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W. J. Donthorn (1799–1859): architecture with ‘great hardness and decision in the edges’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Extract

Cambridge was a crucial centre of patronage and taste at the beginning of the Greek Revival’s popularity during the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century. Yet beyond the University there seems to have been little opening for practitioners of the style in East Anglia as a whole. Thus William Wilkins, Francis Goodwin and William John Donthorn, all three born in Norfolk, made their careers in London. Donthorn, the least noticed of the three, did however develop local connexions in Norfolk, particularly as a country house architect. Few of his houses remain today, yet we may assess his idiosyncratic contribution both from early photographs and from his drawings at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1978

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References

Notes

1 See Watkin, D. J., Thomas Hope and the neoclassical Idea (1965), pp. 6164 Google Scholar and idem, The Triumph of the Classical (1977), pp. 1-2 et passim.

2 See Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, C-F (1972), pp. 83-89.

3 He exhibited in 1815 ‘the interior of Swaffham Church, Norfolk’, no. 143; ‘A view of the south aisle of Norwich Cathedral’, no. 25 and ‘Norwich Cathedral leading to St. Luke’s Chapel’, no. 39, both of 1816. The first exhibit from Wyatt’s office in 1817 was ‘Interior of St. Andrew’s Hall, Norwich’, no. 12.

4 See Linstrum, D., Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects — The Wyatt Family (1974), p. 16 Google Scholar and Sir Jeffry Wyattville architect to the King (1972), p. 260.

5 In 1818 he exhibited at Norwich ‘A design for a Cathedral’, no. 138 (Royal Academy, no. 931), ‘A design for a Palace’, no. 156; in 1819 ‘Design for a Cemetery’, no. 89 (RA, no. 1088); in 1820 (from 78 Bond Street, rather than from Wyatt’s) ‘A design for a city’, no. 111 (RA, no. 936).

6 In 1821 at Norwich we have ‘A design for a Church’, no. 119, and ‘South West view of a Farm House now erecting for Lady Eyre at Hareby Lincolnshire’, no. 121; in 1822 (now an honorary member of the Norwich Society of Artists) ‘Interior of a Chapel’, no. 104, ‘Perspective of an Inn for John Morse Esq;’ (of Swaffham) and ‘Design for a Chapel’, no. 130.

I am most grateful to Dr M. Rajnai of Norwich Castle Museum for supplying me with the titles of Donthorn’s exhibited works at Norwich.

7 Donthorn’s executed work at Marham, Norfolk, consisted of an undated classical portico, and reception rooms, one circular. The plan at the RIBA is undated. See RIBA Drawings Catalogue, C-F, pp. 84, 86. The house was mostly demolished in 1937.

8 Despite Donthorn’s ambitious design for High House, only some rewindowing and internal alterations were carried out, in particular the staircase from the entrance to the piano nobile.

9 From labels on drawings in the possession of the Hon. George Dawnay. Hillington Hall was demolished in 1947.

10 Three designs from the 1820s for rectories, all in Norfolk, are Hempstead, for the Rev. D. C. Holmeley, 1825, not executed; Titchwell, demolished; and a design for the Rev. E. Cobbold, who was presented to the living of Watlington in 1824, not executed. There are two classical designs, unexecuted, for houses in Swaffham. Pickenham was replaced by R. Weir Schultz’s neo-Georgian house in 1903-04, which incorporates Donthorn’s library.

11 Watlington was demolished in 1953 and in 1964 a new house by J. Fletcher-Watson replaced it.

12 Upton is not dated, however the marriage of Thomas Wright’s son Joseph in 1829 provides a terminus post quem. See Burke’s Landed Gentry (1846), 11, 1640.

13 Elmham was demolished in 1924.

14 See Bell, Nancy, From Harbour to Harbour (1916), p. 157 Google Scholar, where the manuscript of Lady Waterford’s childhood reminiscences is quoted.

15 There are Bure drawings of 1831 for Italianate additions to the existing Regency villa; the drawings for Stanground Manor House, undated, have a slight Italianate gloss to their residual Greek. See RIBA Drawings Catalogue, C-F, p. 84.

16 Watkin, D. J., C. R. Cockerell (1974), p. 73 Google Scholar. Quoted from Cockerell’s diary, 22 April 1822.

17 See Country Life, XCL (1942), 806-09, 854–57, 902; and CXXIII (1958), 953.

18 The medieval works of art incorporated into Highcliife are dealt with by Remnant, Eustace, The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, XX-XXI (1957-58), 107-08Google Scholar; and by Powell, J. H., Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society (1967), NS xxv, 8294 Google Scholar.

