Richard Hewlings, ‘Uppark: Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh’s First Architect’, The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol. VIII, 1998, pp. 114–121

text © the authors 1998 UPPARK: SIR MATTHEW FETHERSTONHAUGH’S FIRST ARCHITECT

RICHARD HEWLINGS

atthew Fetherstonhaugh’s fortunes changed havg. consulted him thereupon, he told him in M dramatically in 1746, when he was 31 orgz.1 what Manner he intended to carry on his Building,9 On 17 October he inherited Hassenbrooke Hall in clearly implying that in 1754 Paine was a stranger to Essex, and other estates in Hertfordshire Middlesex him. Had Paine been the architect of Sir Matthew’s and the City of London, said to be worth £400,000. alterations to Uppark since February 1747 he might On 24 December he married the heiress Sarah have described him as he described John Miller a Lethieullier. On 3 January 1747 he became a few lines later baronet.2 And early in the new year he bought a Person ... who had been his Surveyor or Manager Uppark.3 By 18 February 1747 he had builders at in the Country for above 8 years and upon whose work there, making alterations to the value of Judgement + fidelity he had great Dependance.10 £7,500 by the time of his departure on the grand Together these statements make it highly improbable tour at the end of 1749. Work continued while he that Paine was the architect of Sir Matthew’s work was abroad, but presumably to designs which he before 1754, and even if Paine were to have con­ had agreed. Changes or additions might have been tributed something to Uppark between 1754 and made after his return on 29 September 1751, and he 1760, it would be queer to find Sir Matthew using continued to spend money on the house, though at his services after the latter date, when Paine would a more subdued pace; the £7,500 spent in under have been sueing him. Accordingly no payments to three years was matched by the same sum spent Paine appear in Sir Matthew’s account book, which over the next 9% years to January 1759.4 But who terminates in May 1755, whereas 85 payments to was his architect? John Miller are recorded, totalling £7,486165 In April or May 1754 Sir Matthew bought a house on the west side of Whitehall, immediately Sir Matthew did, however, make two payments south of the Horse Guards (which was at that to a ‘Mr Garrett’, the first, of 20 gns, on 24 April moment being rebuilt5). He had the house pulled 1748, the second, of 15 gns, almost one year later, on down and a new one built on the site, to the design 8 April 1749.12 The account does not indicate what of James Paine.6 For that reason Sir Matthew’s these payments covered, but their round figures earlier work at Uppark has also been attributed to suggest that they were not made in respect of mate­ Paine.7 In 1760 Sir Matthew and James Paine fell rials or of labour, and payments on account were out over the subject of Paine’s fee, and litigation not usually made in guineas. They were evidently began.8 In a deposition prepared for that case Sir payments for services or advice, and their particular Matthew wrote (in the third person) size is compatible with payments to an architect for having been recommended to Mr James Pain of drawings. ‘Mr’ Garrett was evidently a gentleman or St Martins Lane Architect, as a proper person to superior tradesman, and it is possible that he was instruct him therein accordingly sent for him + the architect Daniel Garrett.13

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Figure i. Uppark, Sussex: office wing. Country Life.

Sir Matthew may well have encountered Daniel Northumberland was also the county in which the Garrett before he bought Uppark. Out of the 22 2nd Earl of Tankerville, from whom Sir Matthew buildings on which Garrett is known to have bought Uppark, owned another estate, at worked, 15 were in the north-eastern counties, Chillingham, and it may have been common and another two were the London houses of membership of Northumberland county society Northumbrian patrons.14 His work at Wallington, which brought them into contact.17 Later, in 1755, Fenham, Nunwick, Capheaton, Newcastle Sir Matthew became MP for Morpeth, a pocket Infirmary and perhaps at Blagdon indicates that borough of the Earl of Carlisle, with whom he was in the 1740’3 he was the most desired architect presumably on friendly terms and perhaps had in Northumberland alone. This was Sir been for some time.18 In 1737 the Earl had engaged Matthew’s native spot. His father, also Matthew Daniel Garrett to complete the mausoleum at Castle Fetherstonhaugh, was a Newcastle hostman who Howard, where architectural drawings for other, had been Mayor ofNewcastle in 1711 and 1723.15 He unrealised, proposals still survive, apparently in also owned Featherstone Castle in South Tynedale, Garrett’s hand.19 which was inherited by Sir Matthew when the elder Daniel Garrett died early in 1753,20 and Sir Matthew died in 1762, aged either 100 or 102.16 Matthew would have been in want of an architect

