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A palace for an ‘English country squire’: early designs for Harlaxton Manor, Lincolnshire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
‘Mr Gregory may be said to have accomplished one of the greatest domestic architectural works of his time; and Harlaxton will be a lasting monument to posterity of his taste and perseverance’. So wrote the noted genealogist James Burke in 1853 of Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire, the house and gardens of which, he asserted, ‘show that a plain English country gentleman of moderate fortune can erect a pile which might be envied by the greatest princes of the continent’. Harlaxton still survives as testimony to the caprice of its patron Gregory Gregory and as justification for Burke’s encomium. However, despite the splendour of the ensemble few contemporary descriptions of it survive and documentation relating to the design of the house is tantalizingly incomplete. The discovery of four previously unrecorded designs for Harlaxton is therefore of considerable importance to our understanding of this early and sophisticated mansion in the revived Jacobean taste. The newly discovered drawings are designs attributed to Anthony Salvin (1799–1881), architect of the house, and comprise pen and watercolour perspective views of the house from the north-west, south, and west, and a proposal for the staircase hall. The drawings date from c. 1831–32 and are among the earliest surviving designs for the house.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1993
References
Notes
1 SirBurke, James B., A Visitation of Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain, 4 vols (London, 1853), II, 92 Google Scholar.
2 Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection (RIBADC), accession no. 1991.41, loc.ref. J2/40 (1–4). These drawings were acquired with assistance from the Museums and Galleries Commission/Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund.
3 For Loudon, see The Gardener’s Magazine, 16 (1840), 329-42 (p. 331)Google Scholar. Gregory’s ancestor Daniel de Ligne bought the house in 1619, when presumably the alterations were made.
4 Greville, Charles F. C., A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV, King William IV and Queen Victoria, 8 vols (London, 1896), iv, 43–44 Google Scholar.
5 Burke, , Visitation, p. 92.Google Scholar
6 Described in a letter by Rogers, W. G. to Sneyd, Ralph in 1864, ten years after Gregory’s death (Keele University Library, Sneyd MS, S 2765)Google Scholar, as quoted in Allibone, Jill, Anthony Salvin 1799–1881: a Pioneer of the Gothic Revival (Cambridge, 1988), p. 52 Google Scholar.
7 A description of part of the collection is to be found in the Catalogue of the Gregory Heirlooms, consisting of Pictures, Sculpture, Tapestry, Silver Plate, Old French Decorative of the Time of Louis XIII, XIV, XV and XVI… being a portion of the Collection formed by the late Gregory Gregory Esquire, 17 June 1878, Christie’s Auctioneers. An account of the sale is in The Times, 19 June 1878, p. 5, col. 5.
8 Various suggestions have been made as to the authorship of these apartments, none of which can be substantiated by documentary evidence. These rooms must have been fitted up under Gregory’s direction, incorporating as they do carved stone and woodwork which he had acquired on the Continent, using perhaps foreign craftsmen or the services of a sophisticated metropolitan decorator.
9 Norwich Cathedral MSS, Salvin Correspondence, 1 June 1831.
10 Greville, Journal, p. 43.
11 For evidence of Blore’s consultation see Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 3956, f. 47.
12 The Civil Engineer and Architects Journal, 1 (1837-38), 392-93 (p. 392); 2 (1839), 4-5 (p. 5), 39.
13 No drawings by Burn for Harlaxton are known to survive so the extent of his intervention is a matter of conjecture.
14 Loudon gives an account of Gregory’s library in Gardeners’ Magazine, 16 (1840), 569-70.
15 Five designs by Salvin, some dated 1834 and showing several stages in the house’s evolution, are in the RIBADC, loc. ref. W8/3B (1-5). Four perspectives showing the house of c. 1834, in the collection of Sir Bruno Welby, Bt., are reproduced in Harlaxton Manor (guidebook), 1985, pp. 16-17. An early preliminary sketch for the house was acquired by the RIBADC in 1981: it is discussed below.
16 The newly discovered drawings are probably the work of a professional draughtsman working in Salvin’s office. The draughtsmanship is unlike that found in other perspectives from Salvin’s office in the RIBADC, a consideration which led them at first to be attributed to Edward Blore, whose perspective views they greatly resemble.
17 RIBADC, loc. ref. J2/40 (1).
18 RIBADC, loc. ref. J2/40 (2).
19 Drawings of old Harlaxton Manor house by James Deason are held at the RIBADC, loc. ref. Z14/Harlaxton. Two unpublished collections of views of this house are in the British Museum Manuscripts Collection: Add. MS 42,018, Blore, Edward, ‘Drawings’, xx, pp. 11–13 Google Scholar; and Add. MS 36369, Buckler, James C., ‘Architectural Drawings’, XIV, pp. 76–78 Google Scholar.
20 The Harlaxton doorway later disappears to accommodate the lowered sills of the windows of the Great Hall, a change seen in designs dated 1834 in the RIBADC. The proposed sunken garden on this front was replaced by an excavated lightwell to give light to the basement of the house. At a later stage the Small Dining Room with an oriel projecting out into the lightwell and the adjacent doorway were introduced on this front of the house, perhaps by Burn.
21 RIBADC, loc. ref. W8/3B (3).
22 RIBADC, loc. ref. W8/3B (2-4).
23 RIBADC, loc. ref. J2/40 (3). The perspective shows evidence of proposed alterations to the design lightly sketched in with pencil, including the introduction of a triple-arched doorway, a gallery, and a row of clerestory windows.
24 RIBADC, loc. ref. Z14/Harlaxton.
25 See Wainwright, Clive, The Romantic Interior. The British Collector at Home, 1710-1850 (New Haven and London, 1989)Google Scholar. Salvin incorporated French panelling into his interiors at Marbury Hall, Cheshire. There are in the RIBADC (loc. ref. Z15/Misc) a series often drawings by Salvin, annotated with measurements and notes, of eighteenth-century carved French boiseries, a Renaissance chimneypiece and choir stalls, and fragments of Gothic and Jacobean panelling. These are, without doubt, drawings of items from the stock of an unidentified dealer in antiquarian woodwork.
26 Photographs in the collection of the National Buildings Record.
27 Greville, Journal, p. 43.
28 R1BADC, loc. ref. J2/40 (4).
29 RIBADC, accession no. 1981.29, loc. ref. L6/39.
30 Loudon, , Gardener’s Magazine, 16 (1840), 336 Google Scholar.
31 RIBADC, loc. ref. W8/3B (1).
32 The pierced balustrade of these terraces is a faithful copy of one which enclosed old Harlaxton Manor house, another example of the retention or replication of features from the old house.
33 Indeed this process of embellishment continued as Gregory placed a number of urns and sculptured groups on the parapet after the house was completed, and Burn was employed on various alterations and additions to the house and gardens up until Gregory’s death in 1854. Much ornamental sculpture was introduced into the gardens by Mrs Violet Van der Eist, who lived at Harlaxton between 1937 and 1948.
34 Burke, Visitation, pp. 92-93.
35 Dibdin, T. F., A Biographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour through the Northern Counties of England and Scotland, 2 vols (London, 1838), 1, 61–62 Google Scholar.
36 Loudon, , Gardener’s Magazine, 16(1840), 329 Google Scholar.
37 Ibid., p. 334.