian at Hampton Court, and less 
 markedly so at Oxford, would be left, as Mr. Gotch has pointed 
 out, very much to the taste and fancy of the artists employed. 
 This w^ould be in strict accordance with the Gothic tradition as 
 I have endeavoured to state it above ; everything being sub- 
 ordinated to the supposed necessity of obtaining that which was 
 thought to be best, irrespective of style ; for critics and historians 
 of art did not then exist, and the possibility of two incompatible 
 styles causing a difference of opinion had not dawned on any- 
 body's mind. We see this state of ignorance and innocence, this 
 delicious unconsciousness of the birth of questions which were 
 destined for some three centuries to agitate the minds of the 
 votaries of taste, in the thoroughly Italian work of Torregiano, 
 surrounded by the Gothic grill of bronze by an English artist, 
 which form together the central feature of the chapel of Henry 
 VII. " Peter Torrysany," as his insular employers called him, 
 also made the beautiful but wholly incongruous monument of 
 John Young, Dean of York, who was Master of the Rolls, and 
 was buried in the Rolls Chapel. The chapel itself, which dates 
 in part from about 15 16, presents no features of interest; but 
 John Young's tomb is one of two or three worth seeing. The 
 chapel of St. Peter "ad \'incula " in the Tower is another 
 example of about the same date, it ha\'ing been rebuilt after 
 
The Decay of Gothic 45 
 
 a fire in 15 12. Here any characteristic architectural features 
 have been scrupulously removed by successive " restorations." 
 The Chapel Royal, Savoy, was also built in the early years 
 of Henry VIII., and is distinctly Gothic in style; but a fire 
 and a "restoration" have left very little of the old work visible. 
 The old Gothic gateway of Lincoln's Inn is still standing, thouo-h 
 oft condemned. It was built in i5i<S, and has a slightly pointed 
 archway. This, and St. James's Palace and St. John's Gate at 
 Clerkenwell, built in 1504, are the only domestic Gothic buildings 
 left in London, though some parts of the Guildhall maybe older. 
 St. James's was designed as a kind of hunting-lodge, an out- 
 lying appanage of Whitehall, which itself was made by Act of 
 Parliament part of the palace of Westminster. As palaces, both 
 Westminster and Whitehall have ceased to exist ; but St. James's 
 preserves many Gothic features, chiefly external. In the Pres- 
 ence Chamber, a fireplace bears the initials of King Henry and 
 Queen Anne, so that it must have been built between January 
 1533, when they were married, and May 1536, when Anne was 
 beheaded ; if indeed the initials do not stand for those of Anne 
 of Cleves, which would make the date 1540. This date, with 
 the same initials, is painted on the curious panelled ceiling of the 
 chapel. There is a legend to the effect that both the chapel and 
 the tower which fronts St. James's Street were designed by 
 Thomas Cromwell, the Vicar-General, who was made Earl of 
 Essex in April and beheaded in July of that same year, 1540. 
 This is also the date of the Horse Shoe Cloisters at Windsor. 
 Hans Holbein designed much for the king at Whitehall, but 
 whether he had a hand in any part of St. James's it is not easy 
 to'say, and he died in 1543. From this time to the end of the 
 century, very few buildings in pure Gothic claim our notice. The 
 
46 Modem Arcliitcctiirc in Iliiglaini 
 
 style was evidently out of fashion. The age of John of Padua, 
 of Shute and Thorpe, had come; and in London we can only now 
 point to the hall of the Middle Temple, where, chiefly in the plan, 
 the Gothic tradition survives. But the screen, and nearly all the 
 details, are Italian in character, though, as at Oxford, Perpendicular 
 tracery was still used in the windows ; the older fashion lingering 
 longer among the glaziers and lead-workers than among the 
 wood-carvers. Glass was still comparatively scarce and dear, 
 and was made in small pieces, so that leaded lattice-work was a 
 necessity. The Middle Temple Hall was finished in 1572, 
 but after this, for many years there is no record of a 
 Gothic building being erected in London. A few examples 
 occur, as we have seen, in the country ; and the old tradi- 
 tion, though dying, was by no means dead. It lived in 
 the oolite regions of Dorset and Wilts, and was active 
 at Oxford, and in a minor degree at Cambridge. In many 
 places there are examples where the old style enters into com- 
 petition with the new, as in the chapel of Bishop West, 1534, 
 at Ely. The chapel of Bishop Longland at Lincoln may be 
 dated at 1547, but was never finished. Signs of Renascence 
 work are very apparent in the rich ornamentation. The fall of 
 the religious houses had, no doubt, a discrediting effect on the 
 architectural style in which they were built ; but a temporary 
 reaction occurred, and it can hardly be doubted that Inigo 
 Jones actually preferred the Gothic at one period of his career. 
 He had travelled on the Continent, and we find him in Denmark 
 in 1589. When the Princess Anne came from that country to 
 wed King James, she is said to have brought him to Scotland 
 with her; and critics see his hand in Heriot's Hospital at Edin- 
 burgh. But before Heriot's can have been even begun, Jones 
 
The Decay of Gothic 47 
 
 had left Scotland ; and we find him back in Denmark, whence, 
 in 1603, he again seeks the English court, and is appointed 
 architect to the Queen, for whom he designed the scenery of 
 masques, among other things. He was in Italy before 1604, and 
 at Oxford in 1605 ; but the dates of his two chief Gothic buildings 
 in London must be placed considerably later. The chapel of 
 Lincoln's Inn was much as he left it, until 1791 ; when it was 
 "restored" by Wyatt. The cloister underneath was still intact 
 in 1882, when it was handed over to the mercies of a wealthy 
 amateur, who employed a Mr. Salter to remove from it as far as 
 possible the traces of Inigo Jones's hand. A description of the 
 building by Mr. Weale is in his Neiv Survey of London (p. 175), 
 published in 1853 : he says of it that "the side elevation of the 
 exterior plainly partakes of the boldness, stateliness, and harmony 
 of his other designs ; and though," he continues, "the petty exact- 
 ness of later imitators may yet find it convenient to make faults 
 of every variation from precedent in the details, this fragment 
 has some rare qualities. We know of no mediaeval work, even, 
 in which apertures of so low and broad a proportion produce, as 
 here, no ungraceful or mean effect." Of Inigo Jones's other 
 London Gothic work, Mr. Weale has not so high an opinion. 
 This is the church of St. Katharine Cree in Leadenhall Street. 
 I unhesitatingly ascribe the design to this architect. He had 
 already designed for Bishop Laud at Oxford ; and though, no 
 doubt, the Bishop would dictate the main features of the plan, 
 the rest of the design would be left to the architect. Laud may 
 have been attracted to him by his religious views as well as by 
 his genius ; but it is scarcely doubtful that the church is mainly 
 his. St. Alban's, Wood Street, was rebuilt by Jones, but perished 
 in the Great Fire, when it was rebuilt a second time by Wren. It 
 
48 Modern Architectuye in England 
 
 has been sometimes suggested, and with plausibility, though 
 without proof, that Wren's design was identical with that of his 
 predecessor. Like the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, it has suffered 
 much at the hands of the modern Vandal, and is now hardly 
 worth a visit. 
 
 Of Wren's Gothic work in London, it will be time enough 
 to speak further on. Suffice it here to say, that it has the same 
 sincerity of purpose, the same originality, the same straight- 
 forwardness as his Palladian work. That he or any other archi- 
 tect, conscious of the slightest creative faculty, should be content 
 to sit down, turning his back on the state of the arts and sciences 
 of his day, and deliberately endeavour to design in a style which 
 had worked itself out in the thirteenth century, would have been 
 a thing altogether incredible. It is true that Wren imitated the 
 thirteenth-century architect in one point. He tried to do his 
 best with the materials at his disposal. It has been reserved for 
 the taste of the present day to destroy his last, and in some 
 respects greatest work in the style ; but his towers of St. INIichael, 
 St. Dunstan, and St. Mary Aldermary, in the City, have of late 
 been recognised as masterpieces ; and it must be the endeavour 
 of all lovers of what is good and progressive, not imitative and 
 retrograde in architecture, to insure their preservation for the 
 instruction and pleasure of generations who will look upon the 
 short reign of mock Gothic as a period of decay, falsehood, and 
 destruction. 
 
Ill 
 
 ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 H 
 
Ill 
 
 ELIZABETHAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 A Time of Change — A new Style — Elizabethan Houses — Examples — The Irregular 
 Type — The Regular Type — Haddon Hall and Longleat — The Duke's House, 
 Bradford — Cheshire Houses — John of Padua — The Masons — Lord Burghley. 
 
 While the old Gothic style was flickering out in England, 
 architects found themselves very much as they find themselves 
 now. Rut, unlike the present, that was a great creative age. 
 Originality was to be seen everywhere. The poets of the day 
 were Shakespeare, Spenser, and a legion of competitors who 
 have made so famous those "spacious times." It was the same 
 in art. True,, Holbein had died in 1543, but he had founded 
 a school, and its efforts were aided and directed by the foreign 
 artists imported. It was the same in music. We have never 
 heard sweeter strains than those first sounded by Merbecke, 
 and Tallis, and Lawes. It was impossible that architecture 
 should lag far behind. By one of those curious coincidences 
 which occur in the history of art as well as in that of any 
 other movement, while we were most busily engaged in cutting 
 ourselves adrift from the religion of Italy, we were most 
 diligent in studying her architecture. I have endeavoured to 
 show that at first there was no necessary antagonism between 
 our old Gothic and the new Palladian. In English buildings 
 
52 . Modern Architecture in England 
 
 every attempt was made to reconcile them, to adopt what was 
 best in each, to construct what would be at once picturesque, 
 correct, and suitable for a climate very different from that of 
 Italy. The result was extremely satisfactory. Haddon Hall, 
 the palaces of the Cecil family, the rooms now used for the 
 Royal Library at Windsor, and many more of the "stately 
 homes" of which Englishmen are so proud, were designed 
 and built at this epoch. Mr. Gotch lately read a paper before 
 the Architectural Association, in which he endeavoured to 
 answer the question of how they built in the time of Shake- 
 speare. He approached the subject from a purely architectural 
 point of view, and came to definite conclusions as to surveying, 
 planning, designing the elevations, "rating the cost," super- 
 intending details, and all the other items which went to make 
 up a beautiful house. I shall have further occasion to refer 
 to this brilliant essay, and can only hope that the architects 
 who heard Mr. Gotch may lay some of his tacitly implied 
 counsels to heart. 
 
 The names of the greatest architects of the day have come 
 down to us in sufficient number to enable a critic to form an 
 opinion as to the whole school and its style. Nothing valuable 
 in the old Gothic tradition was violently thrown aside. A 
 more than semi-Gothic hall existed still in every great house. 
 Many other features which had descended directly from the 
 thirteenth century were retained. In some houses, such as 
 Haddon, the old irregularity of outline was not looked upon 
 as any defect. In others, as at Longleat, a facade almost 
 Italian imparts stateliness at the cost of the picturesque. 
 Architects were still afraid to use the classical forms exclusively, 
 and the symmetry of Hatfield or Cobham was not produced in 
 
Elizabethan ArcJiitecture 53 
 
 a day. There was, however, no affectation about their work. 
 Window glass, as I have had occasion to point out, had a 
 strong influence on the shape and size of windows. At the 
 present day, we can have a single pane large enough to fill 
 a whole window, of whatever size. Then, the beautiful lattice 
 work which was part of the old Gothic style was still a 
 necessity. The great hall, similarly, was retained as convenient 
 for a great household. At Knole, and no doubt in all other 
 houses of its class, there was at mid-day a dinner to which 
 every one, from my lord to "my lord's blackamoor," sat down. 
 A long gallery was another necessity. It was to be sunny and 
 light, as at H addon, giving easy access to the garden in 
 summer, serving as a place of exercise in winter, and well 
 warmed with more than one great fireplace, as at Cobham and 
 Loseley. There was found to be less draught from the 
 windows and doors of a large chamber than from those of 
 a small one ; and so all the reception rooms and many of the 
 others were of vast size, as at South Wraxall, where a com- 
 paratively modest house has at least three or four chambers as 
 large as the whole of a modern villa. The great defect of all was 
 the poor bedroom accommodation. It was no unusual thing for 
 the whole of what we should describe as private rooms to be 
 accessible not from a passage, but simply through other rooms, 
 so that to reach the farthest of a suite the rest had to be 
 traversed. This was in accordance with the manners of the 
 day. There was no privacy. Every one lived more or less in 
 public. Men, except at court, kept their hats on. Women 
 wore hoods and head-dresses. In bedrooms without fireplaces 
 warmth was insured at night, no doubt, by retaining a portion 
 of the clothes worn in the day ; and it was no unusual thing for 
 
54 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 two, three, or even more persons of the same sex to occupy 
 one bed. Of this coarseness of manners we have abundant 
 evidence, into which it is quite unnecessary to go here. The 
 life, as portrayed by Shakespeare, by Spenser, by Herrick, even 
 down to the comparatively civilised times after the Restoration 
 of the Stuarts, was of a character very different from anything 
 of which we have experience at the present day. Our modern 
 houses, however inconvenient they may often be, contain a 
 thousand items of comfort then undreamt of and unknown. 
 Magnificent and beautiful as some of these old palaces are, it is 
 only by judicious alterations that they remain habitable. When 
 Wyatville went to Windsor Castle, he found a series of towers 
 connected by a curtain wall, much as we see the Bell, the 
 Beauchamp, and the Devereux Towers connected in the Tower 
 of London. All were "passage rooms." Though some were 
 wide and high, all were inconvenient ; and the royal family 
 lived, as described by Madame D'Arblay, in a house in the 
 garden, and only used the older chambers on state occasions. 
 Wyatville, by building the long corridor within the line of 
 towers, made Windsor Castle a modern abode. Something of 
 the same kind has had to be done in many other old houses of 
 slighter pretensions ; and the adaptation of Longleat, of Knole, of 
 Holland House, and of Cobham Hall, to name only a few, has 
 sometimes been a very difficult matter, and tried the ingenuity 
 of the best architects. Two or three features are connnon to 
 nearly all Elizabethan houses. There is always, as I have said, 
 a hall, a gallery, and a withdrawing room or solar. Most of 
 them have also a chapel. Even in comparatively small houses 
 like Ightham Moat, this, or at least an oratory, is not omitted. 
 At Knole, the chapel is very large, and has a great gallery. 
 
Eli:::abcthaii ArcJiitecture 55 
 
 approached by an antechapel at a higher level. At Hardwick, 
 the chapel is very small : it is larger at Hatfield and Burghley, 
 but appears to be altogether missing at Cobham. It may have 
 been an early feature of the house. There is a good chapel at 
 Westwood, another at Longleat, and one was at Audley End. 
 
 The design of some of these great houses is highly irregular. 
 This is the case at Knole, Penshurst, and especially at Haddon, 
 where we must remember that an ancient house was added to in 
 1540 and the succeeding years down to 1589. But Westwood, 
 Hardwick, Longford, Cobham, Hatfield, Burghley, Audley End, 
 Eastbury, and many more are perfectly regular, the ground-plan 
 forming often a letter E or a letter H. Longleat seems to have 
 been one of the first important houses built in this fashion. It 
 was in progress from 1567 to 1578. The beautiful "Duke's 
 House" at Bradford-on-Avon belongs to the same style and 
 period, and is usually ascribed to the same architect, who may 
 have been John of Padua, or even more likely, John Thorpe. 
 
 It m^y be worth while to examine more closely some 
 examples of each kind ; the irregular naturally coming first, as 
 they are usually founded on older buildings. A favourite ■ 
 specimen is Haddon Hall, which rises on a steep slope above 
 the Bakewell meadows, and is first seen among old trees and 
 across green grass. The contour of the ground materially 
 infiuences the design, both in elevation and in plan. It has, 
 besides, more of a castellated- appearance than other buildings 
 of the same period. The entrance is under a tower at the north- 
 western corner and admits the visitor to the first, or lower court. 
 Everywhere there are flights of steps, — steps up and steps down, 
 — and the picturesque appearance of the building is greatly 
 enhanced at the expense of its convenience. This lower court 
 
56 Modern Architcctitrc iii England 
 
 was never intended for the admission of a carriage ; and had the 
 house remained a family residence, a new main entrance would 
 have had to be made, as in other places. Probably this part is 
 older than the Elizabethan period. A fortified manor-house was 
 on the site long before. The license to crenellate is dated, 
 according to Mr. Papworth, in 1199. Sir George Vernon, to 
 whom the greater part of the existing building is attributed, 
 came into the estate as early as 15 15. He was more or less 
 actively at work on the house down to the time of his death in 
 1567. The work was completed by his successor in the owner- 
 ship. Sir John Manners, who is said to have eloped with Sir 
 George's elder daughter, Dorothy. Be this as it may, the exist- 
 ing "stage scenery" of the event, as shown to visitors, where 
 the fair Dorothy is made to leave the gallery, or ball-room, by 
 the anteroom, and so pass out to the terrace, cannot be accu- 
 rately delineated, for the simple reason that this part of the house 
 was built by herself and her husband after they had long been 
 married and had inherited the estate. 
 
 This great gallery is now one of the principal features of 
 Haddon Hall. It runs west to east along the south side of the 
 upper or second court, and contains two bows and a rectangular 
 bay window 15 feet by 12, all deeply recessed, so as, in fact, 
 almost to make three separate apartments. The wainscoting 
 shows the gradual approach of the Palladian style, being wholly 
 different from that in the older parts of the house, where Gothic 
 still asserts itself Something very like a composite capital 
 crowns each pilaster. The ceiling is of plaster covered with a 
 beautiful pattern of scroll work with heraldic shields, formerly, 
 no doubt, coloured and gilt. 
 
 The garden, with its terrace, is one of the chief beauties of 
 
J 
 
 z 
 
 5 
 
 < 
 
 ■X. 
 
 < 
 
Elizabethan ArcJiitcctiirc 59 
 
 Haddon, being a combination of tlie formal and the natural 
 which commends itself to both schools of afardeners. The 
 arched balustrading is very characteristic of the Elizabethan 
 style, while recollections of the Gothic practice had not yet been 
 wholly obliterated by the Italian. Mr. Blomfield ( 77;e /"(jrwrt"/ 
 Garden, p. 114) says of the terraces at Haddon that they are 
 laid out in four main levels: "At the top is a raised walk 70 
 paces long by 15 wide, planted with a double row of lime trees. 
 About 10 feet below this is the yew-tree terrace, divided into 
 three plots, about 15 yards square, surrounded by stone curbs, 
 with yew trees in each angle. These were once clipped, but are 
 now grown into great trees overshadowing the entire terrace. 
 Dorothy Vernon's stairs descend on to this yew-tree terrace. 
 A flight of twenty-six steps led from this terrace to a lower 
 garden, about 40 yards square, divided into two grass plots. 
 A walk from this garden skirted round two sides of a second 
 garden laid out in three levels, and reached the postern door in 
 the outer garden wall by seventy-one steps laid out in seven 
 entire flights." With regard to the balustrading of the terrace 
 mentioned above, Mr. Blomfield has some interesting notes : 
 " The terrace at Haddon has six small stone arches to each bay. 
 The height is 3 feet ; width from centre to centre of piers 1 1 
 feet 6 inches ; the steps measure 12 inches by 5." 
 
 Much of Knole partakes of the irregular character of Haddon, 
 the more formal parts appearing, like the oriel window in the 
 first or Green Court, to be purely Gothic. Here the irregularity 
 was largely caused by the local absence of good building material, 
 and some of the most picturesque parts are of wood, as for 
 example the south or garden front. It is strictly contemporary 
 with Haddon, and both with Penshurst, but the Elizabethan 
 
6o Modern Architecture in Engtand 
 
 buildings at Knole are attributed by Mr. Papworth unhesitatingly 
 to John Thorpe, on good grounds, I do not doubt. Penshurst 
 and Haddon both look older in places than any part of the 
 second or Stone Court of Knole. The hall at Penshurst is 
 purely Gothic, but the entrance tower dates from 1585, 
 probably the date of the gallery at Haddon. Haddon, Penshurst, 
 and Knole are typical examples of the irregular Elizabethan — 
 that which grew more directly out of the Perpendicular Gothic, 
 and contains much of it mixed up in work of a later type. The 
 hills of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire are dotted with smaller 
 examples. Their characteristic features are the cross mullions, 
 the gables, the frequently pointed doorways, and the sparing use 
 of classical pillars and pilasters. The principal rooms, even in 
 mere cottages, have generally high carved mantelpieces, the 
 walls are panelled, the ceilings are of timber or of ornamental 
 plaster, and porches are numerous, with or without small 
 chambers above. In one ordinary manor-house of two sitting 
 or reception rooms and not more than four bedrooms, there are 
 five porches. The chimneys are often very ornamental, but 
 chiefly where they are of brick, those of stone being compara- 
 tively plain. The balustrades of the staircases are at first merely 
 rows of small arches, often very ornamentally treated. By degrees 
 the head of the arches separate, each half-arch becoming a kind 
 of bracket for the hand-rail. Finally, Init not until the seven- 
 teenth century was well begun, the new Italian balustrade, more 
 or less modified in its translation into oak, came into fashion. 
 The curious visitor to one of these old houses should never 
 neglect to look for the exterior lead-work. The Gothic 
 gurgoyle was succeeded by piping with, often, a large 
 shield - shaped head on which initials, dates, and even, as 
 
X 
 
 O 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 z 
 
Elizabethan Architecture 63 
 
 at Claverton, Sherborne, and some other places, armorial 
 bearings. 
 
 Almost side by side with these delightful rambling, irregular 
 piles, half castle, half manor-house, there grew up a series of 
 stately palaces, such as we see at Longleat, Loseley, Bramshill, 
 Audley End, Blickling, Hardwick, and many other places too 
 numerous for mention. They have very similar details to those 
 of their irregular contemporaries, and chiefly differ in the elabo- 
 rate symmetry of the ground-plan. The Gothic tradition pre- 
 scribed that the chief features of a house should show on the 
 outside. You can see where is the chapel, where the gallery, 
 where the hall, and so on. But in the regular school it is but 
 seldom that the visitor can say for certain that a window lights 
 a saloon or an oratory, a ball-room or a dressing closet. To the 
 end of the sixteenth century, and much later, these symmetrical 
 designs seldom exhibited columns or pilasters, but they were 
 essentially, in the modern jargon, " astylar." This treatment 
 looked well beside either the old Gothic or the later Palladian ; 
 Inigo Jones's additions to Cobham have an effect as good as 
 that of the remains of the episcopal palace at Hatfield. 
 
 We can easily understand the charm of the new style to the 
 minds of our ancestors. There were still standing and inhabited 
 hundreds of fortified houses and castles, where security was 
 sought to be purchased by discomfort, gloomy and dark, with 
 the smallest possible space for the living rooms. Many of the 
 less pretentious of the manor-houses were surrounded by moats, 
 a constant source of damp and disease. The castles disappeared 
 for the most part in the Civil War. Very few were still habitable 
 when Charles II. was restored. We can well believe that the 
 subjects of the Tudors, who remembered or had traditions of 
 
64 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 the hundred years of the Wars of the Roses, were delighted to 
 take advantage of the peace and security they enjoyed ; and 
 though, so greatly to our advantage, some new houses were 
 planned on the old pattern, but no longer gloomy and cramped, 
 it is easy to judge how they must have welcomed the possibility of 
 building on a regular plan with symmetrical parts, and of making 
 sometimes the whole wall of a great chamber or a hall one con- 
 tinuous window. 
 
 Among the smaller houses in this second Elizabethan style, 
 the most perfect is that known as " The Duke's House " at Brad- 
 ford-on-Avon. There are many beautiful buildings in and around 
 this little town, and the visitor will be charmed with the old 
 bridge, a mediceval barn and farmhouse near the railway station, 
 a magnificent church, a wonderful Saxon chapel, several gabled 
 houses of considerable antiquity, some excellent Palladian 
 examples, and the Duke's House. He will also wonder, in the 
 midst of so much that is good, to see some modern buildings in 
 the style, or no style, which has sprung from the ruins of the so- 
 called Gothic revival. Altogether, Bradford, standing as it does 
 in the midst of the best oolite region, a place where cloth- 
 working brought prosperity while as yet there was taste left 
 among us, is a museum of architecture. South Wraxall is 
 within a few miles. The later domestic Gothic is well illustrated 
 by Great Chalfield, built before 1490 ; and, of older remains still, 
 there are the ruins of Charterhouse Hinton, in Early English, 
 and the George Inn, at Norton St. Philip, in Perpendicular. 
 
 The Duke's House is a little to the east of the town, on a 
 gentle slope. The front has two storeys, topped by attics under 
 three gables. The central window projects squarely : the side 
 windows are much wider, and each projects in a small semi- 
 
o 
 
 > 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 3 
 
 K 
 
Elizabethan ArcJiitecture 67 
 
 circular bow. Over the windows is beautiful flat balustrading, 
 not in the least Italian, yet not Gothic. This balustrading is 
 typically Elizabethan ; and on the terrace and steps into the 
 garden it is of the same character but of a different pattern. 
 Between the projecting windows are others flat, so that the 
 whole front is taken up with a series of lights, those on the 
 ground-floor being interrupted only by the entrance. These 
 windows are formed by stone mullions ; two transoms in each 
 opening running along the whole front. The chimneys are 
 plain and square, set corner-wise. There are two gables at the 
 side of the house, with four tall, plain, double-cross-mullioned 
 windows in two storeys. The back is very like the front, but 
 plainer. The entrance doorway from the terrace is the only 
 place where we see any Italian features ; two graceful but very 
 plain engaged columns standing on either side. Unlike so many 
 houses of the period, the Duke's has no courtyard, the centre 
 being occupied by a wide newel stair : an unusual and very 
 pleasing feature. The rooms are, of course, magnificently 
 lighted, and are high in proportion to their size. The ceilings 
 are beautifully decorated with plaster fret-work. The house has 
 been restored, but judiciously, and has been always kept in good 
 order. There is not, except in a kind of cresting over the door, 
 and the balustrades already mentioned, an inch of ornament any- 
 where ; yet the effect is ornamental in no slight degree. The 
 whole front is about 50 feet high and about 60 wide. The 
 balustrade of the terrace is described by Mr. Blomfield (p. 185) 
 as formed of panels of stone, 3^ inches thick, pierced with open 
 work of alternate lozenges and ovals, with engaged balusters to 
 the piers, and stone urns of various designs. Of the whole 
 terrace, he tells us that "the fall of the ground is very sudden, 
 
68 Modern ArcJiitecturc in England 
 
 but that the difficulty is got ov^er in a very skiHul way " (p. 104). 
 "The house is raised 12.0 above the lower garden ; in front of 
 the house is a terrace 24 feet wide, with a flight of fourteen steps 
 in the centre, descending to a grass platform with mitred slopes. 
 The path runs to right and left, and descends to the lower 
 garden by flights of seven steps : off this path, on either side of 
 the terrace walls, two steps ascend to grass terraces 27 feet wide, 
 and 52 paces and 29 paces respectively, which run under the 
 walls of the upper gardens to right and left of the house." 
 
 It is easy to imagine the surprise and pleasure with which so 
 marked a departure from precedent must have been hailed when 
 this house was first built, and the garden laid out. There is 
 nothing, except the modest columns at the door, to identify the 
 style as more Italian than Gothic. It is, in short, Elizabethan ; 
 and from the novelty of the plan and the suitability of the whole 
 design to our climate, may as well have been the work of Thorpe 
 as of John of Padua. We cannot believe that the architect, if 
 he came from Italy, would have omitted some Italian details 
 which we fail to find. The Duke's House was built for John 
 Hall, a wealthy merchant of old family in the town, between 
 1567 and 1579, and passed eventually into the possession of 
 Evelyn Pierpont, Duke of Kingston, a great magnate in the 
 reign of George I. — hence its name and that of Kingston House, 
 used by Mr. Blomfield. The notorious Duchess of Kingston is 
 said to have been much here ; and some years ago there were 
 still reminiscences of her eccentricities among the townsfolk. 
 
 Aubrey, in his notes on Wiltshire, attributes the design to 
 John of Padua. There can be little doubt that the same 
 architect desig-ned both it and Lonsfleat. In each there is the 
 same reliance upon proportion, rather than upon ornament, to 
 
H 
 W 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 o 
 
ElizabetJian Architecture 71 
 
 insure an ornamental effect ; and though the Duke's House 
 claims our attention first, as being easier to understand, from 
 its small dimensions, and as being practically unrestored, 
 Longleat, it must be acknowledged, is far more important 
 and interesting, if only for its great size. Its chief character- 
 istics may be briefly summed up. It forms a parallelogram of 
 220 feet by 180. The ground-floor is 15 feet high, the next 18, 
 and the third 12 feet. The architecture is mainly the same as 
 that of the house at Bradford ; but of course Longleat is on a 
 much larger scale, and has not the same charm of compact beauty. 
 There is a similar absence of mere ornament, the same abundant 
 fenestration, the same beautiful parapet work, and, as compared 
 with contemporary buildings, the same freshness and originality. 
 If ever it could be said that a style was invented and did not 
 grow from something else, it might be said of the style intro- 
 duced in these two houses. At Longleat there is a certain 
 amount of use of more distinctly Italian features, such as engaged 
 columns between some of the windows and at the principal 
 entrance ; but there have evidently been reparations and altera- 
 tions at different periods. The older part, attributed to John 
 of Padua and to Thorpe, was completed by Smithson ; and, after 
 a fire. Sir Christopher Wren made many additions and improve- 
 ments. Wyatville also had a hand in it ; and it is better, on 
 the whole, as I have said, to accept, as typical of the style, 
 the Duke's House at Bradford. 
 
 Longleat and Bradford do not stand alone. They are 
 only two of a goodly company. In Cheshire and some other 
 counties where the oolite was not to be found, the style is 
 represented by Samlesbury Hall, Poole, Moreton, Agecroft, and 
 others — all of timber and plaster. In Northamptonshire and 
 
72 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 several of the adjoining counties, building stone is to be had, 
 
 and many Ehzabethan houses still exist, while a still larger 
 
 number have disappeared. Some, like Kirby, are empty ; 
 
 some, like Burghley, have been altered ; and some, like 
 
 Kenilworth, have become picturesque ruins. When we come 
 
 to real Palladian architecture and the use of the orders, we 
 
 shall find many examples in which an older Elizabethan 
 
 house has been added to or decorated ; but the abundant 
 
 allowance for window space was common to all, as well as the 
 
 use of gables, sometimes, as in Kent, curved, of intricately 
 
 designed chimneys, of flat lace-work parapeting, and the absence 
 
 of Italian cornices and engaged columns. These gables are 
 
 extremely obnoxious — 1 do not know why — to "restorers"; 
 
 and at Ingestre and many other places they have been removed. 
 
