Peter Smith, 'Lady Oxford's Alterations at Welbeck Abbey 1741–55', the Georgian Group Journal, Vol. Xi, 2001, Pp
Peter Smith, ‘Lady Oxford’s alterations at Welbeck Abbey 1741–55’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xI, 2001, pp. 133–168
text © the authors 2001 LADY OXFORD’S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY, –
PETER SMITH
idowhood could be a rare time of indepen - On July the Duke died unexpectedly, after Wdence for a woman in the eighteenth century, a riding accident at Welbeck, precipitating a and especially for one like the dowager Countess of mammoth legal battle over the Cavendish estates. By Oxford and Mortimer (Fig. ), who had complete his will all his estates in Yorkshire, Staffordshire and control of her own money and estates. Born Lady Northumberland were bequeathed to his year-old Henrietta Cavendish-Holles in , the only daughter Henrietta, while an estate at Orton in daughter of John Holles, st Duke of Newcastle, and Huntingdonshire passed to his wife and the remainder his wife, formerly Lady Margaret Cavendish, she of his considerable property passed to his nephew chose to spend her widowhood building, like her Thomas Pelham. This would have meant that the great-great-great-grandmother, Bess of Hardwick, former Cavendish estates in Nottinghamshire and before her. Derbyshire would have gone to Thomas Pelham, not Lady Oxford had fought hard, and paid a high Henrietta. When the widowed Duchess discovered price, to retain her mother’s Cavendish family estates, the terms of her husband’s will she ‘was indignant and she obviously felt a particularly strong beyond measure’ and ‘immediately resolved to attachment to them. These estates were centred dispute its validity’. The legal battle which ensued around the former Premonstratensian abbey at was bitter and complex, and it was only finally settled Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire, but also included the after the death of the Duchess by a private Act of Bolsover Castle estate in Derbyshire and the Ogle Parliament in . By this settlement Henrietta got Castle estate in Northumberland. Welbeck Abbey back most of the Cavendish estates including had been bought by Sir Charles Cavendish, third son Bolsover and Welbeck, but only after she and her of Bess of Hardwick, c. . Sir Charles and his son husband had to agreed to pay all the costs of the case, Sir William, who was created Duke of Newcastle- and other reparations, which amounted to a bill of upon-Tyne, employed the Smythsons to make many over £ , . Fortunately for Henrietta, her father alterations and additions to Welbeck, Bolsover and had purchased the Wimpole Hall estate in Ogle. On the death of the nd Duke in these Cambridgeshire and the Marylebone estate in estates passed to his third daughter Margaret, the wife London after making his controversial will, and these of John Holles, later th Earl of Clare, and eventually properties, which were consequently not affected by created st Duke of Newcastle of the second creation it, passed directly and undisputed to her in . in consequence of his marriage. He employed both Her marriage had been agreed by the late Duke of William Talman and Sir John Vanbrugh to make rival Newcastle and Robert Harley, the recently created designs for a palatial new house at Welbeck, and Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, father of her intended although nothing came of this, it seems that the Duke husband, Edward, Lord Harley. It took place in the did employ an unknown architect to make extensive Drawing Room at Wimpole Hall on August . alterations to the Abbey at this time. Lord Harley became the nd Earl of Oxford in ,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒ one of James Lees-Milne’s five Earls of Creation Countess’s many letters to her grandson at Bulstrode, whose ‘single-minded dedication to the cause of she explained the reason for her building activities at learning earned him considerable renown even Welbeck. It was she said ‘to incline my family to amongst scholars and writers on the continent.’ His reside at the only Habitable Seat of my Ancestors.’ ever expanding book and manuscript collection, She even sought the approval of the Duke and which ‘at his death [in ].... consisted of , Duchess, who would of course one day inherit to , printed books, , pamphlets, , Welbeck, saying in a letter of ‘I am anxious to manuscripts and many thousands of roles, charters hasten the architects draft, so that I might show it to and other documents’ was to become the nucleus of the Duke and Duchess,’ and that their ‘liking for the the British Library. His patronage extended to designs has been a great encouragement to me to go Handel, Dahl, Wootton, Thornhill, Rysbrack, Swift, on with the work.’ Defoe, Pope and Vertue. Eventually Lord Oxford’s Her interests were not confined to ‘the Seat of reckless generosity, passion for collecting and his her Ancestors’. They extended to the ancestors refusal to face up to his debts brought about a themselves, or at least their portraits, which she financial crisis, which came to a head in . A gathered together at Welbeck from Wimpole, Bolsover schedule of his debts, drawn up in , shows that and Dover Street, and which she employed George he owed £ , , exclusive of interest arrears. This Vertue, her late husband’s friend, to catalogue. document also records that most of the capital sums Horace Walpole, on his only visit to Welbeck in had been repaid by his wife and trustees before the stated ‘it is impossible to describe the bales of end of . They were forced to sell the already Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, Veres and Ogles: mortgaged Wimpole estate to Lord Hardwicke for every chamber is tapestried with them: nay, and with £ , in . Lord Oxford died in June ten thousand other fat morsels; all with their histories leaving an unusual will, written in , in which he inscribed’, and he ended by saying that Lady Oxford bequeathed the bulk of his estate outright to his had spent her widowhood ‘in collecting and widow, Henrietta. So, unlike most widows who monumenting