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Figure 2. Wallington Hall, Northumberland: coach house. Country Life. for his house in Whitehall. He was advised to with any particular architect, including either engage James Paine. So were many of Garrett’s Garrett or Paine. Their employment does not former clients - Sir Walter Blackett of Wallington, therefore make a case for the attribution of Uppark the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, George to either of these architects. Bowes of Gibside, Sir Matthew White of Blagdon, The style of Uppark’s ornament also returns and the Duke of Cleveland, for instance - suggesting inconclusive evidence. The ceilings of the rooms that Paine may have inherited much of Garrett’s on the west side of the house (Red Drawing Room, practice.21 Thus it is possible that Uppark was part Little Drawing Room and Tapestry Room) and that ofit. of the staircase are rococo, comparable to Garrett’s Although so much of Garrett’s practice was in ceilings elsewhere, but comparable also to many the north, he must have been London-based, as he other rococo ceilings. It is possible that they pre­ held a post in the Office of Works and enjoyed the date Sir Matthew’s purchase. The ceiling of the condescension of Lord Burlington.22 At Uppark saloon appears to be later, c.1760 at least, and may Sir Matthew engaged building tradesmen from a be the work of Henry Keene, who worked for Sir similarly fashionable background. The Appendix, Matthew in 1774.23 None of the chimneypieces pre­ however, demonstrates that they were not associated cisely resemble one designed by Garrett elsewhere,

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Figure 3. Nunwick, Northumberland. Country Life. but all (of that period) are close to his style. But the provided drawings, and the size of John Russell’s two office wings (Fig. 1) have domed lanterns very receipts suggests that he was their executant. The similar to Garrett’s at Wallington24 (Fig. 2), and evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive, except their central windows have splayed architraves like on one point: it makes no case for James Paine as the Garrett’s central windows at Nunwick25 (Fig. 3). architect of Uppark. So on the evidence presented above Daniel Garrett seems most likely to be the architect whom I am grateful to Sir Howard Colvin and Dr Peter Leach Sir Matthew first engaged on acquiring Uppark. for their observations on the above, and to Miss Sheila The size of his receipts suggests that he only Gair for typing it.

