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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2016
The Hawkfield Lodge was one of three emblematic buildings that Sir Thomas Tresham (1543–1605) erected as visible signs of the invisible tenets of his Catholic faith. Tresham was not only a wealthy Elizabethan landowner, with several productive manors and estates in Northamptonshire, but also a prominent Catholic recusant. Construction of all three lodges on two of his estates at Rushton and Lyveden began following his release, in 1593, from a twelve-year period spent primarily at his house in Hoxton, a period in effect an exile from his two family seats that had resulted from his recusancy. The Hawkfield Lodge at Rushton, however, no longer exists, unlike the Warrener's Lodge there (known today as the Triangular Lodge) and the New Bield at Lyveden. Its absence would be of little consequence if the two extant lodges were without the richly emblematic form and ornamentation that have been studied in detail. But it appears to have been a building of a very similar kind, and its construction is well documented. That the masons completed it at least to the level of the roof is clear from the careful reading of the interwoven building accounts that were produced for both the Warrener's and Hawkfield lodges by Tresham's steward at Rushton, George Levens, which include descriptions of the building work, and the payments made for it, and constitute a full volume of the Tresham Papers held at the British Library. Focusing on various details given in these accounts, this article reconstructs the Hawkfield Lodge and presents architectural drawings of its hexagonal ground plan (Fig. 1) and of its reflected ceiling plan or, in other words, the arrangement as seen from below of its elaborate ceiling (Fig. 2). By comparing the plan to those of the two extant lodges (Figs 3 and 4), it also makes clear their symbolic relationships.
1 Tresham was treated considerably more harshly that other recusants who typically incurred only fines for continuing their open practice of Catholicism, and this resulted from his perceived collusion, in the summer of 1580, with Edmund Campion, a Jesuit priest purportedly sent to England to foment rebellion and consequently executed. See London, British Library, Additional Manuscripts [hereafter, ‘BL Add. Mss’] 39828, ff. 38r–79v for details of Tresham's arrest in July 1581, his trial before the Star Chamber in the autumn of 1581 and his confinements in both the Tower and the Fleet Prison until the early winter of 1582/3. Correspondence, thereafter, is frequently addressed to, or signed by, Tresham at ‘Hogsden’, i.e. Hoxton; see BL Add. Mss 39828, f.90r; 39828, f.227v; (June 1583 to 6 May 1593). Tresham earned income by rent collection and sheep farming from land in twenty-eight villages in Northamptonshire; see Fairey, Kristen, ‘Mapping Status in the Elizabethan Landscape: Sir Thomas Tresham's Architecture at Rothwell and Rushton, c. 1575–1600’ (doctoral thesis; Yale University, 2008), pp. 278–80 Google Scholar, Appendix I: Tresham's Land Holdings.
2 Current research and conservation work at Lyveden is described by Eburne, Andrew and Falús, Kate, ‘Lyveden New Bield Conservation Plan (Draft) 2008’, at http://otportalsrv.east-northamptonshire.gov.uk (accessed on 15 April 2015).Google Scholar
3 BL Add. Mss 39832 comprises George Levens's accounts from 1593 to 1598; BLAdd. Mss 39833 and 39834 comprise Levens's accounts from 1598 to 1603 — although the entries are sparse and include no reference to the Hawkfield Lodge.
4 ‘The Tresham Papers’, BL Add. Mss 29828–39838, comprise nearly 2000 folios of documents recovered by workers from a recess in the walls of the Rushton Manor Lodge in the early nineteenth century and then donated to the British Museum. See Craford Lomas, Sophie, ‘The Tresham Papers belonging to T. B. Clark- Thornhill, Esq., of Rushton Hall, Northants’, in HMC Report on MSS in Various Collections, III (London, 1904), pp.xlvi–xlvii.Google Scholar
5 I am grateful to Neil Hauck, AIA, for all his great help in translating my findings into the architectural drawings presented here.
6 Two collections of drawings in the British Library include sketches of numerous structures in the area, including Tresham's Market Hall at Rothwell, the Rushton Manor House, the Warrener's Lodge, and Lyveden New Bield; BL Add. Mss 32467, ‘Sketches, Etc., Co. Northampton’, Eayre and Tillemans, 1719–21; and BL Add. Mss 36371, ‘Buckler Architectural Drawings’, 1800s.