the portraits and reliquaries of all the would normally have received a life interest in a small great families from which she descended’. Similar estate or the income from their jointure, Lady Oxford sentiments were expressed by Mrs Delany, who found herself, at the age of , in sole possession of stayed at Welbeck that same year: ‘Here everything all the surviving Cavendish estates . displays the antiquity of the noble race from whence Henrietta, now the dowager Countess of Oxford the owners are descended, and the walls are covered and Mortimer, decided to retire to Welbeck Abbey in family portraits’. These ancestral portraits were immediately after her husband’s death in , and in the only pictures that Henrietta retained from Lord she stated in a letter that ‘if possible my Harley’s collection, apart from a number of paintings inclination for retirement increases’. She lived on at which she and her late husband had commissioned Welbeck for the remaining fourteen years of her life, from John Wootton. These were of course mostly making only one major trip, to Scotland in , plus portraits of horses, and they reflect Lady Oxford’s occasional trips to London and to Bath for her other life-long interest in horses, riding and hunting, health. She also paid visits to Bulstrode Park in which she shared with most of her ancestors. She Buckinghamshire, to see her only daughter Margaret, even chose to be painted by Godfrey Kneller for her the wife of William Bentinck, nd Duke of Portland, full-length portrait in , in her finest riding attire. and her grandson William Henry Cavendish- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘a constant and Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield. In one of the devoted friend of Lady Oxford,’ was one of her
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒ regular correspondents. Lady Oxford’s surviving the Marylebone estate development. What may be letters suggest that she was remarkably philosophical James’s survey drawing (Fig. ) shows the entrance about the troubles of owning a large estate, about life courtyard to the west of the main house with all the in general and even about her gradually declining surrounding buildings laid flat. It corresponds with health. Only her passion for building seems to have Samuel Buck’s view of the south front of Welbeck excited any real enthusiasm. When she wrote to her Abbey (Fig. ) of and with the description of young grandson she often expressed her annoyance the Abbey written by George Vertue in : ‘before and impatience with the rate of building works; for the house at Welbeck a Spacious large Court Yard example on December she wrote to her with Stables one side built & a Noble Riding grandson ‘I will go on with it [the building work] as House for the Managing of Horses on ye other side fast as circumstances permit. I have a hundred foot in length this was built in Duke Williams workmen employed and intend to have more when time.... .’ The drawing shows the western the weather is better and the days are longer. The (entrance) facade of the main house (Fig. ) as it had stucco men are working by candle light by night and been remodelled for the late Duke by an unknown in the early morning.’ And in another letter she stated, architect, with sashes throughout and a raised and ‘Welbeck improvements do not go as fast as I would pedimented three-window centre. The survey also wish. The many fairs, feasts and races are sad retarders records the rear or north facade of what became of our work.’ known as the Oxford Wing, showing that it too had The income and especially the timber from the been regularised with sash windows, plus the then Welbeck Abbey estate had been used to finance Lord surviving Smythson stables to the west and the Old Harley’s obsessive collecting, and Henrietta stated Riding School to the north. All these buildings that when she inherited Welbeck in the house can be clearly identified, at least in outline, on a was ‘almost in Ruines’. The exterior of the house survey of the gardens at Welbeck dated by Francis had been substantially remodelled by the late Duke, Richardson (Fig. ), and also on the simplified Henrietta’s father, after , and it continued to be reconstruction plan of the Abbey layout in lived in by the dowager Duchess from until her (Fig. ). death in . But from then until Lord Oxford’s From the ‘Books of Accounts for Repairing, death twenty-five years later the Abbey remained Beautifying and Ornamenting the Ancient Seat of the neglected and consequently it might well have been Cavendish Family at Welbeck,’ which cover the years in need of serious restoration. In order to raise to , it is possible to discover most of the capital Lady Oxford sold many of her late husband’s craftsmen employed and the amount of money spent. curiosities and works of art in a six-day sale in , These accounts record further payments to John raising £ , , and his collection of printed books James, of between £ and £ , amounting to a and pamphlets to the bookseller Thomas Osborne for total of £ until his death in . These relatively £ , in . She retained his important collection large sums suggest more than surveying and design of manuscripts, the great Harleian Collection, selling work, and probably include a contract for carpentry. it only later to the government for the bargain price of James was not the only architect consulted by Lady £ , in . Oxford, for she refers to an anonymous ‘Knave of an The Countess began her alterations with a survey Architect that has cheated me and consequently from John James for which he was paid £ in . made me postpone the improvements here’ in a John James would have been known to Lady Oxford letter of , and a payment was made to a Mr West through his previous employment as a surveyor to (or Webb) in February for his ‘Draught of the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . C Boit, portrait of Henrietta, Countess of Oxford Fig. . Survey drawing of the buildings around the west and Mortimer. Harley Foundation, David Bradbury. courtyard of Welbeck Abbey, . East is at the top. RIBA.