 There are a few architects' names to be noted as belonging 
 
 to this epoch. We cannot always distinguish between architects, 
 
 surveyors, and stewards entrusted with the carrying out of 
 
 designs. Tradition has handed down the name of John of 
 
 Padua. Of his work we know very little, if anything, for 
 
 certain. He came from Italy in or before 1544, and on the 
 
 30th June in that year he received from Henry VIII., then at 
 
 Westminster (Whitehall), a grant of 2s. a day "for services to 
 
 the King in architecture and music." In 1549 there is a grant 
 
 from the young King Edward VI. of the same sum ; being 
 
 probably a continuation or confirmation. It is easy to form a 
 
 theory as to John and his career. We may suppose he came, like 
 
 so many others, to Henry VIII. as a musician; and having, in 
 
 common with most of his compatriots, a turn for art, he may 
 
 have offered his services to the King and other English 
 
 employers of architects. He may, and probably did, offer to 
 
Elisabethau Architecture 73 
 
 build after the manner of Italy — an undertaking he would be 
 unable to fulfil unless he had learnt the art at home. That 
 he had vague recollections of the beautiful buildings rising in 
 Venice, in Florence, in his own Padua, is likely enough ; but 
 there is a complete absence of any evidence that he was 
 acquainted with Vitruvian, or even Palladian teaching. No 
 such design can be found among the buildings which have been 
 attributed to him. If, for example, he was an architect educated 
 in Italy, why did he build Longleat — assuming the fact, for an 
 instant — without arched or angular pediments to the windows, 
 without an Italian cornice, and with engaged pilasters of no 
 particular proportion and in no particular style ? He deserves 
 credit for an original design ; but, as I have pointed out, it is as 
 little Classical as it is Gothic. Apart, however, from the two 
 entries of royal grants, and from the persistent traditions above 
 mentioned we have no precise information. Mr. Papworth 
 mentions his name doubtfully in connection with Somerset Place 
 in the Strand, of which nothing remains, and also with Sion 
 House, now completely altered, with Longleat, and with Brad- 
 ford. Further than this we have nothing ; and in passing on to 
 the next name on our list, we may just pause to recall the pretty 
 old legend that John of Padua died while sitting tranquilly jn 
 the garden of Longleat and watching the work of his masons. 
 
 Next in order, many would be disposed to place John 
 Thorpe ; but he belongs strictly to the next chapter, as do the 
 two Shutes and Robert Smithson. Henryck is mentioned by 
 Lord Burghley, and was probably employed to design more 
 than a bay window at Burghley House. He had been brought 
 over by Gresham for his Royal Exchange, and came from 
 Antwerp ; but of his further history we know nothing. There 
 
74 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 is a certain interest attaching to the "masons" who actually 
 superintended the erection of Burghley and Cobham and other 
 great country houses. If, as Mr. Gotch beHeves, the surveyor 
 or architect did Httle except plot out, plan, or, in Shakespearean 
 phrase, " draw the model," the execution was entrusted to the 
 master mason, and under him were the carpenters, the glaziers, 
 the makers of leaden cupolas and images, the plasterers, and the 
 carvers. The architect made no drawings of details, and all 
 such things were handed over to "a local agent or foreman, or 
 clerk of the works, who hired labour on behalf of the building 
 proprietor, overlooked the men for him, made bargains with 
 them for doing the work, and paid them from time to time." 
 So far, the old traditions lingered. The architect probably 
 imparted, as far as he could, an Italian air to his general outline, 
 to his domed turrets, and to any porches or other features which 
 would bear a design of pillars and arches. But the Flemish 
 and Italian plasterers, with in some cases the wood-carvers, who 
 were also often foreign importations, would alone understand 
 the object of the architect. The rest of the work would retain 
 an air of the Gothic style in which the artificer was brought up ; 
 and so we have the fascinating combinations which were bound 
 to result — combinations of skilled single-minded workmen who 
 had learned that certain things were good, certain things bad, 
 and that, as I have had so many occasions to observe, even 
 thus early in my book, there was only "one style, namely, the 
 best. It is rather to this straightforward disposition of the 
 workmen, and to the influence of a competent overseer, that we 
 must attribute the beauty of these Elizabethan houses. At 
 Burghley we have Peter Kemp ; at Cobham, Richard Williams ; 
 and at Hatfield, Robert Liminge. One other influence must be 
 
Elizabethan Architedttre 75 
 
 mentioned. As Mr. Gotch observes, these overseers wrote 
 for instruction and to report progress not to any architect, but 
 to their employer. It is to the taste and hberality of such men 
 as Burghley and his sons, to Hunsdon, Stafford, Tresham, and 
 other weakhy amateurs, rather than to Thorpe, or Shute, or 
 Smithson, that we owe the best of these ornaments of our land : 
 the worthy exponents in architecture of the new birth which 
 influenced poetry, the drama, history, music, and all the other 
 arts in the great days before "the setting of that bright Occi- 
 dental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy memory." 
 
IV 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF PALLADIAN 
 
IV 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF PALLADIAN 
 
 The Beginnings of Palladian — The First Examples — Tombs by Torregiano — Sir 
 Anthony Browne's Monument — Mantelpieces — The Royal Exchange — Caius 
 College — Recent Vandalisms — The Gates of Humility, Virtue and Knowledge, 
 and Honour — Palladian in Fashion — John Shute — Lomazzo — Birth of Inigo 
 Jones — Gothic and Palladian — Palladio — Vitruvius — Proportions of the principal 
 Orders. 
 
 Strange to say, it is not in houses but in churches that we must 
 seek for the first efforts of the Palladian architects ; although, 
 strictly speaking, this, the latest development of Italian taste, 
 had not yet taken place, and Palladio was probably not yet 
 born. In hundreds, perhaps in thousands of cases, the fell 
 work of the " restorer" has destroyed these early monuments ; 
 but enough remain to show us how warmly the style was 
 appreciated, and how correctly it was practised before any house 
 or church had been built in it in England, and while in Italy 
 the style was still in its infancy. The first examples are the 
 three tombs by Torregiano : two of them in Westminster Abbey 
 and the third in the Rolls Chapel. Henry VII. and his 
 mother, the Countess of Derby, generally known as the Lady 
 Margaret — -" the Lady " being precisely equivalent to our phrase 
 "the Princess" — both died in 1509. John Young, Dean of 
 York, was made Master of the Rolls in the beginning of 1 508, 
 
8o Modern ArcJiitcctitrc in England 
 
 and continued in the office by Henry VIII. on his accession 
 in the following year. There can be little doubt he himself 
 commissioned the tomb which Torregiano made for him of 
 terra-cotta in the Rolls Chapel; as it was completed in 1516, 
 the very year he died. As to the altar tomb of Henry VII. 
 and Elizabeth of York, in the Lady Chapel of Westminster 
 Abbey, it was simply a revelation to "those beasts of English," 
 as he contemptuously called them. It is later than the tomb of 
 Young, and was probably finished after Torregiano returned 
 from Italy, where he went in 15 18 to enlist workmen; the 
 brass-work of the grate which encloses the tomb being already 
 in place. This grating is purely Gothic, and was made by 
 Nicholas Ewen before Torregiano was brought upon the scene. 
 (See Gleanings from Westminster Abbey, p. 80.) The monu- 
 ment of the Lady Anne of Cleves, who died in 1557, is attributed 
 to Haveus, and may be reckoned one of the first of a long series 
 at Westminster in which the Italian taste predominates. Seven 
 years before, in 1550, Brigham had made the monument of 
 Chaucer in the Poets' Corner, and it is completely Gothic in its 
 features. But as far back at least as 1525 the monuments of the 
 second and third Lords Marney, who both died in 1523, were 
 set up at Layer Marney, in Essex, in an advanced Italian style, 
 and of terra-cotta. 
 
 If we assume, as we may, if only for the sake of advancing the 
 clearness of a negative conclusion, that the first distinctly Palladian 
 building, as distinguished from Elizabethan, is Caius College at 
 Cambridge, begun probably by Haveus in 1565, — although, as 
 I have said, true Palladian was as yet unknown, — we shall be 
 surprised how much earlier purely Italian monuments appear 
 in churches. We can hardly reckon the terra-cotta tomb at 
 
STEWART MONUMENTS ELY CATHEDRAL. 
 
 M 
 
TJie Beginnings of Palladia n 83 
 
 o 
 
 Arundel, but the Dormer monuments at Wing in Bedfordshire 
 date between 1541 and 1552. The monument at Castle Head- 
 ingham to the fifteenth Earl of Oxford, who died in 1539, though 
 it is not Gothic, can hardly be described as Palladian. But the 
 Audley monument at Saffron Walden, which has many points 
 of resemblance to the tomb of Henry VH., cannot be dated 
 much later than 1544. Several Darcy monuments must have 
 been set up at about the same time in the church of St. Osyth. 
 The date of Sir Anthony Browne's sumptuous tomb in Battle 
 Church in Sussex can be fixed with greater certainty ; because 
 it was made in his lifetime to commemorate his wife Alls in the 
 first place. She died in 1540, and Sir Anthony himself in 1548, 
 so that the work must be placed between those years. He 
 had married, secondly, "the Fair Geraldine," Lady Elizabeth 
 Fitzgerald. As this marriage took place in 1543, it seems 
 not unlikely that the tomb was completed by that time. Lady 
 Elizabeth did not take the pains to fill up the date of Sir 
 Anthony's death. At Borley in Essex there are some fine 
 tombs of members of the Waldegrave family, the latest of 
 which, a beautiful arrangement of six composite columns, must 
 be dated before the end of the century. At Chipping Hill, 
 in the same county, there are excellent examples : one of them 
 with a most carefully proportioned tablet which must assuredly 
 have been designed by the architect of the Borley monument. 
 The Rich memorial at Felstead is perhaps the best of those 
 figured by Mr. Chancellor in his splendid volume on Essex 
 Sepulchral Monuments. It is dated 1568, but was probably 
 put up a little later. Some of the Stewart monuments in Ely 
 Cathedral are of the same period. For other examples, I must 
 refer the reader to Mr. Chancellor and to local church histories ; 
 
84 Modern Arcliitccturc in England 
 
 but enoueh have been cited to show that very pure ItaHan 
 taste was already abroad before the commencement of the 
 first Classical building in England. 
 
 Scarcely behind church monuments in assuming a Classical 
 garb were mantelpieces, — in ftict.it is only by a careful comparison 
 of the best dated examples that I have arrived at the conclusion 
 that the monuments precede them. Some of these Elizabethan 
 chimneypieces are extremely quaint and picturesque ; but the purer 
 Palladian taste and feeling do not come in till a comparatively 
 late period. The fireplace was a favourite object on which to 
 bestow a subtle device, or to display a redundance of heraldic 
 ornament. It was thought appropriate to decorate it with 
 uncouth emblematic figures, — with Flora and Pomona, with bears 
 and lions, with cupids and nymphs, — and this fashion continued 
 long after the full measure of Classical proportion had been 
 attained by the architects. Fine examples of alabaster inlaid 
 with coloured marbles are at Loseley and at Cobham, and others 
 in plain freestone are at Haddon and at South Wraxall. Some 
 magnificent mantelpieces were in London, and a few rescued 
 from old city mansions are at South Kensington; but the 
 destroyer has of late years been very busy among them, and soon 
 there will be few, if any, left. There is one where we should 
 least expect to find it : in one of the new rooms in the western 
 buildings adjoining Westminster Hall. It is said to have come 
 fron-i the Star Chamber. A very fine example is in a bedroom 
 at Knole, and has a pointed arch. At Postlip in Gloucestershire, 
 a fine armorial mantelpiece of the local stone is figured by Nash. 
 One of oak, at Speke in Lancashire, is dated 1598, and there is a 
 beautiful chimneypiece in the Charter House. It would be easy 
 to multiply examples : they occur even in comparatively small 
 
SOUTH WRAXALL 
 
Tlie Begimiiiigs of Pal Indian 87 
 
 houses, such as Cheney Court, near Box, Wiltshire, a dower-house 
 of the Spekes of Hazlebury, where the stone chimneypieces rise 
 to the ceiHng and are carved with armorial bearings. 
 
 Nothing but some very untrustworthy engravings remain of 
 Gresham's Royal Exchange. He undoubtedly brought over 
 Flemish artists to design and build it, and he also probably 
 brought Haveus, the architect, who is already mentioned as 
 having been employed on the tomb of Anne of Cleves. Mr. 
 Papworth speaks of him as "Theodore Haveus, or Heave, of 
 Cleves." To him is attributed, rightly or wrongly, the first 
 distinctly Classical building in England — Caius College at 
 Cambridge. The authorities of that University, some twenty or 
 thirty years ago, seem to have gone on a crusade against what 
 was ancient or interesting in the fabric of their colleges and 
 public buildings. At Pembroke they destroyed the oldest relics 
 in the University, and employed a modern architect to lengthen 
 Wren's chapel — a vandalism of which we shall have more to say. 
 Other atrocities followed ; and finally, as a crown to the whole 
 movement, the precious, unique, exquisitely -proportioned little 
 buildings of Caius were handed over to the tender mercies of the 
 same hand which had ruined Pembroke. The new front is de- 
 scribed by the guides as "in the French chateau style," or " that 
 of the French baronial mansions of Francis I.," whatever it may 
 be. Without seeing it, one would say that nothing more inappro- 
 priate for the situation could possibly be conceived than a French 
 country chateau in the centre of Cambridge, in close proximity 
 to two of the greatest architectural ornaments of the University, 
 — King's College chapel and the Senate House, — to say nothing 
 of its interference with the oldest, and in some respects the best 
 Italian buildings in England. But there is little of the French 
 
88 Modcni ArcJiifccfiirc in England 
 
 or any other style about the new building. The whole thing 
 must come down, and will, when the College or University 
 authorities return to their senses ; but even pulling down will 
 not restore the chapel or the " Gate of Humility." 
 
 This gate opened into the College from the street, and was 
 part of a scheme of symbolism very characteristic of the Eliza- 
 bethan age. By humility the earnest student was to approach 
 his work. It is now in Senate House Passage, or so much of it 
 as was preserved at the removal. We need not describe it, as 
 we have no guarantee that it resembles the original erection, 
 and, judging from analogy and experience, have every reason to 
 suppose it is as much altered as any other. 
 
 But the second of these symbolical gates is fairly intact ; and, 
 as the very first building in an avowedly Italian style, it is of such 
 transcendent interest in architectural history that its preservation 
 by the present Cambridge arbiters of taste is little short of a 
 miracle. It is, in point of date, the oldest of the three, having 
 been built in 1565 ; as we read : " On Saturday, the 5th of May, 
 in the year of our Lord 1565, at four in the morning, after 
 offering up prayers to God that our College might enjoy both a 
 prosperous commencement and eventual success, and that all its 
 members might prove men of integrity, lovers of literature, 
 serviceable to the state, and fearing God, we laid the first and 
 sacred stone of the foundation." The date is given wrongly in 
 most books on Cambridge, as Mr. J. \V. Clark has proved. It 
 was finished in 1567, and has two inscriptions : one on the eastern 
 side, " Virtutis " ; and one on the western, "Jo: Caius posuit 
 Sapientice." There are two pilasters of the Ionic order, but the 
 archway between is pointed. Above are two storeys with 
 " cottage-headed " Gothic windows, and above them a pediment. 
 
GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE. 
 
 N 
 
The Beginnings of Palladian 91 
 
 At the south side is a turret set corner-wise and surmounted by 
 a small crocketed stone cupola. The whole composition is 
 extremely picturesque, and it adds to our interest to know that 
 Dr. Caius resided in the rooms over the gate until just before 
 his death, which happened during a visit to London in July 1573. 
 His body was buried in the chapel, on the north wall of which is 
 a beautiful alabaster monument with Corinthian columns and a 
 canopy. The inscription is simply, " Fui Caius," and round the 
 frieze of the canopy are the words " Vivit Post Funera Virtus." 
 This monument, in accordance with what has already been 
 observed, is in a much more advanced style than any of the 
 College buildings. The chapel which it ornamented has been 
 repeatedly altered and "restored"; and the east end, with its 
 Ionic columns and broken pediment, has been replaced by an apse 
 designed by Mr. Waterhouse in his " French chateau style." 
 The monument of Dr. Caius was removed from his grave and 
 placed high up on the wall near the chancel in 1637. 
 
 The justly famous " Gate of Honour" was not built till after 
 the death of Dr. Caius. He is said to have dictated the design 
 
 o 
 
 to his architect before his death. It is curious to observe in 
 architecture, as in many other arts, that first attempts are often 
 so good. In Egypt, the sculpture of a period so remote that it 
 cannot be dated is not only the best of its kind, but many 
 sculptors and others have acknowledged that a diorite statue of 
 a king — the first royal statue In the world — has never been 
 surpassed. So too, in our own country, some works of the 
 thirteenth century, erected while pointed architecture was in its 
 infancy, remain unapproached. This first effort to build in the 
 new style long stood by itself. There was nothing to compete 
 with it. In the present state of architectural taste it is 
 
92 Modern Architecture in Englami 
 
 not likely, in our day at least, to be surpassed. In Ireland, 
 some of the recent buildings in Kildare Street, Dublin, though, 
 like those in Cambridge, small in size, vie with anything built in 
 London since the wanton ruin of Burlington House. 
 
 The Gate of Honour is usually dated in 1574-75. ^^ consists 
 of a gateway, a storey of the Corinthian order, with a pediment, 
 and a plain stone cupola, hexagonal in plan, so as to give a very 
 pleasing and varied effect. The whole building is not above 
 30 feet in height. The lowest storey is, architecturally, the 
 most interesting ; for in the pointed doorway we see the efforts 
 of the old Gothic tradition, still prevailing doubtless among the 
 workmen employed, endeavouring to accommodate itself to the 
 Italian views of the architect. Heave, or Haveus, who has been 
 already mentioned, was probably the architect both of this gate 
 and of the others ; but it is now impossible to be certain. The 
 Gate of Honour is, of course, dwarfed by the great buildings 
 now surrounding it, but groups well with James Gibbs's Senate 
 House. 
 
 The fashion set by Caius at Cambridge was soon followed in 
 other parts of England. Little Shelford in Essex was built for 
 Sir Horatio Pallavicini in or about 1576, and is described as 
 "the first house purely Italian." Some additions to Windsor 
 Castle, now part of the Royal Library, are of this period ; and 
 the interior shows purely Italian details. The other examples 
 speedily become too numerous to be mentioned singly ; and the 
 names of great architects — Hawthorne, Thorpe, the two Shutes, 
 Smithson, and some who seem to have been simply builders, or, 
 as we should say, contractors, like Warde, Williams, and Hall, 
 who are all mentioned as working in Elizabeth's reign — have 
 come down to us. Burghley, Hatfield, Cobham, Holdenby, 
 
The Beginnings of Palladian 93 
 
 Lyveden, WoUaton, Kirby, and many hundreds of smaller houses 
 still testify to the originality of their taste, and to their eye for 
 the picturesque : a quality never forgotten, even when they tried 
 to conform to the Palladian rules as newly interpreted to them. 
 The four books of Architecture were first published at Venice in 
 1570, and rapidly became known in England. In 1550, John 
 Shute had been sent to study in Italy by John Dudley, the ill- 
 fated Duke of Northumberland; and in 1563 he published his 
 First and Chief Grounds of Architecture. It was reprinted in 
 1579 and in 1584, and must have exercised a great influence on 
 the taste of the time. In a dedication to Queen Elizabeth, he 
 says his work had been approved of by King Edward VI., 
 " whose delectation and pleasure was to see it and such like " ; and 
 he goes on to say that having made many sketches, — " trickes and 
 devises " he calls them, — he thinks it well to publish some of them 
 for the profit of other people, and adds, "Wherein I do follow not 
 onelie the writinges of learned men, but also do ground myselfe 
 on my own experience and practise, gathered by the sight of the 
 Monumentes in Italy." There is a volume of Thorpe's drawings, 
 chiefly details, in the Soane Museum. Before the end of Queen 
 Elizabeth's reign, namely, in 1578, Lomazzo's Trattato deir 
 arte delta Pictnra, Scultura, et Architectural printed at Milan in 
 1585, was translated and published in English by Richard 
 Haydocke. This book was dedicated to Sir Thomas Bodley, 
 who about the same time was engaged in rebuilding Duke 
 Humphrey's library at Oxford. There is a frontispiece or 
 engraved title with portrait of "Jo. Paul Lomatius " and his 
 translator Haydocke, who is described as a " Student in Physick." 
 The title runs thus : A Trade containing tlie Artes of curious 
 Paintinge, Carving, and Buildinge. 
 
94 Modern Arcliitcctiire in England 
 
 There can be no doubt that these publications influenced 
 the mind of a youth who, born in 1573, was destined to do 
 more than any one else to commend the Palladian style of 
 architecture to his countrymen ; but before we proceed to 
 examine the career of Inigo Jones, it may be well to pause 
 and answer such simple questions as : What are the elements 
 of Palladian, and how does it chiefly differ from the styles in 
 vogue before it, and especially that one which, for want of a 
 better name, we call Gothic ? 
 
 There is a strong similarity in all good architecture. The 
 impression to be produced by a building should be threefold. 
 We should be able to see in it harmony of proportion, an ex- 
 pression of stability, and, thirdly, ornament. In other words, a 
 building with architectural pretensions ought to be so propor- 
 tioned in plan, in elevation, and in parts to the whole, that, with- 
 out anything else, it should give to the mind of the spectator, 
 through his eyes, such a feeling of pleasure as he derives from a 
 grand or sweet musical composition, or a sublime piece of poetry, 
 or a beautiful painting. This impression is rare, but not transient. 
 It is constantly renewed by the same object, even though that 
 object presents itself differently to different minds. Long before 
 I began to analyse it, I used, at .some trouble and expense, to go 
 out of my way to obtain the pleasure of a passing glimpse of 
 Salisbury Cathedral. In poetry, can any one forget the first read- 
 ing of, say, Mrs. Browning's exquisite lyric, " He giveth His 
 beloved sleep " .'' There are not many harmonious pictures 
 painted at the present day, but who can see the Ansidei 
 Madonna without pleasure, or look at the delicately balanced 
 colours of the Waterloo Van Eyck without a thrill? When the 
 poet wrote : 
 
TJie Bcginiiiugs of Palladia n 95 
 
 My love is like a red red rose 
 That sweetly blows in June : 
 My love is like a melody 
 That's softly played in tune, 
 
 he might well have gone further and taken a third simile from 
 architecture. He might have added that she resembled a Gothic 
 spire or a tapering marble column. There v^^ould have been good 
 precedent in the Song of Solomon, where the hero is compared 
 to the tower of David, builded for an armoury, and his nose is 
 likened to " the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damas- 
 cus." But so do all the arts, if only they are true, unite with 
 poetry, and display essentially the same qualities. 
 
 These things, then, harmony and proportion, which are so 
 necessary in music, painting, and poetry, are still more necessary 
 in architecture. We are told that So-and-so does not admire 
 Gothic architecture, or does not admire Classical and the rest of 
 it. But this is pure rubbish. No cultivated man can admire 
 bad architecture, by what name soever its author may call it. 
 If the man who does not admire Classical architecture sees the 
 Parthenon, he straightway admires it — he cannot help himself 
 
 So, too, we expect in good architecture, Classic or Gothic, or 
 anything else, to see stability. A building should look secure. 
 You should feel when you approach it that it will not fall on your 
 head. Wren said building should be for eternity. 
 
 Lastly, a building should be ornamental. By "ornamental " 
 I do not mean "covered with ornament." It is surprising how 
 little applied ornament has to do with beauty. There are ware- 
 houses in the City, of recent growth, which are among the most 
 monstrously hideous erections the world has ever seen, and yet 
 are almost built of ornaments. One is in my mind at this 
 
96 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 nionient — a monument of deformity and ugliness. It has no 
 harmony, no look of stability, no real ornament. It has marble 
 columns, but they are of a length so contrary to all the rules, 
 that even their bronze gilt caj^itals will not redeem them from 
 offensive ugliness. Everything else is of the same character. 
 The architect, who, by the way, has carved his name on a corner- 
 stone, must either have been absolutely ignorant of his art, or 
 else have wished to try if Palladian rules could be violated with 
 impunity. One grudges to see such costly materials wasted. This 
 is only one of a hundred examples which may be counted in a 
 few minutes' walk through the City. Proportion is as necessary 
 to Gothic as to Classic, and the present degradation of architec- 
 ture is almost wholly attributable to its disuse. A curious 
 example occurs in a book in which we should not look for it. 
 Professor J. Henry Middleton, in his work on Illiiiiiinatcd Manu- 
 scripts, says : " The sixteenth-century tapestry in the great hall 
 at Hampton Court is a striking example of the way in which 
 gigantic figures may destroy the scale of an interior." 
 
 The mediaeval architects had very strict rules of proportion 
 at first. In the plain Early English or First Pointed style it was 
 necessary. This is particularly visible in Salisbury Cathedral 
 and may also be seen in the beautiful church of Climping in 
 Sussex, and in the slightly more highly ornamented church of 
 Skelton in Yorkshire. As time went on, architects seem to 
 have thought too much of carving and decoration, with a cor- 
 responding degradation of their style ; but there is excellent 
 proportion displayed in some Perpendicular churches, as for 
 example Wakefield, Newark, and Coventry, and there are in- 
 numerable proofs that the architects studied it carefully. 
 
 At the so-called Gothic revival of fifty years ago, proportion 
 
The Beginnings of Palladiau 97 
 
 fell into disuse, and a disastrous effect has been produced upon 
 design by the idea that detail alone is important. Few architects 
 of the revival escaped it. Hardwick, in his hall of Lincoln's 
 Inn, though it has since been much changed and spoilt by another 
 architect, and his Philological School in the Marylebone Road, 
 proves the need of proportion even in Gothic work. St. Luke's, 
 Chelsea, built by Savage in 1820, — the first revived Gothic church 
 in London, — shows excellent proportions, though poor and even 
 bad in details. But the great safety of the Palladian style lay 
 in the strictness of its rules. What was often done by chance 
 in Gothic was made certain in the style of the Renascence. An 
 architect might not be a genius, but so long as he took care not 
 to transgress the proportions laid down for him, his building 
 could not but avoid any gross error. 
 
 The main difference, in England at least, between the old 
 and the new schools, was the attention paid to proportion b)' the 
 greatest architects, the introduction of columns and pilasters 
 instead of buttresses, and a system of fenestration suited to the 
 improvement in the manufacture of glass. Tracery in windows 
 was discarded as no longer necessary, though it lingered in many 
 places in the shape of those cross-mullioned windows which we 
 see in Brympton House, which is very probably by Inigo Jones. 
 The columns and pilasters had to follow certain patterns, and 
 were of so many diameters according to the order. Cornices, 
 which in the hands of Inigo Jones and Wren became so marvel- 
 lously ornamental, superseded the parapets, pierced or embattled, 
 of the Gothic architect ; and the most beautiful of all the features 
 of the style, the portico, gave us such varieties of charm as we 
 see in St. Paul's, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, St. George's, Blooms- 
 bury, and many other buildings, religious and secular. The 
 o 
 
98 Modem Architecture in England 
 
 portico, as we see it in Apsley House and many other buildings, 
 was a useless excrescence, meaningless and expensive ; but such 
 things belong rather to the " Grecian " period, to which I shall 
 refer later on. 
 
 There was another reason why Palladian became popular. 
 It is pre-eminently the style for the Protestant church. No 
 church of the so-called Gothic revival equals in convenience for 
 congregational worship even such a comparatively poor building 
 as St. James's, Piccadilly, while Gibbs's St. Mary le Strand is 
 everything that a church should be. P^or domestic purposes, it 
 obtained a strong hold ; and where no very prominent architectural 
 treatment was required, survived till very lately, local builders 
 where good stone abounded having inherited certain tradi- 
 tions. But these traditions, under the influence of the modern 
 architect, who thinks ornament, and not proportion, is the most 
 important element in architecture, are fast fading away. The 
 anomalous style has come into existence ; and some of the most 
 hideous buildings ever laid as burdens upon the earth have been 
 and are being erected. As Garbett said forty years ago, in his 
 Principles of Design, of the architect of his day, " He makes a 
 change not for the sake of Truth, but for the sake of change." 
 
 The great Italian architect, Palladio, constituted himselt the 
 prophet of Vitruvius. It is needful, in order to understand fully 
 the learned architectural style, that we should know who these 
 two remarkable men were. Andrea Palladio, born in 1518, 
 being fond of architecture, as he tells us himself, from his youth, 
 was particularly attracted by the buildings of the ancient Romans. 
 In his opinion, they excelled all who have been since their time 
 in building well. He therefore proposed to himself Vitruvius, 
 the only Roman writer on architecture, as his "master and guide." 
 
The Begiiuiings of Pal la di an 99 
 
 His book on Architecture was published at Venice in 1570. In 
 that city, always remarkable for its architecture, Sansovino was 
 already practising. As Palladio says in his preface, it was in 
 Venice that " Messer Giacomo Sansovino, a celebrated sculptor 
 and aj-chitect, first began to make known the beautiful manner, 
 as is seen (not to mention many other beautiful works of his) in 
 the new Procuratia, which is the richest and most adorned 
 edifice that perhaps has been made since the ancients." The 
 book of Palladio was several times translated and printed in 
 England ; and Lord Burlington, having given Isaac Ware, him- 
 self a good architect, leave to see and use the original drawings 
 of Palladio in his collection, Ware was induced to have some of 
 them engraved, and to publish a folio volume dedicated to Lord 
 Burlington, and, indeed, revised by that nobleman, which contains 
 the four books of Palladio. The first relates to the five orders ; 
 the second describes some houses he had built, with comparisons 
 with those of the Greeks and Latins ; the third is concerned 
 with bridges, piazzas, roads, and other works more like engineer- 
 ing than building ; and the fourth treats of the ancient Roman 
 remains still extant in Italy. Palladio was born and lived chiefiy 
 at Vicenza, where he died in 1580. M. Quatremere de Quincy 
 says of him, that his good taste led him to take the utmost pains 
 with his plans, to adapt his designs to the wants of the time 
 and to moderate means ; that he knew how to make a building 
 grand without grand dimensions, and rich without great expense. 
 He adds, that the taste of Palladio found a second home in 
 England, where Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren, James Gibbs, 
 Burlington, Chambers, and many others naturalised his plans, his 
 facades, the happy adjustment of his forms, his profiles, his 
 proportions, and his details. His best work is now to be seen 
 
lOO 
 
 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 at Vicenza ; Ouatremere figures his Basilica there, as does 
 Fergusson, as well as his Villa del Capra. To give an idea of 
 his teaching, we may quote from Ware's translation the whole 
 
 THIENI PALACE, VICENZA. 1!Y PALLADIO. 
 
 of a chapter headed " Of the five orders made use of by the 
 ancients." 
 