7 For Tresham and architecture see: Alfred Gotch, J., A Complete Account Illustrated by Measured Drawings, of The Buildings Erected in Northamptonshire by Sir Thomas Tresham Between the years 1575 and 1605 (Northamptonshire, 1883)Google Scholar; Lomas, ‘The Tresham Papers’; Summerson, John, Architecture in Britain 1530–1830 (Baltimore, 1954), pp. 41–42 Google Scholar; Airs, Malcolm, The Tudor and Jacobean Country House: A Building History (Phoenix Mill, 1995), pp.ii, 9, 12, 22, 37, 40, 49, 66, 73, 76, 85, 92, 99, 102–103, 107, 109, 114, 127, 130, 138–39, 141, 162, 164, 166, 168, 172–74, 179, 194, 200.Google Scholar
8 See in particular Oxford, Bodleian Library, Brudenell Mss, Bod. Mss. Eng. th. B. 1–2, which was only recently attributed to Tresham; see Kilroy, Gerard, Barker, Nicholas and Quentin, David, The Library of Thomas Tresham and Thomas Brudenell (Arundel, 2006), pp 193–458 Google Scholar; Kilroy, Gerard, ‘Within these Walls: the Interior Life of Sir Thomas Tresham’ in Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription (Burlington, Vt, 2005), pp. 121–45Google Scholar; Williams, Richard, ‘A Catholic Sculpture in Elizabethan England: Sir Thomas Tresham's Reredos at Rushton Hall’, Architectural History, 44 (2001), pp. 221–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Young, Francis, ‘Esoteric Recusancy in the Elizabethan Age: The Occult Architecture of Sir Thomas Tresham’ (paper delivered at the ‘Visions of Enchantment’ conference at the University of Cambridge, 2014), available at http://www.academia.edu/6468646/ Esoteric_Recusancy_in_the_Elizabethan_Age_The_Occult_Architecture_of_Sir_Thomas_Tresham (accessed on 15 February 2015).Google Scholar
9 As early as 1883, Gotch wrote twenty-four pages explaining the symbolism of the plans and ornamentation of the two extant lodges, attributing them to Tresham; see Gotch, , A Complete Account, pp. 20–44 Google Scholar. For more recent research, see Kilroy, ‘The Interior Life of Thomas Tresham’; and Eburne, Andrew,‘The Passion of Sir Thomas Tresham: New Light on the Gardens and Lodge at Lyveden’, Garden History, 36 (2008), pp. 114–34.Google Scholar
10 Girouard, Mark, Elizabethan Architecture: Its Rise and Fall, 1540–1640 (New Haven, 2009), pp.232 and 236.Google Scholar Levens's accounts indicate payment for books to John Fletcher at Cambridge in May 1596; BL Add. Mss 39831, f.83r.
11 For building practices see in particular Knoop, Douglas and Jones, G. P., ‘The Rise of the Mason Contractor’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 43 (1936), pp. 1–20 Google Scholar; Knoop, Douglas and Jones, G. P., The Sixteenth-Century Mason (London, 1937)Google Scholar; Pevsner, Nicholas, ‘The Term “Architect” in the Middle Ages’, Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 549–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summerson, John, ‘Three Elizabethan architects’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (1957), pp. 202–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Malcolm Airs, The Tudor and Jacobean Country House, passim; Girouard, , Elizabethan Architecture, pp. 232–39Google Scholar; and Gerbino, Anthony and Johnston, Stephen, Compass and Rule: Architecture As Mathematical Practice in England (New Haven, 2009), pp. 11–64.Google Scholar
12 Eburne, , ‘The Passion of Sir Thomas Tresham’, p. 120.Google Scholar
13 BL Add. Mss 39831, f. 42V. Exact dating is impossible, but the folio (folded and sealed to make an envelope) was included by the nineteenth-century cataloguers with the correspondence gathered in BL Add. Mss 39831, dating from 1578 to 1597. The address includes the title ‘knight’ (Tresham was knighted in 1575) and is consistent with a post-1578 dating.
14 Although obvious, this observation is not made in any of the standard works on the Warrener's Lodge: Gotch, , A Complete Account, pp. 21–30 Google Scholar; Summerson, John, Architecture in Britain: 1530–1830, 9th edn (New Haven, 1993), PP. 73–74 Google Scholar; Pevsner, Nicholas, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, 2nd edn, rev. Bridget Cherry (London, 1973), pp. 400–02Google Scholar; and Girouard, , Elizabethan Architecture, pp. 232–36.Google Scholar
15 Tresham's notes leave no doubt of his understanding of the symbol of the alpha, or (in Hebrew) the aleph, in relation to Trinitarian theology and as alluding to God as a word and God as three in one. In 1597 he explained his use of four letters — A (aleph), h (hei), I (iud) and h (hei) — to represent the name of God, and the aleph as God's first utterance: ’ye name of god wch he himself signified to man …yt he wold be called by. Viz. sum wch in the Hebrew (wherein yt was delivered) ys Aleph he iod he…yt in ye ineffable name quadrilaternan aforsayd ther are 4 letters, yet consisteth of ech 3 letters for he ys ther twice wch theryn insinuateth ye Trinitye…'; BL Add. Mss 39831, f. 10r.