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NOTES

1 gec, Complete Baronetage, v, Exeter, 1906, 94? Sir Lewis Horsier £6 16 6. £7 6 o.’ Pain evidently operated in Namier and John Brooke, The History of Parliament, The Hampshire and might therefore have been a relation of House of Commons 1754-1790,11, London, 1964,422-23. the architect, who came from Andover [Leach, op. cit., 2 Idem-, gec, op. cit., in, 1903,133-34; [Peter Muilman],... 17], but between 1748 and 1753 James Paine lived in History of Essex ..., v, Chelmsford, 1772,104. London and did not habitually hire out horses. 3 John Eyre,‘A Chronology of Uppark’, West Sussex 12 wsro, Expence Book. All unreferenced facts in the History, xlvi, 1990,26-7. following are taken from this document. 4 Chichester, West Sussex Record Office (hereafter wsro), 13 Howard Colvin andjohn Harris, ‘The Architect of Foots Uppark mss, transcription of Sir Matthew Cray Place?,’ Georgian Group Journal, vn, 1997, 7- Fetherstonhaugh’s ‘General Expence Book’ (hereafter 14 Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Expence Book). Architects 1600-1840, New Haven and London, 1995, 5 H. M. Colvin (ed.), The History of the King’s Works, v, 393-95; Colvin and Harris, op. cit.. London, 1976,439-40. 15 Henry Bourne, The History ofNewcastle upon Tyne, 6 James Paine, Plans, Elevations and Sections ofNoblemen Newcastle, 1736,244~45- and Gentlemens’ Houses, 1,1767, plates 26-32. 16 John Cornforth, ‘Featherstone Castle, Northumberland’, 7 [Christopher Rowell], Uppark, West Sussex, 1995,18-19. Country Life, cliv, 25 October 1973,1248;, Gentleman’s 8 Peter Leach, James Paine, London, 1988, 201. Magazine, xxxn, 1762,94; gec, op. cit., v, 94. 9 wsro, Uppark mss, folder of papers relating to litigation 17 gec, The Complete Peerage, xn (1), London, 1953, ®33- between Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh and James Paine 18 Namier and Brooke, loc. cit., and 349_5°- (hereafter Paine folder). 19 Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, cit., 394; Castle 10 Idem. Howard, Howard mss. 11 wsro, Expence Book, cit., includes three payments 20 Colvin, op. cit., 393. made to a man called Pain or Paine. One (‘At Paines 21 Peter Leach, ‘In the Gothick vein’, Country Life, clvi, £1.3’), made on or shortly after 2 June 1749, falls after 26 September 1974, 834. payments made at Winchester and at Lord Palmerston’s, 22 Peter Leach, ‘Designs from a practical man’, Country presumably Broadlands, and immediately before a pay­ Life, clvi, 12 September 1974, 694. ment made at Midhurst; it therefore suggest expense 23 Christopher Hussey, ‘Uppark, Sussex - n’, Country connected with travel in Hampshire or Sussex. Another, Life, lxxxix, 21 June 1941, 543. made some time between May and Christmas 1748, 24 Colvin, op cit., 393; John Cornforth, ‘Wallington Hall, follows a payment made at Wherwell, near Andover, the Northumberland -1’, Country Life, cxlvii, 16 April seat of Sir Matthew’s brother-in-law, Joshua Iremonger 1970,857. [Namier and Brooke, cit., 422]; it was made ‘At Pains 25 Gordon Nares, ‘Nunwick, Northumberland -1’, and to ye Groom £5 14 6’ and also suggests travel. The Country Life, cxx, 12 July 1956; Leach, ‘Designs from a third is even more explicit: ‘June 28th 1753. Journey to Practical Man’, cit.. Wherwell 9s. 6d. Pd. Pain for my Horses and theres [sic]

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RICHARD HEWLINGS

he specialist tradesmen at Uppark between and Master Bricklayer to the Board of Ordnance T 1747 and 1754 were Londoners. For instance, from 1740.24 He was a close friend of Henry ‘Mr Carter the mason’ was paid £1,060 between Keene,25 had worked under Burlington,26 and was September 1747 and May 1748, and a further £50 in to work under Stephen Wright27 and James Paine. February 1753. From 1748, slighly after the bulk of By no stretch of the imagination was he Paine’s his work at Uppark, Benjamin Carter and his brother servant or colleague; although they both worked Thomas worked under Garrett’s direction in the on Sir Matthew’s Whitehall house,28 and later on Long Gallery at Northumberland House;1 this can­ Lady Howe’s house in Albermarle St, both were not have been their introduction to Uppark. In any future commissions, the latter not until 1762-3.29 case they were by no means Garrett’s associates. A note of £170 owing to Mr Clark in May 1748 Benjamin had worked under Roger Morris previ­ may refer to the plasterer Thomas Clarke and ously,2 and was to work under Flitcroft,3 Stephen thus to one of Uppark’s outstanding features, its Wright,4 Abraham Swan,5 Brettingham,6 Keene,7 ornamental plaster ceilings. Clarke had worked and Adam.8 Thomas Carter had worked under under Kent at Hoikham,30 and was to work under Morris9 and Leoni,10 and he was to work under Flitcroft,31 Brettingham,32 Paine,33 Stephen Flitcroft,11 Abraham Swan,12 Paine,13 Adam,14 Wright,34 Athenian Stuart,35 Chambers36 andjames Brettingham,15John Chute,16 Soane,17 and Essex.37 His earliest work for Paine, in the stables Holland.18 The two commissions which Thomas of Newmarket Palace, was six years ahead, in Carter had from Paine (Felbrigg in 1751,19 and 1754:38 subsequent work, at Bagshot Park, was Blagdon from 1753 to 176120) both post-date his (or 18 years ahead.39 He was far from being Paine’s Benjamin’s) work at Uppark, and Paine’s author­ favourite plasterer; on the contrary, Paine prevented ship of Uppark cannot be advanced on that basis. him from being the leading plasterer of his day by Nor can it be on the basis of association with introducing Joseph Rose to London from Yorkshire, other London tradesmen. Mr Bromwich, presum­ to work on Sir Matthew’s Whitehall house in ably the wallpaper and papier mache manufacturer, 1754-40 Thomas Bromwich, received £45 165 id in 1748, but ‘Chapman, Plumr.’, whose bill was settled in Bromwich was the leading paper supplier of the day full on 2 June 1749, may have been the plumber who and worked with all the leading architects.21 He was first paid in July 1747 - 105 6d, shared with the worked with Paine at Bagshot Park, but eighteen bricklayer, so presumably a token given when the years later.22 articles were sealed - and who received £364195 Payments to Mr Pratt, totalling £238 65 id thereafter, partly pseudonymously. He was probably betweenjuly 1747 and April 1749, were doubtless the plumber William Chapman, who later worked to the bricklayer Joseph Pratt. Pratt was Master for Brown,41 Adam,42 John Billington,43 and Bricklayer to the Board of Works from 1736,23 Chambers.44