 "The Tuscan, Dorick, lonick, Corinthian, and Composite, 
 are the five orders made use of by the ancients. These ought 
 to be so disposed in a building, that the most solid may be placed 
 
TJic Bcgiiiuiiigs of Palladian 
 
 lOI 
 
 undermost, as being the most proper to sustain the weight, and 
 to give the whole edifice a more firm foundation ; therefore the 
 Dorick must always be placed under the lonick, the lonick 
 under the Corinthian, and the Corinthian under the Composite. 
 The Tuscan, being a plain, rude order, is therefore very seldom 
 
 ALMERICO PALACE, VICENZA. BY PALLADIO. 
 
 used above ground, except in villas, where one order only is 
 employed. In very large buildings, as amphitheatres and such 
 like, where many orders are required, this, instead of the Dorick, 
 may be placed under the lonick. But if you are desirous to 
 leave out any of these orders, — as, for instance, to place the 
 Corinthian immediately over the Dorick, — you may, provided you 
 always observe to place the most strong and solid undermost, for 
 the reasons above mentioned. The measures and proportions 
 of each of these orders I shall separately set down ; not so much 
 
I02 
 
 Modern Architecture in En (flan d 
 
 according to Vitruvius, as to the observations I have made on 
 several ancient edifices. But I shall first mention such particulars 
 as relate to all of them in general." 
 
 This chapter from the first book will give a very good idea 
 of the views he endeavoured to impress upon his pupils. Inigo 
 
 "^ 
 
 "^ f" ' I T'*' f*** *'**i rT" 
 
 \\\ \\\\i 
 
 MOCENIGO P.M.ACK. 1)Y rAU.AUIO. 
 
 Jones, we know, had a copy of his book, and no doubt profited 
 by seeing his buildings at Vicenza, Verona, Venice, and other 
 places, as well as those also which he specially praises by Vasari 
 and Sansovino. 
 
 Very little is known of Vitruvius, e.xcept that he must have 
 lived in the time of Augustus, to whom he dedicated his ten 
 books concerning Architecture — the only Roman work on the 
 subject which has come down to us. From certain allusions he 
 
o 
 
 < -5 
 _ « 
 
 z I 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 o 
 
The Beginnings of Palladian 105 
 
 was an old man when he wrote, and was, moreover, a man of 
 short stature. 
 
 For purposes of reference, it may be worth while to give 
 the principal measurements of the different orders in use among 
 the architects of the school of Palladio. 
 
 It should be premised that different architects affected not 
 only different orders, but different proportions : Wren, for 
 example, using one— the Tuscan Doric— in many varieties of 
 proportion. 
 
 For the Tuscan, Sir William Chambers laid down the 
 following proportions : " 7^he height of the column is fourteen 
 modules, or seven diameters ; that of the whole entablature 
 three modules and a half, which being divided into ten equal 
 parts, three are for the height of the architrave, three for the 
 frieze, and the remaining four for the cornice : the capital is in 
 height one module : the base, including the lower cincture 
 (which is peculiar to the measurement of this order) of the 
 shaft, is also one module, and the shaft, with its upper cincture 
 and astragal, is twelve modules : in interior decoration, the 
 height of the column may be fourteen modules and a half, or 
 even fifteen modules." It was probably this possible variation 
 m the length of the Tuscan column which made it such a 
 favourite with Wren. 
 
 The proportions of the Ionic order are stated as follows : 
 The height of the column is eighteen modules, and that of the 
 entablature four and a half, or one quarter the height of the 
 column : if we divide the entablature into ten equal parts, three 
 are for the architrave, three for the frieze, and four for the 
 cornice. There is much variety in different examples of the 
 capital. 
 I' 
 
io6 Modern .1 n/iihriiirc in Enghmd 
 
 The Corinthian order has the same proportions, speaking 
 generally, as the Ionic, but the capital claims an entire diameter. 
 In the Composite style, the column may be as much as twenty 
 modules. 
 
 In concluding a long chapter, I cannot do better than 
 quote some expressions made use of by Professor Banister 
 I-'letchcr in opening the class of Architecture at King's College 
 in 1890. That they should have been necessary, is in itself 
 remarkable : that they should, apparently, have produced no 
 effect, is a melancholy sign of the present state of the art 
 among us : 
 
 "A building without proportion is utterly, hopelessly bad. 
 A building, no matter how simple, if in proportion, is good and 
 pleasing. A building in good proportion, and with ornamented 
 construction, is to be desired, and will give pleasure. No amount 
 of ornament, or even ornamented construction, is of any avail 
 ill producing a pleasing effect without proportion. Proportion, 
 then, is the very life-blood of Architecture. " 
 
INIGO JONES 
 
V 
 
 INIGO JONES 
 
 A List— Parentage and Name— Birth and Baptism— Visits Italy — A Landscape 
 
 Painter Proportion — In Denmark —With Prince Henry— A Scene Painter — 
 
 Surveyor-General— Numerous Drawings — Method of Working— Stage Experi- 
 ence—Arch Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields — Greenwich — Somerset House— York 
 House— Jones and Stone— New Palace of Whitehall— Design for James I.— 
 Design for Charles I.— The Banqueting Hall— A Reredos— Old St. Paul's— 
 St. Paul's, Covent Garden — Ashburnham House — Country Houses — School of 
 Inigo Jones — Death and Burial 
 
 The career of Inigo Jones has already been made the subject of 
 remark in this book, when I had occasion to mention his Gothic 
 work. We have but meagre particulars of his life and training. 
 Under what master he learned to design in so pure a style we 
 cannot tell ; but we can judge from his Gothic work that the eye 
 for proportion, in which he excelled all his contemporaries and 
 most of his successors, was both born in him and also sedulously 
 cultivated. We have reason, moreover, to believe that he was 
 a good draughtsman, though it is by no means certain that all 
 the drawings in -the Devonshire and other collections are actually 
 by his hand. Of his buildings, few remain, and still fewer are 
 intact. He certainly made some designs for Wilton, and a 
 bridge there is undoubtedly his. At Widcombe, close to Bath, 
 there is a small, but beautiful manor-house always locally ascribed 
 to him ; but it is apparently later. I have mentioned his Gothic 
 
I lo Modern .Irchitectitre in England 
 
 <b' 
 
 work at Oxford already; but he does not appear to have designed 
 anything there in his most characteristic style, unless we assign 
 to him the porch of St. Mary's Church. In London, we had 
 many pieces well worthy of his skill ; but year by year they perish. 
 The excellent Society for Photographing Relics of Old London 
 has preserved views of several which have lately been removed. 
 Mr. Alfred Marks enumerates as his: Shaftesbury House, Aiders- 
 gate, now destroyed; Ashburnham House, in Little Dean's Yard, 
 Westminster; the Banqueting House at Whitehall ; the chapel 
 of Lincoln's Inn, which, as their chief treasure, the benchers 
 handed over for " restoration " to an amateur who had already 
 characterised Inigo's work as "horrible"; the Water Gate of 
 York House, in Buckingham Street ; and Lindsey House, with 
 possibly one or two other fronts in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There 
 are two houses very like his work in Great Queen Street. 
 Two others, locally ascribed to him, were in Great St. Helen's, 
 and were pulled down in 1892. The portico of St. Paul's, 
 Covent Garden, which has been burnt and rebuilt and finally 
 handed over to a " Gothic " architect for improvement and the 
 side entrances pulled down, with some reminiscences rather than 
 remains in the adjacent buildings of the Piazza, may safely be 
 assigned to him. The staircase of a house on the south side ot 
 Chandos Street, pulled down last year, was very likely his, and 
 was very handsome both in design and execution. He lived, we 
 know, for a time very near the spot, before the existing streets 
 were laid out. Lastly, we may trace his hand at Greenwich, 
 where Wren's noble design was specially made to include, pre- 
 serve, and complete what Jones had begun. 
 
 It has frcquendy been asserted that his father was a tailor 
 near St. Paul's, and had dealings with Spanish merchants, one 
 
W B 
 
 'C E 
 
 X 2 
 
 O -S 
 
/ 
 
Inigo Jones 113 
 
 of whom gave his Christian name to the son. This story, started 
 after Inigo's death by his friend Webb, and greatly enlarged and 
 improved by Ouatremere de Ouincy and other imaginative 
 writers, has apparently no foundation. The elder Jones was not 
 a tailor. He lived in the parish of St. Bartholomew's. He was 
 a Welshman by birth, and himself bore the name of Inigo, which 
 he gave to his son. He was a cloth-worker, and had to compound 
 with his creditors in 1589. As to the name, it resembles Jenico, 
 which is not uncommon in Ireland ; and both may be diminutives 
 of Ignatius. " Inigo " certainly occurs in Spain ; but it does so 
 also in Wales at the present day. 
 
 Inigo Jones, the architect, was born 15th July 1573, and 
 baptized fourteen days later in the church of St. Bartholomew 
 the Less : the parish of which his father, a Roman Catholic, was 
 an inhabitant. Inigo, the elder, was not fortunate in business, 
 and his son, the younger Inigo, was apprenticed to a joiner. By 
 some means, with which we are not acquainted, he contrived or 
 deserved to attract the attention of that popular young noble- 
 man, William, third Earl of Pembroke of his family. Pembroke 
 sent him to Italy to study landscape painting, so far as we can 
 judge ; and his " travelling scholarship " was continued by 
 another great noble who wished to be a patron of the arts, 
 Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, by whose help, apparently, 
 he was able to visit Venice. But we know wonderfully little 
 about his early life and career. He painted a few landscapes, 
 which are still extant, and, no doubt, many more which have 
 perished ; and his art seems to have been of that picturesque 
 or scenic character which is so little in vogue at the present day — 
 the art of Claude and Poussin. He wanted to obtain the utmost 
 possible amount of effect with the least possible amount of cost, 
 Q 
 

 114 
 
 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 and set himself to find out how to attain such an object. This 
 was a study closely akin to architecture. 1 1 has little — too little — 
 connection with either the art or the architecture most in fashion 
 now. The coloured photographs which crowd the walls of the 
 Academy at the present day, would have had no more charm for 
 him than for his great contemporaries — Claude, or Shakespeare, 
 or Bacon. He learned, we know not where, without great 
 expense or great trouble, how a cloud -capt tower could be 
 taught to rise as the background of a play ; or, how a fairy land- 
 scape, far reaching by sunny rivers and high-walled cities, could 
 form a permanent scene. Such devices were unknown in England 
 at that day. He learnt them in Italy, and he learnt more. He 
 saw from his experience of people not half so rich, not half so 
 poetical, not half so noble as the contemporaries and country- 
 men of Shakespeare, that in England his art would be appre- 
 ciated properly : the art which showed them grander and more 
 gorgeously coloured and more artificially designed scenes than 
 any they could find even in their own beautiful island. But in 
 order to produce these effects, a knowledge of proportion came 
 first. Without it, he could have done nothing. With it, he 
 made a little piece of stage scenery, some thirty or forty feet 
 square, look a hundred feet — nay, a thousand. If he could have 
 walked through some of our modern streets and seen with what 
 success great theatres and international institutions are made to 
 look no larger than mud huts or thatched cottages, he would 
 have wondered what our artists had been at for three hundred 
 years. We should have had to take him to Dublin or to Liver- 
 pool to prove to him that scenic effect is still cultivated and 
 studied, though not in those places which think themselves the 
 centres of civilisation. The fiict is, and it is a fact not to be 
 
Inigo Jones 115 
 
 overlooked, that the genius of Inigo Jones, like the genius of 
 Wren and Newton, of Mulready and Turner, of Watt and 
 Herschel, consisted in the power of concentrating the mind 
 upon a problem till it was solved, of taking infinite pains until 
 the desired end should be attained. Too many of our modern 
 artists and architects forget this fact. They will not "take 
 thought." And why should they? The general public do not 
 ask for it. The artist's and the architect's employers do not 
 require it. All such things as harmony of colour in painting and 
 of proportion in architecture have been thrown aside. No doubt, 
 they are troublesome things to study ; and if the man who 
 employs the artist is ignorant of them, why should time be 
 wasted over them ? But we too often omit one important point. 
 Let a man be ever so ignorant about proportion, yet when it is 
 presented to him he recognises its superiority, just as a man who 
 has never heard good music can admire a sweet air the first 
 time he hears it. Without proportion, Jones could not have 
 influenced the taste of his time as he did. But, undoubtedly, 
 there existed a few men, and they chanced to have wealth and 
 influence, who knew good art when they saw it, and accepted it 
 when Inigo offered it to them. His contemporaries are loud in 
 his praise ; and many buildings are attributed to him, even in 
 foreign countries, that he can never have been concerned with. 
 His journey to Denmark assigns to him the castle of Fredens- 
 borg and the Bourse of Copenhagen ; and his possible visit to 
 Scotland, as a member of the suite of the Princess Anne of 
 Denmark, makes him the designer of Heriot's Hospital. 
 
 As a fact, however, we do not know of his designing 
 at this period anything more important than the scenery of 
 masques. In 1605, he was thus employed at Oxford. In 16 10, 
 
1 1 6 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 he was a kind of stage-manager for the Queen and Court at W^hite- 
 hall, and had his memorable quarrel with Ben Jonson. About 
 this same time he was appointed Surveyor to Henry, Prince of 
 Wales. On the prince's death, he returned to Italy, where the 
 Italians seem immediately to have appreciated his genius ; and 
 two buildings at Leghorn are pointed out as his. Some are also 
 ascribed to him at Venice, but all on slender grounds. 
 
 Returning to England, he became Surveyor-General in 1615, 
 and from this time devoted himself to architecture. 
 
 Among his first works for the Government, was an alteration 
 of the Star Chamber at Westminster ; and he made a complete 
 design for a new building. The drawings are now at Worcester 
 Collesfe, Oxford, but were never carried out. It is worth while 
 here to remark upon the large number extant of the drawings of 
 Inigo Jones; and, moreover, upon the fact that of them all, 
 hardly any represent works accomplished. The Duke of 
 Devonshire inherited a great many from Lord Burlington. 
 Others are in the British Museum, and in the Royal Library at 
 Windsor Castle. But of them all, not one seems to have been 
 carried out. It is true, the Banqueting House at Whitehall, 
 and Ashburnham House at Westminster, are very nearly what 
 he left in drawings, but they are not exactly so ; and it has been 
 suggested that his drawings were used up and worn out by the 
 workmen employed in carr)ing them out. I have already, follow- 
 ing the lead of Mr. Gotch, endeavoured to show that, among the 
 predecessors of Inigo Jones, working drawings of the modern 
 kind were not in use. Workmen had their traditional rules, and 
 followed them according to the department on which they were 
 employed. But in buildings like those of Jones, where the 
 most delicate proportion was to be the chief feature, and mere 
 
Q 
 M 
 
 
 2 
 
 J 
 O 
 
 u 
 
 z 
 
Inigo Joucs 119 
 
 ornamental workmanship a trifling detail, drawings with careful 
 measurements were necessary. Before his time, architectural 
 drawings were practically unknown. W'e have no drawings 
 of the great churches of the middle ages. A few occur in 
 France and Germany ; and their rarity does but prove the rule. 
 Since the time of Inigo Jones, they have abounded in England. 
 This leads us by inference to a further fact. The carvers, the 
 lead-workers, and the glaziers of King's College Chapel or of 
 Middle Temple Hall set the patterns of the works they executed 
 themselves. They wrought according to the traditions of their 
 forefathers and predecessors. But Inigo Jones was anxious 
 that everything in a house which he designed should be his. 
 He could allow nothing of a " rule of thumb " kind. Everything, 
 down to the balusters of the staircase and up to the plaster-work 
 of the ceiling, must be drawn to scale, and, what was more, must 
 be executed by the workmen according to the drawings. In the 
 seventeenth century, as two hundred and fifty years later, we 
 may be sure that the British working man, while professing the 
 most advanced ideas in politics and in all commercial matters 
 except that which concerned himself, was as averse to any 
 mechanical innovation as if he had lived in the reign of Queen 
 Victoria and been called a Radical. But here Inigo's previous 
 career enabled him to carry out and maintain a change which 
 has ever since prevailed. He had been obliged, in designing 
 the scenery of stage plays and masques, to insist on the closest 
 accuracy on the part of the workmen he employed. Any one, 
 who has ever endeavoured to make the background of a 
 theatrical piece, will bear me out when I say that an error of a 
 couple of inches may mar the whole illusion. This Inigo Jones 
 knew well. His men were accustomed to do implicitly what 
 
I20 
 
 Mode I'll Anliitecture in England 
 
 he bid them. His working drawings superseded the old arrange- 
 ments. It was no longer a case of surveyor and workmen, each 
 skilled in his own department ; but it was a case of architect, and 
 architect alone. In this way Jones led up to Wren. After 
 Jones's time, drawings were the rule. The result was twofold. 
 Where an architect was an artist, he might feel sure his work was 
 adequately rendered. Where he was — well, I will not mention 
 the men who are in my mind, but say — a builder, he no longer 
 had the skilled artisans of the time of Queen Elizabeth to make 
 things right for him. A house or a church, however poorly 
 designed, which had good carving, lead-work, masonry, and 
 mouldings, was still tolerable. But under the new system, which 
 I think is to be attributed to Inigo Jones, a bad architect could 
 make good workmen perpetrate bad things ; and, on the other 
 hand, Wren and some of his school, who could not possibly have 
 done what they did under the old system, were able to design 
 and carry out buildings which have ever since been a joy to us 
 all. We must put the gain against the loss ; but it is needful to 
 remember that Inigo Jones not only revolutionised our old 
 architecture, but that he revolutionised our old workmen, and 
 that Wren and his school would have been impossible but for 
 him. The old system rapidly died out. 1 have mentioned 
 buildings at Oxford which continued to be made in the ancient 
 fashion ; but by degrees working drawings superseded every 
 other method, and Wren could count on the closest fidelity to 
 his designs. In one particular, as we shall see, he reverted for a 
 reason to the old way ; and when he found a great artist like 
 Grinling Gibbons, he left him at liberty to follow the bent of his 
 inclinations and his genius. As a result, we have the glorious 
 series of carvings which so greatly adorn St. Paul's. 
 
Inigo Jones 
 
 121 
 
 In 1615, Inigo Jones took up the office of Surveyor, and had 
 a house in Scotland Yard. He seems to have been very active 
 in the practice of his profession for many employers besides the 
 Government. Of his London work, but Httle remains. The 
 western side of Lincoln's Inn Fields was certainly his ; but only 
 a few fragments of "Arch Row," sadly mutilated and plastered 
 over, can be identified by the fleur-de-lis and rose he placed on 
 them in honour, it is said, of the King and Queen. His Lindsey 
 House, in the same row, is better visible. The same Ionic order 
 is employed ; but here he ornamented it with wreaths on each 
 capital. The house is now divided, and the beautiful centre 
 window is built up. In 161 7, he commenced to work at 
 Greenwich, where he built the Queen's House, which now 
 forms the centre of the Royal Naval Schools. Some parts of 
 the Hospital buildings are also of his design, but were completed 
 after his death by Webb. In the Strand, Inigo Jones built the 
 Queen's palace of Somerset House, of which several views are 
 extant. Chambers appears to have followed them in designing 
 the Strand front of the present building. He also built York 
 House, on the site now covered by Buckingham Street, for the 
 Duke of Buckingham, and designed the beautiful Water Gate, 
 carved with the Villiers arms, which now stands in a kind of pit 
 at the foot of the street, and is best seen from the gardens of the 
 Embankment. This gate has often been attributed to Jones's 
 friend Stone, the best sculptor of the day, who is known by 
 other fine works in London. But there can be no doubt that, 
 though the carving is by Stone, the design is by Jones. Many 
 other houses, great and small, have been attributed to Inigo; 
 but the great work of his life is to be found in the two sets of 
 drawings he left for a new royal palace at Whitehall, made, the 
 
 R 
 
122 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 first for James I., in and after 1619, the second for Charles I., 
 twenty years later. 
 
 Three sets of prints from these designs are well known and 
 not uncommon, and will be referred to here ; but there are 
 separate drawings, as well, in the collections which have not 
 been published. There are discrepancies in the various sets of 
 prints ; and they also differ from the single view of the Banqueting 
 Hall in the first volume of the Vitriivius Britanuictis. Nor is 
 this all : there are some important differences between all the prints 
 and the actual elevation as accurately set forth in photographs. 
 
 Of engravings in which the Hall appears as part of a great 
 design, we may compare those of Kent and of Campbell's Vitru- 
 vius (vol. ii.). There is no letterpress to the Kent view, except 
 to say that this particular print shows " the front of one side of 
 the Palace, within the Great Court, and section of the buildings 
 at each end of it, with the side of the towers." We see buildings 
 repeated within this court which closely resemble the Hall, 
 except that there is a doorway in the centre on the ground 
 storey of each. By the plan, we learn that the resembling 
 buildings were different internally, and that the farthest from 
 Charing Cross, the more southern, was broken up into apart- 
 ments. But on further examination, we discover that, while the 
 northern building answers to the Banqueting Hall that now is, 
 there was to be a corresponding building exactly opposite on the 
 other side of the same Grand Court ; and this was to be the 
 Chapel. The existing Hall was thus to be only one of four 
 minor features of a court of altogether gig feet 3 inches in length, 
 the internal measurement being 740 feet ; and the great features 
 were to be two elevations facingf each other on the rioht and 
 left, containing grand state apartments, as fine again as the Hall 
 
■■d 
 
 3 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
Inigo Jones 
 
 125 
 
 which alone was built. The rest of the first volume of Kent's 
 Inigo Jones is taken up with the details of this grand scheme. 
 
 CENIKAL POKIION OK UKPEK SluRKV, BANlJUETI-NG HALL. \M111LHALI. 
 
 It is summarised thus in Fergusson's Modern Architcctnre : "It 
 was proposed that the palace should have a facade facing the 
 river, 847 feet in extent, and a corresponding one facing the 
 park, of the same dimensions. These were to be joined by a 
 
1 26 Modeni Arcliitccturc in England 
 
 grand facade facing Charing Cross, 1152 feet from angle to 
 angle, with a similar one facing Westminster. The great court 
 of the palace, 378 wide by twice that number of feet in length, 
 occupied the position of the street (120 feet wide) now existing 
 between the Banqueting House and the Horse Guards. Between 
 this and the river, there were three square courts, and on the 
 side towards the park a circular court In the centre, with two 
 square ones on either hand. The greater part of the building 
 was intended to be three storeys in height, each storey measuring, 
 on an average, about 30 feet, and the whole block, with podium 
 and balustrade, about 100 feet. The rest, like the Banqueting 
 House, was to have been of two storeys, and 78 feet high " (p. 257). 
 When w^e remember that this palace was not only to be con- 
 structed of the best and most costly materials, and was to be 
 finished by the greatest artists, — Rubens himself being actually 
 employed to decorate the ceiling of the Banqueting House with 
 a picture of the gods receiving James I. to heaven, — but was 
 also to equal Versailles in size, we need not wonder that the 
 treasury of England failed to sustain the burden. It was to be 
 at least twice as large as our new Houses of Parliament ; and as 
 the actual residence of a reigning king, would, of necessity, have 
 been far more magnificent. We get a good idea of what was in 
 Jones's mind from a print of large size showing the projected 
 palace in a bird's-eye view. It was published in 1749 by T. M. 
 M tiller, an engraver, together with a series showing the sides. 
 A month's study of them would teach a modern architectural 
 student more than a year in a " mock Gothic " office. The 
 whole thing is, of course, so far as substantiality goes, only a 
 scene-painter's day-dream, a pictorial poem, but well worthy of 
 examination for the improvement of the taste, the information of 
 
Inigo Jones 127 
 
 the fancy, the exercise of criticism, — for it is not without faults, — 
 but above all for an introduction to scientific proportion, the 
 harmony of architecture. Too often the modern architect knows 
 so little about it himself that he cannot teach it to a pupil. As 
 I have said, there are faults in these designs, and one of the 
 worst of them was the difficulty of making a sufficiently wide 
 archway for the old street and right of way of Whitehall ; but 
 this might no doubt have been overcome by a man of Inigo's 
 ft "ility of resource and invention. To me, the difficulty is the 
 un Mty induced by impossibility ; but here again, though the 
 wholv. *" his delightful tale could not come true, each single in- 
 cident w, s beautiful and poetical in itself, and the only fragment 
 which we have has been a source of pleasure to men of taste for 
 centuries. 
 
 The next engravings in which we find the Hall represented 
 as part of a great design are of a very different character. The 
 prints so far described relate to the design made for James I. in 
 or soon after 1619. In Campbell's Vitrnviiis Britatuticus we 
 have a design thus marked on the plate : " The Elevation of a 
 Design for the Palace at Whitehall towards the Park, as it 
 was presented to His Majesty King Charles I. by the famous 
 Inigo Jones, Anno 1639." Fergusson characterises this as the 
 work of Jones's decline, which it is not, and as " the impoverished 
 makeshift " forced from him by the troubles of the times, which 
 it may be. But it has points of great beauty and shows more 
 experience and more of that power of designing without excessive 
 ornament which he had first displayed at Covent Garden. This 
 second of the two designs, that for Charles, had only two of the 
 four Banqueting Hall elevations, and came but just up to the 
 edge of the street of Whitehall. There are difficulties in recon- 
 
128 Modern ArcJiitectnre in England 
 
 ciling the letterpress with the engravings ; but the difficulty 
 about the narrow archway through which the roadway from 
 Charing Cross was to run to Westminster, of which Fergusson 
 says so much, was got rid of by abolishing all that was to stand 
 west of that line, by making the Banqueting Hall and its com- 
 panion, a chapel, open to the street, and by constructing midway 
 between them a very handsome gateway two storeys high into the 
 principal court. The side toward the river was to be plain but 
 handsome, and very picturesque ; the design of the corner towers 
 and the cupolas being as good as anything in the Jacobean 
 drawings. The engraver has neglected to put the points of the 
 compass on his plate, which is calculated to puzzle the reader, and 
 evidently has puzzled Fergusson and others ; but assuming that 
 the Banqueting Hall was the building in the print to the left of 
 the gateway, it will be evident that the whole palace was intended 
 to cover only about half the space of the palace originally pro- 
 jected by James I. It was to be two storeys high throughout 
 above the basement. 
 
 The Hall is i lo feet long by 55 feet, and the same in height. 
 It is thus a double cube — a very perfect proportion in itself, and 
 one which Barry judiciously adopted for the principal chambers 
 of his Palace of Westminster. The back and front are alike, 
 and show two storeys above a massive but not rusticated base- 
 ment. The first floor is Ionic, the order being beautifully 
 designed and carved in his best manner by Nicholas Stone, who 
 acted as master mason. The upper storey is Composite, and 
 there is a carved wreath, forming a frieze between the columns, 
 of which four in the centre are engaged, three at each end being 
 Hat pilasters. The windows in the lower range are alternately 
 round and pedimentcd, those of the upper storey being flat. 
 

 mm).^m!l^ it^??i;gi, jMj^LJHk^^ mnii.^^mm^l _ ;___,^x^!^Tg^ 
 
 *-=t 
 
 PORTICO, OLD ST. PAUL'S. BY INIGO JONES. 
 
Inigojoiies 131 
 
 The parapet is finished with a balustrade, and was probably 
 intended to have been decorated with statues. About 1724 the 
 Hall was first fitted up for a chapel ; the original chapel of the 
 palace having been on the river face. For this older chapel 
 Jones had designed a beautiful altar-piece or reredos, which was 
 given eventually to Westminster Abbey, where it was destroyed 
 some years ago by way of "restoration," and the present un- 
 sightly and poverty-stricken erection substituted. Jones did 
 not, of course, fit up Whitehall for a chapel ; and the chief 
 decorations, except Rubens's ceiling, were, no doubt, by Sir 
 John Soane, who carried out extensive works in 1829. 
 
 The repair of old St Paul's was carried on by Inigo Jones 
 during a series of years. Accepting the Norman nave as a 
 building of Romanesque character, he added to it a magnificent 
 western portico, which must assuredly have been the most 
 beautiful of its kind in England. It consisted often monolithic 
 Corinthian columns in front, the corner columns being square, 
 and stood out well, with three intercolumniations at the sides. 
 In the course of his work on the Cathedral, Inigo Jones pulled 
 down a portion of the church of St. Gregory, which stood in way 
 of his portico ; and his action was bitterly complained of by the 
 parishioners. The portico was completed in the same year, 1631, 
 as the church of St Katharine Cree ; and if Jones designed both, 
 as seems very probable, the proof afforded of his versatility is 
 remarkable. The same year also saw the building of St Paul's 
 in Covent Garden : a very curious church in several respects. 
 Like Whitehall, it has been severely restored ; but its salient 
 points are still visible. There is an account in Vitruvius of a 
 style in vogue in Etruria ; but no example was known to exist. 
 In the British Museum, among some Roman marbles, there is a 
 
132 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 bas-relief which shows a house in what must be the style 
 Vitruvius describes as " Tuscan." From the description of 
 Vitruvius, Jones made out certain characteristics, such as the 
 massive columns and the overhanging eaves. He had orders 
 from Lord Bedford to make a very plain building, — a barn, in 
 fact, — and is said to have replied, " You shall have the handsomest 
 barn in England." Walpole tells this rather idle tale. There is 
 no reason to doubt that Jones designed his church to harmonise 
 with the piazzas and other buildings of the square upon which it 
 looked. As the square is to eastward of the church, the portico 
 is at the east end. The architect, owing to the custom peculiar 
 to England of having the chancel at that end, was not permitted 
 to make his entrance there. The portico, in short, is a mere 
 adjunct of the square, and no integral part of the church. 
 Though Inigo's hand is very plainly marked upon the whole 
 design, it is well to observe that St. Paul's has been subjected to 
 repeated alterations. It was almost rebuilt in 16S8. Lord 
 Burlington restored the portico in 1727. The whole fabric was 
 renewed in 17S8, by Hardwick. Finally, it was burnt down in 
 1795, and rebuilt by the same architect. A modern architect 
 was employed on it in 1S72, and carried out extensive alterations ; 
 and, in 1888, the west end turret was taken down, and the red 
 brick of the walls was refaced and coloured. A hideous cast-iron 
 railing at each side replaces the original walls and arches. 
 
