Richard Suggett, ‘“Done after the Fantastic Order”: John Nash’s Restoration of St David’s Cathedral’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xxI, 2013, pp. 106–122
text © the authors 2013 ‘DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER’: JOHN NASH’S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID’S CATHEDRAL
RICHARD SUGGETT
ohn Nash tends to be viewed as the grand old man In Nash disappeared from the London scene Jof Regency architecture. His dignity radiates from and is next heard of in south-west Wales. A the portrait commissioned for Jesus College, Oxford, successful tender for rebuilding the roof of St Peter’s which portrays the architect (one can reasonably Church brought him to Carmarthen. The contract assume) as he wanted to be remembered: rich, was relatively small, but Nash decided to stay and successful, and at the height of his fame. Sir Thomas rebuild his career in Carmarthen, a county town and Lawrence was credited with capturing the essence of a flourishing regional capital. Nash’s metropolitan sitter’s personality, but his Nash is rather inscrutable. career was over for the time being, but one needs to This was perhaps the point. There was the immensely appreciate that by the later eighteenth century a successful Nash: the architect to the Prince Regent; successful architect need not be London based. the designer of Buckingham Palace, creator of Provincial architects were in demand designing the Regent’s Street and Regent’s Park, the Brighton improvements and new public buildings required by Pavilion, and a whole string of important country modernizing Georgian towns. This is exactly how houses. But then there was the other less reputable, Nash rebuilt his career. During Nash’s Carmarthen more rackety Nash. Scandal was never very far away period he designed a market hall, three prisons, an from Nash’s affairs, threatening to puncture his hard- asylum, a poor house, and several bridges. Many of won respectability. Early in his career there had been these commissions – especially the prisons – were unfortunate building speculation, bankruptcy, and rather prolonged building projects, but they a strange divorce. Nash, with his personal and demonstrated Nash’s competence. He was always professional affairs in crisis, had left London in the keen to find a quick route to celebrity, and the mid s and had tried to re-establish his career in restoration of St David’s would certainly bring him west Wales. The commission to rebuild the west front to the attention of a wider public, helping him along of St David’s Cathedral came in the s when he the path (which he so desperately wanted to tread) to was reinventing himself personally and professionally. fame and fortune. We can learn much about Nash’s character from his The restoration of the cathedral was initiated by manoeuvring to obtain the commission, and from the reforming Bishop Horsley ( – ) following a his relations with clerics and craftsmen. More ‘visit of curiosity’ to his new diocese in summer . fundamentally, the design and its presentation provide Horsley announced that he was ‘more struck than I an unexpected insight into Nash’s own mysterious can easily express’ by the ruined appearance of the transformation from competent but conventional cathedral, deploring the harm it must inflict on the architect into an architectural innovator. Church’s reputation generally, but particularly to the
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Fig. . St David’s Cathedral before Nash’s restoration. (RCAHMW photograph of original © Pembrokeshire County Library ) reputation of the Chapter, which had responsibility in church repairs whose name had ‘sufficient weight for its repair (Fig. ). Horsley recommended the to satisfy the public’, presumably when appealing for immediate survey of the cathedral. Chapter members subscriptions towards the repair. The Chapter were required not to depart from the general audit ordered that Nash’s survey should be examined by until they had agreed to repair the cathedral, ‘Mr Wyatt’, who would make what alterations or demonstrating the strength of their resolve by additions he thought fit. Nash would have naming in an Act of Chapter the architect with subordinate status as the ‘acting surveyor’ under responsibility for the repair. Accordingly, on July Wyatt’s ‘management and controul.’ the Chapter empowered Canon William Who was this Mr Wyatt? He was of course James Holcombe to employ Mr John Nash of Carmarthen, Wyatt, the eminent architect, retrospectively architect, ‘to make a proper survey of the whole nicknamed ‘the Destroyer’ by his enemies, but at the cathedral’, with a plan and estimate of repair. time widely acknowledged as an experienced church Holcombe was the resident canon, who lived in repairer and improver in the Gothic style, who in an some style (accused by some of living in expectation intensely busy period in the later eighteenth century, of the mitre) and had undertaken improvements to during Nash’s Carmarthen decade – , altered the cathedral environs by reinstating the medieval several major English cathedrals, as well as other fish-pond and establishing fruit gardens near the ecclesiastical buildings. Wyatt was not afraid of Bishop’s Palace. Presumably Nash had come to radical solutions to structural problems, and when Holcombe’s notice when repairing St Peter’s, given the opportunity undertook ‘improvements’ Carmarthen, his first architectural commission in the beyond necessary repairs, even when this involved town. However, Nash was not appointed architect in the destruction of significant medieval fabric. Wyatt charge. Bishop Horsley insisted that the Chapter was slightly older than Nash and already immensely should employ an architect of established reputation successful. Like Nash he was naturally gifted; unlike
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Nash he was not particularly businesslike, and was between Potter and Wyatt, but few could have reputed to have lost a fortune by neglecting his foreseen the effects of Nash’s persuasive personality. accounts. Wyatt was excessively busy, keeping clients Nash certainly surveyed St David’s Cathedral, at bay, reputedly more difficult of access than the Prime and his ground plan survives. It is the work of a Minister. Nash by contrast was very businesslike, if not competent surveyor who has drawn up what he has sometimes sharp, accumulating within a few years a measured, the essential prerequisite for understanding fortune sufficient to run a London house and a country a building thoroughly. If the Chapter’s original retreat that matched Wyatt’s establishment. Nash was instructions had been followed, Nash’s survey and also sociable, accessible and charming – indeed, recommendations would in due course have been dangerously so. We must remember Repton’s rueful submitted to Wyatt for his opinion. This did not verdict on Nash: ‘He had powers of fascination beyond happen because a remarkable turn of events any one I have met with’. effectively put paid to Wyatt’s active involvement at Bishop Horsley envisaged a thorough repair of St David’s. It seems extraordinary in retrospect, but the Cathedral that would ‘restore to its original in the Chapter put to one side the pressing beauty and grandeur ... one of the noblest matter of the cathedral’s stability and decided monuments that our island has to boast.’ Some instead to commission a new chapter house. This repairs were particularly pressing. For some years project had not been mooted before Nash appeared there had been concern about the settlement of the on the scene, but Nash was adept at making people tower and west front. John Calvert, a Swansea want new buildings. Nash obviously charmed the architect, had proposed pulling down the upper canons into accepting his proposals for a new parts of the west front ‘so low as the cathedral roof’ chapter house befitting their status, even though the to ease the loading. This was vandalism, but the least Chapter would have to borrow to pay for it. expensive way of preventing further movement, as Nash’s new chapter house was a significant and the architect pointed out in . The Chapter prominently-sited building, but it can be viewed only procrastinated, reluctant either to spend money or in one contemporary print and in a few drawings mutilate the cathedral. The dramatic fall of the west (Fig. ). The exacting mid-nineteenth-century end of Hereford Cathedral on Easter Monday cathedral historians, Jones and Freeman, considered provided the spur to action at St David’s. A striking the building not only difficult but also ‘unprofitable’ engraving of the ruined cathedral appeared in The to describe, ‘due to the taste of Mr Nash’, but a Gentleman’s Magazine , with the wounding description must be attempted here. Nash altered a suggestion that the Hereford collapse had occurred run-down workshop and schoolroom on the south because of capitular indolence. The Hereford side of the cathedral graveyard, creating from this Chapter circulated a letter of appeal to raise unpromising structure a gleaming Neo-gothic subscription for repairs. By sufficient funds had extravaganza. The chapter house was entered from accumulated for Wyatt to begin rebuilding the west the cathedral side by a Gothic porch, and principal end, though he did so according to an ‘improved’ and back stairs led to the main first-floor rooms design rather than reinstating the fallen front. Wyatt (public audit room and private chapter room), set employed a clerk of works, Joseph Potter of over ground-floor kitchen and cellar, and vaulted Lichfield, who had immediate oversight of the basement. Rough-casting covered the stone and works. Presumably it was expected that the brick-patched walls, and the plaster and stucco finish working relationship between surveyor and architect internally included vaulting (‘groins’) and mouldings. at St David’s would be much the same as at Hereford The principal rooms had Gothic doorways and were
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL lit by four large pointed windows on the south side; gratuitously expended on the chapter house was in there was at least one gothic chimneypiece. The the nature of a sprat thrown out to catch a bigger provision of garderobes was a pleasantly archaic fish. The larger prize was the restoration of the convenience for the canons. The new chapter house cathedral itself, an enterprise that promised both was planned rather like a first-floor hall (reminiscent celebrity and handsome fees. of the adjacent bishop’s palace, of course) having as The turning-point came in July when Nash its focus the public audit room—a ‘handsome large spent three days attending the general audit. The room forty-two feet long’ with, at its east end, a chapter house was well under way and Nash’s bill turret-like Gothic superstructure, variously described was approved. The Chapter then instructed Nash to as a cupola and steeple (by the workmen) and a proceed with the survey of the cathedral, making an ‘fancied spire’ (by a cathedral historian). Nash’s eye- estimate of the repairs required. Nash moved catcher was carefully considered and cost a relatively quickly. He immediately prepared to stabilize the substantial sum. The ‘turret’ was actually a louver, cathedral. On th August the workmen employed on such as adorned London livery halls or Oxford and the chapter house were deployed to shore up the Cambridge colleges, and it emphasized the collegiate west end with large timber props. Nash proceeded nature of the chapter house. The new building to prepare his own scheme for rebuilding the west must have appealed to the Chapter’s sense of front. After this Wyatt became marginal to the importance, although visitors soon came to detest it, restoration. There were to be other occasions when partly because of its mock-Gothic style but more Nash would supplant him, but (in this instance at because it brazenly interrupted the prospect of the least) the busy Wyatt does not seem to have harboured cathedral and bishop’s palace from the south. any ill will towards the pushy Nash. Nash like any The total cost of the new chapter house was other self-respecting architect acquired a clerk, the £ . s. d. This was extraordinarily inexpensive self-effacing Mr George. Nash and his clerk made for a substantial building, but costs were kept low regular visits to St Davids. George’s fees were half partly because Nash’s own fees were exceptionally those of Nash’s, who charged four guineas for his modest, amounting to less than £ . He charged the journeys. Nash had outmanoeuvred Wyatt but he standard commission of % but only on costs up to could not yet command the exorbitant fees that the audit; work continued into , but Nash Wyatt charged for his attendances. did not claim his commission. The Chapter did not By February the proposals for rebuilding pay Nash for his design, and Nash charged only a the west front were ready and advertised in the token five guineas for visiting St Davids. Architects Hereford and Bristol newspapers. Sets of plans and generally profited from their attendance fees, but specifications could be inspected at Bristol (at Mr Nash must have made many unrecompensed Routh’s, the printer), Brecon and St Davids (with journeys to St Davids. He certainly conscientiously Canons Davis and Holcombe), and Carmarthen (at examined and certified the tradesmen’s accounts, Nash’s house). Prospective contractors were informed sometimes adjusting bills when he detected mistakes that, since St Davids had an adjacent harbour, ‘the or overcharging. He remonstrated with carpenter undertaking will be eligible for workmen living in and plasterer for careless work on the Gothic any seaport town.’ Estimates were to be sent to the windows and for poor mouldings. One can almost master of the fabric, Canon Davis of Brecon, by April hear the Chapter congratulating themselves on . Nash spent four days at Brecon settling the employing such a competent and commendably contracts. Tenders for the whole work were received economical architect. But for Nash the labour from building contactors in Bath and London but