19 Nicholas Cooper cites this ‘antiquarian feat’ in the Archaeological Journal (1966), p. 208. The bases and shafts of four medieval crosses were also used.

20 See Watkin, D. J. (ed.) vol. IV, ‘Architects’, in Sale Catalogue of the Libraries of Eminent Persons (1972), 239-41Google Scholar. Watkin cites Scarisbrick and Oxburgh as evidence of Pugin’s frequent practice of using medieval fragments in the buildings.

21 See Hare, A. J. C., The Story of Two Noble Lives (1893), 1, 180 Google Scholar.

22 Lady Stuart refers to Donthorn’s ‘two towers of the “Inviting-looking” style he seems so proud of’. The conjunction of Elizabethan and French chateau styles, remarked on by Dawson Turner (Architectural Antiquities of Normandy (1818), p. 69) where a château is compared to Longleat, prefaces the taste of Salvin, Burn and Bryce.

23 All the quotations are from Hare, op. cit., p. 176-80.

24 See Benjamin Ferrey Recollections of A. W. N. Pugin, pp. 190-92. Ferrey erroneously dates the visit to the end rather than the beginning (1836) of Pugin’s career.

25 See Stanton, Phoebe, ‘Sources of Pugin’s “Contrasts”’ in Concerning Architecture (1968), Summerson, J. (ed.), p. 121 Google Scholar.

26 See the RIBA Drawings Catalogue, C-F (1972), p. 86. The Catalogue fails to make clear that the ‘double houses for John Gates Esq.’ refers to the double house to the west of the gate, while the ‘north elevation’ refers to a different house to the east.

27 The prison behind the Sessions House has been demolished. Drawings and accounts of payments to Donthorn from 1839 to 1860 are at the Northamptonshire Record Office.

28 For references to the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire workhouses I wish to thank Mr A. P. Baggs, that to Thrapston workhouse (as well as the Ecclesiologist and Gentleman’s Magazine references below) I owe to Mr H. M. Colvin. It should be noted that the Edmonton workhouse plan appearing in the RIBA Catalogue, p. 84) must refer to an unsuccessful design by Donthorn, as the workhouse was built by Scott and Moffatt. (See S. I. Richardson, Edmonton Poor Law Union 1837-1864.) The workhouses are Gayton 1836, Downham Market (1836-37) (demolished), Swaffham 1836 (demolished) (all in Norfolk), Thrapston, Northants, 1836 (see Loudon, J. C., Architectural Magazine (1836), p. 482 Google Scholar), Ely (1836-38) and Wisbech (1836) (both in Cambridgeshire), Aylsham (1848-50) and Beckham (1857) (both in Norfolk). Accounts for the Norfolk buildings are at the Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, Norwich, and the accounts and specifications for Ely Union are at the Cambridgeshire Record Office, Cambridge.

29 See Ketton-Cremer, R. W., Felbrigg, The Story of a House (1962), p. 231 Google Scholar, for Donthom’s comments on these windows.

30 See the Narrative of Proceedings regarding the Leicester Testimonial (Norwich, 1850).

31 See Stuart, J., Revett, N., Woods, J., Antiquities of Athens, IV (1816)Google Scholar, Chapter VI, 12.

32 See Illustrated London News, VII (July 1845), 112.

33 Donthorn was also attacked anonymously by ‘a competitor, but above all a lover of fair play’ in the Builder, 11 (1844), 12, 23, 30.

34 Henning’s bas-reliefs are illustrated in the Narrative. The drill and plough are in cast iron rounded and pointed to imitate Portland stone. The column involved considerable use of cast iron, for instance to attach the wheatsheaf to the dome. See Donthom’s drawings and specifications at Holkham.

35 The Ecclesiologist, VIII (1848), 396, criticism of All Saints, Stoke Ferry, Norfolk. The other churches are Holy Trinity, Upper Dicker, Sussex, 1834, and Bagthorpe, Norfolk, 1953-54 (derelict) (see H. S. Goodhart-Rendel’s index in the RIBA). Donthorn may have supervised the rebuilding of the nave at Hillington in 1824, for which a sketch plan survives at Hillington Hall.

36 The Gentleman’s Magazine, XXVI (1846), 292. ‘A design for a New Square adjoining Westminster Abbey . . . throwing open a view of [the] Abbey from Buckingham Palace’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846.