 The building has been alternately praised and abused. One 
 architect, Ralph, considered it the most perfect piece of architec- 
 ture that the art of man can produce. Horace Walpole thought it 
 wanting in dignity or beauty. Brayley, a good and impartial judge, 
 says it forms a striking object viewed from the market-place, and it 
 is known to have excited Lord Burlington's deepest admiration. 
 
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Ini go Jones i35 
 
 The following more technical description is mainly taken 
 from Brayley. The portico on the eastern front consists of two 
 lofty columns and two square piers of similar character, support- 
 ing an angular pediment. The pillars diminish considerably 
 towards the capitals. The interior is very plain ; the chief 
 entrance being from the west end. The ceiling is flat. The 
 Tuscan style allowed the frieze to be dispensed with, and other 
 elements of cost to be omitted ; while the projection of the roof 
 enabled the architect to obtain considerable picturesqueness, as 
 well as dignity. The roof, covered with slate, was formerly of 
 tiles, which must have added greatly to the effect. 
 
 Fergusson, whose praise of this building is not very warm, 
 adds sensibly: " No one can mistake its being a church ; and it 
 would be extremely difficult, if possible, to quote another in 
 which so grand an effect is produced by such simple means." 
 
 There is no doubt as to Inigo's own opinion. He desired, 
 by his will, that on his monument in the church of St. Benet, 
 Paul's Wharf, should be placed views in relief of the portico of 
 St. Paul's and of the church of Covent Garden. 
 
 Ashburnham House stands within Little Dean's Yard at 
 Westminster. Its exterior is of brick, unrelieved by ornamental 
 features. At one time, as in all Jones's work, the proportions 
 were sufficient to call attention to it ; but the addition of a storey, 
 and other changes, deprived it even of this characteristic. The 
 last canon who lived in it seems to have done his best to preserve 
 what was left. It now belongs to the school, and is taken 
 excellent care of, and freely shown. The late Sir Gilbert Scott 
 is said to have doubted that it was designed by Jones ; in other 
 words, he wanted to pull it down, but additional proofs have 
 come to hand. Nevertheless, it is right to mention that Batty 
 
136 Modern Ajxliitccturc in England 
 
 Langley, in 1737, says it was built by Webb from Jones's 
 designs. To this opinion Mr. Marks also seems to incline. 
 
 The hall is not remarkable, being merely a well-proportioned 
 rectangular apartment. The staircase, which opens from it on 
 the eastern side, is the principal feature of the design. The 
 house, it is clear, was built on part of the site of the Refectory of 
 Westminster Abbey ; and a thick wall of mediaeval masonry 
 divides it longitudinally. Remains of something like a buttery 
 hatch still remain on the ground - floor. The staircase is 
 described in precise language in Britton and Pugin's Edifices 
 (ii. 90). " Of nearly a square shape, with four ranges of steps, 
 placed at right angles one with the other, and as many landings, 
 it was the passage from the ground to the first floor. Its sides 
 are panelled against the wall, and guarded by a rising balustrade : 
 the whole is crowned by an oval dome, springing from a bold 
 and enriched entablature supported by a series of twelve columns. 
 At the landing are fluted Ionic columns." The uppermost 
 landing gives access to a dining-room by a very deep doorway 
 cut through the refectory wall. The alcove in the dining-room 
 Is by a later hand. Another doorway admits to the anteroom ; 
 and that, by a beautiful doorway, to the drawing-room, in which 
 there is a richly ornamented ceiling by Inigo, formerly sur- 
 mounted by a small oval dome or lantern, removed no doubt 
 when the upper storey was added to the building. Views of 
 Ashburnham House, within and without, appear in many books, 
 such as Ware, Batty Langley, Smith's Westminster, Britton and 
 Pugin, and others. The staircase has been many times imitated ; 
 and certainly no better model can be conceived. It has been 
 introduced also into pictures. Mr. Laslett Pott makes it the 
 ?,c&nQ. o'i\{\'~, Disinherited. Sir John Soane had large drawings 
 
z 
 
 J 
 
 o 
 
I ni go Jones 139 
 
 made of it for his lectures at the Royal Academy. They are 
 now with the lectures in the Soane Museum. There are five 
 views of Ashburnham House in the series published by the 
 Society for Photographing Relics of Old London. 
 
 A house in St. Martin's Lane, No. 31, is said to be by Jones, 
 but is not very interesting. In 1634, he designed a monument 
 for St. Giles's-in-the-Fields to commemorate his friend, George 
 Chapman the poet. He is also often credited with the stables 
 of Kensington Palace, then Nottingham House ; but it is pretty 
 certain that for " Kensington " we should read Kennington, 
 where Prince Henry had a house. Charlton House, near 
 Greenwich, is also attributed to him, with the Fellows' Lodgings, 
 Christ's College, Cambridge, and with Brympton, a manor-house 
 in Somerset. A portion of Brympton is very like his work. 
 
 In the country, Jones's best piece of work is a little Ionic 
 bridge at Wilton, exactly imitated by Wood at Prior Park, near 
 Bath. He carried out some work at Wilton House, but not 
 very much ; and both there and at Amesbury and Greenwich, 
 buildings from his design were executed after his death by 
 Webb. The central block of Cobham Hall, near Gravesend, 
 containing the beautiful Music Room, is always, though without 
 absolute proof, attributed to him. It groups charmingly with 
 the older work, with its engaged Corinthian columns, its cornice 
 and its doorway. At Cambridge, the Pepysian Library at 
 Magdalen has been very doubtfully assigned to him ; and at 
 Oxford, the beautiful porch of St. Mary's Church. A porch at 
 Magdalen used to be called his. It was destroyed some years 
 ago, and a so-called Gothic design by Pugin substituted. It is 
 very ugly and unsuitable. There is a gateway in the Botanic 
 Gardens, opposite Magdalen College, which resembles his work. 
 
140 Modern Architectitrc in England 
 
 Two or three country houses are, or have been, very like his 
 work. Of Coleshill in Berkshire we cannot be sure, though it 
 is positively asserted to have been built by Jones in 1650, and 
 certainly looks very like his handiwork. Lord Burlington 
 believed in Coleshill, and employed Ware to make drawings of 
 it (see Vit. Brit. v. 86). A gateway at Holland House is by 
 Jones, having been carved by Stone, and another gateway, 
 removed from Beaufort House, Chelsea, was presented by Sir 
 Hans Sloane to Lord Burlington, and is now at Chiswick. 
 
 The best authorities as to the life and work of this great 
 artist are not to be found in the most popular books. Peter 
 Cunningham wrote a biography which is esteemed the best, but 
 it is rather scarce ; and as Cunningham, though he knew London 
 well, was no architectural critic, we are sometimes at a loss. 
 The best account of Inigo Jones is undoubtedly that in the 
 studiously dry article, written anonymously, in the Dictionary of 
 National Biography. It is so crammed with facts and dates 
 that it literally took me three days' hard work "to make it up." 
 It is almost without criticism, and the reader can therefore learn 
 only half, and that the least important half, of Jones's strange 
 story from it. Nevertheless, two very different, though intimately 
 associated, kinds of readers are interested in it. We turn to it 
 to learn about the history of London ; and we turn to it also to 
 help us to a clear understanding of the chief architectural 
 problems of that day. The Civil War prevented Inigo Jones 
 from founding what would now be called a school, but he left 
 traditions ; and his loyal friend and executor, John Webb, took 
 care, when settled times came again, that the great teacher's 
 name should not be forgotten. With a rare generosity, while he 
 constantly used the designs left to him that they might be used, 
 
o 
 
 H 
 
 0. 
 
Inigo Jones 143 
 
 he as constantly attributed them to " the vanished hand," and 
 did not even claim some designs in which his own share must 
 have been by far the largest. The Civil War put a stop to all 
 artistic development, and we have nothing like the brilliant 
 following which Wren left : no Hawksmoor, Gibbs, Kent, or 
 Burlington. A very good and appreciative account of the works 
 of Jones appeared in the Portfolio in 1888, from the pen of 
 Mr. Reginald Blomfield. 
 
 His popularity and fame as a great architect are curiously 
 attested by the existence, as late as the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, of a house in the Strand called after him. Dart's great 
 work, the Cathedral of Canterbury, was published in 1726 by 
 "J. Smith, at Inego Jones's Head, near the Fountain Tavern." 
 
 His last years fell on troubled times. He followed Charles 
 to Oxford at the outbreak of the war, and is said to have lent 
 the King a sum of money. We next find him shut up in Basing 
 House while it was besieged by Cromwell. He was able to 
 prove that he was not there as a belligerent, and eventually got 
 off with a fine of ^545 and a payment of ^500 to compound for 
 his estate. 
 
 On the 2ist June 1652, having been in declining health for 
 some time, he died at Somerset House in the Strand. He had 
 never married, and the bulk of his property went to cousins, one 
 of whom had married John Webb, who was a good architect 
 himself and had much assisted Inigo in his later years. He 
 inherited all his drawings and designs with an express idea that 
 they should be kept together, as they were indeed at first ; but 
 William Webb, John's son, seems to have been careless of them. 
 Clarke's collection of the drawings was bought from William's 
 widow, and was left in 1730 to Worcester College. Kent and 
 
144 Modern Architectinr in Rugland 
 
 his friend Lord Ikirlington also formed a large collection, which 
 has lately been removed, I hear, to Chatsworth ; but the Duke 
 of Devonshire exhibited a great many at the Burlington Club in 
 1884, and some more at the Royal Institute of Architects in 1892. 
 
 From Somerset House, Jones's remains were removed to 
 St. Benet's, Paul's Wharf, where they were buried with those of 
 his father, the Welshman. By a curious coincidence, St. Benet's 
 was selected a few years ago for the use of a Welsh congregation, 
 who opened it for their service in 1867. But the actual church 
 in which Inigo was buried was destroyed in the Great Fire ; and 
 the present one was built by Wren in 1683. It is in red brick, 
 and very picturesque, with carved festoons over the windows. 
 Inigo left ;^ioo for his monument, as well as ^10 to the poor, 
 and /lOO for his funeral expenses. The monument, in marble, 
 was of course destroyed with the church ; but the burial is recorded 
 in the register, 26th June 1652. 
 
 In concluding this chapter, I must refer the reader to some 
 expressions made use of by Mr. Blomfield in the articles already 
 referred to as having appeared in the Portfolio in 1888. I quote 
 them because Mr. Blomfield is a practical architect, which I am 
 not ; and 1 wish to show that what I have said as to the chief 
 merit of Inigo Jones, his sense of proportion, and as to its neglect 
 at the present day, is not too strong. Mr. Blomfield observes 
 that " in all his studies, the one point on which he concentrated 
 his energies was proportion." He resolved designs into their 
 constituent parts. He showed, for instance, that the Temple of 
 Jupiter " was based on a series of circles, and its proportions 
 arrived at by dividing the largest diameter into six parts and 
 variously recombining the parts. No man saw more clearly that 
 proportion is the keystone of architecture." Mr. Blomfield 
 
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 u 
 
Inigo Jones 147 
 
 asserts truly that what " values " are to the painter, proportions 
 are to the architect ; and he follows with a passage which I am 
 glad he has written and not I, though I agree with every word 
 of it, and could adopt it as the motto or argument of this whole 
 volume. " The Renaissance of the nineteenth century does not 
 readily take to drudgery ; it prefers its own conceits to such self- 
 abnegation, and finds it an easier and more remunerative busi- 
 ness to play to that insatiable craving for the picturesque which 
 can only end by degrading the profoundest and most permanent 
 of the arts into a mere affair of fashions. It is significant," he 
 continues, "that in his working drawings it was Inigo Jones's 
 custom to make a sketch, and then specify all the proportions of 
 the design in writing at the side. Our habit is to arrive at our 
 proportions in the process of making the drawing." 
 
VI 
 
 WREN 
 
VI 
 WREN 
 
 Wren and Oliver Cromwell — Wren and Webb — The Chapel of Pembroke College, 
 Cambridge — The Sheldonian Theatre — The Library, Trinity College, Cambridge 
 — Wren at Paris — The Great Fire — Windsor — Chelsea — Greenwich — Tlie 
 Monument — Hampton Court — Kensington. 
 
 Wren was twenty when Inigo died. We have a somewhat 
 pleasing picture of him about this time ; but it does not connect 
 him with architecture. He had already, at Cambridge, made 
 himself a name as a mathematical student, had devised an 
 astronomical instrument, and dabbled successfully in poetry. 
 In 1644, Evelyn met him, and describes him as "that miracle 
 of a youth." Miss Phillimore, in her book on S/r Christopher 
 Wren, conjectures that he must have met Inigo Jones, whose 
 portico at St. Paul's he spoke of as "an exquisite piece in itself" 
 When he came to live in London, he made acquaintance with 
 Cromwell's son - in - law, Claypole, and through him with 
 Cromwell himself, who offered to release Wren's uncle, 
 Matthew Wren, the old Bishop of Ely, who had long lain in the 
 Tower. But the Bishop would not accept the Protector's terms, 
 and continued a prisoner during the brief remainder of 
 Cromwell's life. 
 
 Architecture was at a stand-still ; yet it would seem that 
 during the Commonwealth Wren studied it, and with the same 
 
152 Modern Arcliifcctnir in England 
 
 earnestness which he brought to every pursuit in which he 
 engaged. Astronomy was, however, his chief object ; and he 
 was appointed Savilian professor at Oxford the year after the 
 Restoration, and employed himself in making a lunar telescope. 
 The same year, 1661, he was created both D.C.L. at Oxford 
 and LL.D. at Cambridge. That he was known to have made 
 some progress in architecture is proved by an event which 
 connects his name in an interesting way with that of Inigo 
 Jones. While Inigo was yet alive, the King had given, or 
 sold, the reversion of his office as Surveyor-General of Works, 
 to Sir John Denham. The office was a barren one during 
 the Commonwealth ; but at the Restoration many things had to 
 be done for which Denham was wholly unfit. Evelyn char- 
 acterises him as "better poet than architect." Webb, Jones's 
 pupil, assisted him, informally, we may suppose, and had a 
 promise of the reversion of the office. Webb seems to have 
 died before Denham ; and when Charles decided to complete 
 the building of the palace at Greenwich, it is probable that 
 Evelyn recommended Wren to the King. He did not come 
 to the office ignorant of architecture, and had now a great 
 opportunity of putting his skill to the test. 
 
 How he had learned to design, we may judge by a piece of 
 architectural work, the first in which he was ever engaged. 
 This was the chapel of Pembroke College at Cambridge. 
 Bishop Matthew Wren, his uncle, on emerging from the Tower, 
 where he had been imprisoned for eighteen years, determined, 
 as a thank-offering, to build a new chapel for his old college, 
 and employed his nephew to make the plans. A sum of ^^5000 
 was set apart ; but the chapel only cost ^3658. The old chapel, 
 repaired, became the library ; and the new one was consecrated 
 
Wren 153 
 
 by Bishop Wren, and appropriately dedicated to St. Matthew 
 on the festival of that saint (21st September), 1665. It was a 
 very interesting building, and of great importance in the history 
 of architecture ; for Christopher Wren, following, as well as he 
 could, whatever he may have imbibed from Webb and others of 
 the tradition of Inigo Jones, endeavoured to make it beautiful 
 by proportion alone, and without ornament. In this effort he 
 succeeded completely : the chapel of Pembroke for two 
 hundred years remained a standing protest against the work of 
 architects who, knowing nothing about proportion, sought to 
 cover their ignorance with excessive and unmeaning ornament. 
 Naturally, it was e.xceedingly obnoxious to the architects of the 
 Gothic revival, who of course professed to see no merit in it 
 whatever. In 1S81, the authorities of the College, who had 
 already destroyed their ancient hall, the oldest building of the 
 University, allowed a modern architect to enlarge it. This he 
 did by adding 20 feet to its length, and by stripping the 
 plaster from the exterior. The result is extremely curious, and 
 well worthy of study. What was, from its perfect proportions, 
 one of the most satisfactory buildings in Cambridge, at once 
 declined into an unmeaning rectangular structure, too long for 
 its width and height, but otherwise rather insignificant. The 
 College authorities escaped a greater danger, as one architect 
 had wanted to pull it down altogether. At the reconsecration of 
 the chapel, the service was used which, with certain pecu- 
 liarities, Bishop Wren had used at the original ceremony. 
 
 Meanwhile Wren, in the ordinary course of the business of 
 his office under Denham, had an excellent opportunity of further 
 studying the work of Inigo Jones. He was called upon to 
 repair the ravages of the Puritans at St. Paul's. Already he 
 
 X 
 
154 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 projected "a dome or rotunda, and upon the cupola, for outward 
 ornament, a lantern with a spring top to rise proportionately." 
 It would be interesting to know what he meant here by "pro- 
 portionately " ; but had his views been carried out, the pro- 
 portions would probably have been altered by some Gothic 
 architect of our own day, unconscious that proportion has 
 anything to do with architecture. The Great Plague stopped 
 all work in the city ; and before it could be resumed, the Great 
 Fire came and ruined the old church. In 1664, Dean Barwick 
 had "laid his own relics in those of his church," as his epitaph 
 said, and was succeeded by Sancroft. 
 
 Sheldon, who was at this time Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 was anxious to mark his old connection with Oxford, where 
 he had been Warden of All Souls. He accordingly com- 
 missioned Wren to design a University Theatre ; for hitherto 
 the "comitia" and the " encoenia " had been held in St. Mary's 
 Church, and the jesting usual on such occasions had been 
 carried on within the sacred walls. Evelyn visited Oxford 
 when, as he says in his Diary, the foundations had been newly 
 laid and the whole designed by "that incomparable genius, my 
 worthy friend. Dr. Christopher Wren, who showed me the 
 model, not disdaining my advice in some particulars." It was 
 on this occasion that he found Robert Boyle, Wren, and Wallis 
 in the tower of the schools, " with an inverted tube, or telescope, 
 observing the discus of the sun, for the passing of Mercury 
 that day before it ; but the latitude was so great that nothing 
 appeared." It will be perceived that Wren did not, so far, 
 let architecture interfere with the pursuit of his astronomical 
 studies. 
 
 His great object in the Theatre, which cost the Archbishop 
 
Wreu 1 55 
 
 _;^ 1 5,000, was to cover an area of 70 feet by 80 with a roof, 
 unsupported by any arch or column in the interior. The roof, 
 still one of the most extensive known, was repaired in 1802. 
 The University press was above it in a kind of loft from 1669 
 to 1713 ; and books printed at Oxford bore a view of the Theatre 
 on the title-page down to 1759. These views show a kind of 
 louvre or cupola, similar to what Wren had placed on his chapel 
 at Cambridge ; and there were large dormers. The turret 
 disappeared later, but was restored or replaced by Blore about 
 1847. The building is said to resemble in plan the Theatre of 
 Marcellus at Rome. The front, the first in which Wren 
 ventured on distinct architectural features, consists of two 
 storeys of arches and engaged Corinthian columns over a low 
 basement. The sides and back have a rusticated lower storey ; 
 and there is a polygonal apse. It was opened in July 1669. 
 
 In 1665, the year of the Great Plague, Wren made an 
 effort to improve his architectural education by a visit to 
 France, where great works were at the time in progress for 
 Louis XIV. Previously, his friend Dr. Bathurst consulted 
 him as to some alterations at Trinity College, Oxford. A 
 letter on the new buildings, in Elmes's Life, is remarkable for 
 the modesty with which Wren expresses his opinions. In it 
 he anticipates making the acquaintance of Bernini and Mansard 
 within a fortnight. By a curious coincidence, he was also at 
 work at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he built the' library 
 which forms the west side of Nevile's Court, of which Dyer 
 says in his History, " Here it was that our great master of 
 Palladian architecture, Sir Christopher Wren, surveyed his 
 own work, and was satisfied." This library is over a grand 
 colonnade of Wren's favourite Roman Doric. Wright and 
 
156 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 Jones (i. 61) justly say that it is one of the noblest rooms in 
 Europe. It is reached by a staircase of black marble, wain- 
 scoted with cedar. " In length, this room measures no less 
 than 1 90 feet, by a breadth of 40 feet ; the elevation being 
 estimated at 38 feet. At the southern extremity, it is 
 terminated by folding doors, which open to a balcony from 
 which we have a pleasant view of the College walks and the 
 river. The floor is paved with square slabs of black and 
 white marble, placed diagonally ; the doorways at the two 
 ends of the room, and the fronts of the numerous bookcases on 
 each side, are adorned with a profusion of the most exquisite 
 carvings, in lime wood, which are some of the choicest 
 specimens of the works of the celebrated Gibbons." In a 
 letter, sending some drawings to the College authorities. Wren 
 shows his attention to detail. Of the ceiling he says: "The 
 cornices divide the ceiling into three rows of large square 
 panels, answering the pilasters which will prove the best fret, 
 because in a long room it gives the most agreeable perspective." 
 
 This fine building cost about ^20,000, and was a long time 
 in hand, not being absolutely completed till the end of the 
 century. Wren gave his services gratuitously as his subscrip- 
 tion towards the expenses. The attached columns of the 
 exterior are of the Ionic order. The pilasters of the interior 
 are Corinthian. 
 
 Long before the Library of Trinity College was completed, 
 or even seriously taken in hand. Wren had paid his long-promised 
 visit to Paris. It is a remarkable fact that he never went to 
 Italy, and the only dome he can ever have seen before he built 
 that of St. Paul's, must have been that placed over the church 
 of the Sorbonne by Le Mercier. It was commenced in 1629, 
 
Wren 157 
 
 the architect, who was dead before Wren's visit to Paris, having 
 studied in Italy. It reminds us a little of the dome of the great 
 church at Florence, beinsf rather octasfonal than round. The 
 first fine dome in Paris was, no doubt, that of the Invalides, by- 
 Jules Hardouin Mansard: but it was not built till after 1680. 
 That of the church of St. Genevieve was only raised in 1 764, 
 long after Wren was dead. At his visit, he seems to have been 
 immensely taken by a design of Bernini for the Louvre. He 
 says of it : " Bernini's design of the Louvre I would have given 
 my skin for; but the old reserved Italian gave me but a few 
 minutes' view ; it was five little designs on paper, for which he 
 hath received as many thousand pistoles. " Bernini's design 
 was, however, rejected by Louis XIV., for one by a comparative 
 amateur, the physician Perrault ; and Bernini went back to 
 Rome, where he had already made the long semicircular 
 colonnades of St. Peter's. 
 
 Wren in his correspondence says nothing of a dome, nor 
 does he seem to have seen Perrault's design. A curious reflec- 
 tion here forces itself upon our minds. Did Mansard show him 
 any sketch of his future dome of the Invalides, and did Perrault 
 show him the coupled columns with which he was about to 
 ornament the east front of the Louvre ? He only mentions 
 Bernini ; and Fergusson characterises as vulgar and inartistic 
 the design which Wren appreciates so highly. Of other archi- 
 tects, he gives a few names, but says nothing about their works ; 
 and Perrault is not among them. 
 
 It is in the letter, published in the Parentalia, in which he 
 so praises Bernini, that he makes use of an expression about 
 architecture which has become proverbial, and has been already 
 quoted in this book : " Little trinkets are in great vogue ; but 
 
1 58 Modern Architectitre in England 
 
 building ought certainly to have the attribute of eternal, and 
 therefore the only thing incapable of new fashions." 
 
 But as to the dome and the coupled columns, we know 
 nothing. He used the dome, and used it better at St. Paul's ; 
 and there too he used the coupled Corinthian columns of 
 Perrault. But of all his work with coupled columns, the finest, 
 unquestionably, is at Greenwich, where he used his favourite 
 Roman Doric with such marvellous effect. It is impossible to 
 believe, therefore, that he learned much, if anything, from 
 Mansard or Perrault ; and St. Paul's, as well as Greenwich, must 
 have proceeded from a mind uninfluenced by what he had seen 
 in Paris, but working on lines parallel with those of the great 
 foreign architects. 
 
 It will not do, however, to assume that Wren learned 
 nothing by his visit to the Continent. Of course he would have 
 learned more had he been able, like Inigo Jones, to go on to 
 Italy. But, besides architects, he mentions Van Ostal and 
 Arnoldin as "plasterers who perform the admirable works at 
 the Louvre " ; and Perrot, who is famous for basso-relievos : nor 
 does he overlook the tapestry works in the Rue Gobelins, and 
 " Mons. de la Ouintin^e," who "has most excellent skill in 
 agriculture, planting, and gardening." In fact, he proposed, 
 when he returned home, to perfect some observations on the 
 state of architecture, arts, and manufactures in France : a work 
 he, probably owing to the progress of affairs at home, never 
 had time to accomplish. 
 
 For very soon after he returned, an event occurred which 
 was to send the whole current of his thoughts and energies into 
 one direction for the rest of a very long. life ; namely, the Great 
 P'ire of London. He had come back early in the spring, and 
 
Wren 1 59 
 
 was busy on the reparation of St. Paul's. He had been appointed 
 member of a Royal Commission for the purpose, together with 
 John Evelyn, the Bishop of London, and the Dean of St. Paul's. 
 The steeple was pronounced to be in a dangerous condition ; and 
 Wren, strongly supported by Evelyn, proposed to rebuild it 
 upon new foundations with a noble cupola : "a form of building 
 previously unknown in England." But before anything more 
 could be done, at ten o'clock one hot Sunday night in September 
 the Great Fire broke out. The next night it took- hold of St. 
 Paul's, greatly helped by the wooden scaffolds. On the 7th, 
 five days after the outbreak of the fire, Evelyn penetrated to the 
 City, and found Inigo's beautiful portico rent in pieces, and almost 
 the whole church, except the extreme east end, injured more or 
 less seriously. 
 
 It may be worth while here once more to combat a silly idea 
 which has gained currency during the prevalence of the Gothic 
 revival ; namely, that Inigo Jones in his portico, and Wren in 
 his projected dome, were doing anything to spoil old St. Paul's. 
 Of Inigo's portico I have said perhaps enough. It was certainly 
 not in any way incongruous, as shown us in Hollar's well-known 
 print in Dugdale's St. Patits. The whole nave, especially as 
 he recased it, belonged more or less closely to the Romanesque 
 style. In the case of the proposed dome, we do not know so 
 much. Wren might either have made it to agree with the east 
 or the west end, with the Pointed or the Romanesque half of the 
 church. It is, in fact, a pity that none of his employments led 
 him to expand, on a larger and more important scale, his beautiful 
 Tom Tower at Oxford. A dome to old St. Paul's in that style 
 would have been in many respects the most beautiful building 
 in Eno-land ; and, whether contrasted with the somewhat stiff 
 
i6o Modern Architecture in England 
 
 Perpendicular of the east end, or with the Corinthian portico at 
 the west end, would have added to the beauty and interest of 
 every view of the Cathedral. 
 
 There is no occasion to dwell on the terrors or destruction 
 of the Great Fire. We are only concerned here with the fact 
 that it gave Wren the opportunity of displaying the resources 
 of his eenius. After a long: and careful consideration of his 
 work, after comparing it with that of his predecessors and con- 
 temporaries, after throwing into the comparison the best designs 
 made since his time — I have come to a very simple conclusion. 
 Whatever Wren did he did as thoroughly as possible. His 
 genius, it has been said a hundred times, consisted in taking 
 pains. He thought out each problem as it was presented to 
 him. His minor designs have their proportions as carefully 
 fixed as those of the more important. Nothing is neglected 
 that will enhance the effect. Constantly obliged to study cheap- 
 ness, he made up for it by spending thought. His slightest 
 design was mixed, to apply John Opie's phrase, " with 
 brains." l>y the constant use of this ingredient, cheapness was 
 ennobled. 
 
 Among the poorest buildings in materials and size, we find 
 such beautiful " bits " as the east end of St. Peter's upon Cornhill, 
 or the exquisite but simple little tower of All Hallows, Bread 
 Street, lately pulled down. The destruction of many of his City 
 churches — a subject to which I shall have to revert in the next 
 chapter — has shown how careful he was that each tower should 
 have its place in relation to the towers nearest to it ; and what 
 irremediable damage has been done, by the removal of even the 
 smallest and poorest of them, to the general effect of the whole 
 number. 
 
o 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 u 
 
 o 
 
Wren 163 
 
 We had better examine Wren's domestic and public buildings 
 first, and his City churches in a chapter by themselves. His 
 library at Cambridge has already been described ; but in addition 
 he built palaces, hospitals, town halls, and private houses, all 
 characterised by the same qualities of design and execution. 
 The maximum of beauty, the minimum of cost, combined with 
 the utmost stability — those were the objects at which he chiefly 
 aimed, and aimed with success. 
 
 It is not possible to range Wren's buildings of this kind in 
 chronological order ; because most of them were undertakings of 
 such magnitude that they went on, as I might say, perennially 
 during a long life. Such were Greenwich Hospital, for which 
 he made designs in or before 1695, but which was not completed 
 till after his death ; or Hampton Court Palace, where he first 
 went to work in 1689. He was also employed at Windsor 
 Castle, and built the Town Hall of the royal borough. He 
 designed, in the plainest style, the hospital for soldiers at Chelsea, 
 the building of which went on from 1682 to 1691. But the 
 finest of all his buildings of this kind is neither a palace nor a 
 college, — it is the seamen's hospital at Greenwich. No one who 
 has an eye for stately scenic effect can help feeling an enthusiasm 
 for this beautiful work of art : the finest of the kind in Europe. 
 Marlborough House was designed in 1709. It has had storeys 
 added, which make its proportions no longer what Wren designed. 
 Kensington Palace, as we now see it, is also mainly his ; mono- 
 grams and other devices of his period being on the east and north- 
 east side : and the Orangery, a beautiful but neglected building, as 
 well as an alcove, now removed, were designed by him for Queen 
 Anne. The Monument, Fish Street Hill, simple as it looks, cost 
 Wren a great deal of thought and care. He began it in 1671. 
 