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL rejected. Instead separate contracts were given refacing it so that it appeared upright. It was first to Joseph Mathias of Cartlett, Uzmaston, a necessary to dig deep foundations along the length Pembrokeshire carpenter who had worked on the of the west front for new pressure-relieving arches chapter house (£ for the carpentry with glass and and buttresses. Complex temporary shores held the ironwork), and an experienced mason, James Yates arcade in place. Two stubby flying buttresses of Bromyard, Herefordshire (£ .s. d. for the eventually encased permanent tarred oak shores, and masons’ work including freestone ornaments). two stone abutment arches, which transmitted the The contracts were agreed on the April , and thrust from the arcade to piers built on the new Nash’s specifications were clearly set out in foundations, resting ultimately on a framework of numbered ‘particulars’ and drawings, which at sleepers set over piles of Norway fir driven deep into Nash’s insistence were signed by the contractors, the sub-soil. The unstable upper part of the west stamped and witnessed. front was taken down stage by stage to the base of the lower windows. Meanwhile the lower part of the west front was cased in ashlar ten inches at the bottom diminishing to six inches, and the upper part of the RESTORATION west front was then rebuilt with a new great window. Drawings were very important to the whole Nash was particular about the detail of the enterprise. Nash set out his design in four drawings masonry. He had a flair for handling large areas of that showed the new west front in section and stonework in a fluent way, as his prisons (then under elevation, with details of the window, buttressing construction) showed. It was no doubt a facility and foundations (Figs. & ). Nash’s coloured learnt in Sir Robert Taylor’s office. Nash’s longitudinal section shows the structural problem specification distinguished between ‘rough stone’, and his solution (Fig. ). The Norman foundations ‘the stone of the country’, and freestone. Rough of the cathedral were inadequate. The west front was stone rubble was used for the hidden masonry work. leaning outwards under pressure from the Norman There would be sufficient rough stone from the arcade and apparently moving at a rate of half an demolished west front as well as in ‘old walls’ near inch a year. Nash’s specification states that the wall the cathedral. The stone of the country was used overhung its base by inches from the level of the principally for casing the west front and for the window sill; later Nash maintained that the true buttresses and relieving arches. Nash explains that overhang, presumably from apex to ground, was a the country stone was reddish and about the rather incredible feet inches. hardness of Bath stone. He was evidently referring to It was a tricky problem, but Nash seems rather to stone from the long-established quarries at Caerfai or have relished the engineering challenge it presented. Nolton. Freestone was specified for the carved detail, He later told the Society of Antiquaries that the which was quite lavish. Blocks of Portland Stone fabric was held together only by the mortar, and were to be shipped to St Davids and then dressed on there was a very real possibility that when the west site, so that the locality would benefit as much as front was disturbed the whole arcade would fall like possible from the money expended on the work. ninepins leading to the collapse of that part of the This philanthropic consideration was no doubt cathedral. The problem was severe, but Nash’s owed to Canon Holcombe. solution was ingenious, and entailed minimal Nash and his clerk made twelve trips to St Davids disturbance to the arcade and its ceiling. Nash between July and July . As work progressed proposed buttressing the west front and then Nash became dissatisfied with the quality of the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL
Fig. . St David’s Cathedral after Nash’s restoration. (RCAHMW photograph of the original © Pembrokeshire County Library )
Fig. . John Nash’s design proposal for the west front of St David’s Cathedral. (RCAHMW photograph of the original © Pembrokeshire County Library )
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL masons’ work, complaining that, despite ‘frequent to the contracts, and more or less within the available threats and remonstrances’, Yates persisted in budget, and the successful completion of works was departing from his contract. According to Nash, due to Nash. One may contrast the efficient and safe stones were indiscriminately used without attention operation at St David’s with the slow and vaguely- to soundness or colour, securing cramps were missing, costed works at Hereford that proceeded with at details of design were neglected, and a great deal of least one fatal disaster. the freestone work was omitted. Yates complained about the hardship of his contract, and he certainly had a point, though Nash sternly advised him to execute his contract in a workmanlike manner so that NASH ’ S DESIGNS : ANTIQUARIES he might not weaken his case for consideration. AND PERSPECTIVISTS Canons Davies and Holcombe had been concerned In some important respects, practical as well as from the start of works about the quality of the stone aesthetic, Nash’s west front has to be considered in used and sought reassurance from Nash. In a signed relation to Wyatt’s concurrent restoration of and witnessed statement in July , Nash formally Hereford cathedral (begun in ). At both recorded his opinion that the building stone was cathedrals there were similar and interlinked design ‘more durable than the stone contracted to be used’. and engineering challenges, and tension between the Extra work was certainly required beyond that reinstatement and improvement of the old work. At specified in Yates’s contract: the ground in front of Hereford Wyatt did not replicate the old tiered the cathedral had to be cleared before work could Romanesque work, and made a new great pointed begin, considerable amounts of stone below the window the centre of his improved Gothic design for window level needed demolition, the buttresses the west front. Similarly at St David’s Nash could not required extra work, and the south-west mural stair resist replacing the round-headed Romanesque had to be demolished and rebuilt. In Joseph lights with a large pointed window filled with tracery, Potter (Wyatt’s surveyor) was called in to survey the some apparently reused from St Mary’s College work, spending seven days at the cathedral, and chapel (Fig. ). Nash’s great window was a clever Yates was given an additional contract for rebuilding but eclectic exercise in perpendicular geometry and the south-west tower. At the audit Nash incorporated a traceried circle. This and the flanking reported his continued misgivings about Yates’s circular windows of the aisles echoed the great wheel work to the Chapter and Yates was not paid. Poor window in the adjacent Bishop’s Palace. The Yates! A falling stone injured his leg and he was crenellations on the nave turrets were a typical unable to attend the following audit. Writing from his picturesque Gothic flourish, also used by Wyatt at sick bed, Yates complained to the Chapter that ‘The Hereford, but with precedent at St David’s. The St Davids Busness hath Almost been the Ruin of front as a whole was unified by three-quarter round me’, adding that he would rather have given away mouldings (‘cylinders’) at every external angle, a £ than taken on the contract had he known the constant reference to the shafts of the great west distress it would cause him. Yates’s additional claims doorway through which the Bishop entered the on the Chapter were not allowed, though Nash cathedral. Nash preserved but partly refaced the appears not unsympathetic. There were certainly Bishop’s doorway and gave it a new tympanum problems with the stonework but they were cosmetic embellished with mitre and crossed crosiers. The rather than structural and the west front was secure. most novel parts of Nash’s design were the buttresses By and large the work had been completed according and associated works. The square piers were capped
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Fig. . Longitudinal section of the nave showing Nash’s shores and buttresses. (RCAHMW photograph of the original © Pembrokeshire County Library )
