Fig. 54.—RAMSBURY MANOR. The Saloon.
Fig. 55.—Ashdown House, Berkshire.
These are some among the houses that are attributed to Webb. Ashdown House (Fig. [55]) is another, a rather gaunt place, built high on the downs in the extreme west of Berkshire, far away from everywhere, so that the builder, it is said, might run no risk of infection from the plague. Taken in conjunction with his dated drawings—such as ceilings at Wilton in 1649; designs for Durham House, London, in the same year; the Physicians’ College in 1651; a chimney-piece for Drayton in Northamptonshire in 1653; and another for Northumberland House in 1660—they show that Webb was tolerably busy all through the time of the Commonwealth. But it is probably the fact, confirmed by the absence of dated drawings between 1638 and 1649, that he was not doing much work, beyond the Whitehall designs, during the course of the actual hostilities. This is only what might be expected, and indeed it is likely that beyond what Webb did, there was very little important work carried out during the period of twenty years from 1640 to 1660.
The consideration of Inigo Jones’s work and that of Webb has taken the story down to about 1670; it is necessary now to go back a little in order to look at work by less distinguished designers.
Fig. 56.—Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Fig. 57.—The Latin School, Warminster, Wiltshire, 1707.