Great Room and his expenses’. A set of drawings the employment of Anthony and Thomas Ince as for interiors survive signed by James Ellins, the master masons, later replaced by James Osborne. foreman, dated and , though most are Most of the craftsmen were local men like John and inscribed in a later hand ‘not executed’. Ignatius Ignatius Stanley, carpenter and joiner, of Holbeck Stanley also received payments ‘for drawing plans’, Woodhouse, the Ince brothers of Mansfield and though this need not necessarily have involved Henry Watson of Bakewell. The accounts also record design work. The last recorded payment, which that one of the plasterers was Thomas Perritt, of York, may be for design, comes just after James’ death, whose apprentice from to was Joseph Rose. when Henry Flitcroft was paid gns. ‘for his External work began with the underpinning of trouble’ in February . the western end of the Oxford Wing in and The accounts also record the employment of continued with the new centrally placed doorway on Thomas Dixon as foreman until his death in , the south front, whose surround is dated (Fig. ). when he was replaced by James Ellins. They record This seemingly ordinary pilastered door surround
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Fig. . Samuel Buck, view of Welbeck Abbey from the south, showing the Oxford Wing to the left, . Bodleian Library.
Fig. . Detail of survey drawing (Fig. ) showing the Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, centre of the south elevation of the west front of the Abbey and the north front of the Oxford Wing as remodelled by Ernest George & Yates, Oxford Wing, . RIBA. showing the central doorway added in . Peter Smith. actually has tall, attenuated Ionic pilasters, and a that survived to be photographed, before the fire in narrow entablature above, decorated with Cavendish , was the State Bedroom (Figs. and ). This snakes. It looks Jacobean in style and presumably it room with its bed alcove must surely have been the was designed to blend in with the original Smythson principal bedroom of the Duke of Portland’s cornice, still visible today at either side. Little is Apartment, and presumably the ‘Alcove Appartment’ known about the interior of the Oxford Wing, referred to in the accounts as being floored in . though a plan of by Ignatius Stanley does at One late Victorian photograph of this room (Fig. ), least record the arrangement of the ground floor shows a Palladian-style bed alcove with a moulded rooms after their remodelling (Fig. ). Ignatius arch surmounted by a bold scroll keystone. This is Stanley was paid for joinery and Thomas Greaves for supported on either side by fluted Ionic columns, the plasterwork in the Duke of Portland’s Apartment in spandrels of the arch are decorated with plaster early , perhaps in the upper floor of this wing. swags, and the whole room has a rich dentilated The only room of this period in the Oxford Wing cornice. A second photograph (Fig. ) shows the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . Ignatius Stanley, . ground floor plan of Welbeck Abbey, Harley Foundation. David Bradbury.
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Oxford Wing, Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Oxford Wing, chimney-piece Alcove bedroom in the Duke’s Apartment, c. . in Alcove bedroom in the Duke’s Apartment, c. . David Bradbury. David Bradbury.
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Fig. . John James, drawing of three chimney-pieces for Welbeck Abbey c. . RIBA.
view outwards from the alcove, with the fireplace and view by Humphrey Repton from his Red Book of particularly its overmantel to the left. The Palladian (Fig. ). Repton’s view shows a long gabled style of arch and the Jonesian style of the overmantel facade with fairly regularly spaced sashes which was might well indicate that John James, a professed presumably created as part of Lady Oxford’s Palladian sympathiser, was the architect. This is remodelling, with the flat-topped later work by John confirmed by a drawing of three Palladian style Carr to its left. The two additional windows on the chimney-pieces (Fig. ), two with pedimented west front were also part of this new block and here, overmantels, whose scale is of the type used where the original walling survives, it is still possible elsewhere by John James. It suggests that all the to discern a break in the masonry. Because of the remaining rooms in this double suite of apartments upward slope of the land the north facade is only two were decorated in the Palladian style by James. All storeys high with a deep buried basement, allowing work on the Oxford Wing was certainly finished by the visitor to enter directly at the level of the State , the date that appears in the inscription on the Rooms. Externally only the top floor of the north restored cupola. front is visible today protruding above later additions The exterior of the main house was repaired and (Fig. ). It had three ogee gables, the outer ones with a new block was added to the north. This resulted central stacks. The central and west gables are largely in the extension of the west front by two windows Lady Oxford’s work, while radical alterations carried and the east front by three windows. There are many out to the east gable by Ernest George after has payments recorded for mason’s work, sashes, doors destroyed their former symmetry. The central gable and shutters for the east front throughout , and is unmistakably eighteenth century, though again the final appearance of these works is visible in a based on Jacobean models. A section drawn by
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . Humphry Repton, view of the north and east fronts Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, north front, showing the surviving of Welbeck Abbey from his first Red Book, . front built for Lady Oxford, now partly obscured by later Harley Foundation. Peter Smith. additions and alterations. Peter Smith.
Ernest George (Fig. ) shows the surviving central Venetian window and the centrepiece of this facade, a large round-headed archway with a distinctly Jacobean-style surround with giant rusticated pilasters. From this drawing and the Repton view of (Fig. ) it is possible to reconstruct at least the outline of this facade as it was completed in (Fig. ). But the true size of the archway cannot be fully appreciated until one enters the Abbey itself, where the arch still survives intact within John Sedding and Henry Wilson’s later additions (Fig. ). The frieze bears the inscription * HCHOM * , for Henrietta Cavendish-Holles, Countess of Oxford and Mortimer, and the date agrees with the accounts which include payments for mason’s work and sash windows ‘the North Front and Basement’ in the same year. There are also records of estimates from Ellins for the north and east fronts in , so presumably work began on this whole section around this time and was largely completed by . The arch itself is a convincing example of the Jacobean Revival style. The over entasised pilasters, their widely spaced rustication blocks, the exaggerated cornices, the narrow frieze and the De Vries-style Fig. . Ernest George & Yates, section showing the strapwork in the spandrels of the arch, all these archway, Venetian window and gables surviving from the features have been carefully reproduced. Inside the north front, . Harley Foundation. Peter Smith.
