Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
The third Earl of Burlington, as is well known, had strong family connections with the county of Yorkshire: his title itself is a variant form of Bridlington, the market town on the East Riding coast. The link however has generally been associated with his estate at Londesborough some twenty-five miles from Bridlington, which he visited regularly and where he is buried in the parish church; but the family also possessed extensive property on the other side of the county in the West Riding, centred on Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, and it is Lord Burlington’s architectural activities on and in the neighbourhood of this estate which form the subject of the present article.
H. Speight, Upper Wharfedale (London, 1900; facsimile edn, Otley, 1988)
A. H. Thompson, ‘History and architectural description of the Priory of St Mary, Bolton-in-Wharfedale’, Transactions of the Thoresby Society, XXX, 1928
T. D. Whitaker, The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven (3rd edn, Leeds and London, 1878; facsimile edn, Manchester and Skipton, 1973)
1 Allen, T., A New and Complete History of the County of York (London, 1828), IV, p. 2 Google Scholar.
2 Colvin, H. M., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (London, 1978), pp. 128-30Google Scholar; Lees-Milne, J., Earls of Creation (London, 1962), pp. 103-69Google Scholar.
3 Speight, pp. 305–06; Thompson, pp. 115–16.
4 Allen, , A New and Complete History of the County of York, III, p. 394 Google Scholar.
5 Colvin, , Biographical Dictionary, pp. 128-30Google Scholar; Speight, pp. 305-06; Thompson, pp. 114-16; Whitaker, genealogical table facing p. 316.
6 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, survey of Bolton Hall, Samuel Jennings 1745; Thompson, 174-78.
7 After the Dissolution the church at Bolton Abbey was regarded as a chapel of Skipton, and it was only in 1864 that it became the church of an independent parish (Thompson, p. 112).
8 Whitaker, p. 489.
9 Hunt, J. Dixon, The Figure in the Landscape; Poetry, Painting and Gardening during the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore and London, 1976), p. 187 Google Scholar.
10 Raistrick, A., Lead Mining in the Yorkshire Dales (Clapham, 1972), p. 13, 17Google Scholar.
11 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven, passim; The Torrington Diaries (ed. Andrews, C. B., London, 1936), III, p. 106 Google Scholar.
12 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1731-32.
13 Ibid; Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter book of Henry Simpson, Henry Simpson to Thomas Hawkswell 22 June and 13 July 1744.
14 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter book of Henry Simpson, passim, and letter and minute books 1743-5, passim; The Travels through England of Dr Richard Pococke, ed. Cartwright, J. J., I (Camden Society New Series XLII, 1888), p. 194 Google Scholar.
15 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, correspondence, Henry Simpson to the third Earl of Burlington 15 March 1745.
16 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, survey of Bolton Hall, Samuel Jennings 1745, and letter and minute book 1744-45, Thomas Hawkswell to Samuel Jennings 23 January 1745.
17 The Travels through England of Dr Richard Pococke i, 49.
18 Thompson, pp. 174-76.
19 The Torrington Diaries, III, 106.
20 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, correspondence, first Earl of Burlington to Charles Bell II April 1682. I am grateful to Mr Peter Watkins for this reference.
21 Williamson, G. C., Lady Anne Clifford (Kendal, 1922), pp. 195-96Google Scholar.
22 Whitaker, plate facing p. 493. There is a chimneypiece of the same type to the top storey of the gatehouse, which perhaps suggests a post-Dissolution conversion to a solar tower of which the top floor formed a secure private room, similar to Sharington’s tower at Lacock. I am grateful to Dr Maurice Howard for this suggestion.
23 Thompson, p. 176.
24 Samuel Buck’s Yorkshire Sketchbook (Wakefield Historical Publications, 1979), pp. 190-91Google Scholar. An exactly parallel instance of the re-use of monastic material in the post-Dissolution period is found at Samlesbury Hall in Lancashire, where a wing added in the 1540s incorporates a traceried window brought from nearby Abbey, Whalley (Howard, M., The Early Tudor Country House (London, 1987), p. 142 Google Scholar.
25 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, survey of Bolton Hall, Samuel Jennings 1745.
26 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, watercolour view of Bolton Hall, J. Buckler 1816.
27 Bolton Abbey, Devonshire Collections, memorandum on proposed building works 18 Aug 1760. I am grateful to Mr Peter Watkins for this reference. The instructions in the memorandum were evidently not followed exactly, the windows being four-centre-headed rather than pointed like the doorways and having the same moulding to their surrounds rather than a chamfer. Buckler’s view shows the windows as being surmounted by hoodmoulds but these have subsequently been removed, presumably at the same time that the stonework of the heads was renewed.
28 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1725-28 and vouchers 1726.
29 A Tercentenary Tribute to Willian Kent (Exhibition Catalogue, Hull, 1985), p. 24 Google Scholar; Thompson, p. 176.
30 Wilson, M. I., William|Kent (London, 1984), pp. 51-55, 96-105Google ScholarPubMed.
31 Thompson, p. 179 and plate lxi. Thompson suggests that the aqueduct was built for Lord Burlington, but not before the middle of the eighteenth century.
32 Hunt, J. Dixon, Kent, William, landscape garden designer (London, 1987), pp. 118-19Google Scholar, 124-26, 131, 147, 164-65, 170.
33 Ibid., pp. 138, 162, 164.
34 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1725-33.
35 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, vouchers 1731.