16 Jarret, Joseph C., ‘Sir Thomas Tresham's Elements of Geometrie’, Notes and Queries, 61 (2014), pp. 214–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 The Soane Museum holds Tresham's copy of I quattro primi libri di architettura di Pietro Cataneo Senese (Venice, 1554). I am grateful to Dr Andres Reyes for finding the biblical reference for me: Psalms, 126, 1.
18 Barker, and Quentin, , The Library of Thomas Tresham, pp. 195, 238, 246–47, 264–65, 268, 274, 280, 330, 364, 401–03, 427–28.Google Scholar Barker and Quentin have transcribed the inventories of Tresham's library (Add. Mss BL 39830, ff. 155v–214v), identifying authors' names; see Barker, and Quentin, , Library, pp. 451–52.Google ScholarPubMed
19 Jarret, , ‘Sir Thomas Tresham's Elements’, p. 216.Google Scholar For Digges, see Gerbino, and Johnston, , Compass and Rule, pp. 45–64.Google Scholar
20 Mary Finch has provided invaluable information about the land and economics of Tresham's Rushton estate; Finch, Mary, Five Northamptonshire Families, 1540–1640 (Oxford, 1956), pp. 66–99.Google Scholar For the consolidation of land up to 1580, see pp. 68–73.
21 For example, see BL Add. Mss 3931, ff. 5r–15v in which Levens refers to work about the ‘cowehowse’ and the ‘cowehowse garden’ fifteen times; or ff. 51v–71r, spanning August 1595 to January 1596, in which Levens notes work in the ‘gallerie’ 112 times.
21 For example, see BL Add. Mss 3931, ff. 5r–15v in which Levens refers to work about the ‘cowehowse’ and the ‘cowehowse garden’ fifteen times; or ff. 51v–71r, spanning August 1595 to January 1596, in which Levens notes work in the ‘gallerie’ 112 times.
22 Collection of David Pain, Esq. (Rushton Manor Farm), George Nunns's ‘Survey of Rushton and part of Barford Lordship … for the Right Honorable Charles, Lord Viscount Cullen’, 1732.
23 BL Add. Mss 39832, ff.95r–96v.
24 BL Add. Mss 39836, f.48r and 39836, f.49r.
25 Finch, Mary, Five Northamptonshire Families, pp. 74–75.Google Scholar
26 Swindon, , National Monuments Record [hereafter ‘NMR’], Ordnance Survey: Explorer 224: Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough, Rockingham Forest (Southampton, 1999).Google Scholar
27 NMR, RAF/540/851, no. 4198, 29 Aug. 1952; NMR, OS/68137/028, 2 June 1968. Both aerial photographs show depressions, or scarring, consistent with quarrying just north of Rothwell Road near the right corner of the Stiles Spinney.
28 For Tresham's enclosing activities, see Finch, , Five Northamptonshire Families, pp. 74–76.Google Scholar
29 The Ordnance Survey measures in metres which are, here, converted to feet.
30 Finch notes that at Rushton, ‘the Middle and Over Hawkfield were leased out in 1516, and this custom was probably continued’; Finch, , Five Northamptonshire Families, p. 71, n. 1.Google Scholar
31 Sherley, Thomas, A Short Discourse of Hawking to the Field With High Flying Long Winged Hawkes (London,1603), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar
32 Ordnance Survey data at http://data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk (accessed 20 Feb 2015).
33 Levens's accounts are contained in BL Add. Mss 39832–39835, although those dated after 1598 provide significantly fewer dates and detail.
34 BL Add. Mss 39832, f. 2r.
35 See for example BL Add. Mss 39832, ff. 39V, 49r, and 81v.
36 Ibid., f.56r.
37 Ibid., f. 56v.
38 Ibid., f.39r.
39 Ibid., ff.80r–117v.
40 Ibid., f.77r.
41 Ibid., f.80r.
42 Ibid., ff.87r, 88r, 88V.
43 Ibid., f. 20V.
44 The minimum volume of the foundation hole is deduced from the area of the building's triangular plan (side 33? ft), which comes to around 480 square feet, and which is then multiplied by the height, 6ft, of the finished basement. Measurements for the Warrener's Lodge derive from scale plans in Gotch, A Complete Account (plates Tr Lo 1–8).
45 Adding just two feet per side to the finished perimeter of the Warrener's Lodge and allowing for six inches additional depth beneath a finished floor results in a volume of approximately 3,900 cubic feet.