164 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 He bLiilt smaller palaces for Charles II. at Newmarket and at 
 Winchester. The latter survives as a barrack, and though devoid 
 of ornament, is of excellent proportions, which are enhanced by 
 contrast with those of some later buildings adjacent. It is curious 
 how few private houses seem to be his ; but it is impossible, 
 either at Salisbury or Chichester, not to see his hand in some of 
 the residences connected with the Cathedral. At Salisbury, 
 there is a beautiful stone-fronted house on the north side of the 
 Close, which must be his. It bears the initials C. I\I. and the 
 date I 70 1. Another house, on the west side, also looks like his 
 work. It is raised on a high basement, and consists only of one 
 principal storey, in red brick with stone corners. At St. Albans, 
 an almshouse near St. Peter's Church is probably his ; the 
 probability being increased by the fact that Edward Strong, his 
 master mason, is buried in the church. It is the epitaph on 
 Strong's monument that gave rise to the saying that St. Paul's 
 was built by one architect, under one bishop, and by one master 
 mason. The inscription, however, only says that Strong, in 
 company with Wren and Compton, "shared the felicity of seeing 
 both the beginning and finishing of that stupendous fabric." 
 This is likely enough, as his elder brother, Thomas Strong, was 
 the first master mason ; and Compton, who was then Bishop of 
 Oxford, was much about the court, where he was tutor to the 
 two princesses, afterwards Queens Mary II. and Anne. 
 
 It would be easy to make a large volume about Wren's 
 domestic architecture ; but it will suffice here to notice a few only 
 of those examples which may be singled out as having advanced 
 taste, and added to the charms we are but now beoinninor to 
 recognise in the "Queen Anne Style." If proportion was the 
 ruling motive of Inigo Jones, it was still more so that of Wren. 
 
X 
 u 
 
 w 
 w 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 w 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
Wren 167 
 
 Many of his buildings were absolutely devoid of ornament, and 
 this, too, even at the beginning of his career. Chelsea Hospital 
 was begun in 16S2. Mr. Beaver, the latest historian of Chelsea 
 (p. 277), thus speaks of it : " With very simple materials, Wren 
 has contrived to give us a building perfect in proportion and 
 dignified in effect — one on which the eye dwells with pleasure. 
 Its regularity suggests no monotony ; its simplicity, no poverty 
 of design : it bears the stamp of genius." Another writer, Mr. 
 L'Estrange, in his Village of Palaces (ii. 22), says of it : " Few can 
 pass before this noble pile of buildings, without being impressed 
 with the size, strength, and symmetry of Wren's design." For 
 it Wren is reported to have received ^1000 : for the design of 
 Greenwich Hospital, he refused remuneration, making his 
 work a contribution to the charity, just as at Cambridge he 
 had made his old college a present of his design for the noble 
 library. 
 
 Greenwich must at first have presented a very interesting 
 problem to his mind. The conditions were as follows : The 
 old palace of the Tudors has been pulled down ; a few frag- 
 ments, chiefly of outbuildings, only surviving. A new palace, 
 in a very stately style, by Webb, Inigo Jones's pupil, had not 
 very long been built, and was still in parts incomplete, though 
 Charles II. is said to have stayed for a time in the eastern 
 wing. The plan was oblong ; a narrow court in the middle 
 being entered by a low archway with a wider opening to the 
 south. The western side was, if complete at all, only in brick, 
 and was finished in stone by George III. The front towards 
 the river had two porticoes, formed of four engaged Corinthian 
 columns, supported at the corners by pilasters of the order, 
 with a noble projecting cornice, very much in Jones's style. 
 
1 68 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 •b' 
 
 Above this is now an attic storey, which, I presume, was an 
 addition perhaps by Wren. On the eastern side the palace 
 had a single central portico, and had the corners accentuated 
 by pilasters. The gardens, or grounds, on this side were cut 
 close by a broad walk or road which led from the bank of the 
 river to a house some way off, nearer Greenwich Park. This 
 house had originally been built for Henrietta Maria, by Inigo 
 Jones. The basement remains, and possibly the semicircular 
 stairway to the terrace may be of his time : otherwise, there are 
 no architectural features left. 
 
 The problem before Wren was how to work in the palace of 
 Charles II. ; to make use of as much of the vacant space as 
 possible between it and the Queen's House ; to arrange so as 
 not to stop the road from the river ; to provide for a possibility 
 of increase of accommodation equal to at least three times that 
 of the existing palace ; and to arrange the new buildings with 
 the old in such a way that they should not, so to speak, hide 
 each other. 
 
 All these objects he accomplished. A second building, on 
 the east side of the road, was erected with one front to the 
 river and another to westward, looking on the older palace, in 
 exact, or almost exact, imitation of what Webb had built for 
 Charles. This new " pavilion " was called after Queen Anne, 
 in whose reign it was completed. As it was built on a line 
 with the palace, a place where there was a kind of bay of the 
 river, beside which stood the old chapel of the Tudor palace, 
 was filled up, and the new foundations put upon it. Behind 
 these two buildings, those namely of King Charles and Queen 
 Anne, were placed two other rectangular blocks, in the western- 
 most of which was the great dining-hall, and in the easternmost 
 
Wren 169 
 
 tlie chapel. These blocks were brought forward, almost to the 
 Queen's roadway, and were edged on the sides facing each 
 other with a magnificent colonnade of coupled pillars of Wren's 
 favourite Tuscan Doric. This colonnade shows six pairs of 
 its double columns on either side, and a long vista of 150 pairs 
 towards the gates of the Queen's House and the Park. The 
 effect is magical, and is greatly increased in symmetry and 
 beauty by the domes which stand on either hand above the 
 entrances of the chapel and the hall. If Wren had never 
 built another dome, this pair, though not large, should have 
 immortalised him. Coupled Composite columns are employed ; 
 and there are " four projecting groups of columns at the quoins. 
 The attic above is a circle without breaks, covered with the 
 dome and terminated with the turret." This is from the 
 official account published in 1789; but no words can give an 
 adequate idea of the effect. 
 
 Unfortunately, the works were never finished by Wren. 
 On the west side of King William's building, a very different 
 hand was employed. Vanbrugh is responsible for the heavy 
 brick with coarsely-moulded stone dressings which is such an 
 eyesore in one of the most prominent views of the Hospital. 
 In the reign of George III. some similar work in the building 
 of King Charles was cased in stone, but in a poor and heavy 
 style ; and altogether, this western front, the first to greet the 
 traveller from London by land, is the least beautiful part of the 
 whole composition. Vanbrugh's work, of which there is more 
 in the neighbourhood, should be a warning to those modern 
 architects who seem so anxious to imitate his anomalous style. 
 The dates of the different parts of Wren's work are worth 
 noting. The hall and chapel were founded in 1696, and 
 z 
 
1 70 Modern ArcJiitecture in England 
 
 opened in 1705. Queen Anne's building was founded in 
 1698, but was not finished till 1728. 
 
 Not far from Greenwich is another very dignified front by 
 Wren: Morden College, Charlton. It may be compared with 
 the almshouse at St. Albans ; but is on a larger scale, and there 
 are more architectural features in the courtyard with its 
 " piazzas." Another small work in this grand but simple style 
 is the gateway of the Middle Temple : a building little noticed 
 till lately, but now forced into prominence by the contrast it 
 presents, in its simplicity, proportion, and good taste, to the 
 newer buildings which surround it. Temple Bar was a beauti- 
 ful stone archway in Wren's best manner. It was pulled down 
 in 1878 for reasons which have not transpired. Some said it 
 obstructed the traffic, which cannot have been the case. It 
 would have been easy to take the roadway past it on one side, 
 as has been done with old gateways in Paris. The north side 
 was open at the time. That it obstructed the traffic cannot, 
 however, have been the reason for its removal ; as a monument, 
 hideous in design and nearly as obstructive, has replaced it in 
 the middle of the street. Temple Bar has been made the 
 entrance gate of Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire, and looks 
 extremely well there, surrounded by old oak trees ; but its 
 loss as a dignified, beautiful, and historically interesting entrance 
 to the City is irreparable. 
 
 Wren spent a great deal of thought on the Monument. He 
 first intended it to be an unfluted Tuscan Doric column, with 
 flames of gilt bronze issuing from it at intervals, and on the top 
 an urn, flaming, with a phoenix rising from it. " On second 
 thoughts," he says, " I rejected it ; because it will be costly, not 
 easily understood at that height, and worse understood at a 
 
 i 
 
Wren 1 7 1 
 
 distance, and lastly, dangerous, by reason of the sail the spread 
 wings will carry in the wind." A good engraving of this design 
 was made by Hulsbergh, who also issued a large print, from a 
 drawing by Hawksmoor, of the final design. This represents 
 a fluted column of the same order, with a large " ^^^ and dart " 
 moulding to crown the capital, and a statue of Charles II. on 
 the summit. An urn was substituted for the statue, "contra 
 architecti intentionem," says Hawksmoor. There are enlarged 
 views of the plinth and other details in the print, which show 
 with what care and attention each part was considered and 
 thought out. The pillar was completed in 1677. 
 
 Wren began to work at Hampton Court in 1689, ^^^ <^on- 
 tinued to superintend the alterations and improvements until 
 1 7 18, when, by means of an unworthy intrigue, he was dis- 
 missed from his office of surveyor. A very interesting design 
 of his is printed by Mr. Ernest Law in the third volume of his 
 History of Hampton Court. The original is still in the Office 
 of Works. It seems to have been made in 1699. The avenue 
 of horse-chestnuts in Bushey Park was to be made a grand 
 approach to the palace on the north. Two wings, 300 feet long, 
 were to be built from the great hall, with colonnades ; and the 
 intervening offices were to be cleared away. The result would 
 have been to make another grand scenic effect like that at 
 Greenwich, and to give William III. a palace superior to any 
 other in Europe. But the King died ; and though Queen Anne 
 was much at Hampton Court, nothing was done to complete 
 what Wren had begun. As we see it now, the mixture of 
 Gothic and Palladian is so charming that we cannot wish it 
 otherwise ; but, no doubt, from an architectural point of view, 
 its incompleteness is to be regretted. The east front, as finished 
 
172 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 by Wren, is very fine, as is the Fountain Court ; while the Ionic 
 colonnade in the Clock Court adds greatly, by contrast, to 
 the picturesque effect of this part of the palace. The carvings 
 everywhere are extremely good, and are worthy of separate and 
 careful examination. The architect's initials occur on the west 
 side of the cloisters which surround the Fountain Court ; and it 
 is conjectured that they mark the lodgings he occupied while 
 he was engaged here. Colley Cibber seems to have been the 
 principal sculptor employed ; but there is occasional mention of 
 "a Frenchman." The east front is of red brick, with stone 
 dressings ; and, except for four Corinthian columns and a pedi- 
 ment in the centre, is almost devoid of ornament. 
 
 Wren built much in a very plain style for William III. at 
 Kensington. Work was begun as early as 1689, but was 
 interrupted by a fire in 1691. In 1696, Evelyn records a visit 
 to it, and specially mentions a gallery and "a pretty private 
 library." A good deal was added to the palace by Kent for 
 George II., so that, as also at Hampton Court, it is not always 
 easy to distinguish Wren's work ; but we can be sure of such 
 parts as bear the initials of William and Mary, or of Queen 
 Anne. As originally laid out, there was a formal garden south 
 and east of the house. North of it was a lawn on which some 
 cedars grew ; and apparently there was a bronze bust or 
 statue among them. On this side also was a long walk or 
 avenue leading to the Bayswater Road. Its southern end is 
 marked, near the Orangery, by two fine brick piers, with carved 
 stone ornaments. Here, it is said, William used to walk alone 
 when in a moody humour. Looking southward is the Orangery; 
 and the principal walks of the llower garden converged on the 
 Alcove : a beautifiil feature, which stood facing the Orangery at 
 
PVre)i 
 
 173 
 
 some distance, its back being against the brick wall, which at that 
 time shut off the Kensington high-road. In this Alcove, it is 
 said that the French refugees celebrated a mass in fine summer 
 weather. When the wall was taken down, the Alcove was 
 senselessly removed, and placed at the other end of the gardens. 
 It was designed to face northward, and to form the end of a 
 vista. It is now placed facing south, about half-way up a slope, 
 where there is no vista, and where it only serves to make more 
 hideous the buildings about the head of the Serpentine close by. 
 The Alcove bears the initials of Queen Anne. 
 
 The Orangery is left in a melancholy state of neglect. Here 
 Wren did his best to decorate a garden with an ornamental 
 building ; and we see from it what he could accomplish in a style 
 more playful than that he usually employed. The columns of 
 the central bay are of red brick, of his favourite Doric order ; 
 and there is very litde ornament anywhere. The result, though 
 simple, is eminently satisfactory. It is sad to see this beautiful 
 building used as a kind of tool-shed for the gardeners, a place 
 for mixing manures, with a series of squalid hothouses obscuring 
 the best view of its front. 
 
VII 
 WREN'S CHURCHES 
 
VII 
 WREN'S CHURCHES 
 
 Obnoxious to bishops — Many destroyed — Method of procedure — Case of St. Antholin's 
 — A monstrous falsehood — Classification — St. Paul's — Court influence — A 
 Protestant design — ."Vn artificial design — Decorations — Parish churches — Two 
 principal patterns — Domed churches — Gothic churches. 
 
 Future historians of the architectural movements of the nine- 
 teenth century will be sufficiently puzzled to account for the rise 
 of the anomalous or eclectic style to occupy all their faculties. 
 But if any time remains, they may inquire into another and still 
 more surprising phenomenon. It is well known among foreign 
 nations, though apparently not among ourselves, that in Wren's 
 City churches England possesses, or, to be accurate, possessed, 
 a treasure only comparable to the works of art at Florence and 
 Rome : a treasure such as no other city could show. Yet, 
 incredible as it may seem, those in authority have for more 
 than thirty years past been making the most strenuous efforts 
 to destroy these treasures. It is difficult, or rather, impossible, 
 to find the reason for this course of action. Some years ago, I 
 endeavoured to account for it by the action of superstition ; but 
 I am assured now that I was mistaken. I can, of course, 
 understand that the architects who are transforming the City 
 would be glad to remove such prominent witnesses of their own 
 incompetence. But the churches have not been pulled down 
 
 2 A 
 
1 78 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 at the instance of architects : they have been removed at 
 the instance of successive bishops and other ecclesiastical 
 persons. This seems to me the most extraordinary part of 
 the story, though, considering the character and position of 
 these personages, there is another fact almost as extraordinary. 
 The churches have been condemned with the consent of the 
 parishioners ; and this consent has been obtained by means ot 
 deception. I do not mean to impute this deception to the 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries just mentioned ; but they have profited 
 by it. The method of procedure has been briefly this. When 
 a church was to be destroyed, the parishioners were informed 
 that it was not designed by Wren at all ; or, failing that asser- 
 tion, they were told that the church Wren had designed for 
 that parish was pulled down long ago, and the present church 
 built by somebody else in imitation of it. This course was 
 repeatedly pursued. The church was subjected to Jedburgh 
 law. It was condemned and pulled down first, and judged 
 and acquitted afterwards. The whole story was told lately 
 of one of the most precious of these churches in a letter in 
 the Times (21st April 1892), written by the churchwarden who 
 had been made the cat's-paw of the religious functionaries I 
 have mentioned. He now bitterly laments the fraudulent part 
 he was deceived into playing. People have so little archi- 
 tectural taste, and so few of the people of a parish in the City 
 knew whether their church had an artistic value or not, that 
 these tactics have been marvellously successful. 
 
 It is therefore necessary once more, and as many times 
 more as possible, to reiterate the fact that all Wren's churches 
 in the City were designed with a purpose, and that the destruction 
 of one church is a partial destruction of all the rest. This 
 
Wrens Churches 179 
 
 is a consideration which cannot be too strongly insisted upon. 
 As a rule, the relation between the different churches was 
 preserved by the spires or towers. If a church is removed, 
 it may be sufficient to leave the tower. An inquiry ought 
 to have been made in every case to this effect ; but, so far as 
 the general public is informed, no such question has ever been 
 raised. Church and church tower have both been destroyed 
 in nearly all cases ; but an agitation, got uja in time, was 
 successful in .saving the tower of St. Mary Somerset, the 
 removal of which would have had an even more disastrous 
 effect on the view of London from the Thames than the 
 destruction of St. Antholin. It must be remembered that the 
 decree of condemnation is still in force, and as I write, for 
 aught I know to the contrary, may be in process of execution. 
 The right reverend and reverend society for the suppression 
 of Wren's churches goes to work with exceeding subtlety ; and 
 it is certain, that if it put as much skill and craft into motion 
 to obtain the money by other and less nefarious means, the 
 task would be comparatively easy, and the members would 
 be saved the necessity of absolving their agents from the sin 
 of mendacity. I do not believe one more of Wren's churches 
 would be destroyed if the Bishop of London could be made 
 to understand that the consent of the parishioners can only 
 be obtained by simple lying. 
 
 One fact is worth a great many arguments. I will offer the 
 reader two facts. Wren built a very curious and interesting 
 church, called St. Mary Aldermary, in a modification of the 
 Gothic style. The chief feature of this church is the beautifully 
 proportioned tower, in which some people see an imitation of 
 the tower of Magdalen College at Oxford. By way of contrast, 
 
i8o Modern Architecture in Ein^/ai/d 
 
 •b" 
 
 Wren built over against St. Mary's another tower : that of St. 
 Antholin, Watling Street. The tower of St. Mary's is 135 
 feet high, having corner pinnacles. The spire was designed to 
 be a little taller, as suitable to its form ; and it rose to 154 feet. 
 It was very much like a Gothic spire, and was built of stone ; in 
 this respect differing from all but one other of Wren's spires. 
 But though so Gothic in its general form, it was strictly Palladian 
 in details. The harmony, or contrast of the two steeples — for 
 they stood very close together, and you could hardly look at 
 one without seeing the other — produced on the mind of any one 
 of artistic taste a feeling of intense pleasure : a distinct thrill, like 
 that produced by beautiful music. When the new street was 
 made, these two towers stood on either side of it, and opposite 
 to each other. In those days, I was obliged to spend six months 
 of every year abroad ; and I well remember making an exertion 
 always on my return to go and have a look at the pair, some- 
 times endeavouring to group St. Mary-le-Bow or some other 
 tower with them in one view. Judge my distress, in 1877, on 
 returning from a winter in Egypt, to find St. Antholin's gone, 
 and its place occupied by some shops, rather conspicuous for 
 the poverty of their architectural features. The miserable story 
 leaked out by degrees. When the ecclesiastical authorities first 
 proposed to destroy St. Antholin's, a cry of horror and indigna- 
 tion went up. But they were not to be balked of their prey. 
 They discovered, or allowed some one to discover for them, 
 that St. Antholin's was not designed by Wren, — that, in fact, it 
 had only been built a few years, — and that it was by no means 
 worth the fuss being made about it. I do not say that the 
 authorities believed this tale themselves : they are gentlemen of 
 education and must have known better. But they did not on 
 
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 that account contradict the story. By much canvassing and many 
 reiterations, abaremajority of the parishioners was obtained. Even 
 then, a number pleaded for the reprieve of the spire ; and it was 
 spared for a few months, but, to use the words of Mr. Andrew 
 Taylor (The Toiuers and Steeples of Sir Christopher Wren, p. 
 38), " the increased price which was thereby obtainable for the 
 site finally outweighing all less mercenary considerations, it 
 shared the fate of the church ; and the place that once knew it 
 knows it no more for ever." I was lately assured by an alder- 
 man, at that time Lord Mayor, that the whole bench of alder- 
 men protested in vain against the removal of this tower. Then 
 came the sequel to the story. The gentleman who had been 
 made a cat's-paw found out that he was wholly deceived. A 
 few courses of the spire had on one occasion been taken 
 down in order to remove a faulty piece of stone, and had been 
 scrupulously replaced. It was upon this repair that the whole 
 monstrous lie told to the parishioners rested. I repeat, I cannot 
 acquit the members of the Episcopal committee of blame. 
 
 During the present year, nevertheless, the same tactics were 
 tried in order to destroy Wren's only other stone spire, — for of 
 course the steeples of St. Mary-le-Bow or St. Bride's are not 
 exactly spires, — but the parishioners of St. Antholin, still smart- 
 ing under the misfortune of 1876, told the whole story as I have 
 endeavoured to narrate it above, with the result that for the time 
 being St. Dunstan in the East is saved. The admiration of the 
 citizens, and of all people of any taste, had not been able to save 
 St. Antholin. 
 
 It had been built in 1682 ; and the cost of church and spire 
 was ^5700. St. Mary Aldermary was built at the same time, 
 and finished only a few months sooner ; so that there can be no 
 
184 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 doubt of Wren's intention of making one composition of 
 the two. 
 
 It is not necessary to go through all Wren's City churches. 
 The following have been pulled down by the bishop and his 
 assessors within the past few years : St. Antholin ; All Hallows, 
 Thames Street ; All Hallows, Bread Street ; St. Mildred ; St. 
 Michael, Oueenhithe ; St. Dionis ; St. Benet, Gracechurch 
 Street ; and St. Olave, Jewry. Besides these, St. Christopher 
 by the Bank; St. Michael, Crooked Lane; and St. Benet Fink, 
 were previously pulled down, but are not so much to be lamented. 
 In all, ten of Wren's churches have been destroyed under the 
 " Union of Benefices Act " of i860 ; and Mr. Taylor says that 
 "under a scheme drawn up by the Fellows of Sion College in 
 1876, thirty-one more City churches were marked for destruction. 
 This, however, was too much even for the apathy of the British 
 public ; and steps were taken to resist such a scheme, which were 
 so far successful that the matter has been allowed to drop for 
 the present : but it may be resuscitated at any time ; and it is 
 imperatively necessary, therefore, that a greater public interest 
 be awakened in the churches, that we be not implicated in 
 deeds for which posterity will not hold us blameless." 
 
 Various attempts have been made to classify Wren's churches. 
 They generally end in leaving the classification like that of Greek 
 verbs. One is regular and all the rest are e.xceptional. W^e 
 cannot class St. Paul's with any of the others, though the interior 
 of St. Stephen, Wallbrook, may be compared with parts of it. 
 There are two or three fine churches which go together: St. 
 Lawrence Jewry ; St. James, Piccadilly ; St. Bride, Fleet 
 Street ; and St. Mary-le-Bow — in all of which Wren showed his 
 marvellous skill in covering a wide space where all can see and 
 
Th. W...t I'ruspect of ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, begun Anno ,672 and Mni.hcd .;.o. F.on, an old print. 
 
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IVrens Churches ' 187 
 
 hear. Again, in some of the smaller churches, where cheapness 
 had to be considered before all else, he contrived to bestow some 
 feature, within or without, which carried off the plainness he could 
 not otherwise avoid. Mr. Taylor classifies them by the towers 
 and spires alone. Some have stone steeples, like St. Mary-le- 
 Bow, Christ Church, St. Bride, and St. Vedast. Some have lead 
 spires and lanterns, of which type St. Magnus and St. Lawrence 
 are good examples. A third kind have square towers, like St. 
 Andrew by the Wardrobe, or St. George, Botolph Lane. Finally, 
 we have the Gothic churches or church towers: a very interesting 
 class, which comprises St. Mary Aldermary ; St. Dunstan in the 
 East; St. Michael, Cornhill ; and St. Alban, Wood Street. 
 
 Of St. Paul's, a very short notice must suffice, and that chiefly 
 by way rather of praise than of criticism. But it is well to point 
 out the conditions under which St. Paul's was designed. Let 
 us ask ourselves what were the objects of church-builders in the 
 second half of the seventeenth century. The question is wholly 
 one of church doctrine. The school of Laud had passed away, 
 and its leader had been one of the victims of the Great Rebellion. 
 Of his school, we have a most interesting example in St. 
 Katharine Cree, a church probably built by Inigo Jones, under 
 Laud's personal superintendence ; that is, it was designed by a 
 Roman Catholic for a bishop whose leading idea was union with 
 Rome. I am expressing no opinion on the religious questions 
 involved, but only touching on them as they affected architecture. 
 In St. Katharine Cree, accordingly, we see a building designed 
 for the celebration of Mass. The designer's object was, briefly, 
 to construct a church in which every worshipper could see the 
 elevation of the Host. But when the Revolution, which had 
 been fostered and promoted as much by the tendency of Laud just 
 
1 88 Modem Architecture in Enghmd 
 
 mentioned as by any one thing besides, — when the Revolution 
 had swept over the land, views and opinions on these subjects 
 were wholly changed. During the Commonwealth, in the City 
 of London at least, every parish had chosen to itself a lecturer 
 or preaching clergyman. Under the old rule, before the Refor- 
 mation, and long afterwards, preaching was no part of the duty 
 of the parochial clergy. They went on celebrating Mass until 
 that was forbidden. Queen Elizabeth licensed a few preachers 
 from time to time ; and they chiefly held forth at such a jilace as 
 .St. Paul's Cross, and were strictly amenable to the authorities. 
 In this respect, there was more liberty under James I. and 
 Charles I. ; and then, as I have said, the people grew so fond 
 of sermons, that they elected preachers. During the reign of 
 Cromwell, many parish clergymen fled and left their people to 
 the lecturers, who subsequently showed well by contrast during 
 the prevalence of the Great Plague. It is probable that, if we 
 had Mr. Besant's powers, and could go back and interview a 
 citizen of London about the beginning of 1666, and could ask 
 him "What is a church for.^" he would reply, " It is a place 
 where we can hear sermons." So when, later in the same year, 
 the Fire came and burnt nearly all the old churches, — churches, 
 we must remember, built for Mass, not for sermons, — the citizens, 
 in rebuilding them, thought only of how they could hear and how 
 they could see, not the elevation of the Host, but the face of the 
 preacher. Wren says himself in Parcntalia that his object in 
 designing St. James's, Piccadilly, was to make it "so capacious, 
 with pews and galleries, as to hold above 2000 persons, and 
 all to hear distinctly and see the preacher." This, then, was the 
 leading idea, the motive of the church-designer of the latter half 
 of the seventeenth century. 
 
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PVrens C/i/irches 191 
 
 There was, however, another influence at work, and that too 
 in circles where it could not be ignored. The king's brother 
 and next heir, the Duke of York, was a fervent Roman Catholic. 
 He hoped, if ever he succeeded to the throne, that he should 
 be able to lead England back to the true faith, and to see the 
 Mass celebrated everywhere. The ecclesiastical question was 
 thus complicated. James could not impose his views on the 
 parishioners of Piccadilly, or of any part of the City ; but St. 
 Paul's was a building of public importance : it was the cathedral 
 of the greatest diocese in England ; and it was by the kino-'s 
 liberality, but much more by the exercise of his prerogative, that 
 Wren expected to obtain the money necessary for his gigantic 
 undertaking. This being the case, the voice of the court pre- 
 vailed easily over the voice of the city. The citizens knew what 
 they wanted ; but they were too much impoverished by the Fire 
 to be able to give handsomely to St. Paul's. Most of them, too, 
 had their own churches to think of and to rebuild. There are 
 a few cases in which a citizen gave ^^looo to his own parish 
 church and the same to St. Paul's ; but whereas ;^iooo was 
 nearly enough to build a parish church, it was but a mite in the 
 subscription list of the Cathedral. But the citizens knew what 
 they wanted ; and Wren was well acquainted with their wishes. 
 They desired a vast preaching-house; and Wren designed 
 them such a glorified preaching- house as the world has never 
 seen. It may be worth while to attempt a short description 
 of it. 
 
 The principal feature was a dome. Round this dome were 
 aisles, or an aisle, of great width ; the only interruption to the 
 sight being the piers supporting the dome, which were divided 
 and reduced in thickness to the utmost, so as to leave the whole 
 
192 
 
 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 vast space under ihe dome and aisles as free as possible. Miss 
 Phillimore {Sir Christopher Wren, p. 197) does not seem quite 
 to understand the object of the design. She says: "The 
 ground-plan was that of a Greek cross; the choir was circular; it 
 had a very short nave, and no aisles." It is not easy to under- 
 stand what is meant by a circular choir. At the extreme east 
 end, Wren made a kind of semicircular recess: a " Kibleh,'' to 
 borrow a word from Saracenic architecture. The eastern and 
 western limbs were of the same length precisely as the northern 
 and southern. We may talk of them as choir and nave, and as 
 transepts ; but the architect's one object was evidently to provide 
 the largest possible open space, call its parts what you please, 
 and to make no provision whatever for Roman Catholic worship, 
 for Masses in side chapels, for a high altar, or, in short, for any- 
 thing but a place for all " to hear the service, and both to hear 
 distinctly and see the preacher." In order to add to the room, 
 and also, no doubt, in order to obviate any monotony that might 
 arise from the grouping of the aisles round a circular centre, he 
 made the exterior walls of his aisles convex. Here Miss Philli- 
 more's remarks are excellent, and I venture to quote them : 
 " The outside, with the two hollow curves joining the transepts 
 with the nave, and the two different-sized domes, would probably 
 have been disappointing ; but one speaks with diffidence, for this 
 was Sir Christopher's favourite design — the St. Paul's which he 
 told his son he would most cheerfully have accomplished." It 
 is possible, however, that the hollow curves were intended to 
 let the dome be better seen. 
 
 The second dome mentioned here was one of the most curious 
 features of the design, and like the " hollow curves " tries our 
 faith. At the west end of the church, instead of the two noble 
 
Wrens Churches i93 
 
 campanile towers, there was to be a portico very like that of 
 Inigo Jones, destroyed in the Great Fire. There was only one 
 range of columns, not two as at present. Through the portico 
 we were to enter a vestibule. This vestibule was to consist of a 
 narrow, windowless bay, a wider one, circular and domed, and a 
 third like the first, and then came what Miss Phillimore calls the 
 nave ; for this vestibule was no part of the church, but was suit- 
 able as a meeting-place for the chapter and such purposes. One 
 thing is conspicuous by its absence. There is not a vestige of a 
 chapel : not even such open chapels as those north and south of 
 the entrance to the nave as it now is. In short, vVren's one 
 object was to provide his friends the citizens with what they 
 entirely desired, a grand house in which to hear sermons. 
 
 But, as 1 have hinted, other influences prevailed. Supposing 
 Eno-land to become once more Romanist, a cathedral in which 
 not only was there no provision for chantries and chapels, but m 
 which no such provision was possible, would be useless. The 
 design, accordingly, which Wren carried out in a beautiful 
 wooden model, still extant, though much injured by the neglect 
 of successive deans and chapters of St. Paul's, its custodians, 
 was found unsuitable by the court party. 
 