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Fig. . Conjectural reconstruction drawing showing the Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Jacobean Revival-style archway, north front of Welbeck Abbey as completed in . now inside the north hall, dated . Peter Smith. Peter Smith.
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Jacobean Revival-style Fig. . Bolsover Castle, doorway of the Riding School. vault in the north hall. Peter Smith. Peter Smith.
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, chimney-piece in the present Fig. . Bolsover Castle, chimney-piece entrance hall (formerly the dining room), dated . in the Star Chamber. Peter Smith. Peter Smith. arch is an even more extraordinary feature, a stone patterned and studded type, which abound at both vault (Fig. ), which was presumably constructed at Welbeck and Bolsover (Fig. ), and which Lady the same time, for the contemporary room above it Oxford is known to have copied on the later service also survives. This simple vault has deeply moulded buildings. The function of this internal hall must ribs in an unusual pattern with a Jacobean-style surely have been to allow a horse and rider to enter pendant boss. In fact this vault is modelled on the the house. It is the right size and it faces north only surviving original Smythson ceiling at Welbeck, towards the stables, whilst also giving direct access to in the stone-vaulted room, and on the vaults of the Lady Oxford’s new apartment. Knowing of her Pillar Parlour at Bolsover. This new north addition to passion for horses, perhaps it was designed to allow the house is referred to in the accounts as the ‘Alcove Henrietta, by now an elderly woman, to mount and Building’ which suggests that this arch was perhaps dismount within the comfort of her own house. originally open. By the time of Repton’s view in As the date stones on both the Oxford Wing the arch had been filled in with a central window and the north front suggest, and as Henrietta herself (Fig. ), but presumably it originally contained a wrote in a letter that year, ‘Welbeck outside is pair of large doors, similar to the idiosyncratically done’. Inside the house we find further evidence of
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, detail of the inlaid marble Fig. . John James, survey drawing of a chimney-piece in a decoration on chimney-piece in the present entrance hall bedchamber at Bolsover Castle. RIBA. (formerly the dining room), dated . Peter Smith.
Fig. . John James, plan of a hearth, probably for the chimney-piece in the present entrance hall (formerly the dining room) at Welbeck Abbey. RIBA. Peter Smith.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . Bolsover Castle, chimney-piece Fig. . John James, survey drawing of the chimney-piece in a bedchamber. Peter Smith. in the Pillar Parlour at Bolsover Castle. RIBA.
Lady Oxford’s taste for the Jacobean Revival. In the other identifiable features. The accounts record work began on the new dining room, now the that it was carved in London by Thomas Carter the entrance hall, which still contains an extraordinary elder, one of the most important suppliers of marble chimney-piece dated (Fig. ). Lady chimney-pieces of his day, and that he was paid Oxford actually describes this chimney-piece in one £ for this single chimney- piece. The huge cost is of her letters that year, as ‘the Gothic Chimney Piece explained by the astonishing complexity and quality designed partly from a fine one at Bolsover, but of the coloured marble inlay work of Cavendish composed of a great variety of English, Scotch, and family symbols (Fig. ) that Lady Oxford mentioned Irish marbles and alabaster, and not one bit of foreign in her letter. A design for a hearth (Fig. ), which in it’. This chimney-piece is clearly identifiable as a is decorated in colour with exactly the same copy of the one in the Star Chamber in the Little Keep Cavendish symbols, possibly relates to this chimney- at Bolsover Castle (Fig. ). It has been flattened and piece. This drawing is inscribed with John J ames’s widened considerably, it has had the coat-of-arms distinctive scale and this remarkable chimney- piece altered and the ornate cresting removed, but it has all was therefore presumably designed by him.
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Fig. . Bolsover Castle, chimney-piece Fig. . John James, proposal drawing for the chimney- in the Pillar Parlour. Peter Smith. piece for the Drawing Room at Welbeck Abbey. RIBA.
