Riverside Palaces : Town houses of the nobility on the Thames at Westminster during the seventeenth century.
During the seventeenth century landed gentry (M. Girouard, 1978) the great farmers of the shires during their winter season would remove themselves as described in the diary of Lady Anne Clifford (R.T. Spence, 1997) with an entourage or suite to the city.
No longer would it be
sufficient to maintain and manage large country estates, an agrarian landlord may accumulate wealth in the shires, though if he were to gain influence in court (promote his education and perhaps invest in some international trade) a place in the cultural, social and political whirl of the winter ‘season’ in the city would promote his place. Some mixture of socio-political interests enabled by a culture of hospitality, a courtly demonstration of wealth which needed a town house, commodious and reflecting a social intention.
With political
influence may flow appointments, offices and lead to his own patronage of a
flourishing culture. Arising from the medieval guilds and their observance of hospitality
during festivals, was a culture in development.
During the early
seventeenth century the court no longer proceeded to visit the noble residence of a courtier in the shires (J. Nichols, 1977) instead Jacobean court habits were urban and attracting participation in the city and its growing social influence.
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This urban culture began to flourish among the court and nobility, with hospitality, a ‘largesse’ influenced by the developing English literature.
Translations and printing presses included classic
Authors and contemporaries writing in English, presentations of which acquired musical accompaniments.
Social participation and the pace,
flamboyance of the Jacobean court was an encouragement, engendering the dissemination of a socio-political culture in an urban context. To offer ‘largesse’ and hospitality in this developing culture required a place on the river reflecting some of the cultural aspirations of a social standing measured often with respect to the court. Convenient to Fleet Street or the Strand, a location comparable to the court at Somerset House (known as Denmark House, as Queen Anne of Denmark came into residence) and Whitehall, riverside gardens afforded a unique approach by barge or river transport.
It is here on the Middlesex north
bank that gardens, pavilions and architectural building springs up by the Thameside. Initiatives were varied and unwrapping a social development will be inconclusive, oral traditions and private lives are interwoven with a cultural movement adapting traditions and finding new forms of expression.
Collegiate traditions pre-date this ariviste movement,
as building types favoured in the Inns of Court.
This style is inventive
with the internal planning of suits and rooms formed in wings along courtyards rather than in the formal organisation of elevations or façades lending itself to adjustment, enlargement, multiples of brick bays, often castellated overlook the gravel walks, serried rows of 2
planting or square parterres.
Such an example is found in the
Middle Temple, adopted at Hungerford House and (fig. 1) the
Arundel
House of Admiral Lord Nottingham. With the foundation of a new built Northumberland House (shown on the Strand in Canaletto’s view (fig.2) here a castle form is adopted, squared around a courtyard and domesticated Figure 1 Arundel House during development - Hollar
in its large windows, corner towers
and bay fronted entrance. The Percy family long associated with Alnwick Castle, adapt and transform a square towered typology, which endures alongside later classical neighbours. This can also be seen in William Morgan’s long-view (1682) where to the east can
be found Sir George
Villier’s York Buildings the growth of which included gardens, and a water-gate.
archways,
Figure 2 Northumberland House - Canaletto
Savoy Palace and
Sir Phillip Sidney’s Durham House (fig. 3) both continue castle towers, oriel windows and water-gates on the river, as from a medieval moat. However, the arrival of Lords Robert Cecil and Thomas Howard begin changes in several new directions.
Figure 3 Durham, Salisbury and Worcester House - Hollar
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For Lord Cecil moving from Salisbury Court at Whitefriars, this is an occasion for intentions informed by classical influences, for a petite palace regular in its bays and ordering of elevations to the gardens and river, influencing Worcester House standing adjacent. At Arundel House Thomas Howard inherited a collegiate ensemble of towers and wings around a courtyard (fig. 1) It would be his introduction of another element to the culture of his age, adding a collection to his house and architectural intentions which outlasted them both.
Figure 4 Arundel House developed by Thomas Howard with Inigo Jones, a roof-top view towards St Paul’s - Hollar
With poor health he began collecting through his own Agents, marble statuary of Greece and Rome.