 It is said, that on learning the decision of the King and the 
 Duke of York, Wren endeavoured to alter it in vain, becoming 
 at length so agitated as to shed tears. A new design was to be 
 produced. We can well imagine that Wren felt angry. Weale 
 has some appropriate remarks on this conjuncture {London, i. 
 182): "No perplexity that can assail an architect can well 
 equal the difficulty of Wren's task, between a Protestant nation 
 and a Catholic future monarch, to plan a temple that might upon 
 occasion serve for either religion, and therefore for neither well." 
 2 c 
 
194 Modeyn Architecture in England 
 
 Undoubtedly, he took some pains with the new design. It was 
 not in his nature to mal<e any design without more or less pains. 
 Taking the Hnes of an old cathedral, such as St Paul's had been 
 before the Fire, and reducing the confusion of styles and parts to 
 proportion and harmony, he made a drawing for the King and 
 the Duke. " Many a deep study," says Weale, " had to be 
 wasted, many a beautiful invention abandoned, before he could 
 descend to a design sufficiently tame and commonplace to meet 
 their notions." One of these is probably a design exhibited in 
 an unsigned and undated engraving, entitled, " Section of the 
 Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Lond : wherein the Dome is 
 represented according to a former Design of the Architect, S' 
 Chr. Wren, K'." The west end is in two storeys, as at present ; 
 two chapels, right and left, are introduced at the extremity of the 
 nave, but there is some awkwardness about the arches which 
 lead into them. There is a long choir terminating in an apse. 
 The great central dome is in its place ; but we see no western 
 towers, and no secondary dome. Perhaps it is to this design 
 that another anonymous engraving belongs. It is labelled 
 " Elevation of the West Front of St. Paul's Cathedral, Lond : 
 according to the former Design for the Towers." Any one who 
 sees this drawing for the first time will rub his eyes. It appears 
 to be without the smallest spark of Wren's genius about it. The 
 front, with its rows of coupled pillars, was to be as it is now, but 
 Hanked by two pepper-box turrets, with little cupolas rising from 
 a tame colonnade of plain pillars. The one touch of Wren about 
 all this design was to be seen in the position and supports of the 
 dome. Before we go on to speak of it, we may as well look into 
 the rest of the miserable history of the interference of Charles 
 and James, and its ultimate effect on Wren's design. 
 
Wrens Churches 195 
 
 Before finally giving up hope, he seems to have endeavoured 
 to show that an east end of the most "advanced" character 
 might be constructed in his original design. A drawing is 
 reproduced by Longman in his Three Cathedrals (p. 1 1 1), who, 
 however, gives ho authority for it, from which it would appear 
 that Wren proposed to fence in the easternmost bay so as to 
 produce what probably led Miss Phillimore to speak of a 
 "circular chancel." Longman also reproduced a design for the 
 east end, which Wren proposed to fit on to the model he had 
 made. But nothing satisfied the Court party, into which all the 
 clergy who held high church views were adroitly drawn. Wren 
 made drawing after drawing, until at length, in utter despair, and 
 in the nearest thing to a bad temper of which his meek and 
 quiet spirit was capable, he submitted to the King a design 
 which makes the student who sees it for the first time laugh 
 involuntarily. It is impossible not to think of a Burmese 
 pagoda. To say it is ludicrous is to understate the case. It is 
 impossible. How Wren must have chuckled to himself while 
 Charles wrote on the sketch, " We found it very artificial, proper, 
 and useful." But Wren had no idea of ever carrying it out, or 
 anything like it. He wanted the King's signature to a design, 
 and now he had obtained it. A little experience, not only as to 
 St. Paul's, had taught him that the King had no taste, and that 
 the Duke of York had, if possible, less. Longman describes 
 the drawing as "poor and tawdry." IMiss Phillimore gives an 
 amusing account of it, pronouncing it "artificial" in the modern 
 sense of the word. The west end was to be like that of old St. 
 Paul's as Inigo Jones left it. " There is a low flat dome, then a 
 lantern with ribbed vaulting, surmounted by a spire something 
 like St. Bride's, but thin and ungraceful." Elmes, Fergusson, 
 
196 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 Weale, and Garbett make no mention of it ; and, in truth, it 
 would be absurd to treat it seriously. But Wren had exactly 
 gauged his royal master's inclinations, and by means of this 
 caricature of a design, he pushed himself further into the King's 
 confidence than he had ever been able to do by his best drawings. 
 Charles added to his approval of this "artificial" cathedral, leave 
 to make such alterations, " rather ornamental than essential," as 
 from time to time he should see proper, and furthermore left the 
 whole absolutely to Wren's management. This was in May 
 1675 ; and in June the first stone was laid. The design, which 
 Wren reserved, in petto, for the time being, was even more unlike 
 his first two-domed drawing than it was unlike the "proper and 
 artificial design." Instead of the tall western portico, the 
 difficulty of finding stones of sufficient size for the large columns 
 of a single range obliged him to adopt two ranges, each of half 
 the size. Two western towers, as they were gradually built, 
 showed the perfection of beauty in form and proportion and 
 contrast with the dome. The dome itself, instead of being like 
 a Burmese pagoda, grew into the noblest dome in Christendom, 
 and the greatest ornament of the greatest city in the world. All 
 these innovations on the design approved by the King were 
 made silently ; Wren apparently keeping in his mind as dominant 
 ideas, first, the Gothic plan, and secondly, a particular modifica- 
 tion of that plan, which, no doubt, he had observed and studied 
 when he visited his uncle the Bishop, at Ely, where, by the way, 
 his hand may yet be traced in some improvements at the palace. 
 This is not the place for a detailed account of St. Paul's as 
 we see it. I am glad to think it has survived the so-called 
 Gothic revival, which more than once threatened it with injury 
 and even destruction. The dean and chapter have always had 
 
IVren's Churches 197 
 
 the command of too much money, and where taste has been 
 wanting, they have nevertheless, on account of their wealth, been 
 able to do things of which no one who has studied the subject 
 can approve. The removal of the choir-screen and organ may 
 be mentioned. I am not inclined to condemn the reredos, 
 which is very handsome ; but it is sadly wanting in true Palladian 
 feeling. Wren preferred a baldacchino, and indeed left a drawing 
 for one. So too, it is very difficult to give any approval to the 
 coloured figures in the spandrils of the dome arches. It is no 
 approval to say, they are not so bad as they might be. At first 
 the dean and chapter handed over the cathedral to a gentleman 
 for whom I must premise that I had the greatest respect and 
 personal liking. This was the most extraordinary appointment 
 ever made, in all probability, even by a dean and chapter. 
 Burges was certainly a man of great taste, but he was an 
 enthusiastic "Goth"; he saw little or no beauty in St. Paul's, 
 which he considered in great part " heathenish " ; he could not 
 judge of the beauty of the dome, because he was so blind that 
 he could not see so far. To frame and carry out a grand scheme 
 of Palladian decoration, a scheme which was to unite the smallest 
 and the most distant features in a harmonious whole, in taste 
 such as we may learn from \'itruvius and the wall-paintings of 
 Pompeii — this task was entrusted to a gentleman whose whole 
 mind was centred in the art of the thirteenth century, and who 
 from physical infirmity was not able to see more than a single 
 pier of St. Paul's at a time. It is on these accounts that we 
 tremble for St. Paul's, but there have been signs of late, not so 
 much of an improvement in taste, as of a recognition of what 
 style St. Paul's is designed in. The architects of the reredos are 
 rather halting in their comprehension of the style ; but there is 
 
198 Modern Atrhitcctnrc in England 
 
 nothing Gothic about it. And an excellent step has lately been 
 taken in the removal of Alfred Stevens's admirable Wellington 
 monument from the baptistery or consistorial court where, at 
 the brilliant suggestion of some bygone dean, it had been so long 
 immured, to a place under an arch of the nave. 
 
 By Wren's strength of mind in keeping to himself his full 
 intentions, he enlisted time upon his side. At first the chief 
 thing was to prepare a place for the resumption of cathedral 
 services. He accordingly began with the east end and choir. 
 Ten years were employed upon them, and upon portions of the 
 transepts. Meanwhile, King Charles died, and James succeeded. 
 It was of no consequence now whether Wren adhered to the 
 artificial design or not. James cared nothing except that there 
 should be side aisles and possible chantries and chapels ; and, 
 moreover, from the very beginning of his short reign he had 
 only too many things besides St. Paul's to occupy his attention. 
 Service was duly resumed in 1697. The glorious cupola, 
 a modification and improvement upon that in his very first 
 design of all, was not finished for thirteen long years more ; 
 namely in 17 10, in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 
 In concluding these notes, it may be well to answer the 
 only adverse criticism of St. Paul's as a whole which seems to 
 have any weight in it. I say "seems," because it has really no 
 validity, and a moment's examination dissipates it. I may put 
 the objection in the words of those critics who have apparently 
 thought most of it. We do not find any such criticism in 
 Gwilt, Elmes, Godwin, or Miss Phillimore. It is pre-eminently 
 the objection of the critic brought up in the modern mock 
 Gothic school. The objection is that "one half of the building 
 is built to conceal the other half." So I have seen it put. 
 
Wrens Churches i99 
 
 referring to the great wall over the aisle windows, which 
 shuts out of view the buttressing of the middle aisle. 
 Another writer says it is "a falsehood," and actually thinks he 
 could improve it. He suggests that windows should be made 
 into the triforium where Wren made only niches. The obvious 
 answer is that there are windows below the niches and that 
 Wren, for constructional reasons, preferred the solid wall. 
 The Gothic architect would have exposed the buttresses. 
 Wren thought it better, in a Palladian building, to conceal them ; 
 and undoubtedly he was right, but even if he had been wrong 
 it would not have been easy to hit upon a better expedient. 
 But suppose, for argument's sake. Wren had consented to 
 expose his buttresses. If we examine a photograph or a 
 careful drawing of the church, we observe that the upper storey 
 of the exterior of the nave consists, commencing at the west 
 end, of a tower of considerable solidity, with a window ; of a 
 building with three windows, in which, as we know, on the 
 south side is the library; of three bays, with low windows 
 and the objectionable niches ; and finally, of another solid and 
 projecting building, which is admirably placed where it appears 
 to add stability to the dome. From this enumeration, it follows 
 that our Gothic friends would alter the whole character of 
 Wren's nave, for the sake of exposing two single buttresses 
 between the niches just mentioned. This is absurd, and might 
 be so demonstrated by another method : suppose Wren replied 
 that his building would be better here for the weight of a 
 continuous wall rather than of an unsupported flying buttress, 
 there would be no answer. The church has its faults, within and 
 without, but this is not one of them ; nor was Wren an architect 
 who wished his buildings to look less stable than they really were. 
 
200 Modern Architect itye in England 
 
 Numerous as arc the drawings for St. Paul's, both by Wren 
 himself and by others his contemporaries, in public and private 
 collections, I believe I am right in saying that no designs exist 
 answering to the church which Wren completed. He made, no 
 doubt, working drawings for his masons; but they have not 
 come down to us. They may have been worn away in the 
 using. He had made many designs for domes, some of which 
 are very like the present dome. On the whole, it seems to be 
 a perfectly tenable view that no complete design was ever made, 
 and that Wren kept to himself what he had resolved upon until 
 it was time to execute it. If we remember the long time — not less 
 than five-and-thirty years — which elapsed between the laying of 
 the first stone and the completion of the w^hole edifice, this 
 seems to be the most likely view. 
 
 I have said something already as to Wren's parish churches, 
 and his objects in designing them. When the Bishop's crusade 
 against them ceases and we come to count our losses, it will be 
 difficult or impossible to reconstruct the subtle harmony which 
 formerly united them. North and east of St. Paul's are the 
 three most beautiful of the stone steeples ; and a man must be 
 indeed insensible to the sweet influences of consummate art, if 
 he does not see a meaning in the towers of Christ Church and 
 St. Vedast, leading up to the tower of St. Mary-le-Bow. A 
 very fine tower, resembling that of St. Mary Aldermary, is at 
 St. Michael, Cornhill. The greater part of the church has been 
 much injured of late years by an ignorant "restorer," who 
 thought he could improve upon Wren ; but the tower is almost 
 intact. Of elevations, some of the most simple will be found 
 the best. There is nothing else in the City better than the east 
 end in Gracechurch Street, of St. Peter upon Cornhill. A 
 
IVreti's Chiiyches 201 
 
 similar design was at St. Olave's, Old Jewry ; but the Bishop 
 apparently thought one example enough. Very handsome, 
 but perhaps scarcely as delicate, is the east end of St. Lawrence, 
 in Guildhall Yard. Another, and very plain example, is St. 
 IMichael, Wood Street. 
 
 All Wren's City churches are worthy of examination ; but all 
 are not equally important. In many cases, the unfortunate 
 parishioners could only commission him to spend a trifle on 
 their church. Even in these cases, he always left some pleasing 
 feature — something to make his building, however small and poor, 
 picturesque. In order, however, to study hife style accurately, 
 it will be best to confine ourselves to his more ambitious efforts 
 where money was not so scarce, and where he had space in 
 which to display his powers. These larger churches resolve 
 themselves, so far as regards the interior arrangements, into two 
 chief categories. Some, like St. Paul's, have the traditional 
 Gothic plan, with, however, the greatest modifications. Of this 
 class, we may number St. Andrew'.s, Holborn ; St. James's, 
 Piccadilly ; St. Bride's, Fleet Street ; St. Andrew by the Ward- 
 robe ; Christ Church, Newgate Street, and a very few of smaller 
 dimensions. These buildings Have galleries in the side aisles, 
 something of a chancel, fine roofs, chiefly of ornamented " barrel 
 vaulting," a conspicuous east window, and many other features, 
 such as we expect in a large ancient church. The gallery is an 
 integral part of the design, not an afterthought, as in most 
 Gothic churches ; but it can hardly be asserted by the most 
 partial observer that Wren succeeded from an artistic 
 point of view with his galleries. At St. James's a single 
 Corinthian pillar rises from the gallery, and supports an exceed- 
 ingly beautiful roof. Below, the gallery is supported by a ^ 
 2 D 
 
202 Modern Architecttire in England 
 
 square prop, of no beauty, and calculated to intercept the view 
 of any one who sits near. At St. Bride's there is a wholly 
 different arrangement. Rising from the level of the pews are 
 coupled Tuscan columns ; and the front of the gallery runs along 
 between the columns ; a square prop being placed below to in- 
 crease the appearance, if not the reality, of strength. The pillars 
 support a row of arches, as in a Gothic church, which impart 
 great lightness. Above them, again, are circular windows in the 
 vaulting. At. St. James's there are no attic windows ; but the 
 church never suffered from any want of light until some modern 
 stained glass was inserted. The Gothic revival, oddly enough, 
 has never taught glaziers that the object of windows is to admit 
 light. In most churches of this character. Wren made distinct pro- 
 vision for a small chancel. In short, had the wishes and schemes 
 of James II. been successful, these churches would have easily 
 been "converted," so as to become convenient for the celebration 
 of Mass. They all partake of the character of St. Katharine 
 Cree, except for their galleries. 
 
 It is easy to figure to ourselves Wren turning with pleasure 
 from churches of this model to those in which he could renew 
 his old e.xperiences of the Sheldonian. His conception of a 
 great preaching-house was not fulfilled by St. Paul's or even 
 St. James's. He wanted to roof in as wide a space as 
 possible, without interruptions to the view by pillars or piers. 
 Fergusson reproaches him with being more of an engineer 
 than of an architect ; but that shows how little Fersrusson 
 understood Wren's work. Whatever happened, he never lost 
 sight of the abstract elements of beauty, such as fitness, 
 picturesqueness, and above all proportion. Some of these 
 plain chambers, with their flat roofs, are full of charm, and 
 
JVren's C lit irc lies 203 
 
 give the clearest possible evidence of the intentions of their 
 desiofner. 
 
 The finest of these churches is probably St. Lawrence. It 
 is that in which the great public religious ceremonials of the 
 Corporation take place ; and Wren was evidently actuated by 
 a desire to make it in every way suitable to such func- 
 tions. The seats appropriated to the Corporation are in the 
 centre, and very conspicuous. The church measures 81 feet by 
 68. The roof, 40 feet high, is ingeniously and beautifully 
 formed of deeply - sunk panels, ornamented with the delicate 
 plaster work which Wren so greatly affected. The central idea 
 of a preaching-house is enhanced by the way in which the roof 
 meets the walls ; namely, in a series of coved spaces, with en- 
 riched scroll-work, both to give a look of stability not at all 
 necessary, and also with a view to helping the voice without 
 echo or ring. There is no chancel. The holy table stands in its 
 place at the centre of the eastern end. The cost was enormous 
 for Wren — _^i 1,870 : i : 9. 
 
 Wren employed this method in building one or two other 
 important churches and several smaller ones. St. Vedast, 
 Foster Lane, is a good example, as was St. Mary Somerset, on 
 which the Bishop has laid his destructive hand. Another which 
 has disappeared is All Hallows the Great. St. Mary Abchurch 
 is nearly a square, 65 feet by 60; and St. Michael, Oueenhithe, 
 now pulled down, was nearly two squares, being 71 feet by 40. 
 In several of these there is a kind of single side aisle, often so 
 irregular in plan that we should be puzzled, but that we remember 
 Wren's great object was to roof in the whole of the space at his 
 command, and that this space was defined by the old church with 
 its chancel, its aisles, its side chapels, and its chantries ; some of 
 
204 Modern Ardiitedure in England 
 
 them no doubt highly eccentric in axis to the main body of the 
 church. But Wren had in most cases not only to provide for 
 an increased population in the parish, but for the incorporation 
 with it of another parish ; and he was obliged, while making 
 but one chamber, to work in every available morsel of space. 
 
 In 1679, Wren had to design a church for one of the most 
 irregular of these spaces. This was the site of old " St. Swithin's 
 at London Stone." He showed himself equal to the task, and 
 roofed in every inch of open ground. In doing so, he adopted 
 a new expedient ; and St. Swithin's is one of five parish churches 
 with cupolas which he built in the City. The others are, or 
 were, St. Benet Fink, pulled down ; St. Mildred's, Bread Street ; 
 St. Stephen's, Wallbrook ; and St. Mary Abchurch. 
 
 St. Stephen's had the good or ill fortune to belong to 
 the Grocers' Company. The consequence is both that the 
 authorities were able to incur a little extra expense in the 
 original design, and also that ever since, with every changing 
 caprice of architectural taste, they have done their best to 
 obliterate Wren's handiwork. The church is very well known ; 
 and visitors are fortunate who saw it before the last alteration. 
 I may quote a notice printed in 1823 in Elmes's Life of Wren. 
 Elmes forgets grammar, and even sense, in his enthusiasm ; but 
 somehow he conveys a very vivid impression of the now 
 departed charm of a building of which Canova said that if he 
 revisited England it would be to see St. Paul's, Somerset House, 
 and St. Stephen's, Wallbrook. Elmes says, " The beauty of the 
 interior of this church arises from its lightness and elegance. 
 On entering from the street, by about a dozen or more of steps, 
 through a vestibule of dubious obscurity, on opening the hand- 
 some folding wainscot doors, a halo of dazzling light flashes at 
 
o 
 z 
 
 w 
 
 c^ 
 
Wrens Churches 
 
 207 
 
 once upon the eye ; and a lovely band of Corinthian columns 
 of beauteous proportions appear in magic mazes before you. 
 The expansive cupola and supporting arches expand their airy 
 shapes like gossamer ; and the sweetly proportioned embellished 
 architrave-cornice, of original lightness and application, completes 
 the charm. On a second look, the columns slide into complete 
 order like a band of young and elegant dancers at the close of 
 a quadrille. Then the pedestals concealed by the elaborate 
 pewings, which are sculptured into the form of a solid stylobate, 
 opening up the nave, under the cupola to the great recess which 
 contains the altar, and West's fine historical picture of the stoning 
 of St. Stephen, lift up the entire column to the level of the eye ; 
 their brown and brawny solids supporting the delicate white 
 forms of the entire order." 
 
 The last part of this curious passage — that relating to the 
 pewings — should be specially noted. The arrangement of the 
 dark oak wainscoting produced a most interesting scenic effect. 
 When you entered from below, the church seemed to rise above 
 you. All its architectural features began to show, so to speak, 
 above the level of the tall sombre pews. The size, and especially 
 the height of the church were so enhanced that it was impossible 
 to believe that it was only 87 feet 10 inches by 64 feet 10 inches, 
 with 63 feet to the top of the highest part of the dome. 
 Fergusson, who was no enthusiastic admirer of Wren, says that 
 here he produced " the most pleasing interior of any Renaissance 
 church which has yet been erected." Further on he repeats : 
 " There is a cheerfulness, an elegance, and appropriateness 
 about the interior which pleases every one." The leading idea 
 of the architect was to place " a circular dome on an octagonal 
 base, supported by eight pillars," and Mr. Fergusson considered 
 
2o8 Modern Architect lire in England 
 
 this was an " early and long a favourite mode of roofing in the 
 East, and the consequent variety obtained by making the 
 diverging aisles respectively in the ratio of 7 to 10, infinitely 
 more pleasing than the Gothic plan of doubling them, unless the 
 height was doubled at the same time." What Fergusson meant 
 by " the East," I do not know. There was nothing to compare 
 to St. Stephen's in India, Syria, or Egypt before the time of 
 Wren, whose design, in any case, must be accounted wholly 
 original. 
 
 This church has always laboured under the same disadvan- 
 tage as St. Paul's. The authorities concerned with it have 
 always had too much money. I have not heard that St. 
 Stephen's has been scheduled for destruction by the com- 
 mittee ; but after the "restoration," we may regard its ruin 
 with comparative equanimity. The great scenic charm of the 
 interior has been carefully and elaborately removed. It no 
 longer bursts upon the view as we ascend from what Elmes 
 calls "the vestibule of dubious obscurity." The interior has 
 been gutted. The panelling which had such a magic effect 
 has been removed. The floor has been laid down with coarse 
 mosaic. The pedestals of the pillars are exposed, with a 
 disastrous result ; and in the centre a few yellow oak seats, 
 fresh from Tottenham Court Road, have been placed, as if 
 to accentuate the smallness of the congregation. We all 
 admire courage, and perhaps some readers would like to know 
 the name of the gentleman who ventured so boldly to improve 
 upon Wren's masterpiece. It is Peebles, and he is understood 
 to be a very accomplished architect. 
 
 Mr. Wheatley says that Wren was averse to the use of these 
 panellings, and that they were forced upon him by the Grocers' 
 
IVrciis CJiurcJies 209 
 
 Company ; and Miss Phillimore speaks of " the disfiguring 
 pews " which she desired to see removed. Neither of these 
 writers apparently understood that even if they were forced 
 upon Wren, which I must take leave to doubt, he used them 
 in such a way as to make them an integral part of the design. 
 Tinkering of all kinds has gone on for many years, and the 
 "restoration" of Mr. Peebles was only the final step in a long 
 series of such ruinous operations. Among the first was a 
 frightful vandalism, the insertion of mock-medicneval stained 
 glass in the windows. But the treatment of this little gem 
 of architecture is not a subject pleasant enough to be dwelt on 
 here. It has always been very difficult to obtain access to the 
 interior on a week day ; and the visitor need not now go to 
 the trouble which in Canova's time and later was necessary 
 before the key could be found. 
 
 It has often been remarked by architectural writers that St. 
 Stephen's would form an admirable model for a modern church. 
 Several attempts in this direction have resulted in failure. The 
 reason is easily found. If an imitator either enlarged or 
 diminished St. Stephen's, the proportions would be lost. A 
 St. Stephen's double the size would have a wholly different 
 effect. It is so small that the imitators have generally tried 
 to build something larger ; but there would be great difficulty 
 in making the needful calculation. It cannot be done by rule 
 of thumb. It may be worth while here to mention that some 
 admirable drawings of St. Stephen's, by Mr. Edmund H. 
 Sedding, were engraved in the Builder on 3rd January 1885, 
 having gained the Royal Academy medal in 1S84. The 
 drawings were made before the church was " restored." 
 
 St. Mildred, Bread Street, was finished in 1683. It is but 
 2 E 
 
2 1 o Modem ArcJiitecture in Euglaud 
 
 small, 62 feet by 36, but obtains a certain dignity from the 
 dome, which rises to a height of 40 feet. The plaster orna- 
 mentation is even worse than that in the dome of St. Stephen, 
 Wallbrook, but the exquisite carving of the pulpit and of the 
 fine Corinthian reredos goes far to redeem it. This church 
 deserves more attention than it usually receives, both as an 
 example of how to make the most of a very small site and of 
 how to build a cupola in the simplest manner and with the most 
 ordinary materials. It is technically described as follows : — It 
 is formed within the external roof by means of slight deal ribs 
 attached to the principal timbers. They are lathed and 
 plastered. The whole roof is of an ordinary tie-beam and 
 king -post construction; but in that part which occurs im- 
 mediately over the cupola, the tie-beam, instead of being 
 attached to the foot of each principal rafter, as usual, is raised 
 about half-way up, in order to admit the rise of the cupola ; and 
 diagonal braces from rafter to rafter are introduced. I take this 
 description from Godwin and Britton, who add, " the architec- 
 tural student may derive advantage from an examination of it." 
 
 St. Mary Abchurch is built on a slightly more ambitious 
 scale, as it is almost a square, being 65 feet by 60. It was 
 finished in 1685, all but twenty years after the fire. It is well 
 worth a visit, as well for the ingenuity of the plan, for the 
 beauty of the design, and for the exquisite finish of the carved 
 oak, in this case, there is little doubt, by Grinling Gibbons 
 himself The cupola was decorated with painted angels 
 by Sir James Thornhill, which look far better than the 
 plaster angels in St. Mildred's. The altar-piece, also of 
 Corinthian columns, is particularly fine. The gallery, added 
 in 1822, rather accentuates than conceals the irregularity 
 
IVreris Churches 2 1 1 
 
 of the plan. The cost of this handsome church was only 
 ^4900. 
 
 St. Swithin's resembles St. Mary Abchurch in several 
 particulars, but the exterior is much more ornamental. It is 
 61 feet long, 42 feet from east to west, and 40 feet high. The 
 roof is formed into an octagon cupola by a very ingenious 
 arrangement of the timbers. The rest of the church has been 
 much pulled about by "restorers," one of whom, in 1869, made 
 a determined attempt to Gothicise it. 
 
 Of Wren's Gothic churches it is not needful to say much. 
 The great spire of Lichfield Cathedral has lately, on question- 
 able grounds, been attributed to him. The most interesting 
 in London is St. Dunstan's in the East, the tower and spire 
 of which will remind the spectator of St. Nicholas at New- 
 casde ; but the mouldings and other features in their delicacy 
 are Wren's own. I know that many competent judges do 
 not admire Wren's Gothic mouldings ; but at least they are 
 better than their coarse substitutes in modern Gothic. Both 
 may be studied in St. Michael upon Cornhill. St. Dun- 
 stan's was lately condemned, incredible as it may seem. 
 The parishioners were amused with the usual tale. The 
 steeple, it was said, had been wholly renewed since W^ren's 
 time, and the design altered. A provisional consent was 
 wrung from them ; and the committee gave out that the 
 church was about to be destroyed. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, the matter came to the ears of a gentleman who had 
 been connected with St. Antholin's, Watling Street ; and he 
 recognised the same old story that had worked so effectually 
 with him and his fellow -parishioners in 1875. A letter in the 
 Times betrayed the whole scheme. The provisional vote 
 
212 Modeyn yJ reinfect lire in England 
 
 was at once cancelled. The church is still, of course, in 
 imminent danger. The agent will next time, no doubt, 
 have invented a fresh assertion ; and as long as these 
 precious buildings are at the mercy of parishioners who 
 can be cajoled or coerced by interested agents, we are 
 bound to feel uneasy. Another Gothic church by Wren was 
 interesting; that of St. Alban, Wood Street. It has been 
 bedizened by a modern mock Gothic architect, and all its 
 points of interest removed. Too much has also been done to 
 improve Wren at St. Mary Aldermary ; but it is still in a fairly 
 genuine condition. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF WREN 
 
VIII 
 THE SUCCESSORS OF WREN 
 
 Vanbrugh — Hawksmoor — Gibbs — James — Archer — Burlington — Campbell — Kent 
 — Taylor — Chambers — Adam — Wood of Bath — Baldwin — Palladian in the 
 Provinces — Dublin — The Bank — The Four Courts — The Custom House — 
 Trinity College — Barry's Club Houses — The Grecian Style — The Reign of 
 Stucco — The New Gothic — Conclusion. 
 
 In one respect, Wren fared better than Inigo Jones. He both 
 founded a school and lived to see it flourish. Thoucrh he had 
 practically retired many years before his death in 1723, he could 
 see around him several architects well able to take up and carry 
 on his tradition. The best of them was undoubtedly Burlington, 
 who had already commenced operations in Piccadilly ; but of 
 Wren's immediate followers, Hawksmoor who was his pupil, 
 Gibbs who worked on parallel lines. Archer, James, and two or 
 three more were all in practice. Vanbrugh, however, was the 
 only one who showed much originality ; and this is perhaps as 
 well. Outside the pale of his immediate following were Kent, 
 whose work singularly resembles Wren's, and can, in fact, hardly 
 be distinguished from it either at Kensington or Hampton 
 Court ; and Colen Campbell, both of whom worked under 
 Burlington. From him they derived anything of the nature of 
 originality or genius which either of them showed. In addition 
 to all these, we must not overlook the claims of the elder Wood, 
 
2i6 Modern ArcJiitcctnre in England 
 
 who, in 1728, five years after Wren's death, began the north 
 side of Queen's Square at Bath— assuredly the most satisfactory 
 piece of town architecture erected in the style up to that date. 
 
 We need not dwell long on the career of Vanbrugh. He 
 resembled certain very successful architects of our own day. If 
 he had any knowledge or any artistic perceptions, he carefully 
 concealed them. His chief country houses, Castle Howard and 
 Blenheim, amply justify the mocking epitaph : 
 
 Lie heavy on him, earth, for he 
 Laid many a heavy load on thee. 
 