Two drawings survive of two of the original the Pillar Parlour at Bolsover Castle. Attached to the Smythson chimney-pieces that still survive in the hearth drawing by John James already mentioned, is Little Keep at Bolsover Castle. The first (Fig. ) is of a further sheet inscribed a chimney-piece in one of the present bed chambers (Fig. ) and the other (Fig. ) is of the chimney- May st; . piece in the Pillar Parlour (Fig. ). A third drawing, In the Drawing Room Chimny at Welbeck. inscribed ‘Drawing: Room Chimney’(Fig. ), is an The Marbles chosen by the Rt. Hon; The Countess of adaptation of the second drawing of the chimney- Oxford for this Chimny-piece are as follows - vizt. - piece in the Pillar Parlour. It has been made wider, The Columns and Pilasters ...... Fish-bone taller and flatter and the original coat-of-arms on The Bases and Capitals of the same ...... Black the hood has been replaced with an inscription that The Covings and Back-parts ...... Black reads ‘My Lady’s Own Coat here.’ This drawing is Projecting part over the Columns ...... Black inscribed with John James’s distinctive scale and this The Freeze over the same ...... White must therefore be his design adapted the original in The Margin of the pannels over Ditto...... Black
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The Diagonal pieces ...... Yellow & White Gothick chimney-piece’ for her approval in late The arch’d Mantle ...... Plimouth Marble , and this presumably relates to this last The Pannels...... Irish Black & White bedchamber chimney-piece. Since John James The Astragal under the Festoon ...... Black evidently designed the ‘Gothick’ chimney-piece in The Freeze with the Festoon ...... White the drawing room, and almost certainly designed the The Moulding over it ...... Black one in the dining room (now the entrance hall) it is In the Freeze under the Cornice- logical to suggest he also designed that in the The Margins ...... Red Granate bedchamber, as all of them were reinterpretations of The Pannels...... Oriental Alabaster Bolsover originals. It also strongly suggests that The Spots ...... Star-Stone James was also responsible for further Jacobean Over the Columns are to be Twisted Snakes. Revival style decoration in other rooms, which has The Principal Cornice ...... Fish-bone since been lost. Lady Oxford’s ‘Gothick chimney- The next Plinth above ...... Welsh or Scots Green pieces’ were not to everyone’s taste; Horace Walpole, The Pannels over it...... Granate borderd wth. Black when he visited Welbeck, described them as The Date of the Year ...... White, on a black Ground ‘chimneys of various English marbles of ancient Piramids ...... The Balls White forms..... all [with] their Arms, crests and devices The Table Alabaster with my Ladys own Arms. sculpted on...... (to say truth most of them ugly).’ The Base and Cap of the Pedestal Works continued in the main house throughout above...... Plimouth Marble the ’s, including such modern conveniences as The Die of the said Pedestal ...... Black ‘two sets of water closets’ installed in . At the The Base to the Scrolls ...... Black height of the season in a relatively typical year, like The Scroll work ...... White , seventy-five workmen were on the monthly pay- The Ground...... Yellow roll, including a foreman, five masons, fifteen The Piramids black and the Balls White - carpenters, five joiners, nine bricklayers and forty The slab of this Chimny ...... Plimouth Marble labourers. In we learn that ‘the Great Saloon’ was being floored, and this is presumably ‘The Great The features mentioned match exactly the Drawing Room’ for which the unknown ‘Mr West’ (or Webb) room chimney-piece drawing, and they show that it was ‘paid for his Draught’ in . The appearance must have been as colourful as the surviving entrance of the Great Saloon is a complete mystery, though it hall chimney-piece. This list may also be in James’s may be ‘the great dining room’ mentioned by Mrs hand, but it clearly shows that it was Lady Oxford Delany in as ‘ feet long and broad (I think) who chose the marbles rather than the architect, with a large square projection in the middle that suggesting that these colourful Jacobean Revival holds the sideboard’ suggesting that it may have chimney-pieces were originally her idea. Thomas occupied the site of the present Red Drawing room Carter was paid £ for this chimney-piece and it in the centre of the east front. was probably installed by ‘two of his [Thomas A surviving ground plan (Fig. ) illustrating Carter’s] best men, Kay and Wildsmith’ who visited alterations proposed by Ernest George and Yates Welbeck in . A further £ was paid to Carter shows a dotted octagon marked ‘SKYLIGHT OVER’ for a chimney-piece in a bedchamber, and this was in the present north hallway, and just above it is presumably based on the other surviving drawing inscribed ‘STAIRS & BALCONIES REMOVED’, (Fig. ) of a Smythson original. Thomas Carter is which confirms that this was once the site of what is recorded as having ‘sent her Ladyship a drawing of a referred to in Lady Oxford’s accounts as ‘the Great
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒
Fig. . Ernest George & Yates, detail of a plan of the upper floor of the north hall, . Harley Foundation. Peter Smith.
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, ceiling of the present north hall Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the north hall showing former (formerly the great staircase). Peter Smith. staircase arcade re-used by Ernest George. Peter Smith.
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Stair-Case’. Though the stair itself has gone the Gothick vault above survives (Fig. ), now lighting the two-storey central section of the north hallway. This rectangular ceiling is surrounded by a series of pointed arches cut into its deep coving, three on the short sides and five on the long. Each of these arches is supported on a very delicate corbel, and the arches themselves are defined by a distinctive bead moulding whilst the remaining sections of the cove are decorated with trefoil tracery. The central ceiling is then divided into three panels with a central square containing the skylight and two rectangular panels at either end with quatrefoil tracery. The upper octagonal cove of the skylight is decorated with a series of the most delicately detailed Gothick arches. Within the surviving hall is a wooden arcade and balustrade to the first floor landing (Fig. ). This unusual piece of joinery certainly does not fit with either the quality or the style of the polished oak panelling inserted by Ernest George, and it must surely be a length of the original staircase arcade which was stripped and gilded to blend better with his alterations. The arches have flattened ogee tops Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, doorway on the landing of the supported on attenuated square columns, and the north hall. Peter Smith. balustrade has unusual carved flat balusters. From this we can begin to gain at least some idea of what this staircase must once have been like, with arches all the way round the upper floor painted to blend with the plasterwork above, and with similar flat balusters in the balustrades to the stair flights below. The only other clue to the decoration of the remainder of this staircase is a single Gothick door which survives behind the arcade on the first floor landing (Fig. ). This combines a Gothick ogee-headed door surround with a Jacobean Revival panelled door and tympanum, studded like those which still survive at Bolsover Castle (Fig. ). In fact the whole arrangement of the octagonal skylight in the ceiling is reminiscent of the Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, detail of the ceiling of the present octagonal skylight on the top floor of the Little Keep north hall (formerly the great staircase) with Lady Oxford’s at Bolsover Castle, which still retains its seventeenth- initials ‘HCHOM’ and the date . Peter Smith. century Gothick Revival lantern. The staircase ceiling bears the by now familiar inscription in raised
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Gothick room. Peter Smith. Fig. . Lithograph of the Gothick room from The Graphic magazine, c. . Nottingham Local Studies Library. David Bradbury.