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‘Minns the Glazier’, paid £180 in full on 24 April in 1744,54 possibly Richard Troubridge who was 1748, was doubtless Richard Minns, Master Glazier paid for plumber’s work by the Dowager Duchess in the Office of Works.45. He had worked under of Argyll in 1754.55 Mr Buttall, who received £65 195 Ripley46 and Kent,47 and was to work under for locks in 1748, may have been Jonathan Buttall, Flitcroft48 and on the new Horse Guards.49 In his an ironmonger who worked for the Chelsea official capacity he worked with Paine, in his official Waterworks Company in 1734.56 A smith called capacity (as Clerk of the Works at the Royal Johnson may also have been a Londoner. He could Mews50) on the Keeper’s House at the Royal Mews, have been Thomas Johnson, who had worked for C1750,51 a year or two after his work at Uppark. Gibbs in the 1720’s,57 or Robert Johnson, who was Mr Bladwell, whose bill of £820 was still unpaid the smith at Nos 25 and 26 Soho Square in in May 1748, and who was paid a futher £82 75 on 23 1758-9,58 or another Thomas Johnson, who was April 1754, and £48 155 on 28 May, may have had a Adam’s smith at Audley End from 1765 to 1778,59 connection with Paine. He may have been the or perhaps William Johnson of King St, Golden Thomas Bladwell who was the carver at Felbrigg, Square, who was the smith at Burghley in 1785.60 It where Paine was the architect, C1752.52 He is not is clear that the pool of London tradesmen on which known elsewhere, so lack of information may be both Garrett and Paine drew was also sampled by distorting the evidence. But the larger part of his most of their contemporaries. work at Uppark was complete some four years Another three tradesmen could have come from before his only known association with Paine. anywhere. They are another smith called Soames, a Nor can Paine’s authorship of Uppark be advanced mason called Marman (who was paid, inter alia, for on the strength of this possibly casual link. stone coping, so his responsibilities were different Carrington, paid a total of £286 85 6t/, at various from Carter’s), and a man called Broadbent who times between 20 March 1747 and Christmas 1753, was paid for ‘engine work’ in May 1754. The trades­ was, according to Sir Matthew, a carpenter ‘of man who carried out the greatest share of the work, Westminster’,53 who later worked at the Whitehall John Russell (‘surveyor or manager’) was from Sir house. Matthew’s account of him, a country builder.61 The remaining tradesmen are more difficult to Scrutiny of the Uppark tradesmen, therefore, does identify. Two more were probably Londoners. A not indicate the identity of the architect to whose plumber called Trowbridge may be the plumber of instructions they worked. that name who worked under Flitcroft at Wimpole