46 BL Add. Mss 39832, ff.20r–30v, f.89r.
47 Ibid., f.89r.
48 Ibid., f. 89v.
49 One explanation for leaving a wall unfinished would be so that it would serve as an opening to allow entry into the structure for bulky materials, with the opening perhaps being sealed at the last possible moment. According to architect Neil Hauck, this building practice is still followed.
50 BL Add. Mss 39832, f. 89v.
51 Ibid., f.90v.
52 Ibid, ff.90v–92v.
53 Ibid, f.92r.
54 Ibid., f.93r.
55 Ibid., f.92v.
56 Ibid., f.92r.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., f.79v.
59 Ibid., ff.89r–91v. For building practices, see Airs, Malcolm, The Tudor and Jacobean Country House, in particular pp. 79–85 and 125–26.Google Scholar
60 BL Add. Mss 39832, ff.80v–85v, 86r, 86v, 89r.
61 Ibid., ff. 83r–v, 88 r–v.
62 Ibid., f.81v–82r, 84v.
63 Ibid.,ff.86v,88r.
64 Ibid., f.87r.
65 Ibid., ff.85r, 91r.
66 Ibid., f.92r.
67 Ibid.,
68 Ibid.,ff.111r.
69 Ibid., f.92v.
70 See Lever, Jill and Harris, John, Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture 800–1914 (London, 1993), pp. 5, 6, 8, 11, 76, 77, 84.Google Scholar
71 BL Add. Mss 39832, f. 93r.
72 Ibid., f. 111r.
73 Ibid., f. 113v.
74 Ibid., f.91r.
75 Oggins, Robin S., The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England (New Haven, 2004), pp. 29–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Levens's building accounts twice include payments to labourers for ‘felling tymber for the herne howse’ and another, later, to someone for ‘climbing ye hearnes nests’, presumably to snatch the eggs as part of the heron raising operation, herons being used as prey both in training hawks and in luring them while in free flight; see BL Add. Mss 39832, ff. 45r–v, 81r; and Oggins, , Kings and Their Hawks, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar
76 The original cataloguer of the Tresham Papers appears to have mislabeled the drawings as ‘Hawkfield Lodge’ a mistake then perpetuated saftwerwards. Summerson, however, firmly associated them with the New Bield; see Summerson, , ‘Three Elizabethan Architects’, pp. 316–24.Google Scholar
77 Gotch, , A Complete Account, p. 22 and plate Tr Lo 1Google Scholar. Pevsner notes the special status of the number 100 with respect to a three-sided building in a Trinitarian context; see Pevsner, , Northamptonshire, p. 401.Google Scholar
78 Gotch, , A Complete Account, plates Tr Lo 1–8.Google Scholar
79 BLAdd. MSS. 39832, f.91r.
80 BL Add. Mss 39832, f. 114v.
81 Ibid., f. 96v.
82 Ibid., ff.96v, 90v.
83 Ibid.,f.85r.
84 Ibid., f. 93v.
85 Ibid.
86 The ‘pole’, according to the OED, was in use as early as 1579. The OED also records that by 1593 ‘this Measure is a length of 16 foot and a half’, and it may have been something of a relative term.
87 BL Add. Mss 39832, ff. 105r–107v.
88 Ibid., ff. 114v, 115r, 116r.
89 Ibid., f. 117v.
90 This imprisonment is documented; seen Eburne, , ‘The Passion of Sir Thomas Tresham’, p. 117 Google Scholar. Tresham's papers include an extensive set of instructions for the paintings to be produced for his chamber at the Bishop's Palace at Ely, beginning with the heading ‘Ely 25 July 1597’; BL Add. Mss 39831, f. 5r–12v
91 BL Add. Mss 39832, f., 106r–108r, 115r.
92 For example, Gotch demonstrates that eighteen of the incised letters at the Warrener's Lodge probably come from Revelation, 4, 8; see Gotch, , A Complete Account, p. 24.Google Scholar
93 Crosse, F. L. and E. A. Livingstone, , Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1998), p. 765.Google Scholar
94 Fletcher, Rachael, Infinite Measure: Learning to Design in Geometric Harmony with Art, Architecture, and Nature (Staunton, 2013), pp.45 and 47Google Scholar. Tresham's intimate familiarity, seen in his books, with Ambrose who wrote multiple commentaries on the Hexaemeron, would confirm such a choice; see Barker, and Quentin, , The Library, p. 199.Google Scholar
95 For example, see BL Add. Mss 39828, f.92r, letter of October 1583. For the common use of this spelling, see Girouard, , Elizabethan Architecture, p. 236 Google Scholar. With respect to God as the alpha, see Revelation, 1, 8: ego sum A et Ω, principium et finis dicit Dominus Deus qui est et qui erat et que venturus est Omnipotens (I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty).
96 John, 5, 8.