Reverend William Petty among others
purchased and arranged the shipment of figures and busts which were to form his well-known collection.
Of the many (during the 1630’s some
128 busts and 37 full figures) , selected figures were mounted and placed in his antique muse garden. remodelling
A garden which
extended by vistas the
of the Elizabethan house by Inigo Jones, while setting
galleries within a colonnaded (fig. 9) court linked to a banqueting house. Hendrik van der Borcht
(painter) became the Superintendent of this
collection and portraitist of the notable John Aubrey.
Such enthusiasts
as the Arundel’s encouraged others at the Caroline Court, the King himself began similar transformations as (fig. 5) Denmark House became Somerset House (R. Strong, 1979). 4
While rivals at Court, also in collecting, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham vied at York House with Thomas Howard, in his patronage of a collection supervised Figure 4
Somerset House – J. Kip
by Sir Balthazar Gerbier.
Inigo Jones chapel is located at the Left-hand corner of the central garden
York House like Arundel House included
new classical additions,
elevations, alterations and garden developments by Robert Smythson, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, and Inigo Jones.
Isaac de Caus
Of the surviving
drawings (the son) John Smythson has two sketch books including
Figure 6 Robert Smythson’s Somerset House garden plan.
archways for Arundel House gardens. From his two visits, drawings of elevations and details indicative of a transforming influence, a suffusion of classic elements in an urban texture (figs. 7, 8) of brick, gables, bays, Flemish and Italian details mingle. A symmetry on the vertical axis becomes through invention an exploration of such elements
Figure 7 Arundel House gateway in John Smythson’s sketch book.
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emerging out of a metamorphosis. The notions of castle are nowhere evident in these ‘new palace’ foundations.
A pageant of river
barges forms a foreground to the elevations rising above the avenues of an antique muse garden. Palaces on a smaller scale followed on from example with dissemination Figure 8 Arundel House muse garden with sculpture, a view towards the Middle Temple.
of a festival culture.
Nobility may
mimic and thus give
homage to the court.
Stone pediments,
balanced elevations, colonnades, gazebos, banqueting-houses, water and garden archways open onto and signify a .
culture of princely splendour, a part of the King’s Arcadia.
Figure 9 Arundel House, gardens and banqueting house
A painter of
miniatures, Sir Balthazar Gerbier provided an impetus
to this dissemination through
several initiatives for re-setting York House gardens (fig. 10) and the new buildings to accommodate arrival of Sir Peter Paul Rubens collection from Antwerp. Figure 10 A water-gate into York House gardens, a design by Balthazar Gerbier ?
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Among the garden works is a water-gate built by Nicholas Stone, Roy Strong (1978) attributes this to Gerbier who went on to complete similar works for Lord Craven at Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire. After Inigo Jones his father-in-law, John Webb is active at Somerset House in connection with the classical elements of a setting for festivals and recitals, also a south front Gallery and loggia. John Smythson, although less the draughtsman, through a keen interest to find some example of these developments, led him to add to his sketch book the Arundel House gateway by Inigo Jones alongside a fireplace and a Salisbury House entrance.
There is
more of a Flemish manner however, in his contemporary sketches and interest
Figure 11 Arundel House a gateway, after Inigo Jones in John Smythson’s sketch book
for Holborn town houses.
While
the turbulent period of 1642 – 1650 and the Interregnum paused these innovations, events left largely unscathed riverside estates. Salisbury House, Whitefriars (vacated for a new Salisbury House by the Figure 12 Bath House, Holborn in John Smythson’s sketch book.
Strand) passed to the Earl of Dorset.
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Figure 13 Dorset Gardens theatre located in part of William Morgan’s long-view
Edward, 4th Earl of Dorset gave his encouragement to a theatre in Salisbury Court, (later renamed Dorset Gardens) which became in 1671 a newly built establishment (fig. 13).
Thus a new theatre
by Sir Christopher Wren, for James, Duke of York’s company completed on the river-front in Dorset Gardens.
was
Of Salisbury House
behind little more is heard. Conclusion. There continued a parallel culture of conservatism in the Inns of Court whose collegiate structure provided a typology for some earlier noble houses.