 His style consisted in the negation of style. If a Composite 
 column should be no more than ten diameters high, Vanbrugh 
 made it twelve or fourteen. At Castle Howard, he treats us to 
 two rows of columns on the same front, both of the same 
 Corinthian order, yet the proportions of the two rows are 
 different. At Blenheim his columns are few and unobtrusive ; 
 but his windows with their thick ungraceful mouldings have the 
 most gloomy effect. Similar windows occur also at Greenwich, 
 and seem in fact to have been a necessary part of most of his 
 buildings. As for proportion, he cannot have thought much about 
 it ; but if he did, he seems to have been satisfied when he made 
 a house look like a fortress, or a palace look like a mausoleum. 
 Nevertheless hewas in vogue, partly, no doubt, as a kind of reaction 
 against the strictness of the Palladian rule. He talked cleverly. 
 He wrote plays. He posed as a wit and a man of fashion ; but so 
 far as my limited powers of observation go, his genius, allowing 
 that he had any genius, was the reverse of Wren's. Wren had a 
 capacity for taking trouble, Vanbrugh a nearly equal capacity for 
 saving himself trouble. I cannot account for it that Fergusson, who 
 
2 F 
 
TJie Successors of IVreii 219 
 
 is severely critical of Wren, has nothing but praise for Vanbrugh. 
 He says of him (p. 283), " He never faltered in his career ; and 
 from first to last — at Blenheim and Castle Howard, as at Seaton 
 Delaval and Grimsthorpe — there is one principle runs through 
 all his designs, and it was a worthy one — a lofty aspiration after 
 grandeur and eternity." Though the English of this passage is 
 questionable, the meaning is perfectly clear, and I can only sup- 
 pose that Fergusson could understand the crude art of Vanbrugh, 
 and could not appreciate the subtlety of Wren, whom, indeed, 
 in one passage he characterises as more an engineer than an 
 architect, a singularly unfortunate remark. True, Wren was an 
 engineer and an astronomer, and much besides ; but though in 
 these pursuits he has since been often excelled, as an architect 
 he still stands alone. Vanbrugh was constantly set up in oppo- 
 sition to Wren, and is said to have been commissioned to design 
 Blenheim, because Wren had offended the duchess about Marl- 
 borough House in Pall Mall ; but the sequence of the two 
 events is reversed by some authorities. Vanbrugh was chosen, 
 whatever the reason ; and it was an unlucky choice. Blenheim, 
 as we see it, is a monster of shapelessness and, indeed, positive 
 ugliness, and does not contain a single exterior feature, or a 
 single interior apartment, of which we can speak in praise. 
 Everything is enormous in scale and anomalous in design. 
 Fortunately, Vanbrugh was not employed to build any im- 
 portant churches ; and, in fact, his style, or want of style, is now 
 chiefly interesting as marking a reaction against Wren. 
 
 The rules were very strictly observed in the works of Hawks- 
 moor, Gibbs, James, and others, who found in them a refuge from 
 the absolute want of originality which characterised them all. 
 Hawksmoor was employed as clerk of the works both to Wren 
 
220 Modern Architecttire i)i England 
 
 and to Vanbrugh during a considerable part of his career. The 
 passing of the act for building fifty new churches brought him 
 some tasks of a public character ; and the best of the fifty is un- 
 doubtedly his, namely St. George's Bloomsbury. An eminent 
 Gothic architect was turned loose upon it lately, with the usual 
 effect. He removed the galleries of which Hawksmoor was 
 probably most proud ; but he could not destroy the noble portico 
 of Corinthian columns. He took down the characteristic lion 
 and unicorn from the steeple, but did not take down the steeple 
 itself, said to be an attempt to realise ancient descriptions of the 
 mausoleum at Halicarnassus. A few years ago, the temporary 
 removal of some surrounding houses enabled us to see the ex- 
 traordinary picturesqueness of the body of the church. Hawks- 
 moor did not reach the high level of St. George's again. His 
 St. Mary Wolnoth is too heavy, though picturesque ; and in the 
 interior the gallery question, which so greatly taxed even Wren, 
 came very near to a solution. His St. George's in the East 
 acknowledged the power of Vanbrugh's influence, and, though 
 lighter and more graceful than anything of Vanbrugh's, is quite 
 as anomalous. The towers at All Souls at Oxford, like so much 
 of his work, are picturesque ; and altogether it must be said of 
 Hawksmoor that, more than any other of Wren's immediate 
 successors, he showed signs of being able to think for himself. 
 Born in 1661 he survived his great master thirteen years, dying 
 in 1736. James Gibbs, whose churches in London are much 
 more conspicuous, was twenty years younger, and lived till 1754. 
 Gibbs has left an interesting volume of engravings from his 
 own designs. His anxiety to attain or choose the best sometimes 
 amounts to fastidiousness and sometimes degenerates into 
 irresolution. It never resembles Wren's endless "capacity for 
 
TJie Successors of Wren 221 
 
 taking pains," nor, on the other hand, is it Hke Vanbrugh's lazy 
 striving for originality. Gibbs habitually committed one serious 
 crime in designing churches. He placed the tower on the top 
 of the portico. When we look at St. Martin's in Trafalgar 
 Square, our admiration is constantly harassed by the thought of 
 how much finer it would have been it the tower had been north 
 of the portico. The view from the south side of the square 
 would then have been the finest of its kind in London. But 
 Gibbs missed it, and has more than half spoilt his grand 
 Corinthian portico by imposing his tower and spire as if they 
 grew from the roof "without any visible means of support." 
 Wren always set the base of his steeple squarely on the ground, 
 and seldom set it exactly at one end or other of his church. 
 Gibbs transgressed again in the same way, but less flagrantly, 
 in St. Mary-le-Strand, as well as in a design for a round church, 
 in his book, never carried out. 
 
 Some proposals have recently been made to alter the 
 portico of St. Martin. The exact object of these proposals has 
 not transpired. The roadway is more than wide enough for 
 the traffic ; and if any building in the neighbourhood is to suffer, 
 let it be the National Gallery on the opposite side. The 
 portico, in architectural language, is hexastyle, of the Corinthian 
 order ; the intercolumniations being of two diameters and a half, 
 and the projection of the portico of two intercolumniations. 
 
 Conspicuous as St. Martin's is, the little church of St. Mary- 
 le-Strand is nearly as well known ; and if a projected improve- 
 ment be carried out it will form the central feature of a new 
 square. Gibbs built it seven years at least before St. Martin's ; 
 and it cannot be said that his art improved in the interval. 
 The proportions of St. Mary's are exceedingly delicate, and 
 
222 
 
 Modem Architecture in Eiii^laiid 
 
 were evidently thought out by the architect with ii view to 
 adorning the situation. A proposal to remove the whole church 
 and rebuild it elsewhere was gravely made three or four years 
 ago ; but St. Mary's would simply look absurd in any other place 
 than the narrow and crowded thoroughfare for which it was 
 desipfned. 
 
 Gibbs's other designs call for little notice. He built a con- 
 siderable part of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He designed 
 the Senate House at Cambridge for Sir James Borough : part 
 of a larger plan never carried out. Sudbrook, near Richmond, 
 is still very much what it was while it was inhabited by the 
 great Duke of Argyll and Greenwich ; but none of these build- 
 ings call for special remark. Of his churches, St. Peter's in 
 Vere Street has been thoroughly refitted within the past few 
 years ; and perhaps the handiwork of Gibbs will be most easily 
 recognised at Whitchurch, near Edgeware, which he rebuilt for 
 the Duke of Chandos. The east end is lined with carved oak, 
 and contains an alcove of the Corinthian order, in which is 
 placed the organ of the immortal Handel. The Radcliffe 
 Library at Oxford is perhaps the most important of Gibbs's 
 works, and is well known for its delicate proportions and grace- 
 ful dome, and for the charming feature it makes in every view 
 of O.xford. 
 
 One of his most pleasing compositions is a monument in the 
 north transept of Westminster Abbey. It was erected by "the 
 Lady Henrietta Cavendishe Holies Harley," afterwards Lady 
 Oxford, to the memory of her father, the Duke of Newcastle. 
 There seems to have been what is now common, a competition 
 among the architects for this monument, as Gibbs says in his 
 book, already mentioned, that, " this draught was pitched upon 
 

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ST. MARY-LESTRAND. UY GIBBS 
 
 2 G 
 
TJie Successors of Wroi 227 
 
 amongst many others." The print in Gibbs's book is by Vertue, 
 but there is another by Cole, in Dart's Westminster Abbey, 
 which represents the design as it is, with the front curved. 
 When it was new, with its gilding and heraldry, and the 
 coloured marble Corinthian columns, this monument must have 
 been very handsome, especially as there were hardly any others 
 at that time in the transept, now so crowded. Gibbs also 
 designed for Westminster Abbey monuments to Prior the poet, 
 and Ben Jonson, both commissioned by Lord Oxford, and to 
 a Mrs. Bovey and a Mr. Smith. Lord Oxford furthermore 
 employed him to build a church in Vere Street, a very plain 
 performance. Gibbs, who came from Aberdeen, was, like Inigo 
 Jones, a Roman Catholic, but was buried in what used to be 
 then the church of St. Mary-le-Bone, now the parish chapel, 
 and near him Rysbrack, the sculptor, who had carried out so 
 many of his designs. 
 
 Of James, there is little to be said, except that he built St. 
 George's, Hanover Square, a heavy but handsome church, and 
 St. Alphage at Greenwich, which is an unsuccessful attempt to 
 attain picturesqueness by eccentricity. It is sometimes attributed 
 to Hawksmoor, but looks much more like the work of James. 
 Another architect of this school was Archer, who built St. 
 John's church at Westminster, which has been unsparingly 
 criticised, chiefly on account of its four corner towers, or belfries, 
 as Walpole calls them. But the objectors did not notice that 
 these towers were a structural necessity, as when the church 
 was built it was found not to be strong enough for its situation 
 in marshy ground. Archer also designed Cliefden House, which 
 has been much altered of late. We should also mention Vardy, 
 whose Spencer House, in the Green Park, is modelled closely 
 
228 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 after Inigo Jones. It is figured in the Vitruvius Britannicus, 
 iv. ^J. He also designed Uxbridge House, Burlington 
 Gardens. 
 
 The greatest of all the architects who followed Wren in the 
 first half of the eighteenth century was, strange to say, strictly 
 speaking, an amateur. This was Richard, third earl of Burling- 
 ton and fourth earl of Cork, who was born in 1693, ^'""^ d'^*^ '" 
 1753. If Burlington had enjoyed the good fortune to be born 
 poor, his fame as an architect might haply have rivalled that of 
 Inigo Jones, if not that of Wren himself. Burlington had an 
 unbounded admiration for Inigo and all his works. It was by 
 his superintending munificence that Kent was able to publish 
 the two beautiful volumes of Jones's designs ; and, as is well 
 known, he restored and preserved the church in Covent Garden. 
 His modesty exceeded even his ability, and he willingly per- 
 mitted so inferior an architect as Colen Campbell to claim and 
 receive the praises earned by the beautiful design of Burlington 
 House. Unfortunately, very little of his work can be positively 
 identified. In London, Burlington House has been practically 
 destroyed. The house of Marshal Wade has disappeared, 
 though it survives in the courtyard of a hotel, and still has its 
 lovely staircase. The design is also preserved in the Provost's 
 House in Dublin, imitated by an architect named Smith. The 
 best specimen of Burlington's work that exists is hidden away 
 behind Westminster School. A small house with wings, at the 
 end of Savile Row, was built by him in his garden. In the 
 country we have the villa at Chiswick, slightly altered, and much 
 added to, but still in such a condition that we can judge of its 
 merits. At Bath, a house in the Orange Grove is attributed to 
 him ; but I cannot recognise his touch in it. At York, where he 
 
The Successors of Wren ' 229 
 
 was Lord Lieutenant, he designed the beautiful Assembly Rooms. 
 It is a remarkable fact that we should not be able to distinguish 
 his designs from Inigo Jones's in Kent's volumes if they 
 were not all signed. There is certainly nothing in English 
 architecture more quietly beautiful than the elevation of the 
 Westminster dormitory. (It is plate 51 in the second volume 
 of the book of Inigo Jones's designs.) Fifteen arches support 
 the upper storey, which contains a single chamber, 166 feet long. 
 The whole building is 55 feet high. Above the arcade is a row 
 of niches for statues, and above that again, a row of small square 
 window apertures. At the time when the dormitory was built, 
 the site, which looked on the College Garden, was very damp, 
 hence the elevation of the chamber itself on arches. Now that 
 the ground is thoroughly drained and dry, the arches have been 
 built up and further school accommodation has been obtained ; 
 but this alteration has been carefully made so as to interfere 
 little with the effect. 
 
 Campbell ( Vitrtivius Britannicus, iii. p. 2 1 ) takes to himself 
 the credit of having designed Burlington House ; and it is more 
 than likely that he made all the working drawings. It is, how- 
 ever, equally certain, first, that he never was at Vicenza, where 
 is the building by Palladio from which the design is said to 
 have been taken ; and, secondly, that no recognised building 
 of his — Wanstead, or Houghton, or Mereworth — is good enough 
 to be by the same designer as Burlington House. Burlington 
 had been much in Italy, and had seriously studied the art of 
 Palladio. The Chiswick villa was also an adaptation after the 
 same great architect. A second point in the argument against 
 Campbell's authorship is, that his claim was not acknowledged 
 at the time. Walpole, in particular, treats it with contempt, 
 
230 Modern ArcJiitechtre in England 
 
 while he goes into raptures over the colonnade. In the next 
 age, Sir William Chambers, the best possible judge, considered 
 the whole composition to be unrivalled, and, in his work on 
 Civil Architecture, makes use of the oft-quoted phrase, " Behind 
 an old brick wall in Piccadilly there is, notwithstanding its 
 faults, one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe." It 
 is only wearisome to go on quoting what Ralph, Pope, Gay, 
 Malcolm, and Britton say in praise of this beautiful building. 
 It is better worth while to put a few facts relating to it into 
 chronological order. In 17 16, Burlington, not yet of age, met 
 Kent in Italy. He had already, in 171 5, been appointed Vice- 
 admiral of York, an Irish privy councillor, and colonel of a 
 militia regiment. In the following year, 12th January 17 16, 
 he was made Governor of the County of Cork. Four months 
 later, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding 
 and City of York. It is evident that at twenty-one, when he 
 returned home from Italy, full of what he had seen and of the 
 friendship he had already formed with the young architect he 
 left behind, he had quite enough to employ his mind both in 
 public and in private business. He, Burlington, doubtless made 
 careful drawings of buildings at Vicenza ; and, as soon as he 
 could secure the services of an architect, having probably no 
 time of his own to spare, he set about refronting the old house 
 in Piccadilly in the Italian style. He must have begun as 
 early as 1716, for that date with his arms was on the leadwork ; 
 but Campbell specially dates his view of the house 171 7, and 
 that of the gate 171S. Whether after this time Lord Burlington 
 had further dealings with Campbell we do not know. Campbell 
 was in some way mixed up in the intrigue by which Wren was 
 ousted from office, and died the same year that Kent came 
 
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TJie Successors of If yen 233 
 
 home, 1729. Kent was welcomed to Burlington House by his 
 friend. So warm was this welcome, and so great the friendship 
 of the pair, that Kent never left Lord Burlington again, but, 
 having lived here for nineteen years, died in the house and was 
 buried in the vault of the Boyle family at Chiswick in 1748. 
 Meanwhile, the two published the great book upon Inigo Jones 
 I have so often had occasion to mention ; and we can imagine 
 with what pleasure Kent included a few designs by his friend 
 and host with those of the great architect. Kent did not 
 leave very much mark on the public buildings of London. 
 He is believed to have added to Kensington Palace. A 
 state staircase there is always attributed to him, and he 
 decorated the principal apartments. The cupola room, if 
 it is his and not Wren's, does him great credit. Even in 
 a dismantled state, it is fine and rich. The doorways and 
 niches, and the fireplace, all of the Ionic order, in marble, 
 produce a magnificent effect. Kent is certainly responsible 
 for the painting of the staircase, which he carried out, with 
 figures intended to enhance the appearance of size. The 
 Bat ceiling is painted to represent a dome, and faces peer 
 down through the skylight. He was also employed at 
 Hampton Court to complete some of the work Wren had 
 begun. It is not always possible to distinguish his work, but 
 there cannot be much doubt as to a chimney-piece in the 
 Queen's Guard Chamber, which is supported by figures of 
 guards. Holkham Hall is usually considered Kent's best 
 domestic work, the influence of Lord Burlington's greater taste 
 and originality being very plainly marked upon it. Sir William 
 Chambers, however, finds fault with it. In the north front 
 (which is represented in our plate from the Viirtivius Britannicus, 
 2 H 
 
234 Modern AvcJiitccture in England 
 
 V. 25), there are no less than seven Venetian windows, " which, 
 added to the quantity of trifling breaks and ups and downs in 
 the elevation, keep the spectator's eye in a perpetual dance to 
 discover the outlines, than which nothing can be more 
 unpleasing or destructive of effect." The south front is more 
 satisfactory, as it is set off by a magnificent hexastyle portico 
 of the Corinthian order, raised on a rusticated basement. 
 Chambers also makes some disparaging remarks about the 
 Horse Guards, but there Kent was associated with Vardy in 
 the design. The old part of the Treasury buildings was erected 
 in 1733 by Kent, part of a much larger design, never completed. 
 It is plain but perfectly satisfactory as regards proportion and 
 features. 
 
 During all the years of their association Kent and Lord 
 Burlington seem to have very seldom worked together, and to 
 have retained, except in the examples I have named, a complete 
 independence of style. But Burlington House was designed 
 and finished before Kent came from Italy. 
 
 Mr. Wheatley and others say it was designed in imitation 
 of the palace of Count Valerio Chiericato at Vicenza. 
 Burlington did make a design after this palace {Inigo 
 Jones, ii. 12), but it was never used. Ware, in his Palladio, 
 gives two engravings of the Chiericato palace. Burlington 
 House did not in any way resemble them, nor did it, strictly 
 speaking, exactly resemble any of the numerous villas at 
 Vicenza, which Ware has engraved. Part of the house of Count 
 Ottavio de Thieni would give us a hint of the general motive of 
 the design, with its rusticated lower storey and the columns 
 above. But the columns are of the Composite order, whereas 
 Burlington's are Ionic. The following is a technical description 
 
1 tA-al/f O^^ ^O /^' 
 
 HOUSE DESIGNED BY LORD BURLINGTON FOR GENERAL WADE, IN BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
TJie Successors of JVroi 237 
 
 taken from Britton and Pugin : The south front is in three 
 divisions with a rusticated basement ; the central, with six 
 windows, being recessed from the two ends. The first storey, 
 or principal suite of apartments, is ornamented with six columns 
 in the middle division, and four pilasters in the front of each 
 end. In these ends we find the Venetian windows have, very 
 judiciously, been raised to range with the seven other windows. 
 This storey is crowned with an appropriate entablature and 
 balustrade. 
 
 It is just possible at Burlington House, as we now see it, for 
 the judicious visitor to make out a glimpse of the upper storey. 
 A third storey has been added, and below there is a kind of 
 portico, both not only incongruous but thoroughly bad in them- 
 selves. The unhappy architects, finding they had wholly failed 
 to hit off the proportions or any of the feeling of the original, 
 covered the wretchedness of their design with a wealth of orna- 
 ment which only serves to enhance its deficiencies. The famous 
 colonnade has, I hear, disappeared ; but the gate, with the stones 
 numbered, lies in the mud at the western entrance of Battersea 
 Park, where it forms a kind of gymnasium or playground for 
 swarms of children. In its place stands a new entrance, which, 
 were it not for its enormous height, might escape observation 
 for its architectural insignificance. In spite of a lavish use of 
 ornamental carving, it may fairly claim to be, within two at the 
 most, the ugliest building in Piccadilly. 
 
 The York assembly rooms have been added to, and were sub- 
 jected some years ago to a redecoration by Owen Jones ; but the 
 following notes, taken from the volume in the Beauties of England 
 and Wales on Yorkshire, tell us what they were like in 181 2 : 
 " The magnificent Assembly Rooms, erected in the last century, 
 
238 Modern ArcJiitedtiye in England 
 
 and designed by the Earl of Burlington, are an honour to the 
 city and to the architectural taste of that nobleman. The grand 
 room is an antique Egyptian hall from Palladio, 1 1 2 feet in 
 length, 40 feet in breadth, and 40 in height. This room consists 
 of two orders : the lower part, with forty-four columns and 
 capitals and a beautiful cornice, displays the Corinthian order ; 
 the upper part is after the Composite, richly adorned with festoons 
 resembling oak leaves and acorns, with a superb cornice, 
 curiously ornamented with carved work." There are smaller 
 rooms : one 66 feet long, another a cube of 21, and a circular 
 card - room. The front had a semicircular portico, but I 
 fear it has lately been removed, or "restored." There are 
 several views and a plan in the Vitriivius Britanninis, iv. 78. 
 
 Of Chiswick, it is only necessary to say that it was a mere 
 summer-house, but a very pretty one. Two wings had to be 
 built to make it habitable. The original design closely resembles 
 that of the villa near Vicenza of Monsignor Almerico (p. 1 3 in 
 Ware), which was designed by Palladio ; but there are many dif- 
 ferences, and, while the order at Vicenza is Ionic, that at Chiswick 
 is Corinthian. There are three plates representing it in Kent's 
 Inigo Jones (vol. i.). Walpole set the idea going that the design 
 was from that of the Villa Capra. The Villa Capra in Ware's 
 Palladio is wholly different ; but a circular villa, very like that 
 to which he gives the name of Almerico is still at Vicenza, and 
 has " Marius Capra Gabrielis F " over the portico. It is figured 
 in Schlitz {Die Renaissance in lialien, Abtheilung B.), and 
 resembles both Ware's Almerico villa and this one at Chiswick. 
 It is evident that there is either some confusion here, or that 
 Chiswick is wholly original, and that Horace Walpole was not 
 the most accurate of authors. 
 

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The Successors of PVren 24 1 
 
 We have so little of Lord Burlington's, that it is perhaps 
 rash to praise him very highly. If he had been an architect in 
 ordinary practice it is possible, nay, probable, that his art would 
 not have maintained itself at the high level at which alone we 
 see it. Kirby Hall in Yorkshire {Vitruvius Britaiinicns, v. 71), 
 though designed by Burlington, was carried out by Morris, one of 
 his architectural followers, and Harewood ( Vitnivius Britaniiiais, 
 v. 25), which has many traces of his hand upon it, was by Carr. 
 But enough remains of what is undoubtedly his to justify us in 
 ranking Burlington very little below Inigo Jones. 
 
 It would be easy to fill up the rest of this chapter with a 
 criticism of the works of the succeeding professors of Palladian 
 architecture. Taylor was the eldest, having been born in 1714- 
 He had a large practice, but left little that calls for remark. 
 He designed the stone building in Lincoln's Inn, and, it is said, 
 proposed to pull down all the other buildings and lay out the 
 whole inn afresh. James Paine built a good many houses 
 in a pleasing style, but is now little remembered. Chambers 
 is chiefly remembered as the architect of Somerset House, 
 of which the Strand front is always considered a transcript 
 of a former building close to the same site by Inigo Jones. 
 It is probable, to judge by pictures and prints, that 
 Chambers made some such attempt at imitation. But if 
 we remember that Jones's Somerset House faced south, that 
 it was of brick with stone dressings, and, especially, that it 
 was much smaller, we can understand that no such attempt could 
 be successful. The difference of size, material, and aspect would 
 be fatal to any possibility of an exact copy. The front is, how- 
 ever, though unlike Inigo, undoubtedly very fine ; and the arched 
 entrance is one of the most graceful examples of the kind in 
 2 I 
 
242 Modern Anhitectitre in Eiiglana 
 
 London. The western side in Wellington Street is also good ; 
 but it is impossible not to agree with Fergusson when he says 
 that the south front was Chambers's great opportunity, and 
 unfortunately shows " how little he was equal to the task he had 
 undertaken." His happiest efforts were on a much smaller 
 scale. His arbours, and alcoves, and summer-houses in Kew 
 Gardens, chiefly designed for the Princess Dowager of Wales, 
 are one and all extremely pretty. He published a very 
 charming volume about them. Not far off, at Roehampton, 
 there is a kind of temple of the Composite order which will bear 
 a great deal of examination. It and the villa to which it 
 belonged were designed for Lord Bessborough. The villa 
 was lately pulled down. He built in London Lord Gower's 
 house in Whitehall, Lord Melbourne's house in Piccadilly, and 
 the Albany. He was born at Stockholm in 1726, and after- 
 wards went to China, where he made drawings of Chinese 
 buildings, having, even in his youth, a strong taste for 
 architecture. He rose in this art to the highest honours, 
 was the first Treasurer of the Royal Academy, Surveyor- 
 General of royal buildings, and architectural tutor to George 
 III., who is said to have himself, no doubt with his teacher's 
 help, designed a house, the Ranger's Lodge in the Green 
 Park, now pulled down. Chambers practically retired from the 
 profession some time before his death in 1796. Next to him, in 
 date, comes Robert Adam, born in 1 728. Adam and his brothers 
 obtained a great reputation for a knowledge of architecture ; and 
 their book on Spalatro enhanced it. In London, their most con- 
 spicuous building gives no just idea of their powers. The Adelphi 
 Terrace served for many years as a foil to Somerset House, in 
 which capacity it has now been superseded by two or three new 
 
7. 
 
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TJie Successors of Wren 245 
 
 blocks of surpassing ugliness. Lansdowne House is very tame. 
 But Adam did better things, as for instance two sides of Fitzroy 
 Square. Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire has many merits ; the 
 design, and especially the singular arrangement of the plan, with 
 its four wings, being an adaptation from Palladio. (Ware's /'^Z- 
 ladio, B. ii. 58.) There are several views of Kedleston in the 
 fourth volume of Viiriivius Britanniciis. 
 
 In London, the taste of the next generation was wholly taken 
 up with what was supposed to be Grecian. This name was 
 gradually applied to everything that was not Gothic. One 
 writer calls the towers of Westminster Abbey " Grecian." In a 
 modified degree, some of Soane's work may be called Grecian ; 
 but the beautiful adaptation of a temple at Tivoli, which he placed 
 at the north-west corner of the Bank of England, is purely Roman. 
 The greater part of the bank was built by Sir Robert Taylor 
 before 1788, but Soane remodelled the whole. The exterior, 
 with the exception of the corner just mentioned, is studiously 
 plain, though handsome. The courts are more ornamental, one 
 of them, by the way, having been formerly the churchyard of 
 St. Christopher. This one is by Taylor, but the beautiful 
 " Lothbury Court " is by Soane. Leeds describes it as highly 
 picturesque, which it certainly is, and adds "it is not easy to 
 conceive a more beautiful composition." Technically he thus 
 describes it : — " On either side is a flight of steps, the entire 
 width of the court, on which rest two beautiful colonnades of 
 four Corinthian columns, with antae and entablature ; that on the 
 right hand forms an open screen to a raised part of the court, 
 and that on the left a loggia, the centre part of which is a large 
 semicircular recess, extending the width of three intercolumns." 
 By some chance, not easily accounted for, Soane, forgetting 
 
246 Modem ArcJiifecture in England 
 
 what he had learned in Italy, took to designing in an anomalous 
 style, and his law courts at Westminster, which have now 
 disappeared, were as j^Iain and uninteresting as anything in 
 London. 
 
 Meanwhile, true Palladian was flourishing elsewhere. At 
 Bath, where excellent building stone was to be had easily, the 
 two Woods, father and son, and Baldwin the city architect 
 were at work. Queen's Square, built in 1729, I have already 
 mentioned. It is remarkable as apparently the first example of 
 a design which grouped a row of separate dwelling-houses into 
 one composition. The same idea was in Adam's mind in 
 building Fitzroy Square ; but Queen's Square was built when 
 he was only a year old. At Bath, the Woods carried it much 
 further ; in Great Pulteney Street, perhaps, too far. But no one 
 can help admiring the Circus, which groups together thirty 
 handsome residences, with a spacious enclosure of grass and 
 trees before them. The houses are built with columns engaged 
 and coupled, in three storeys. The lowest is of Tuscan Doric, 
 Wren's favourite order. The entablature is carved with 
 emblems, apparently from one of the emblem books which were 
 so common two hundred years ago. The series is continued, 
 without repetitions, round all the houses. The columns of the 
 next storey are Ionic, beautifully carved, but they have suffered 
 much from weather and age. At the top the order is Corinthian. 
 The whole arrangement resembles the cloister of St. Giustina at 
 Padua by Palladio, but is thus summed up in one of the local 
 guide-books: it "is a fine circle of houses, divided into three 
 blocks, which consist of three stages, each built in a differ-ent 
 style of architectui'e." 
 
 The Royal Crescent faces south and has a beautiful view of 
 
The Successors of U 'rcii 249 
 
 the park, lower down the hill. When the Crescent was built the 
 site of the park was a common. It was designed by the younger 
 Wood, and like the Circus consists of thirty houses. A solid 
 basement sustains a series of Ionic engaged columns, those at 
 the ends and in the centre being coupled, the rest single. The 
 effect is good, but owes a great deal to the situation. In any 
 case, it must be acknowledged that neither the Adelphi nor 
 Somerset House has anything like the same stately effect. 
 
 Prior Park, a little way to the southward of Bath, is another 
 example of Wood's skill. There are many houses close by in 
 the same style, at Widcombe, for instance, at Corsham, and, in 
 short, wherever the famous Bath oolite can be quarried. But 
 Prior Park is both the most imposing and also the most pleas- 
 ing. It labours under one serious disadvantage, in facing to 
 the north, and a little neglect covers the noble flight of steps 
 with green mould. The house, which stands on a lofty slope 
 about 400 feet above Bath, consists of a centre and wings, to- 
 gether with outlying offices which are connected with the main 
 building by low walls. The present owners have made some 
 alterations in these arrangements. The portico is very fine, of 
 the Corinthian order, with six columns in front, and two inter- 
 columniations at the sides. The flight of steps is not by Wood, 
 having been added later, but is a very handsome and appropriate 
 feature. The house was built for Ralph Allen, whose name so 
 often occurs in the memoirs of Pope. Fielding, and other great 
 men of the day, and was commissioned with a view of attracting 
 attention to the advantages of Bath stone as a building material. 
 A pretty Ionic bridge in the grounds is copied, perhaps too 
 literally, from one at Wilton, attributed to Inigo Jones. 
 
 After the Woods, at Bath, came Baldwin, who designed the 
 
 2 K 
 
250 Modern Architecture in Eiiglatid 
 
 Pump Room, which is not very good, and the Guildhall, built in 
 1775, which is admirable, but somewhat marred by additions in 
 an anomalous style. These additions are, I believe, condemned, 
 but whether they will be replaced by anything better time alone 
 can show. Architectural taste has died out in Bath. 
 