with pinnacled octagonal shafts, having distinctive west front were decided, in March , Canon triangular ‘broaches’ at the junction between square Holcombe was elected to the Society of Antiquaries. and octagon. The design was surely suggested by the Among those who signed his testimonial were Shute broached bell-turret of the Great Chapel in the Barrington, Bishop of Salisbury, an enthusiast for Bishop’s Palace. Even Nash’s mid nineteenth- Wyatt’s proposed repairs and improvements at century critics conceded that the buttressing was Salisbury Cathedral, and Richard Gough, Director satisfyingly robust, unlike much eighteenth-century of the Society, who became a violent critic of Wyatt’s Gothic work, and the effect of the new-buttressed work. Holcombe exhibited to the Society several front was considered quite painterly. drawings of the cathedral and bishop’s palace, By and large Nash’s work was restrained, apart presumably Nash’s survey drawings and proposed from the flamboyant buttressing and the great west design, and extracts were read from ‘An Address window, the latter probably an inescapable from the Chapter of St Davids to the Principality of ‘improvement’. Nash, unlike Wyatt, seems to have Wales’, dated St David’s Day . This set out the known when to stop, though he was more constrained history of the ‘remarkable pile of building’ and its by limited funds. From the start of works at St David’s present decayed state, and solicited contributions for there was an attempt to preserve the greater part of its repair. the old fabric, avoiding gratuitous destruction, and Canon Holcombe FSA had a particularly to accommodate the concerns of antiquaries agitated important role in raising money for the restoration of by destructive Neo-Gothic improvements the cathedral and in shaping and supporting the masquerading as necessary repairs. Jones and scope of Nash’s proposals. Holcombe’s vision Freeman suggested that Nash’s plans ‘were submitted extended beyond the repair of the west front to the to the criticism of the Society of Antiquaries’. restoration of the whole cathedral, including the There was a sense in which this was true, though ruined parts, and the refounding of the College of not to the extent of influencing the final design. St Mary. The vision was grand, but the available funds Immediately before the tenders for rebuilding the were limited. It was difficult to raise subscriptions
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL beyond the circle of local gentry, clergy, and aesthetic changes. Nash claimed that he had left the benevolent visitors, and the St David’s appeal was cathedral in a ‘restored state’, and explained: ‘I did inevitably overshadowed by successive subscriptions not think myself at liberty to change any part of the for Hereford Cathedral. Important patrons were original forms but merely to reinstate them, and sought, but a petition on parchment presented to where the original forms could not be ascertained I George III and a Latin address to Jesus College, have everywhere copied from other parts of the Oxford, came to nothing. Nash, understanding the building coeval in date with the part wanting.’ This importance of visual presentation, suggested in was not entirely true, of course, but Nash was placing that the Chapter should commission through him a himself on the side of the preservation angels rather set of drawings that would show potential subscribers than the improving vandals in the fraught but the whole cathedral as existing and ‘in its intended profitable matter of church restoration, which led to improved state’. Canon Holcombe authorized the a major quarrel at the Society of Antiquaries in the drawings, which were to be completed by the audit following year when James Wyatt was proposed for in July . The finished drawings were to be at the election and blackballed. Nash (as the minutes Chapter’s service, but Nash was at liberty to show record) went on to inform the meeting ‘in the most them to any person he thought proper. Nash was liberal manner’ that the drawings were at the Society’s instructed at the audit to lay the drawings service for any purpose it might have in view, before the ‘Society of Antiquarians’ with a letter from presumably offering to lend the drawings to the the master of the fabric requesting the Society’s Society for engraving for its cathedrals series. Nash patronage in promoting the subscription for the was thanked, but the Society did not pursue the cathedral’s repair. offer, partly because the cost of engraving was In July (against the approaching audit) putting a financial strain on the Society, but also (one Nash reported to the Chapter that the principal supposes) because the drawings, though impressive, fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, as well as were partly restoration proposals rather than the members of the nobility, had seen the drawings and comprehensive architectural record that the Society intended convening a general meeting to view the had commissioned for several other cathedrals. drawings publicly. Nash sought permission to retain Nevertheless, the Society was sufficiently impressed the drawings, as Canon Holcombe was ‘no longer to commission copies of the detailed architectural available on account of his misfortunes’. By this time drawings, paying Auguste Pugin £ for the work in the generous and hospitable Canon Holcombe January . These drawings, variously signed A. seems to have become exhausted and financially C. Pugin and J. A. Repton, as well as J. Nash Archt., embarrassed, and may have suffered a breakdown. still survive in the solander cases of the Society of It was not until March that Nash exhibited the Antiquaries’ cathedrals series. drawings to the Society of Antiquaries. Nash told the Society that he had made (i.e. commissioned) the drawings while conducting the repairs to the cathedral. The drawings represented the cathedral NASH AND PUGIN before and after restoration and illustrated Nash’s By there were two sets of drawings of St David’s proposals. It is interesting that Nash used the word Cathedral, and this has proved retrospectively ‘restored’. In the architectural vocabulary of the day, confusing. The drawings commissioned by the the more usual terms were ‘necessary repairs’ or Society of Antiquaries showed the unaltered ‘improvements’, the latter generally meaning cathedral only and derived from the original set
