North-East View.North Front.
Fig. 46.—THORPE HALL, near Peterborough, 1656.
From Engraving by Hakewill, 1852.
The common sense of this contention, although not flattering to Mr Denham, was vindicated by the appointment of Webb as assistant surveyor at Greenwich. But the petition and brief are interesting in other ways. They assert that Charles I. expressly caused Webb to be trained in architecture and the preparation of masques, in order to succeed Inigo Jones and carry on his work. They confirm roughly the date of his apprenticeship: and the brief states that he had worked for most of the great nobility and eminent gentry, thereby showing that he was a man of large independent practice, and not merely “Inigo Jones’s man”—a conclusion to which his drawings had already led.
The fact that Webb was actually trained in the preparation of masques as well as in architecture has hitherto escaped notice, but recent researches show that he made drawings for the scenery of some of those devised by Inigo Jones, particularly in the case of the pastoral of “Florimene” in 1635, and D’Avenant’s “Salmacida Spolia” in 1640. A year or two after the death of Jones, namely in 1656, D’Avenant again sought Webb’s help, and got him to design the scenery for his “Siege of Rhodes,” the first opera produced in England. Webb’s drawings for this work are preserved at Chatsworth.[38]
The illustrations in the second volume of Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” give a good idea not only of Webb’s powers as a designer, but also of the kind of house which was becoming fashionable. But it is worth while to supplement them by others which were actually carried out.
Fig. 47.—Thorpe Hall, near Peterborough. Ground Plan.
The best known of the houses attributed to Webb is Thorpe Hall, near Peterborough (Fig. [46]). It was built for Oliver St John, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and a kinsman of Oliver Cromwell,[39] about the year 1656, which date is on the stables. It is a fine massive house of oblong shape, and, like Coleshill, it is without wings, gables, or dominating pediments; the detail is large and simple, the principal effect being gained by a widely projecting cornice at the eaves. The roof is hipped at the four corners, and its slopes are broken by dormers. The windows are carefully spaced, the angles of the building are emphasised with bold quoins, there is an open columned porch in the middle of each of the two principal fronts, and on one of the short fronts there are two square bay-windows. These are the means adopted to give interest to the design, and slight as they are, they achieve their purpose. A plinth, and a bold string over the ground floor windows help the general proportions, and a little liveliness is imparted by the introduction of pediments over some of the windows. The whole effect is refined and severe, widely different from the picturesque variety of Elizabethan work. The open porches are probably the first examples of their kind to be found in England. The bay-windows, it must be confessed, are poor and meagre; they would not be out of place in a suburban villa; they are a disappointing substitute for the noble bays of earlier times. They appear to be original, but they may derive some of their character from the restoration which the house underwent in the middle of last century. The chimneys are well designed, massive features, of the somewhat plain type which was supplanting the more varied and ingenious designs of fifty years before.
