Fig. 116.—VIEW OF BETHLEHEM HOSPITAL.
The introduction of this particular form of plan, with a central block, two outlying wings, and connecting colonnades, is associated with the name of Inigo Jones and the house of Stoke Bruerne, in Northamptonshire. According to Bridges, the county historian, “the house was built by Sir Francis Crane, who brought the design from Italy, and in the execution of it received the assistance of Inigo Jones. It consists of a body and two wings, joined by corridores or galleries (see plan, Fig. [115]). The pillars which support the galleries leading to the wings, are red and of a different colour from the house.... The house was begun about the year 1630 and finished before 1636, during which interval he gave an entertainment here to the King and Queen.”[56] Colin Campbell, however, says that the building was begun by Inigo, who made the wings, colonnades, and all the foundations, and that owing to the interruption caused by the Civil War the front was designed by “another architect.” He puts the date at 1640. Bridges’ account is circumstantial, and he was a careful historian; but Campbell’s elevation shows the body of the house treated in a different manner from the wings, and so far supports his statement. Unfortunately this part of the building was burnt down in 1886, and the opportunity of comparing the differences in the work itself is lost.
Both authorities concur in placing the date as early as somewhere between 1630 and 1640, which was quite half a century before this type of plan became at all popular. Nevertheless among Webb’s drawings, which cover at least thirty years of the half-century, there are several instances in which it is employed; and even the practical and level-headed Wren has a plan of this type among his drawings at All Souls College, Oxford (see Fig. [100]). The genesis of this particular form is of interest inasmuch as it was widely adopted in the eighteenth century; so much so that Isaac Ware in his “Complete Body of Architecture,” published in 1756, lays down various rules for its disposition and proportions, and recommends its adoption as raising a house out of the commonplace and making it handsome without being necessarily pompous.
Fig. 117.—CATHERINE COURT, TOWER HILL, LONDON.
Drawn by F. L. Emanuel.
Among the more notable examples of this type of plan may be mentioned Burley on the Hill, in Rutland, where a low curved colonnade is thrust out on each side to a great distance without serving any particular object beyond that of obtaining an appearance of grandeur; this was one of the earlier applications of the idea, dating from late in the seventeenth century: Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire, dated 1702, which will be described presently; Cottesbrooke, in the same county, built in the early part of the eighteenth century; Kelmarsh, a not very distant neighbour of Cottesbrooke, designed by Gibbs and replacing a picturesque Jacobean house;[57] Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, designed by Vanbrugh about 1720, of which the two wings alone remain in use; Houghton, in Norfolk, begun in 1722; Holkham, in the same county, begun in 1734; and Kedlestone, in Derbyshire, dating from 1761; the last three of which will be referred to at greater length in a subsequent chapter.
Wren was not the only man of science of his time who became an architect; there was his acquaintance, Robert Hooke, three years his junior, and, like himself, the son of a parson. Hooke was almost as versatile a genius as Wren, but it was as a mathematician that he achieved most reputation. He was connected with the Royal Society at its inception, and was appointed curator of experiments. The great fire of London appears to have turned his attention to architecture; indeed that event, owing to the necessity it imposed of a vast amount of urgent rebuilding, seems to have led into the paths of architecture men whose previous training, although not architectural, qualified them even slightly for the work. Doubtless Hooke’s mathematics pointed him out as being not unsuitable to become a city surveyor, besides which he had submitted a plan to the Royal Society for the rebuilding of London, which received much commendation from the lord mayor and corporation, who asked that it might be submitted to the king. In this direction, however, he had been forestalled by Wren with his fine scheme. In the end nothing came of either of the suggestions.
Hooke appears to have made a considerable fortune as a surveyor, and he is credited with the design of three important buildings, all of which have disappeared. One of these was Montagu House, in Bloomsbury, for Ralph, Lord Montagu, whose country house at Boughton is presently to be described. Hooke’s house did not last long; it was begun in 1675 and burnt down in 1686, its successor being designed by the French architect, Puget, whom Lord Montagu may have known during his long residence in France. The second building ascribed to Hooke is the old Bethlem Hospital, likewise begun in 1675 and pulled down in 1814 (Fig. [116]); and the third is Aske’s Hospital at Hoxton, begun about 1688. Engravings of the last two buildings (there is no record of the first Montagu House) do not lead to the opinion that Hooke was a great master of architecture, although it is true that the long front of Bethlem Hospital is handled in a simple, straightforward manner. He was far behind Wren, but he is interesting as being another whose training led him, under the special conditions of the time, into active practice.