Overlooked Britain Brighton’s bird palaces

Overlooked Britain Brighton belles

lucinda lambton Humphry Repton designed a heavenly aviary and pheasantry for the Prince Regent – but they were never built

The architects Humphry Repton, John Nash and William Porden were three of the greats who drew up brilliant plans for the Prince of Wales’s oriental schemes in Brighton.

Some were built, others were not and many were neither acknowledged nor paid for. After both Henry Holland and James Wyatt had also attempted to design a palace for the prince, it was Nash (1752-1835) who won the plum prize of the Pavilion. Porden (1755-1822) built his stables, but poor old Repton (1752-1818) got no commissions at all, despite his exquisitely exotic efforts.

Repton had produced a folio of 12 watercolours, including schemes for transforming the prince’s Marine Pavilion into a Mughal palace. It was in fact so similar to Nash’s that it is difficult to judge one superior to the other.

His watercolours, as was Repton’s habit, were displayed in one of his leatherbound Red Books. ‘Before’ paintings of scenes as he first saw them were painted on paper flaps which, when lifted, would reveal how things would look after he had carried out his plans.

What cries of ‘Abracadabra!’ would have greeted the sight of Repton’s proposals for an aviary and a pheasantry as part of an exotic garden walk.

An ornate Flower Passage would enable a royal progress to be made from the Pavilion through the gardens to the stables in the worst of weathers. Arched and wrapped with blooms and trellises, the glazed walls were to be decorated with arches in various scalloped Moorish styles, giving a particularly festive air.

With the occasional dome-topped tower and small pavilion, as well as a 50ft-long hothouse and an orangery that opened up as a draped ‘chiosk’ in the summer, Repton’s most extreme dreams of the Picturesque could be realised.

Best and most exotic of all were the Indian aviary and pheasantry that formed part of it.

To cap it all, it was suggested that

For the birds: Repton’s aviary (left) and pheasantry (right)

there should be an orchestra perpetually playing as the prince and his party progressed along their way. According to Repton, this was an essential part of the state and pleasure of such a garden.

Both the pheasantry and the aviary were inspired by, if not directly copied from, Thomas and William Daniell’s six volumes of aquatints, Oriental Scenery, published between 1755 and 1808.

The uncle and nephew, aged 36 and 16, went to Calcutta in 1785. For eight years, they produced what would, on their return to Britain, become electrifyingly influential watercolours and oil paintings of India’s architecture. They weren’t strictly accurate. Their Taj Mahal of 1791 has no living being in sight for miles around, save for three men and two elephants.

Each volume contained 24 aquatints of Indian scenes, hand-coloured to look like the watercolour originals. The technique was new and complex. William Daniell’s experimentations and success made him one of the earliest pioneers of aquatint.

Repton’s aviary in Brighton was inspired by the Daniells’ watercolour of one of the Hindu temples at Bindrabund on the River Yamuna.

It was a somewhat risky allusion to the prince in Brighton. Legend has it that Krishna frolicked with milkmaids here and stole their clothes while they were bathing.

As for the pheasantry, its roofed lantern was somewhat plain. But it drew inspiration elsewhere from the exotic Daniell watercolour View of the Palace at the Fort of Allahabad. The lattice works in both are identical.

The prince was delighted with the plans: ‘Mr Repton, I consider the whole of this work as perfect, and will have every part of it carried into immediate execution; not a little shall be altered.’

He even paid the bill – but, nine years later, the folio was discovered to be still at the engravers. They had never been looked at again – and not a brick was laid.

Krishna frolicked with milkmaids here and stole their clothes while they were bathing