NOTES 1 Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary ofBritish Sculptors 10 Idem-, A. C. Edwards, The Account Books of Benjamin 1660-1851, London, 1951, 84; Leach, Paine, cit., 192. Mildmay, Earl Fitzwalter, London and New York, 1977, 2 Gunnis, op. cit., 84. 61, 64, 77, 79. 3 Idem. 11 Christopher Hussey, ‘Milton, Northamptonshire —II’, 4 Idem. Country Life, cxxix, 25 May 1961,1212. 5 Idem-, Arthur Oswald, ‘Blair Castle, Perthshire -11’, 12 Oswald, loc. cit.. Country Life, cvi, 11 November 1949,1436. 13 Leach, Paine, cit., 175,184. 6 Geoffrey Beard, Craftsmen and Interior Decoration 14 Gunnis, op. cit., 85; Christopher Hussey, English in England., Edinburgh, 1981, 249. Country Houses: Mid Georgian, London, 1955,99. 7 Gunnis, op. cit., 84. 15 Gervase Jackson-Stops, ‘The Building of Petworth’, 8 Idem-, Beard, op. cit., 249. Apollo, cv, May 1977,330. 9 Gunnis, op. cit., 85. 16 Gunnis, op. cit., 85-6.

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17 Ibid., 85. 38 Leach, Paine, op. cit., 203. 18 Idem-, Dorothy Stroud, Henry Holland, London, 1966, 39 Ibid.,175. 72,113- 40 wsro, Paine folder. 19 Leach, Paine, cit., 184. 41 Beard, op. cit., 250. 20 Ibid., 175. 42 Idem. 21 Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert (eds.), 43 Giles Worsley, ‘Thornton Hall, Lincolnshire’, Country Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Life, clxxix, 2 January 1986,20. London, 1986,110. 44 John Harris, Sir William Chambers, London, 1970,216, 22 Leach, Paine, cit., 173. no. 58. 23 Colvin, King’s Works, cit., 472. 45 Colvin, Kings Works, v, 473. 24 0. F. G. Hogg, The Roy al Arsenal, 1,1963. 46 Beard, op. cit., 271. 25 H. Clifford Smith, ‘A Georgian Architect’, Country 47 I am indebted to Dr Leo Schmidt for the information Life, xcvii, 30 March 1945,556. that Minns worked at Hoikham Hall. 26 T. P. Connor, ‘Architecture and Planting at Goodwood’, 48 Beard, op. cit., 271. Sussex Archaeological Collections, cxh, 1979,1^7- 49 Colvin, Kings Works, cit., v, 438. 27 Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, CUL. UAc. 50 Ibid., 474. 2(3)- 51 Peter Leach, The Life and Work of James Paine, D. Phil, 28 Leach, Paine, cit., 202. thesis, University of Oxford, 1975,303. 29 Ibid., 192. 52 Leach, Paine, op. cit., 184. 30 Beard, op. cit., 250. 53 wsro, Paine folder. 31 Hussey, ‘Milton ...’, loc. cit.. 54 London, British Museum, Add. ms. 36228. 32 Jackson-Stops, op.cit., 330; Geoffrey Tyack, 55 Richard Hewlings, ‘Adderbury House’, in Malcolm Warwickshire Country Houses, Chichester, 1994,155; Airs (ed.), The Early Eighteenth-Century Great House, Beard, op. cit., 250. Oxford, 1996,138. 33 Leach, Paine, cit., 173, 203. 56 I am indebted to Mr Andrew Skelton for this information. 34 Christopher Hussey, ‘Ashburnham Place, Sussex-n,’ 57 Terry Friedman, James Gibbs, New Haven and Country Life’, cxm, 23 April 1953,1249; Cambridge, London, 1984,306,307,318. Cambridge University Library, CUL. UAc. 2(3); Arthur 58 F. H. W. Sheppard (ed.)., Survey ofLondon, xxxm, Oswald, ‘The Manor House, Milton, Berkshire -11’, London, 1966, 84. Country Life, civ, 24 December 1948,1332. 59 Chelmsford, Essex Record Office, Braybrooke mss, 35 London, Public Record Office, adm 67/21. D/Dby. 36 Colvin, King’s Works, cit., V, 466. 60 Eric Till, ‘Capability Brown at Burghley’, Country Life, 37 Robert Willis and John Willis Clark, The Architectural CLVHi, 16 October 1975, 985. History of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 61 wsro, Paine folder. 1886,11,745.

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