lettering, HCHOM, and the date (Fig. ), Rose, and in a style which he is not recorded as which tallies neatly with the payment ‘To Jos. Rose, having worked in anywhere else. It is no wonder that Plaisterer, his bill of finishing work in My Lady’s the architect Sir Thomas Robinson called him ‘the Appartment and ending with the Great Stair-Case, first man in the Kingdom as a plasterer’ if this is how £ s d’ in October , and another ‘To Benj. he began his career at the age of . Hague, Painter for work finished’ in various rooms This staircase was inserted by Lady Oxford to including ‘the Staircase’ in November of the same provide direct access from the new stone-vaulted hall year. The plasterer was Joseph Rose senior, of in the centre of the new north front, to her new private Doncaster, who had completed his apprenticeship apartment in the rooms above. Fortunately, Mrs Delany , under one of the plasterers at Welbeck, Thomas who visited Welbeck Abbey in September , Perritt, in . This ceiling is therefore the first described the apartment as securely documented independent work by Joseph
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the prettiest thing I ever saw, consisting of a skylight staircase ceiling, though here they are far smaller and antechamber or vestibule, adorned in the Gothick way. much more elaborately decorated; in fact the whole The rooms that encompass it are a library, a dressing of the ceiling is encrusted with Gothick decoration. room, a room fitted up with chine and japan of the rarest kinds, and a Gothick room full of charming The upper cove has diamond patterned decoration pictures, and embellished with everything that can and the rectangular central section is again divided make it look gay and pleasant: it is lighted by a window into three with the square centre filled this time with something of the Venetian kind, but prettier, and the a single pendant surrounded by the date . The whole breadth of one side of the room. It is indeed a painted panelling around the Gothick Venetian charming and pretty room. window is decorated with plaster symbols of the The ‘skylight... or vestibule’ that Mrs Delany refers Cavendish family including the triple deer heads to as adorned in the ‘Gothick way’ must be the upper (Fig. ) in the side arches. The central window has a landing of the staircase which originally acted as a pointed-arched frame on the inside and interlocking vestibule to this suite of rooms. Amazingly the Y-tracery to the upper sash whilst the side windows ‘charming and pretty’ Gothick room still survives have unusual diamond glazing bars and sliding (Fig. ), though it is now used as the Quartermaster’s shutters which were once mirrored (Fig. ). office. The accounts record John Stanley’s estimate This remarkable room is situated immediately and contract for joiner’s work on ‘My Lady’s bedroom above the north vaulted hall and its floor level is of and Dressing room’ in March , and the work on necessity a few steps higher than the rooms around it these rooms was completed in , when they were (Fig. ), making it literally the high point of Lady included, with the staircase, in the final payments Oxford’s private apartment. Unfortunately little else already referred to for Joseph Rose and Benjamin survives of this remarkably eclectic apartment . The Hague. There was also a payment of £ s in July rooms on the east side were completely swept away ‘to Henry Watson for a marble Chimney Piece in by Ernest George, though the room to the west does the North End Room’, which must refer to the still partly survive, though reduced in size. This fireplace which still survives in this room. It has been room now contains the only surviving chimney-piece boarded over for protection by Welbeck College, and designed by Robert Smythson (Fig. ), which was it has not been seen for nearly half a century. almost certainly moved here by Lady Oxford, from Fortunately it is at least partly visible on the right the Oxford Wing. Mrs Delany goes on in her letter hand side of a late nineteenth century lithograph of to say that ‘Lady Oxford chiefly sat in her own room this room (Fig. ), and it appears to be another or library, which is generally called the ‘little west Jacobean Revival design. What is still visible in this drawing room’ above stairs’ possibly identifying room is ‘the window, something after the Venetian this western room as the original ‘library’. Whatever kind, but prettier’ that Mrs Delany mentions, and the its function the re-use of this seventeenth century wonderfully rich Gothick ceiling above (Fig. ). chimney-piece is yet another clear example of Lady Though the payments to Joseph Rose do not Oxford’s appreciation of the architecture of the specifically mention this Gothick room there are Smythsons. Mrs Delany’s mention of ‘chine and unspecified payments to him in , as well as the japan’ adds yet another style to the list of those already mentioned payments ‘for work finished in already employed here at Welbeck, but unfortunately My Lady’s Appartment’ in , which makes it nothing survives of this room. almost certain that he was responsible for the The accounts record that in work began on plasterwork in this room. The ceiling is supported the dismantling of the old great hall, which was to be on arches cut into the coving (Fig. ), just like the replaced by one of the architectural wonders of
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, ceiling of the Gothick room. Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, detail of the ceiling of the Peter Smith. Gothick room, dated . Peter Smith.