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL completed in , showing the cathedral as existing show the large scale of the cathedral. The fourteen and the proposed alterations. The Chapter owned drawings depicted a series of contrasts between the these drawings but Nash managed to retain them, restored and unrestored west and south elevations of and they seem to have been rather important to him. the cathedral. There was a narrative element in the Nash’s bill sets out exactly how many drawings were sequence of the paintings that Nash followed when he commissioned and their cost: fourteen drawings showed them to the Society of Antiquaries. The first were made costing five guineas each, making a total two perspective drawings were strongly picturesque of £ . s. There were additional expenses for in inspiration. One records the moment of surprise Mr Foulon’s and Mr Elsam’s time and journeys to when the top of the cathedral tower is seen from the St Davids ‘to take the measurements &c necessary to squalid square at St Davids; the second captures the make the drawings’, both at guineas. There are coup d’œil when the panorama of the ancient city of interesting names. The Marquis de Foulon was a St Davids is revealed before the visitor (Fig. ). fellow émigré artist known to Pugin, and his son, Figures play an important part in the animation of John Foulon, was later employed in Nash’s office. the perspective drawings, and the drawings of the Mr Elsam was Richard Elsam of London, an English cathedral before and after restoration have contrasting artist and architect, who published designs for figures. The unrestored cathedral is practically cottages ornés and latterly worked in Ireland. The deserted apart from two clerics and a bent figure who drawings were evidently based on measurements passes the cathedral without a glance. After restoration, made on site by Nash, supplemented by work by groups are shown admiring the improved cathedral: Foulon and Elsam. However the finished drawings a gentleman assists a lady over the cathedral green were prepared in London rather than in Nash’s stile, a figure on horseback passes a resting figure Carmarthen office. This is clear from Nash’s account. gazing at the cathedral. Some of the figures deserve When the drawings were ready a charge was made further attention. The figure wearing a wide-brimmed for a portfolio to hold them, and they were sent in a hat depicted sketching the cathedral is surely the packing case from London to Carmarthen and then artist himself, Auguste Charles Pugin (Fig. ). on to St Davids for viewing before returning to At some point during the restoration of the London, where they were available for inspection at cathedral, probably in , Nash had encountered No. Duke Street, St James’s. A.C. Pugin, destined to become one of the best- The original drawings are not signed, and the known architectural illustrators and perspectivists of commission was a collaborative exercise coordinated the day, but better known to posterity as ‘the elder by Nash. The major hand seems to have been Pugin’s. Pugin’ and father of the more famous A.W.N. Pugin. Judging by the signed drawings in the Society of The émigré Pugin entered the Royal Academy Antiquaries library, Pugin had responsibility for the Schools in London in March aged . Pugin’s perspective drawings; presumably Foulon and Elsam biographer preserves the anecdote that Nash had worked on the geometrical drawings later revised by advertised for a draughtsman with the proviso Repton. Pugin’s perspective drawings are large ‘foreigner preferred’. Pugin was engaged, and (approximately three feet by two feet) and very employed ‘making perspective views of gothic accomplished watercolours with an accurate buildings then being built in Wales’ – surely, recording of detail. Pugin has generally adopted a principally St David’s. Nash and Pugin were fairly low perspective making the Cathedral quite certainly kindred spirits who at the time were doing dramatic and showing the effects of light and shadow their best to reinvent themselves. As with so many on the building. Beautifully drawn small figures aspects of Nash’s early life, Pugin’s background and
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Fig. . North View of the Ancient City of St David by A C Pugin showing the restored cathedral and Nash’s chapter-house. ( RCAHMW photograph of the original © Pembrokeshire County Library ) early career are shrouded in mystery. Pugin by his proposed Stafford county hall ( ) showing the own account was a French Royalist of aristocratic domed and pedimented public building in the family who fled the Revolution, arriving penniless in market square with numerous animated figures, England after numerous adventures. We now know some on horseback, drawn in the Rowlandson that Pugin like Nash came from an artisanal manner. This lavish drawing may well have induced background, romanticised his early biography and a disturbing premonition of vast expenditure, and did his best to reinvent himself. Nash’s proposal was rejected. Then there are the The meeting between Nash and Pugin probably mysterious drawings of Hafod. A working drawing in occurred at a juncture that was critical for both of collaboration with Nash (‘British school’) was them. Pugin desperately needed employment, and he worked up into a dramatic painting by Turner who had the techniques required by Nash who was elaborated a backdrop of rugged but invented increasingly preoccupied with the pictorial qualities scenery. Again this design was not accepted, but of buildings and their presentation. He frequently another watercolour (attributed to Pugin’s pupil, acknowledged his debt to Nash and held Nash up Frederick Nash) is a reworking of the design that was to his pupils as a model of perseverance. The accepted, with Nash’s innovative conservatory and significance of Nash’s involvement with the octagon library given due prominence. After this perspectivists of the day is worth exploring. Nash came the purely picturesque, eye-catching cottages. certainly worked with perspectivists when important Nash exhibited designs for ‘Three Cottages and commissions were at stake. This was not unusual, Three Entrances’ at the Royal Academy in , and but Nash seems to have used perspectivists more several unsigned cottage designs (attributed to systematically than other architects of the day, Pugin) survive at Attingham. These cottages with employing several highly competent artists. The irregular forms and changes in texture, producing drawings of St David’s seemed to have been the interplay of light and shade, could only be particularly significant for him because of their scale successfully conveyed in a perspective drawing. and complexity and unique presentational role. Later Nash in this period was concerned with the he commissioned several very professional drawings visual presentation of his designs. Pugin was an for proposed buildings in the mid- s. One must exceptionally gifted architectural and topographical note the ‘dazzling’ perspective drawing of the artist, and his skill and those of other perspectivists
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL
Fig. . Detail of the North View showing an artist sketching; possibly a self-portrait by Auguste Pugin. ( RCAHMW photograph of the original © Pembrokeshire County Library )
helped Nash move away from thinking about transition from villas designed with a dominant main buildings simply in terms of geometrical elevations front to villas without a single, principal elevation to thinking about building design in terms of designed to be viewed from different angles, in other perspective. This was of course a major step towards words in perspective. thinking about buildings pictorially, especially in terms of their relation to landscape. Perspective became a standard technique for architects in the nineteenth century and it needs to be appreciated EPILOGUE that its introduction was an innovation in British In Nash was settling his affairs in Wales and architecture. The advantages of perspective were preparing to return permanently to London. obvious once they had been pointed out by the Summerson refers to Nash moving to sophistication topographical artists, who were sometimes openly beyond the local Welsh gentry. This may have been contemptuous (as Turner was) of the geometrical true, but Summerson does not strike quite the right elevations made by architects, especially their note. One gains the impression that many of