 There was a partial revival of the purest Palladian in London 
 about fifty years ago, by Barry. The only fault of his Reform 
 and Travellers' Clubs in Pall Mall is, that they resemble too 
 closely the Italian buildings from which, professedly, they are 
 imitated. The Reform Club, finished in 1840, is an exact tran- 
 script of part of the Farnese Palace at Rome, with the result 
 that the windows, intended for the sunny Italian climate, look 
 too small and dark in Pall Mall. We also miss the beautiful 
 arcaded " loggia " of the original. On the other hand, Barry's 
 proportions are admirable, and he was not content to take a 
 portion of the great Roman house without modifying the 
 dimensions in a similar ratio. In short the design, as adapted, 
 is one of the most perfect examples in London, depending, as it 
 does, not on ornament but on proportion for its effect. The 
 Travellers' has been disguised in stucco and painted, the effect 
 being ruined. It was an adaptation from the Pandolfini Palace 
 at Florence, which is often attributed to Raphael. The critics 
 were wild with delight when this house was first built. After 
 the ill-treatment it has received, we might pass it by daily 
 without remarking its merits, which are undoubtedly very 
 great. It is a question whether the south front is not the 
 better of the two. In it the lower storey is rusticated and the 
 upper windows have balconies. The cornices on both fronts 
 are bold, and were delicately ornamented, but the stucco spoils 
 all. There is no balustrade. Barry was so pleased with this 
 
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The Successors of J J Irii 253 
 
 little building that he published a volume about it, with views 
 and drawings by Hewett. Bridgewater House, also by Barry, 
 is much less ornate than the clubs, but on the whole it is 
 greatly to be admired, and shows well beside Spencer 
 House in the Green Park. It seems a pity that Barry's later 
 years were taken up with a building in a style which he 
 did not understand ; but the palace of Westminster attests 
 nevertheless the greatness of his powers, even if it makes us 
 regret the more the purpose to which they were put. It has 
 often been remarked that w^e employed our most eminent 
 Palladian to build in Gothic, and next employed our greatest 
 Gothic architect to build in Palladian ; but the Foreign Office in 
 Whitehall, a grotesque structure, shows us that Scott had none 
 of the adaptability or versatility of Barry. A fine club in Pall 
 Mall— the Army and Navy — is by Parnell and Smith, and is 
 copied from another design of Sansovino, the Cornaro Palace at 
 Venice. Both it and the Carlton, by Smirke, in imitation of 
 Sansovino's Library, would look better without balustrades, 
 which go far to spoil the beautiful cornices. Very few other 
 buildings in this style worthy of notice have been erected in 
 London since the time of Barry. I do not wish here to speak 
 of contemporary architecture more than is absolutely necessary, 
 and need not therefore repeat my opinion ot the recent 
 buildings in the City or in some of the west end streets. 
 Costly materials, it is proved over and over again, will not 
 make handsome buildino^s unless the architect knows his 
 art. In the provinces things have, on the whole, been better. 
 St. George's Hall set a fashion in Liverpool which has been 
 followed in the public library and the picture gallery near 
 it, as well as in some institutions of less note. The style 
 
254 Modern Architecture in England 
 
 flourished for a time at Newcastle, where Dobson designed the 
 admirable railway station and several streets of remarkable 
 beauty and stateliness. Manchester has been unlucky ; and 
 except the cathedral and the exchange, contains nothing one 
 would willingly look at twice. The Town Hall must be 
 characterised as frightful, and the Law Courts are only a shade 
 better. Edinburgh never greatly affected Palladian, though it 
 contains some good examples of the genius of Adam ; and 
 Glasgow, though it has produced some good architects, has let 
 them practise elsewhere. One of the most original and brilliant 
 professors of the Grecian style was Thomson, of Glasgow, but 
 very few of his works are extant. Belfast also is wanting in 
 good architecture ; but before the end of the eighteenth century 
 Palladian art already flourished where we should hardly have 
 expected to find it. Dublin took up the tradition let drop by 
 Bath. A hundred years have elapsed, and we have pleasing 
 evidence that it flourishes there still. The charming group of 
 new buildings in Kildare Street would be more encouraging 
 if we had not to contrast it with the public buildings of the same 
 time and kind in London, and especially at South Kensington. 
 The earliest and certainly the best known Palladian building in 
 Dublin is the Bank of Ireland, originally erected for the Irish 
 Parliament. The architect seems to have been Sir Edward 
 Lovet Pearce, the Surveyor-General, and he deserves credit for 
 a piece of originality not to be matched in the three Kingdoms. 
 The plan is oval, or nearly so, the wall being plain and without 
 openings except on the southern face. There is no basement, 
 but a row of engaged Ionic pillars rises directly from a low 
 plinth. The southern face is very curious. A rectangular 
 opening discloses a kind of courtyard, round which the order is 
 

 
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The Successors of IVren 257 
 
 continued by an open colonnade, a handsome portico and pedi- 
 ment terminating the view. Two smaller pediments, with 
 archways, are at the entrance to each colonnade. The writer 
 of Murray's Handbook thus describes this part of the building ; — 
 " It consists of a magnificent Ionic front and colonnades, the 
 centre occupying three sides of a receding square. The principal 
 porch is svhpported by four Ionic pillars, and is surmounted by 
 a pediment with the royal arms and a statue of Hibernia, with 
 Fidelity and Commerce on each side, the last two having been 
 modelled by Flaxman. The open colonnade extends round the 
 square to the wings and is flanked on each side by a lofty entrance 
 arch." It appears that this grand colonnade and entrance front 
 was the first portion erected. A second portico is on the eastern 
 side, and was built by James Gandon, one of the editors of the 
 fourth and fifth volumes of the ]'itniviits Britanniciis. It looks 
 strange, for it is of the Corinthian order, as desired by the Lords, to 
 whose chamber it gave access. Gandon is said to have described 
 it contemptuously as " the order of the House of Lords." It has 
 by no means a bad effect, being another example of the axiom 
 that incongruous objects, if they are good equally, tend to 
 picturesqueness. Gandon carried out the "order" in 1785, and 
 two years later Parke built a handsome Ionic portico for the 
 House of Commons at the western side. Gandon completed 
 another important design in Dublin. This was the Four Courts, 
 commenced in 1776 by Cooley, who had designed the Dublin 
 Royal Exchange. Cooley died when he had only begun the 
 work, and Gandon finished it in 1800. It is undoubtedly a very 
 fine edifice, and like the Bank shows great originality of plan. 
 An experiment has been tried at Melbourne in Australia by 
 which a similar dome and portico are placed on a conspicuous 
 
 2 L 
 
258 Modern ArcJiitccturc in England 
 
 hill, and we can judge how much the Dublin courts lose by their 
 situation in a hollow, close to the river, which is here only a 
 noisome sewer. The plan is described by Dr. Walsh, the 
 author of a History of Dublin, as one which may be "distinctly 
 delineated in the imagination by figuring a circle of 64 feet 
 diameter, inscribed in the centre of a square of 140 feet, with 
 the Four Courts radiating from the circle to the angles of the 
 square." The columns round the hall are of the Corinthian 
 order, and so also are the columns on the exterior supporting 
 the low dome, and those of the portico. 
 
 A little farther down the same quay is one of the largest and 
 most costly of the Palladian buildings of Dublin. The Custom- 
 House was designed by Gandon, and, as it stands by itself, has 
 four fronts, of which that to the south is the best. It has a fine 
 Doric portico, on either side of which is a lofty arcade occupying 
 the basement. From the centre of the building, which is 375 
 feet long by 205 in depth, rises a cupola, evidently constructed 
 in imitation of the two which Wren placed over the chapel and 
 hall at Greenwich, and rising to a height of 1 13 feet. 
 
 Trinity College is another extremely satisfactory building. 
 The front to College Green is plain but in good proportion. 
 Adjoining the front to the south is the Provost's house, designed 
 after Burlington's house for Marshal Wade. The first college 
 quadrangle, with the Examination Hall and the Chapel, has an 
 irregular but most satisfactory effect. The design was sent over 
 by Chambers, and was carried out by Mayers. The Chapel is 
 by Cassels. On the south side is the Library, formerly a 
 magnificent example of the style. Some forty years ago fears 
 were expressed as to the stability of the flat roof, over 200 
 feet long, and a stupid expedient was adopted for supporting it, 
 
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The Successors of IV yen 261 
 
 by which the beauty of the whole building is marred. There 
 used to be a long arcade below, as a cloister, but the arches are 
 now filled. The Library was greatly altered and a new roof 
 made in i860. In the centre of the quadrangle is a very 
 graceful campanile, by Lanyon, built in 1854, as if to show that 
 the Palladian tradition survived till then. It survives still, as I 
 have remarked, and unquestionably the best contemporary 
 example in the three Kingdoms is the new museum building in 
 Kildare Street. Some people perhaps may assert that the best 
 contemporary examples are to be sought for at the Antipodes. 
 Certainly we have nothing in London to compare with the 
 Post-Ofifice at Melbourne, designed it is said by an amateur. It 
 follows closely the motives of Inigo Jones in his Whitehall 
 drawings, and if it was better situated, for it is in the bottom of 
 a valley, would deserve and obtain a world-wide reputation. 
 
 It is necessary, in conclusion, to make some allusion to the 
 style which succeeded or superseded that of Chambers and 
 Gandon and Barry. Gandon and Chambers flourished before, 
 and Barry after, the issue of Stuart and Revett's great work on 
 the architectural remains of Greece, and, in particular, of Athens. 
 " Athenian " Stuart, as he was called, must be regarded as the 
 originator of a taste for Grecian architecture. He did not 
 succeed with it himself, nor did the taste for it last. The 
 picturesqueness of which Thomson of Glasgow has shown it 
 was capable was wholly missed, and some designs of Hardwick, 
 for the railway station at Euston Square, are almost the only 
 good work of the kind which was produced in London. Hard- 
 wick was also, it may be remembered, the designer of one of the 
 very few good Gothic buildings of the revival, a library at 
 Lincoln's Inn, the beauty of which was after his day much 
 
262 Modern Architecture in E/ii^tamt 
 
 <b' 
 
 marred by some additions in a style precisely similar, but without 
 the proportion which in Hardwick's mind was essential to good 
 architecture whether Greek or Gothic. St. Pancras Church 
 became a warning— a sign-post : " No thoroughfare this way." 
 The architects — the Inwoods, father and son — had imbibed to 
 the full the pernicious doctrine that absolute symmetry was 
 necessary, especially in a public building. The details of the 
 design are Ionic, and the whole church, which was finished in 
 1 82 2, was supposed to be a composition from the Erechtheum 
 and the Tower of the Winds at Athens. Like the Erechtheum, 
 it has a hexastyle portico. Exactly matching at each side are 
 the lateral Caryatid porticoes. In the original, I may say, in 
 accordance with the strictest Greek taste, the two porticoes are 
 different : a charming feature in itself. Here, at St. Pancras, 
 the design of one side is exactly repeated at the other. " Four 
 statues of females of colossal size stand on a continued plinth, in 
 the middle of which are folding doors of iron, closing the 
 entrances to the vaults or catacombs beneath the church." The 
 result is tame to the last degree. So afraid were the architects 
 of admitting the slightest trace of freedom, that each of the 
 Caryatides has a water-jug in one hand and an inverted torch in 
 the other. They are not even carved in marble or stone, but 
 are cast in terra-cotta. In addition to the deplorable effect thus 
 produced, the tower was designed and arranged so as to spoil 
 the one good feature, namely the portico. It rises to a height 
 of 157 feet, and is constructed of a series of temples piled one on 
 the top of the other, each octagonal and peripteral, and generally 
 modelled after the Tower of the Winds. On the top of all " in 
 lieu of the Triton and wand in the original, the symbolical 
 representation of the wind, which terminated the composition, a 
 
SECTION, CHI.^WICK. r.V LUKLINGTON. 
 
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The Successors of Wren 267 
 
 cross, the great emblem of Christian worship, is placed." Not 
 only is this ridiculous tower very ugly in itself, the proportions 
 of any one storey of it by no means setting off the proportions of 
 the next, but it is put right in the middle of the portico, which 
 is completely crushed by it in every possible view. A church 
 at Glasgow, by the late "Grecian Thomson," shows how such 
 a feature as a tower can be managed in this style, and also 
 where it should be placed. St. Pancras shows us how it can- 
 not be managed and where it should not be placed. So careful 
 were the Inwoods of the details that one of them proceeded to 
 Athens and obtained leave to make casts of parts of the 
 Erechtheum, and, perceiving that some of the columns had 
 been made of the green marble called verd antique, he had 
 them imitated in scagliola, that is, stucco, in the new church. 
 At first the new design was seriously praised. Anything that 
 professed to be and apparently was pure Grecian, exactly and 
 accurately copied in every part from the best originals, must be 
 good, and not only was St. Pancras admired by the professional 
 critics, but even by some people of taste. But the hour of 
 triumph was very transient. It was soon recognised that the 
 best details will not make up a good building, unless there is a 
 great deal besides in it. There could be no question that St. 
 Pancras church was, from every point of view, a failure, — 
 almost a ludicrous failure. A fresh attempt was nevertheless 
 made by Smirke at the British Museum. " Nothing," says 
 Fergusson, " can well be more absurd than forty-four useless 
 columns, following the sinuosities of a modern facade, and 
 finishing round the corner." There is a somewhat better 
 portico at the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, by Basevi ; 
 but it is better because there is no make-believe, and because it 
 
268 Modem AnJiitccturc in Biiglaiid 
 
 is only one feature of a building and not the building itself. St. 
 George's Hall, at Liverpool, is the most successful example of 
 this school, and it is not so much Grecian as Roman. It is by 
 Elmes, and is an adaptation of one of the Thernice of imperial 
 Rome. "The principal facade," says Fergusson, "is orna- 
 mented by a portico of sixteen Corinthian columns, each 46 
 feet in height, beyond which on each side is a ' crypto-porticus ' 
 of five square pillars, filled up to one-third of their height by 
 screens, the whole being of the purest and most exquisite 
 Grecian, rather than Roman detail." The south front has a 
 handsome octastyle portico. The north front has an apse, and 
 the west is studiously plain, but with Grecian mouldings and 
 other suitable features. It will be seen that Elmes did not 
 share the Inwoods' opinions on symmetry, and this one building 
 would be sufficient to show of how little value it is to the 
 architect who knows what he is about. Before St. George's 
 Hall was completed, in 1854, Grecian architecture may be said 
 to have died out in England. The church of St. Pancras 
 inflicted a heavy blow upon it. The facade of the British 
 Museum is a little better, but it is impossible not to agree 
 with Weale when he wrote in 1853, "The imitations of 
 the most sublimely beautiful productions human art has 
 ever achieved, or is likely to achieve, are now shunned by all 
 for their intense ugliness." The fact is, we had the style 
 and we had the demand, but, and this is after all the important 
 thing, we had not an artist to answer to the call. True, as I 
 have already remarked, an architect in Grecian of great power, 
 named Thomson, showed in some admirably - proportioned 
 designs what might have been done, but very few of his learned 
 and delicate designs were carried out before his death, some five- 
 
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The Successors of Wren 273 
 
 and-twenty years ago. He seems to have cared less for sym- 
 metry than for proportion, and was particularly noted for his 
 manaoement of blank walls. But in London it was not alto- 
 o-ether the want of a man. Decimus Burton, who designed the 
 screen at Hyde Park Corner, was very fair. His second 
 desio-n for a corresponding screen to be placed at the end of 
 Constitution Hill is even more beautiful, but was never carried 
 out, although it would have been in every way preferable to the 
 present stupid arrangement. The arch, recently removed and 
 rebuilt, in a wholly unsuitable situation, on a slope, standing 
 cornerwise to the roadway, was also his, and though good, is 
 somewhat heavy. There are also several of his designs in 
 Public Buildings of London, such as " Mr. Greenough's Villa," 
 the Colosseum, terraces in Regent's Park, and so on ; but all 
 were executed in stucco and look well only on paper. He 
 acted as architect to Kew Gardens, where he was very suc- 
 cessful with the great palm-house. Nash, also, had ideas. We 
 see his work in Regent Street ; but his genius, if he had any, 
 was smothered in lath and plaster. He was much more 
 Palladian than Greek ; but if his masterly Quadrant had been 
 carried out in stone, it would have equalled anything of its kind 
 in Europe. Robert Abraham built the County Fire Office in 
 Regent Street, an adaptation from Inigo Jones. Many of the 
 buildings in this neighbourhood as far up as the Regent's Park 
 are very Grecian in design ; but what killed Grecian as a 
 modern and feasible style was stucco. If we open any archi- 
 tectural book of 1825 or about that time, we read of grand 
 buildings in Pall Mall, Regent Street, and Regent's Park. In 
 Shepherd's London in the Nineteenth Centtiry they are seriously 
 described and favourably criticised by Elmes ; while the views, 
 
 2 N 
 
2/4 Modern AycJiitcctnre in England 
 
 especially of Regent Street and of Cumberland Place, are, 
 literally, most imposing, that is, if you do not examine them too 
 closely : for all these gorgeous palaces fail in the details — as 
 indeed they must. They are not real. They stand to architec- 
 ture as scene-painting stands to landscape. They are contrived 
 to produce an effect, and they produce it until you come near 
 enough to see that they are constructed throughout of Portland 
 cement and the like, and that the capitals and mouldings are 
 cast. Yet, on paper, in views like Shepherd's and descriptions 
 like Elmes's, they appear splendid. I remember seeing in a local 
 guide-book — it was in Australia — an account of a Wesleyan 
 church in a town not too far off for a visit by rail. The build- 
 ing was described as being " in the Grecian Doric style. . . . 
 The entablature is divided into architrave, frieze, and entablature 
 cornice, the frieze being enriched with triglyphs and drops, the 
 former capped. Under the corona of the cornice is a handsome 
 modillion band, with mutuals central with each pilaster. The 
 centre portion of the building, by projecting pilasters about a 
 foot, enables a feature to be made in the front — the balustrade 
 terminating with a pediment. The use of smaller pilasters 
 centrally situated, with cornices and pediment, secures a porch 
 showing prominently, and an arched recess over gives a tone 
 generally to the projecting portion." There was a great deal 
 more and a similarly florid account of the interior. I naturally 
 journeyed off to see this remarkable example of colonial taste. I 
 found an ordinary little Dissenters' meeting-house, of stucco, 
 painted drab. I did not look at it twice, but had time to recog- 
 nise that the description was perfectly correct. 
 
 This kind of thing, I am sure, this elevation of the make- 
 believe to an equality with the real, helped largely to ruin 
 
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CHURCH AT GLASGOW. BY THOMSON. 
 
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The Successors of II yen i^c) 
 
 the practice of Grecian, and to prepare the minds of people 
 of taste to expect great results from the Gothic revival. There 
 was in future a sweet simplicity in classification. Gothic, of 
 course, was Gothic. But Grecian described everything that 
 was not Gothic — Regent Street first, and after it Whitehall 
 and St. Paul's and Burlington House. No invidious distinc- 
 tions were made. All were classed in the same category. 
 They were not Gothic. 
 
 After many years, however, and much eloquent writing and 
 elaborate designing, people are beginning to discover that there 
 is a style that is neither Grecian nor Gothic, a style, too, which, 
 unlike either, encourages a designer to be original, and desires 
 him to go forward, and not backward, and which, though it is 
 by no means new, does not prohibit novelty. The Palladian 
 style is about 400 years old, yet its admirers are not obliged to 
 build after a 400-years-old pattern. They are able to use the 
 building appliances of the day. Without any falsification or 
 make-believe they can employ every new invention for heating 
 and lighting, for ventilation and sanitation. The style often in 
 this country called " Queen Anne " is included in it, and there 
 are other names : but Inigo, Wren, and Burlington were, and 
 acknowledged themselves to be, under the influence of Palladio 
 rather than of Bramante or Vignola, or Sansovino, or San 
 Gallo, or any other great Italian of that time. 
 
 The great drawback to the use of this style at the present 
 day lies in the necessity for careful proportion. It comes into 
 competition, not with Grecian, as it was understood when 
 George IV. was king, nor yet with Gothic as practised by 
 Scott and Street, neither of whom seemed to have known what 
 proportion meant, but with the new wilfully ignorant school, the 
 
28o Modern ArcJiitedtire iu England 
 
 "know nothings" of English architecture; and so, in the 
 closing words of this chapter and this book, I come back to 
 what I began with. If the British public, the employers of 
 the British architect, insist on learning and beauty, whether 
 Gothic or Palladian, or Grecian, it daily becomes more likely 
 that they will get it. But, if they profess not to care, we 
 may go on as at present with cathedrals like Truro, with 
 palaces like Buckingham Palace, and with private houses like 
 Grosvencr Place. 
 
 D. H. Mi»-1- LJBRARY 
 North Carolina State Colleg* 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abraham, Robert, 273 
 
 Adam, R., 242 
 
 Alban, St., 187, 212 
 
 Albert Memorial, 6, 24 
 
 Alcove at Kensington, 163, 172 
 
 Allen, Ralph, 249 
 
 All Hallows, Bread Street, 160, 1S4 
 
 All Hallows, Thames Street, 184 
 
 All Souls' College, 35, 220 
 
 Almerico Palace, 101 
 
 Alphage, St., 227 
 
 Amesbury, 139 
 
 "An arch never sleeps," 19 
 
 Anne Boleyn, 45 
 
 Anne of Cleves, 45, 80 
 
 Anne of Denmark, 46, i i 5 
 
 "Anne, Queen," style, 164, 168, 171, 
 
 172, 279 
 Anomalous style, 12 
 Antholin, St., 180, 211 
 Arch Row, I 2 i 
 Archer, 227 
 
 Architecture, modern, 3, 15, 279 
 Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 113 
 Ashbumham House, iio, 135 
 "Athenian" Stuart, 261 
 Aubrey, 68 
 Audley End, 55, 63 
 
 Baldwin, 249 
 Bank, the, 245 
 2 O 
 
 Banqueting House, Whitehall, iio, 122, 
 
 128 
 Barry, Sir C, 4, 250 
 Basevi, 267 
 
 Bath, 36, 228, 246, 249 
 Bayswater Road, houses in, 9 
 Benet, St., 135, 144 
 Bernini, 157 
 Blomfield, Mr. Reginald, quoted, 59, 67, 
 
 144 
 Borley, 83 
 
 Bradford-on-Avon, 64 
 Bray, 15, 23, 24 
 Bride's, St., 202 
 British Museum, 268 
 Browne, Sir Anthony, 83 
 Brympton, 97, 139 
 Burges, W., 34, 197 
 Burghley, 73. 75 
 Burlington, Earl of, 8, 140, 144, 215, 
 
 228 
 Burton, D., 273 
 
 Caius College, 87, 92 
 Cambridge, 11, 87, 139, 152 
 Campbell, C, 215, 22S, 230 
 Canova, 204, 209 
 Canterbury, 20 
 Carlton Club, 253 
 Chambers, Sir W., 105, 233, 241 
 Chancellor, Mr., 83 
 
282 
 
 Modem ArcJiitectiwe in England 
 
 Charles, Plymouth, 40 
 
 Charles I., 127 
 
 Charles II., 171, 194, 198 
 
 Charlton, 1 39, 1 70 
 
 Chelsea, 167 
 
 Cheshire Houses, 71 
 
 Chichester Cathedral, 6 
 
 Chiswick, 2 38 
 
 Gibber, C, 172 
 
 Clark, Mr. J. W., 88 
 
 Cobham, 52, 55, 63, 74, 139 
 
 Coleshill, 140 
 
 Collcutt, Mr., 12 
 
 Cooley, 257 
 
 Corsham, Wilts, 39, 249 
 
 Covent Garden, no, 132, 228 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, I 5 I 
 
 Cromwell, Thomas, 45 
 
 Denham, Sir John, 152, 153 
 
 Devonshire collection, 109, 116, 144 
 
 Dormer Monuments, 83 
 
 Dublin, 254, 261 
 
 Duke's House, the, 64, 68 
 
 Dunstan's, St., 21 1 
 
 Durham, 20 
 
 Elizabethan Houses, 54 
 Elmes, 204, 268, 273 
 Ely, Bishop of, 36, 151, 152, 196 
 Ely, chapel of Bishop West, 46 
 Ely, monuments at, 83 
 
 Fell, Dean, 32 
 
 Felstead, 83 
 
 Fergusson, James, quoted, 125, 135, 
 
 157, 207, 219 
 Fletcher, Professor, quoted, 106 
 Four Courts, Dublin, 257 
 Fulmer, 40 
 
 Galilee, Durham, 20 
 
 Galleries, Wren's, 201 
 
 Gandon, James, 257, 261 
 
 Garbett on design, 98 
 
 George's, St., Hall, 268 
 
 Gibbons, G., 120, 210 
 
 Gibbs, James, 219, 227 
 
 Glasgow, 254, 267 
 
 Gloucester, 22 
 
 Gotch, Mr., on Elizabethan Buildings, 
 
 52, 74, 75, 116 
 Great Chalfield, 36, 64 
 Great St. Mary's, 35 
 Greenwich, 139, 152, 158, 167, 170 
 Gregory, St, 131 
 Gresham's Exchange, 87 
 
 H ADDON, 55, 59 
 
 Halliday, 39 
 
 Hampton Court, 28, 33, 43, 96, 163, 171 
 
 Hardwick, 97, 261 
 
 Harewood, 241 
 
 Haveus, 87, 92 
 
 Hawksmoor, 28, 35, 171, 215, 219 
 
 Haydocke, 93 
 
 Henry VII., 3, 21, 79 
 
 Henry VIII., 31, 72 
 
 Heriot's Hospital, 46, 115 
 
 Holbein, 45 
 
 Holkham, 233 
 
 Holland House, Gate of, 140 
 
 Holt, Thomas, of York, 31 
 
 Honour, Gate of, 91 
 
 Hungerford Hospital, 39 
 
 Hyde Park Comer, 273 
 
 Inwood, 262 
 
 James, John, 227 
 James I., 122, 126, 127 
 
Index 
 
 283 
 
 James's, St., 45 
 
 Jewitt, Mr. O., quoted, 3 1 
 
 John's, St., Oxford, 32 
 
 Jones, Inigo, at Oxford, 32 ; in London, 
 
 47; birth, 113; career, 116, 147; 
 
 death, 143 
 
 Katharine Cree, St., 47, 131, 187 
 Kenil worth, 72 
 
 Kennington and Kensington, 139 
 Kent, Wilham, 215, 228, 233 
 Kew Gardens, 242, 273 
 Kildare Street, Dubhn, 254, 261 
 Kingston House, Bradford, 68 
 Knole, 53, 59 
 
 Lansdowne House, 245 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 47, 187 
 
 Law, Mr. E., quoted, 43, 171 
 
 Lawrence, St., 203 
 
 Lichfield Cathedral, 2 1 1 
 
 Lincoln, 46 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, 241 
 
 Lindsey House, iio, 121 
 
 Liverpool, 253, 268 
 
 Lomazzo, 93 
 
 London, modern architecture of, 7, 1 3, 273 
 
 London, Tower of, 20, 44, 54 
 
 Longland, Bishop, 46 
 
 Longleat, 71 
 
 Lothbury Court, 245 
 
 Manchester, 12 
 Marlborough House, 163 
 Marney, Layer, monuments at, 80 
 Martin, St., in the Fields, 221 
 Mary, St., Abbots, 10 
 
 ,, ,, Abchurch, 210 
 
 ,, ,, Aldermary, 48, 179 
 
 „ „ Great, 35 
 
 Mary, St., Le Strand, 98, 221 
 „ Somerset, 179, 203 
 Matthew, St., 153 
 Mildred, St., 209 
 Monument, 163, 170 
 Morden College, 1 70 
 
 Nevile's Court, 155 
 New Law Courts, 5 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 222 
 Nottingham House, 1 39 
 
 Opie, John, 9, 160 
 
 Orangery, 173 
 
 Orders of Architecture, 1 00 
 
 Ornament out of place, 5 
 
 Osyth, St., 83 
 
 Oxford, 28, 32, 35, 115, 139, 154 
 
 Oxford, Lord and Lady, 222 
 
 Padua, John of, 68, 73 
 
 Palladio, 98, 99 
 
 Pancras, St., 262 
 
 Paris, Wren in, i 56 
 
 Parnell and Smith, Messrs., 253 
 
 Paul's, St., Cathedral, 187, 200 
 
 ,, ,, Covent Garden, 131 
 
 „ ,, Old, 131 
 Pembroke College, 152 
 Phillimore, Miss, quoted, 192 
 Plymouth, 40 
 Prior Park, 249 
 Proportion, Palladian rules of, 105 
 
 Queen Anne style, 164 
 Queen's Square, Bath, 246 
 Quincy, Quatremere de, 99, 1 1 3 
 
 Ranger's Lodge, 242 
 Regent's Park, 273 
 
284 
 
 Modern 'A^rJiitecture in England 
 
 Reredos at Whitehall, 1 3 1 
 Rich Memorial, S3 
 Roehampton, 242 
 Rowe, Sir H., 39 
 Ruskin, Mr., 6 
 
 Salisbury Cathedral, 6 
 
 Sansovino, 99, 253 
 
 Savoy, Chapel Royal, 45 
 
 Scott, .Sir G. G., 6, 32 
 
 Sedding, the late Mr. John D., i 5 
 
 Sedding, Mr. Edmund H., 209 
 
 Sheldonian Theatre, 154 
 
 Shelford, Little, 92 
 
 Soane, Sir John, 131, 136 
 
 Solomon, Song of, 95 
 
 Somerset House, 121, 241 
 
 Stephen's, St., Wallbrook, 11, 204, 209 
 
 Stevenson, Mr. J. J., quoted, 22 
 
 Stewart monuments, 83 
 
 Stone, Nicholas, 121, 128, 140 
 
 Strong, Thomas and Edward, 164 ' 
 
 Stucco, reign of, 273 
 
 Swithin's, St., 211 
 
 Taylor, Mr. Andrew, quoted, 183, 184 
 
 Taylor, Sir R., 241, 245 
 
 Temple Bar, 1 70 
 
 Temple, Middle, 170 
 
 Theobalds, 1 70 
 
 Thorpe, 73, 92, 93 
 
 Tom Tower, 33, 159 
 
 Torregiano, 44, 79 
 
 Tower of London, 20, 44, 54 
 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, i 5 5 
 
 ,, „ Dublin, 258 
 
 „ „ Oxford, 155 
 
 Tuscan style, 105 
 
 Vanbrugh, 169, 216, 219 
 Van Eyck, 94 
 Vardy, 227 
 Venice, 102 
 Vernon, Dorothy, 56 
 Verona, 105 
 Vicenza, 102 
 Vitruvius, 102, 131 
 
 Wade, General, 228 
 Wadham College, 28 
 Ware, L, 234 
 Webb, J., 143 
 Westminster, 21, 28, 80 
 Whitehall, 122, 129 
 Widcombe, 109, 249 
 Williams, 44 
 Wolsey, 33 
 Wood, 246 
 
 Wraxall, South, 23, 36, 53, 64, 84 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 34, 151, 212, 
 219 
 
 York, Duke of, 191, 193 
 Young, John, 44, 79 
 
 THE END. 
 
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