Gothick room
Smythson fireplace
Vaulted Entrance Hall
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, detail of the decoration of the Fig. . Reconstructed cross-section through the north hall Venetian window in the Gothick room. Peter Smith. and Gothick room at Welbeck Abbey, facing north. Peter Smith.
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, chimney-piece by Robert Smythson, moved to its present site in the upper west room by Lady Oxford. Peter Smith.
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Gothick Hall, c. . David Bradbury.
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the chimney-piece in the Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the doorcases in the Gothick Hall, c. . David Bradbury. Gothick Hall, c. . David Bradbury.
Welbeck, the Gothick Hall (Fig. ). This two-storey The room was completed in the summer of , and hall measures feet in length and feet in width even today Lady Oxford’s monogram HCHOM and with its fan-vaulted plaster ceiling over feet high. the date can still be seen behind the coat-of-arms The ceiling was made by Joseph Rose senior, who which Ernest George re-used above his tepid was paid £ s d. The equally splendid replacement chimney-piece (Fig. ). The room has Gothick woodwork of the overmantel (Fig. ), the had a somewhat chequered history. A drawing by S traceried pilasters that supported the fans, the six Pierrepont of shows it fitted up as a library (Fig. ogee-headed doorcases (Fig. ) and the ogee- ), and it was only returned to its original form by headed window surrounds, were all made by Ignatius the th Duke in the s. Unfortunately it was Stanley, who was paid £ s d. The coat-of- later remodelled by Ernest George (Fig. ) who arms and the chimney-piece were carved by removed the chimney-piece, pilasters, doors and Christopher Richardson who was paid £ s. doorcases and inserted the present chimney-piece
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and panelling. The roof of the vault itself is not flat; instead it is made up of a series of shallow curves on both axes (Fig. ). This reproduces the vault on which it was clearly based, that in the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey, where the tracery patterning on the fans is almost exactly the same. But what is most unusual about this ceiling is the use of full size pendant fans in the centre (Fig. ). The closest contemporary example of such a feature is the Gothick fan-vault at Hartwell Church, designed by Henry Keene in , which has only a single central pendant fan. Around the three full fan-pendants in the Gothick Hall are arranged eight half-fans and four quarter-fans in the corners, plus eight minor pendants at the crossings of the ribs. The arches of the vault are supported on elaborate corbels, though originally the arches on each long side were supported on traceried pilasters (Figs. and ). These were unfortunately removed by Ernest George and replaced with copies of the original corbel over the chimney-piece. This room was described by Mrs Delany in as ‘the Gothic hall, which for workmanship in the true Gothic taste exceeds everything I have seen of the kind.’ The closest comparable Gothick vaulting is to Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, chimney-piece in the Gothick Hall, be found at Arbury Hall in Warwickshire, where the as remodelled by Ernest George & Yates c. , Hall was constructed between and and the re-using the coat-of-arms dated . Peter Smith. Saloon between and . John James died in December and work began on demolishing the old hall the following year, but it is possible that James was responsible for preparing designs for this room just before his death. He certainly knew Westminster Abbey very well and had had ample opportunity to study the Henry VII Chapel vaulting in detail. James, a carpenter before he was an architect, would have had the necessary skill required to design and construct the complex carpentry which must lie behind this seemingly light and airy confection. But in the end perhaps the clearest clue as to the actual originator of Fig. . S Pierrepont, drawing of the Gothick Hall at the idea for this room is found in one of Lady Oxford’s Welbeck Abbey in use as a library in . David Bradbury. own letters dated , in which she states ‘The Hall when done will be very magnificent and beautiful.
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the Gothick Hall as remodelled by Ernest George & Yates c. . Peter Smith.
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Fig. . Ernest George & Yates, section through the Gothick Hall, showing the curve of the original plaster ceiling, . Harley Foundation, Peter Smith.
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, fan-vaulted plaster ceiling in the Gothick Hall, completed . Peter Smith.
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N N Old Riding New Service Wing School New Drive Converted to Stables (Old Riding School) Great Courtyard Main House Addition Dated Stables Re-used Gates Main House Converted Oxford Wing New Gothick Lodges Monastic Wing New Central Oxford Wing Monastic Doorway Wing
Fig. . Conjectural plan of Welbeck Abbey before Lady Fig. . Conjectural plan of Welbeck Abbey after Lady Oxford began her alterations in . Peter Smith. Oxford had completed her alterations in . Peter Smith.