Nash’s practice of adding false shadows and blackening clients were actually glad to see the back of the window glass. Thomas Sandby, as professor of unexpectedly expensive and litigious architect, among architecture, emphasized in his Royal Academy them the Chapter of St David’s. The restoration of lectures in that the ‘perspective view is much the cathedral had proved expensive and funds were more picturesque than a geometrical elevation, and in short supply. The subscription for the restoration will shew its parts to better advantage’. There was of the cathedral had raised a very respectable £ . s. however little point in drawing buildings in but the total cost of works was £ . s. d leaving perspective if they were not designed to be seen in a small deficiency. There were a few unpaid perspective. Nash realised this, and his realization –a subscriptions; among those noted as ‘doubtful’ was kind of penny-dropping – is clearly expressed in his the subscription of five guineas ostentatiously changing villa designs of the s, which show the promised by John Nash, architect of Carmarthen,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL when the appeal opened. Nash’s own bill came to a rudely disturbed. Quite unexpectedly a demand rather large £ . s. d., but with the additional cost arrived for the payment of Nash’s bond for £ . of the drawings amounted to £ . s. d., about a To say that this was a bolt out of the Menevian blue fifth of the total cost. Nash presented his bill in , would be an understatement. There was a flurry of but the Chapter deferred payment until the agitated and increasingly aggrieved correspondence. audit. Nash accepted £ from the Bishop in part The bond was undoubtedly genuine, but it emerged payment; the Chapter proffered £ . s. d. which that Nash had assigned it to a London builder whose included a deduction for Nash’s unpaid subscription. executors were now pressing for payment. The Nash eventually left for London with an IOU for the Chapter for their part didn’t have the slightest remaining £ in the form of a penalty bond dated doubt that Nash had been fully paid for the work. Aug. . While the principal sum remained unpaid Nevertheless payments to Nash were not fully the Chapter was to pay Nash £ interest yearly; recorded in the chapter accounts, which were failure to pay the interest would entail a penalty of undoubtedly in a mess. £ . There seems to have been an understanding Archdeacon Payne found it incredible ‘that a that Nash would not press for immediate payment. man of Mr Nash’s then embarrassed circumstances However, in August Nash, writing from his new should have suffered an unpaid bond together with Piccadilly address, demanded payment, claiming that an accumulated interest thereon for years, to have the notary public had left his letters unanswered, and remained unliquidated and even undemanded is to threatening legal action, though declaring himself say the least of it, a most improbable circumstance.’ ‘reluctant to take any steps against the respectable Payne thought it suspicious that Nash had urged his body of the Chapter till I know how far they are the claim only after the death of Precentor Wallerton, cause of my not being paid.’ A conciliatory who had signed the bond. Only one member of the £ . s. d. was hastily despatched to Nash and original Chapter now remained, Mr Probyn, and he other sums followed, though the total amount Nash ‘never had the slightest doubt that Mr Nash was fully received is uncertain. The Chapter accounts are paid for his work.’ Nash for his part gave the most strangely silent on the matter. Nash did not press for solemn assurances that the bond had never been payment again and the matter began to fade. There paid, professing himself ‘very hurt that he should be were other priorities. Since , with Nash’s thought capable of demanding payment twice.’ The payment deferred but the cathedral stabilised, the Chapter declared they would resist the demand in a canons had set about enjoying their new chapter court of law, and the claimants retreated though they house. The annual audit was as much a social as a retained the uncancelled bond. business occasion with the Pembrokeshire gentry In retrospect is seems inexplicable that the present, entertained by the canons who took turns to Chapter would not have recorded the payments and preside over a succession of dinners and suppers. cancelled the bond had they paid Nash fully. It is Oak furniture was ordered from the dependable equally incomprehensible that Nash would not have Joseph Mathias, the dining-room and kitchen pressed for payment had he not been paid. What had supplied with plates and cutlery, sauce boats, tart actually happened? The explanation seems to lie in pans, ‘pickle leaves’, ale and wine glasses, as well as Chancellor Probyn’s rather chaotic chapter accounts. glasses for jelly and syllabub. A harpsichord was These show that there was actually a surplus of purchased, and the cellar was stocked with modest £ . s. d. in , but an endorsement by the quantities of port laid down for the entertainment. notary public records: ‘I think it was agreed that this Twenty years later this agreeable routine was surplus sho[ul]d be paid to Mr Nash in part on his
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL delivering up of the plans .’ This suggests an the canons effectively abandoned their chapter understanding that the Chapter would not fully pay house, leaving it unrepaired, and in the building Nash while he retained the drawings. Nash never was taken down and the site levelled. There may returned the drawings and in time the matter faded have been an element of grim satisfaction in taking from the Chapter’s concerns. Nash hung onto the down the chapter house during Nash’s lifetime. The drawings until the end, and they were sold with his Victorian reaction against picturesque Gothic was so other effects in . thorough that nothing remains visible today of The whole affair was extraordinary. The Chapter Nash’s work at St David’s, and indeed very little was highly resentful at the prospect of paying twice, remains of Wyatt’s improvements to the English and – to rub salt in the wound – paying twice for cathedrals. With Nash’s work gone it is difficult to work that visitors and clerics alike found execrable. respond to it, but it is fair to say that in the end The normally benign canons were vituperative about St Davids made more of an impact on Nash than Nash. Archdeacon Payne summed up the prevailing Nash did on the cathedral. view: ‘It is indeed a misfortune to St David’s that it exhibits two sad specimens of Mr Nash’s want of judgement’ displaying not only ‘the exuberance of NOTES bad taste with which they both abound’ but also ‘the Lawrence’s portrait still hangs in the hall at Jesus more serious maladies of bad materials and bad College, and graces Geoffrey Tyack’s admirable workmanship’. The stonework had weathered entry on ‘Nash, John ( – )’ in the Oxford unevenly, and by the s the west front was said to Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, ), be ‘shamefully decayed’. Moreover, Nash’s design with revisions to the on-line text. See also G. Tyack was not an aesthetic success, even in the short term. (ed.), John Nash: Architect of the Picturesque (Swindon, ), frontispiece. As early as , less than a decade after the See generally, Richard Suggett, John Nash, Architect completion of the work, Colt Hoare deplored the in Wales: John Nash, Pensaer yng Nghymru loss of the old ‘Saxon’ work, and found the modern (Aberystwyth, ). The documentation relating to front ‘beneath criticism’: ‘such an heterogeneous the rebuilding of the west front was first discussed mixture of Saxon, Gothic and castellated architecture by the late I. Wyn Jones, ‘John Nash at St David’s, I never before beheld.’ The design was unrelentingly ’, The Architectural Review ( ), pp. –. The St David’s Chapter records are in the National criticised by Gothic purists as a stylistic muddle, Library of Wales: NLW, SD/Ch. Details of the income wittily summed up by The Gentleman’s Magazine devoted to the cathedral fabric were entered in a critic as a design done after the ‘Fantastic Order’. bound volume endorsed ‘Usmaston tithes’. This has It was little consolation that only Wyatt’s work at disappeared, but there are extracts in Archdeacon Hereford was considered a worse example of Payne’s ‘Collectanea Menevensia’, NLW, S D/C h/B/ . Bishop Horsley’s letter and ensuing Chapter Acts in ‘modern-antique’ work, reaching ‘a still lower depth’ SD/Ch/B/ , pp. –. On Horsley, see generally of awfulness. Given this implacable criticism, it is F.C. Mather, High Church Prophet: Bishop Samuel not surprising that George Gilbert Scott became Horsley ( – ) and the Caroline Tradition in the determined to erase every visible trace of Nash’s Later Georgian Church (Oxford, ), esp. ch. . work, although it is an irony that his reinstatement of On Canon Holcombe, see Richard Fenton, A the pre-Nash front entailed removing the remaining Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire (London, ), pp. –. SD/Ch/Acct/ records some of medieval detail. Similarly the style and siting of Holcombe’s garden expenditure in on materials Nash’s chapter house seems to have been universally for ‘garden glasses’, a green house, hothouse, melon deplored. After an alarming surveyor’s report in , frame, ‘diping mould’, and flower frames.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL
SD/Ch/B/ , p. . traceried tympanum, is a version of the chapter See generally, Anthony Dale, James Wyatt, house porch: Suggett, John Nash, Architect , Fig. . Architect, – (Oxford, ); John M. Frew, Manby, History and Antiquities of the Parish of ‘Some Observations on James Wyatt’s Gothic Style Saint David , p. . The louver (‘cupola compleat’) – ’, Journal Society of Architectural was made by Joseph Mathias and cost £ . s. ½d., Historians ( ), pp. –; John Martin and was fixed to a separately priced ‘frame for Robinson, James Wyatt, Architect to George III steeple’: SD/Ch/BVR/ , , . (New Haven and London, ), pp. – . As early as , it was said that the chapter house BL Add. MS , f. . was ‘much condemned by visitors’: Manby, History SD/Ch/Let/ . Calvert’s survey (for which he charged and Antiquities of the Parish of Saint David , pp. –. guineas with guineas travel) has been lost. Fenton, Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire , p. , The Gentleman’s Magazine ( ), pp. is severe, referring to the chapter house as ‘a sad (plate), : ‘The sketches of the ruins of Hereford monument’ of Canon Holcombe’s ‘total want of cathedral ... proclaim the more than barbarous taste in architecture’, with ‘fantastic decorations’ indolence of the chapter’. Bishop Horsley pointedly that hurt the eye and excited ‘disgust’. observed that the St David’s Chapter might have ‘to NLW, SD/Ch/Accts/ & ; SD/Ch/BVR/ . answer for the negligence of their predecessors’, Nash’s charge was £ .s. d. SD/Ch/B/ , p. . Bills in SD/Ch/BVR/ (board and lodging of For Wyatt’s restoration of Hereford Cathedral, see carpenters considered excessive); (overcharging the chapters by Howard Tomlinson and David by glazier); (overcharging by smith); – Whitehead in Hereford Cathedral: A History , ed. (queries about materials); (mouldings ill done); Gerald Aylmer & John Tiller (London, ), esp. etc. pp. –, – . SD/Ch/BVR/ ; SD/Ch/Accts/ . Seven labourers Now in Haverfordwest Public Library (note spent man-days ‘putting large props against the below). end of the church’ at a cost of s. d. Canon Holcombe’s sense of the Chapter’s dignity, In June Wyatt favoured Nash when reporting and the Chapter’s embarrassment at not being able to the Herefordshire magistrates on the merits of to welcome the Bishop appropriately at his primary competing designs for the new county gaol: David visitation in , may have been important Whitehead, ‘John Nash and Humphry Repton: An considerations. The Chapter borrowed £ from Encounter in Herefordshire – ’, Trans. Precentor Wollaston to pay for the new chapter Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club ( [publ. house and repaid him by raising an annuity on ]), pp. , . Nash later supplanted the Uzmaston tythes: SD/Ch/B/ , p. . The annuity dilatory Wyatt at Corsham Court, but this time he of £ . s. proved cumulatively costly and was paid was not forgiven: Summerson, Life and Work of until , two years before the demolition of the John Nash (London, ), pp. –. building: SD/Ch/B/ , p. . SD/Ch/BVR/ . In addition to five guineas a day George W. Manby, The History and Antiquities of for attendance, Wyatt made an extra travelling the Parish of Saint David, South-Wales (London, charge, an eye-watering s. d. per mile: Dale, James ), plate facing p. . The chapter house is of Wyatt , p. . course shown to great effect in the Nash-Pugin Hereford Journal , Feb. , cited by Whitehead, drawings. ‘John Nash and Humphry Repton’, p. . W. Basil Jones & A. E. Freeman, The History and NLW, SD/Ch/Misc/ (estimate of £ from Antiquities of Saint David’s (London, ), John Gabriel of Bath), SD/Ch/Misc/ (estimate by pp. –. Details of the chapter house are drawn Thomas Meadows, Sloane St., Marylebone, sum from the numbered but unlisted Chapter B[ills,] not specified). V[ouchers and] R[eceipts] = SD/Ch/BVR/ esp. nos NLW, SD/Ch/Misc/ .Yates’s statuary work shows (‘two tier of privys’), (gothic chimneypiece); that he was competent to execute Nash’s proposed (gothic heads for doors); bills summarized in freestone ornaments. Cf. Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary . It is reasonable to suppose that Nash’s design of British Sculptors, – (London, [ ]), for the porch at Emlyn Cottage ( ), with its high p. .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL
Signed plans and endorsements (numbered – [ survives, now in the lapidarium: Wyn Evans, has endorsement only]) in Pembrokeshire Record ‘St Davids Cathedral: The Forgotten Centuries’, Office, HDX/ / /–; signed particulars ‘Nº ’, The Journal of Welsh Ecclesiastical History ( ), SD/Ch/Misc/ ; contractors’ articles of agreement p. . Thomas Carte thought the design vulgar, and bonds: SD/Ch/Misc/ – ; bill for drawing up dismissing it as a ‘true modern piece of sculpture’, the documents etc.: SD/Ch/Misc/ . The Gentleman’s Magazine ( ), pp. . One wonders what these old walls were. Stone for The piers and buttresses were ‘by no means the chapter house had been obtained by ‘taking down contemptible for the end of the century’, according the Bone House wall’ in : SD/Ch/Accts/ . to Jones & Freeman, History and Antiquities of Tracery and ashlar was robbed from the windows Saint David’s , p. . Nash also used broaches at the of St Mary’s College chapel for the west front, junction between square and octagon on the corner according to Jones & Freeman, History and towers of Castle House, his innovative marine villa Antiquities of Saint David’s , p. . at Aberystwyth built for Uvedale Price: Suggett, SD/Ch/Misc/ . John Nash, Architect in Wales , p. . Memorandum signed