Extended into the Middle Temple gardens, new brick
and stone built wings centred on the sixteenth century hammer-beam hall (fig. 14).
The medieval spirit of
such a foundation was, in the nineteenth century to guide the stone carving of Westminster Palace, as the new
Houses of Parliament, under the
direction of A. W. Pugin and Charles Barry.
Figure 14 - anon.
Middle Temple Hall
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Of the noble residences transforming the riverside during the seventeenth century Durham House as a castle on the waterside became incorporated, then demolished as York House became York Buildings, the area now occupied by the Royal Society of Arts on Durham House Street. Bestowing a water-gate (whether or not drawn by Sir Balthazar Gerbier,
Figure 15 York House and water-gate - anon.
John Webb or Inigo Jones) to Victoria Gardens, York House shown by William Morgan in his long-view leaves little trace (fig.15).
Salisbury
House by Ivy Bridge (a bridge or tidal stairs upstream from Salisbury House stairs) is an area bounded by the same Ivy Bridge Lane.
While
Worcester House leaves no discernible trace, however, neighbouring Savoy Palace and chapel, has been re-founded by the D’oyly Carte family as the well-known hotel by T.E. Colcutt Architect.
This new ‘palace’ stands
between the riverside gardens and the Strand courtyard entrance.
While
close by on the adjoining ground is the Queen’s Savoy Chapel.
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Where formerly the Stable Yard ended at the waterside, Waterloo Bridge abuts the neighbouring Somerset House terrace.
Here we have
a fine example of a re-visioning by William Chambers.
Rebuilding at
Somerset House offered the Royal Society a prospective home for each of its branches, instead of lodging in Arundel House, fitting for a new self-assured footing.
However, as Burlington House became this new
foundation, the role of patronage within the Society through Richard Boyle Lord Burlington, can account for a change which is well-documented in the records of the Society and elsewhere. So by default perhaps, we have gained a gallery for the W. S. Gilbert collection of crafted works in silver, a tip of the Hermitage ‘iceberg’ and the well-known impressionist galleries supported by the Courtauld Institute.
As Somerset House became available, a public
culture of study and festivity has gained a model at this riverside palace. What though stands of the antique muse garden at Arundel House ? As a collection, much survived a changing of hands, becoming settled later as a larger part of Sir Hans Sloane’s private galleries.
Through
whom by subsequent bequest provided a basis for a developed public collection at Robert Smirke’s Bloomsbury, British Museum.
Arundel Street
now lies within the area bounded by Milford Street and gardens where once Milford Stairs disturbed the flow of the Thames. With the changing tide of court favours Leicester House became Lord Robert Deveraulx’s Essex House, an area where his name continues diminished to Essex Street.
Neighbouring Deveraulx Court as part of 10
the Inns of Court are mentioned in regard to Middle Temple hall. Dorset Gardens is a street name.
An earlier City of London School
curriculum may have included notes on performances in Dorset Gardens on this prime river frontage flanked by Bridewell and Unilever Buildings.
ď›™ Colin D. Brooking Dip. Arch.
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References and bibliography
M. Girouard (1966)
Robert Smythson and the architecture of the Elizabethan era. Country Life
M. Girouard (1978)
Life in the English Country House. Yale University Press
D. Haynes (1975)
The Arundel Marbles.
M.F.S. Hervey (1921)
Oxford University Press
The Life, correspondence and collections of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel. Cambridge University Press
A.M. Hind (1955)
Engraving in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries. Part 2. Cambridge University Press
A.M. Hind (1964) et. al.
Engraving in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Part 3. Cambridge University Press
M. Holmes (1969)
Elizabethan London.
J. Nichols (1977)
Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,
J. Norden (1593)
Speculum Britanniae. illus. William Kip.
Cassell (reprint) Krauss John Norden
N. Pevsner (2003) The Buildings of England : London 6 : Westminster. S. Bradley. Yale University Press R.T. Spence (1997) F.C. Springell (1966) R. Strong (1979)
Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery.
Sutton Press
Connoisseur and Diplomat : The Earl of Arundel’s Embassy to Germany in 1636. Maggs Bros.
The Renaissance Garden in England. Thames and Hudson
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