Here we have a vast change from fifty years earlier. Thorpe and Smithson came under the Italian influence, especially the latter; but both of them thought Henry VII.’s Chapel worthy of study. Each of them has a plan of it among his drawings; and Smithson has a plan of some of the vaulting as well, not to mention an outline drawing of a Gothic window. The Italianising of English taste had indeed progressed when we find an architectural guide placing not only Henry VII.’s Chapel, but all Gothic work, outside the domain of architectural study. But outside it was, and there it remained until the commencement of the nineteenth century, when the publications of Carter, Britton, and others began to awaken interest in it.
The pursuit of architecture now became an elegant accomplishment, and it fell largely into the hands of amateurs. Books in plenty gave precise rules for its treatment. Any one gifted with a modicum of taste could design a façade; and if he followed his rules his proportions would probably be not unpleasing. If he had some inventive faculty and were sufficiently bold, he could produce a group of buildings that should have a striking and even noble effect. This was indeed the weakness of the whole system. Designing became a striving after external effect without paying due regard to the purpose of the building. The large houses of the time of the first two Georges are magnificent to look at, but uncomfortable to live in. Everything is sacrificed to the state apartments. Most of these are noble rooms admirably adapted for stately functions; but the ordinary living rooms are mean in comparison, and are not contrived, whether as to aspect, position, or their relation one to the other, in order to make for cheerfulness or comfort. In towns, where space was restricted, a more simple treatment was adopted, and extravagance eschewed. This resulted in such plain but well-proportioned houses as Newcastle House, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields (Fig. 157), designed for Lord Powys by Captain Wynne in 1686. It has, however, lost much of its character by the removal of the stone cornice which originally surmounted the windows of the second floor.
157. Newcastle House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London (1686).
One of the favourite devices of the time for producing a splendid group was to place the principal rooms in a lofty central block, to flank it on either side with a block of subsidiary rooms at some distance, and to connect these outlying wings with the main building by colonnades. As a rule one wing contained the kitchens and the other the stables. Two inconveniences must have followed from this arrangement: the stables were too near the house, the kitchens too far off. Sir Henry Wotton had already uttered a warning against placing the kitchen at a great distance from the dining-room, “or else, besides other inconveniences, perhaps some of the dishes may straggle by the way.” Inigo Jones appears to have been the first to adopt this wide-spreading disposition at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire, a house of which the central block has been burnt down; his successors bettered his example, followed it with frequency, and established a fashion which survived till late in the eighteenth century.
In Isaac Ware’s “Complete Body of Architecture,” written for students of the art, and published in 1756, several chapters of the third book are devoted to explaining how a house of this kind should be designed. The author supposes a gentleman with a moderate family to be desirous of building a house in the country “without columns, or other expensive decorations”; handsome, though not pompous. Having selected a site in accordance with principles previously enunciated by Mr Ware, the gentleman asks a builder how much ground the house ought to cover to meet his requirements. The builder at once replies that a 65 ft. frontage will answer the purpose. Although the steps by which this rapid decision is arrived at are not indicated, it seems to be satisfactory as well as inevitable. Sixty-five feet being the correct length of the front, it follows that from 40 to 45 ft. must be the depth. The intention being to achieve something handsome (though not pompous), the kitchen is not to be put under the parlour, nor the stable in the corner of the yard: “a bricklayer could do that.” These offices are to be placed in detached wings, “so that from a plain design, such as the vulgar builder would have proposed, here shall arise, with little more expense, a centre, its wings, and their communication.” The position of the detached wings is next to be settled. In order to be proportionate with a centre of 65 ft. frontage, it would appear that the wings should start 28 ft. away to the right and left; as to their distance frontwards from the centre, the author is not so certain, but he advises 13 ft. Then comes the actual size of the wings, which must correspond exactly with one another, although one is to contain the kitchen and the other the stables. The best measure in proportion to the 65 ft. is 35: accordingly that is to be the length of the front of each wing. As to their depth, “for a house of this bigness and design, 48 ft. will be a good measure.” The size of the three blocks being thus settled on these somewhat arbitrary lines, the architect is to proceed to the construction and distribution of the rooms, bearing in mind that it is “always best to accommodate the inner distribution of a house to the outer aspect when that can conveniently be done.” But as the author admits that tastes may vary and occasions alter the choice, he proceeds in different chapters to set forth different ways in which his spaces may be divided up into rooms. Into these details we need not enter, but it is evident that the gentleman with the moderate family would have to keep his personal predilections as to aspect, prospect, the relation of rooms one to the other, and other matters incidental to comfort, strictly in subjection, in order not to conflict with the proportions and outlines laid down by his architect.
The study of architecture as an art governed by rules and founded on proportion has carried us a long way from mediæval methods, which led to rooms being placed where they were wanted without regard to regularity of appearance; and almost as far from the ways of the Elizabethan designer, who contrived to get the requisite accommodation in its traditional relationship within his symmetrical outline. The former subordinated appearance to convenience; the latter regarded them as of equal importance; the eighteenth-century preceptor made convenience bow to his duly proportioned outline.
158. Plan and Elevation of a House.
From Isaac Ware’s “Complete Body of Architecture” (1756).