The English Home from Charles I. to George IV. / Its Architecture, Decoration and Garden Design

by J. Alfred Gotch

The term “architect” occurs very seldom either in literature or in documents previous to the seventeenth century. Shakespeare uses the word once; in contracts of Elizabeth’s time it appears seldom, if ever; although the documents refer to the provision of design as well as workmanship. In the numerous books published for the guidance of designers in building matters during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, it appears now and then: but the appeals which these books made on their title-pages and in their prefaces to those for whom they were written, were addressed primarily to artificers and only incidentally to architects, who seem to have been included in order to catch a possible purchaser. The reason for the absence of the term is obvious: there were hardly any people who called themselves architects.

The publication of these books is itself a sign of the change which was coming over the methods of design. Hitherto design had been a matter of tradition, preserved by guilds, handed down from father to son or from master to man. The horizon of a mediæval workman was limited: he neither knew nor cared much for what was being done in distant lands. His style was influenced by local considerations, and although he conformed to the general changes which affected the whole of Gothic architecture, there was usually a local flavour about his work. The difference in character between the work in Norfolk, Northamptonshire, and Somerset is obvious at first sight: but a closer scrutiny will often reveal local variations in those districts themselves.

Why were these books published, and what kind of architectural style did they illustrate? Did they bring before the eye of the designer masterpieces of Gothic architecture, or details of Gothic work? Not at all: no book illustrating Gothic architecture was published till the end of the eighteenth century.[1] There was, in truth, no need for such a book: the mediæval workmen had their own traditional knowledge, and it concerned them not at all to learn how the workmen in Germany or southern France or Spain differed in method from themselves. They gave no thought to such matters, nor did they think of themselves as being concerned with architecture; they merely built in the manner of their fathers.

But although the successors of the mediæval craftsmen in the mid-sixteenth century shared their predecessors’ apathy in respect of what was being done abroad, it was otherwise with those for whom they worked—the great men who were building fine houses all over the land. To these had come new ideas in relation to their buildings. They had heard of the splendid work that for years had been executed in Italy: some of them had seen it; monarchs and wealthy nobles had even brought foreign craftsmen over to exercise their skill in the northern parts of Europe. The Italian manner was a novelty in this land of Gothic traditions, it was unlike anything to which England was accustomed. But the new fashion became popular. Employers demanded the novel detail in their houses; the foreign artists were not numerous, and so the English workmen had to supply the best imitation they could contrive on a scanty training. Here came the opportunity for the bookmakers. They showed the way in which Italian buildings were designed; they illustrated the “Orders” which gave those buildings their distinctive character so far as appearance went; they showed how classic detail might be applied or perverted to meet the exigencies of buildings which had a Gothic parentage. The books, therefore, were published in order to help designers who aimed at working in the new classic style.

The effect, of course, was to foster that style at the expense of the native Gothic. It is true that books were not widely distributed; there was not in those days the rapid dissemination of ideas that there is in our own. But if anyone wanted a book about building, he could only find such as dealt with classic architecture. Hence in a short time the operations which had hitherto been thought of as building, began to be thought of as Architecture, and the only architecture that was formulated was classic architecture. The idea of that art became inseparably connected in the minds of men with classic expressions of it. Thus it came about that in the course of half a century people of culture regarded all Gothic buildings—even the noblest—as barbarous, and not worthy the name of Architecture.[2] The “Gothic order,” as it was called, was merely a “fantastic and licentious manner of building.”

It was only a small proportion of the actual workmen who were able to study books; the rest picked up the new manner from such foreigners as they met, from work which they saw as they moved about, and occasionally, perhaps, from verbal description. Some worked all their lives on the old lines. One result of the difficulty of imbuing the workmen with the requisite knowledge was that some of the men whose duty it was to overlook buildings—the surveyors—made a point of studying the new style either through books or by foreign travel or both. They rendered themselves familiar with classic detail, and were thus enabled to give the desired character to the buildings under their charge. They gradually became more and more responsible for design in the various branches of the building trades, and thus grew to be architects as well as surveyors. The inevitable tendency was for architectural design to become more personal, and for its results to become less like a spontaneous growth of the land.

The number of architectural books published was not in reality very great; they were mostly of foreign production, and probably few copies found their way into England. The earliest were printed in Italy during the closing years of the fifteenth century. By the middle of the sixteenth century there were, perhaps, half a score in existence, some in Italian, some in French. These were obviously of no use to unlettered workmen, but they were appreciated by men of learning, and were studied by some of the surveyors of the time. One or two Englishmen had produced treatises on architecture by the end of the century, but their direct effect on English design can hardly be traced. It is, indeed, unwise to look to any of the books of the time for direct and immediate influence; their effect seems to have been gradual. As may be supposed, it would be the illustrations which would have the greatest weight, for they would be intelligible to men unacquainted with the language of the text. The more important treatises confined themselves largely to drawings of the orders, but a few smaller books, published by Germans and Dutchmen, gave many illustrations of particular features such as doorways, windows, and so forth, and these appear to have appealed more powerfully to English workmen and to have influenced in some degree the appearance which they imparted to their details.

In another and different direction some of the French books would seem to have had an interesting effect. Philibert de l’Orme and Androuet du Cerceau had published remarkably fine illustrations of the more important buildings then recently erected in France. It is certain that John Thorpe, who was the most accomplished and ingenious of the English surveyors of his time, had studied du Cerceau’s books, and it is quite conceivable that, fired by such an example, he may himself have contemplated a similar production for England, and that to this idea is owing the very interesting collection of drawings now preserved at the Soane Museum. But however this may be, it is clear that some of the men who were concerned with the design of large houses thought it worth while to preserve their drawings, for, in addition to the Thorpe collection, there is that other collection by Thorpe’s contemporary and successor, Smithson; while in later years are those connected with the work of Inigo Jones, John Webb, and Wren; and in still later times Campbell, Gibbs, and other architects made a point of publishing illustrations of the buildings which they and their contemporaries had designed.

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