36 Bolton Abbey, Devonshire Collections, map of Bolton, Storiths and Hazlewood, Edward Birkwith 1732.
37 Date on rainwater head; RCHME, Rural Houses of West Yorkshire 1400-1830 (London, 1986), p. 189 Google Scholar.
38 Whitaker, p. 293. The attribution is repeated in Cragg, R. B., ‘The Chronicles of Skipton — vi’, Herald, Craven, 3 December 1897, p. 5 Google Scholar; Hodgson, H. R., ‘Quaker Sketches’, Bradford Antiquary, VII (New Series v) 1933, pp. 249-55Google Scholar; and Speight, p. 283.
39 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1700-08 and letter book of Henry Simpson, Henry Simpson to Thomas Hawkswell 25 February 1740, 14 July 1741 and 16 September 1742; Hodgson, loc cit., states that George Myers senior had accompanied Lord Burlington on his grand tour in 1714 but this is not correct: the steward who accompanied Lord Burlington was Henry Simpson (Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, travel account 1714). The Myers family were Quakers.
40 Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England, Yorkshire The West Riding (2nd edn, Harmondsworth 1967), p. 195 Google Scholar.
41 RCHME, Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, p. 190.
42 Speight, pp. 256-58.
43 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections Boy 33, design for a house, Lord Burlington.
44 Wittkower, R., Palladio and English Palladianism (London, 1974). pp. 147-52Google Scholar.
45 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1727-34. The building is variously referred to as ‘His Lordship’s New House in Skipton’ and ‘The New House in Skipton’, and is identified as being in Newmarket Street.
46 The Torrington Diaries, III, 98.
47 Cragg, Craven Herald, 3 December 1897; Rowley, R. G., Craven Herald 28 July 1978, p. 11 Google Scholar. Rowley dates the building to c. 1762 on the basis of a reference in the Skipton Manor Call Book of that year (Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Clifford of Skipton Collection) to ‘New House Ld B.’; but that was its conventional name, not a description of it.
48 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, vouchers 1728.
49 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, disbursements in Craven 1727-34. The principal craftsmen were the carpenter Thomas Guyre, the glazier and plumber George Burton, the house-painter George Fether, the joiners Jonathan Alcock, John Grainger and William Sutton, the mason Jonathan Jennings, the plasterer William Tomlinson, the slater Thomas Boocock, and the smiths Welbury Holgate and Robert Shoesmith.
50 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter and minute book 1744-45, Thomas Hawkswell to Samuel Jennings 23 January 1745, and vouchers 1744-45.
51 SirSummerson, John, ‘The Classical Country House in 18th-century England’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, CVII (1959), pp. 551-52, 571-75Google Scholar.
52 Palladio, A., The Four Books of Architecture (ed. Ware, I., London, 1738), II, plate 38Google Scholar.
53 Colvin, , Biographical Dictionary, pp. 414, 561Google Scholar; Summerson, , ‘The Classical Country House . . .’, pp. 572–73 Google Scholar.
54 Summerson, , ‘The Classical Country House ....’, p. 577 Google Scholar.
55 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter and minute book 1744-45, Thomas Hawkswell to Samuel Jennings 23 January 1745.
56 Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 131.
57 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, vouchers 1728.
58 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, accounts of the Dowager Countess of Burlington 1725-55; Whitaker, genealogical table facing p. 316.
59 Cragg, Craven Herald, 3 December 1897.
60 Lodge, J., The Peerage of Ireland (Dublin 1789), 1, p. 176 Google Scholar; Whitaker, genealogical table facing p. 316; Wilton, R. C., ‘The Cliffords and the Boyles of Londesborough’, Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, XIV (1907), pp. 18-44Google Scholar.
61 Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Clifford of Skipton Collection, Skipton Manor Call Books 1754-62.
62 Rowley, Craven Herald, 28 July 1978.
63 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter book of Henry Simpson, Henry Simpson to Thomas Hawkswell 4 August 1741.
64 Ibid., Simpson to Hawkswell 10 November 1741 and 22 May 1742.
65 Ibid., Simpson to Hawkswell 3 August, 23 and 30 October 1742.
66 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections Boy 4, design for a bridge at Euston Park, Lord Burlington; Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 131.
67 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, letter book of Henry Simpson, Simpson to Hawkswell 25 June 1743.
68 The Torrington Diaries, III, p. 106.
69 Whitaker, genealogical table facing p. 316.
70 Davis, J. S., Twelve Views in Lithography of Bolton Abbey (London, 1829 Google Scholar); Dayes, E., A Picturesque Tour through the Principal Parts of Yorkshire & Derbyshire (2nd edn, London, 1825), p. 54 Google Scholar.
71 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections Sketch Book 1831, plan and elevation for Bolton Lodge, C. H. Tatham 1812.
72 Bolton Abbey, Devonshire Collections, account for building work, Atkinson and Phillips architects 27 January 1815. I am grateful to Mr Peter Watkins for this reference.
73 Chatsworth, Devonshire Collections, watercolour view of Bolton Hall, J. Buckler 1816.
74 Davis, Twelve Views . . . of Bolton Abbey, 1829. The upper floors of the gatehouse have Gothic fittings of similar character to those in the drawing room.
75 Bolton Abbey, Devonshire Collections, designs for remodelling and extending the north range, initialled J R; Chadwick, G. F., The Works of Sir Joseph Paxton (London, 1961), pp. 166-67Google Scholar.
76 Wedgwood, A., A. W. N. Pugin and the Pugin Family, Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1985), p. 186 Google Scholar.
77 Bolton Abbey, Devonshire Collections, design for the drawing room bay window c. 1875.
78 Dayes, A Picturesque Tour . . . , 1825, pp. 55-56; Speight, pp. 346-48; Whitaker, pp. 482, 494-95.
79 Whitaker, p. 493.
80 Ruskin, J., Modern Painters (ed. Cook, E. T. and Wedderburn, A., London, 1904), IV, p. 304 Google Scholar; Speight, p. 346.