by Nash and witnessed by the Jones & Freeman, History and Antiquities of Saint notary public added to Yates’s articles of agreement, David’s , pp. –. SD/Ch/Misc/ . It is interesting that the stone was SAL Minute Books, entry March ; John M. not that contracted for, but it is unclear if this was Frew, ‘Richard Gough, James Wyatt, and Late th - ‘the stone of the country’ or the freestone or both. Century Preservation’, Journal Society of Fenton, Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire , Architectural Historians ( ), pp. – . p. , says that Nash certified in the (missing) SAL Minute Books, entry March . This chapter book the use of Nolton stone but it was address which accompanied the subscription either a poor vein or stone from Caerfai was used. appeal was ‘hastily drawn up and full of error’ The freestone used is unknown, but Dyfed Elis according to Fenton, Historical Tour through Gruffydd and Tim Palmer assure me that they have Pembrokeshire , p. . not identified any Portland stone at the cathedral. SD/Ch/B/ , p. ; SD/Ch/B/ , p. , where One suspects that Yates sought cheaper stone when Payne says both initiatives were unsuccessful. he realised that his tender was too low. Nash’s Memorandum of agreement (from the lost accounts) memorandum suggests that he went along with cited by Payne, SD/Ch/B/ , p. ; SD/Ch/B/ , Yates, hoping to finish the contract on time, but p. . became increasing anxious about the quality of the SD/Ch/Let/ . Fenton, Historical Tour , p. , gives masonry. Bath Stone was used to repair the bishop’s an intimate account of Holcombe’s misfortunes: door in , and was bought by a Capt. Whitlow: ‘More frequent visits to London became necessary, SD/Ch/BVR/ . his domestic affairs were neglected, fresh expences SD/Ch/BVR/ (Potter’s fees of £ . s. d.); incurred, and his difficulties and distresses increased BVR/ – (Yates allowed £ since May in proportion.’ The Chapter minutes show that for pulling down and rebuilding a staircase tower). Holcombe was represented by proxy at the general SD/Ch/Let/ & A (Yates to Chapter with Nash’s audits for – , but had died by Oct. endorsement). Yates and Nash, despite their when another residentiary was admitted: differences at St David’s, continued to work SD/Ch/B/ , p. . together in Herefordshire. Cf. Whitehead, ‘John Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries Nash and Humphry Repton’, pp. (Hereford (Oxford, ), pp. – . gaol), (Yates setting up a new chimney piece at SAL Minute Books, vol. , entry March ; Stoke Edith ‘at Mr Nash’s orders’). Archdeacon SAL Papers /. Payne suggested unkindly that Nash was pre- Evans, History of the Society of Antiquaries , p. , empting criticism of the stonework by blaming where it is suggested that these drawings were Yates for his own negligence: SD/Ch/B/ , p. . commissioned to avoid giving further employment Jones & Freeman, History and Antiquities of Saint to Carter. David’s p. . SAL, Cathedrals Series, Sol. B, nos – . The tympanum, presumably carved by Yates, still SD/Ch/Let/ .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ DONE AFTER THE FANTASTIC ORDER ’: JOHN NASH ’ S RESTORATION OF ST DAVID ’ S CATHEDRAL
For Elsam, see Howard Colvin, A Biographical Miscellaneous Library, Prints and Drawings, of the Dictionary of British Architects, – (New Late John Nash ( ), p. , lot : ‘Eleven Haven and London, ), pp. –. For Foulon, original drawings ... being five views of St David’s see Summerson, Life and Work of John Nash , p. . Cathedral before the alterations by Mr Nash, and SD/Ch/Let/ . Nash writing from Duke St., the plan, elevation, and sections, shewing the St James’s, London, July . The portfolio is alterations carried into effect by him, in a portfolio.’ referred to once as a ‘book of drawings’. Three of the original drawings were evidently Summerson, Life and Work of John Nash , p. , missing. The surviving drawings eventually came suggested that Pugin worked independently in to Cardiff Public Library, possibly with the Phillipps’ London, ‘taking instructions from Nash on his Collection in . They are perfunctorily listed in periodic visits from Carmarthen.’ the Library’s Catalogue of Manuscripts, Books, Rosemary Hill, ‘A.C. Pugin’, Burlington Magazine Engravings, References, Etc., relating to St David ( ), pp. – . ... and the Cathedral Church of St David’s (Cardiff, Benjamin Ferry, Recollections of A.N. Welby Pugin ), p. . In they were transferred to and his Father Augustus Pugin ( ), pp. –, Haverfordwest Public Library (accession nos. – . Pugin fulsomely dedicated volume I of his PR/ – ). It is hoped in due course to publish all Specimens of Gothic Architecture ( ) to Nash: the surviving drawings with a commentary. ‘Soon after my arrival in this country, I was very SD/Ch/B/ , p. . fortunately introduced to you, and prosecuted my SD/Ch/B/ , p. . It is probable that freestone of architectural studies in your office, with much inconsistent quality had been used. The Cambrian gratification and advantage to myself.’ Directory (Salisbury, ), p. , reporting the John Summerson , Life and Work of John Nash , p. repairs by Mr Nash (believed to be ‘an inhabitant of & plate A (Stafford); ‘A landscape with a proposed Worcester’), claimed that the [free]stone was ‘of so elevation of Hafod’, Tate Collection, D soft a substance, that it even moulders with the (Finberg number: CCCLXXX ); Turner, ‘Hafod’, touch of a finger’ and hoped that it would become Lady Lever Art Gallery; Suggett, John Nash, more solid and acquire a darker hue. By the mid- Architect in Wales , fig. & p. (Hafod); Hill, C th Jones & Freeman, History and Antiquities of ‘A.C. Pugin’, figs. – (Attingham cottages). Saint David’s , p. , appreciated the ‘weatherbeaten’ The point has been well made by Giles Worsley in stone as it generally harmonised with the rest of the his Introduction to the RIBA collection of cathedral, but found ‘the ragged ashlar’ less pleasing Architectural Drawings of the Regency Period, than the ‘honest rubble’. The weathering of both – (London, ). ashlar work and carved freestone can be clearly seen Cited by Worsley, Architectural Drawings of the in early photographs of the west front. Regency Period , p. . The Journeys of Sir Richard Colt Hoare through Suggett, John Nash, Architect in Wales , ch. , esp. Wales and England, – , ed. M. W. figs. & . Thompson (Gloucester, ), p. . Colt Hoare Summerson, Life and Work of John Nash , p. . conceded that ‘Mr Nash, then a young man, [is] SD/Ch/Let/ . Letter written from Dover Street, now much improved in his art as an architect’; Piccadilly, Aug. . An Architect [Thomas Carte], The Gentleman’s SD/Ch/BVR/ ( chairs, with arms); (glass Magazine LXXIV ( ), pp. –; Jones & etc from Thomas Gibbs); – (dishes etc. from Freeman, History and Antiquities of Saint David’s , James Williams); SD/Ch/B/ / (harpsichord). p. . Nash’s restored west front (an ‘incongruous The early C th Chapter became more abstemious mass at the west end of that venerable fabric’) is and curtailed the entertainment, limiting members deliberately shrouded in shadow in Carter’s to one dinner and one supper at the audits after engraving of the cathedral, Fenton, Historical Tour , SD/Ch/B/ , p. . through Pembrokeshire , plate facing p. , and p. . SD/Ch/Accts/ . Some of Nash’s work was refaced by Scott. Wynn British Library, Misc. Sale Cat. P.R. .B. : Evans, ‘St Davids Cathedral’, pp. –, notes the Catalogue of the Valuable Architectural and rediscovery of Nash’s foundation stone.
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