Excuse my vanity,’ suggesting that she herself may have been the originator of this quite remarkable room. With the main house nearing completion in Lady Oxford began to consider designs for a new stable block. This was needed because she already intended to demolish the old Smythson stables in order to open up the view from the west front of the house (Figs. and ). Eventually she decided to convert the Old Riding School into stabling for fifty horses. This work began in and was completed in the spring of , when work could finally begin on the demolition of the old Stables. At the same time a new service block (Fig. ) was added to the north of the Old Riding School, to match it. This was built between and by the mason William Birch, at a cost of £ s d. The new building was virtually a copy of Smythson’s original, with plain sides and ornate gable ends with large central doorways. Both buildings survive, either side of the drive to the new north front of the Abbey, though extended and much altered internally in the nineteenth century (Fig. ). Lady Oxford also re-used the boldly Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the service wing rusticated pairs of Smythson gate piers with obelisk built in – by William Birch. Peter Smith. finials from the former court and placed them
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between these two buildings (Fig. ). There are a further set of similar gate piers to the east that even retain their eighteenth century Gothick style wrought iron gates (Fig. ). Beyond these is an unusual curved stone wall which leads to the north front of the main house. This wall was possibly matched by a similar wall on the other side of the drive, which would have been demolished when Sedding and Wilson built the present curved corridor. The surviving wall presumably screened the carts and servants’ traffic between the service block and the Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the east fronts of the new service house, from the park and garden. It is boldly block on the left and the newly converted stables on the right, with the re-sited seventeenth-century gate piers decorated on the outer side, facing the park, by pairs between, c. . David Bradbury. of flat blind arches with rusticated pilasters between (Fig. ). In at least one Victorian photograph it is possible to make out battlements on the top of this wall (Fig. ), and these presumably correspond with a series of payments for battlements and walls in and . Arcaded and battlemented, this curved wall would have formed a prominent link between the two main sections of the Abbey when viewed from the developing parkland. At the west end of the stable and service blocks a curved screen was constructed with two Gothick lodges, gates, gate piers and curved railings (Fig. ). These lodges still survive, though now moved, but their original arrangement is fortunately recorded in a late-
Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the seventeenth-century gate-piers, Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the seventeenth-century gate-piers moved to their present site between the stables and the new with Gothick iron gates added in . service wing c. . Peter Smith. Peter Smith.
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Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the curved wall masking Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, the curved wall masking the north the north drive. Peter Smith. drive, hidden by a hedge and topped with battlements, c. . David Bradbury.
Fig. . Engraving of Welbeck Abbey from the west, c. , showing the Gothick lodges in their original position. Nottingham Local Studies Library. David Bradbury. eighteenth century engraving of the house form the Thomas Wright’s Slaits Lodge at Badminton. west (Fig. ). The lodges were re-built further to the Altogether these additions created an unusual new west (Fig. ). They are presumably identifiable as entrance approach to the new north facade. the ‘two lodges and a pair of wrought iron gates’ Some of the very earliest entries in the account which are recorded as nearing completion in July books are for works to the gardens, such as the one . They are the only buildings on the estate in a for ‘the cost of ale at the planting of the First tree to wholly Gothick style, with battlements, ogee-headed My Lady,’ which includes ‘the planting of oaks, doorways and quatrefoil spy holes. They are also beeches, black cherries, poplars, Scotch firs and amongst the earliest Gothick lodges to be built in Yews’ in . During and there are England, being almost exactly contemporary with references to a new kitchen garden. But it is only with
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Prefect, nurserymen, for plants and shrubs as late as November . But it is a payment in late for ‘Surveying & making a Plan of the Park’ which allows us our first glimpse of the garden itself. For, still surviving at Welbeck are two ‘before’ and ‘after’ plans of the park signed by Richardson and dated (Figs. and ). These are the earliest recorded examples of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ type plans for which Richardson is known. They show that he proposed the sweeping away of all the formal seventeenth-century parterre, canals and water garden and their replacement with shrubberies and serpentine walks close to the house, and, beyond, a lake and naturalistic parkland made up of clumps of trees with vistas cut through to eye-catchers. Francis Richardson is a little-known professional gardener, who like Thomas Geering and Thomas Wright, filled the gap between William Kent and Capability Brown, and whose careers have been almost totally overshad- owed by the latter. This early example of Richardson’s work suggests that he was well aquainted with Kent’s new style of landscape gardening and that he was already beginning to develop his own naturalistic style using Sherwood Forest with its ‘grove or two of Fig. . Welbeck Abbey, one of the re-sited magnificent oaks’ as his raw material. Gothick lodges, built c. . Peter Smith. The account books show that in all the Countess spent £ , on improvements to the house, service buildings and gardens, a relatively modest sum considering both the extent and the quality of these the first mention of ‘Francis Richardson, Gardiner’ in alterations. By work on the house was complete, that change really began in earnest. This first though work on the gardens continued right up to payment refers to ‘the Agreement for the Pleasure- her death in December , and for many years Garden at Welbeck’ and further payments for this afterwards. When the nd Duke of Portland died in and the ‘Wilderness’ continue into . In October Lady Oxford’s long-cherished dream that the same year work began on the east garden and Welbeck would become ‘the main seat of her continued through with payments in April ‘for ancestors’ came true, for her beloved grandson, levelling, planting and sowing the Ground on the William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, now the rd East Front with Hay Seeds, [and] making a new Duke, moved from Bulstrode to Welbeck Abbey. But Serpentine Walk in the Pleasure Grounds’. The it was not until , when the th Duke was finally regular payments to Francis Richardson and to forced to sell the Bulstrode Park estate, to pay his ‘Richardson’s men’ continue up to , and the father’s debts, that Welbeck truly became the main accounts record a payment to John and William seat of the Cavendish-Bentinck family.
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Fig. . Francis Richardson, detail of his survey of the garden layout at Welbeck Abbey, dated . It seems to show features which had already been removed, and was pehaps intended to represent Welbeck well before Lady Oxford began her alterations in . Harley Foundation. Peter Smith.
Fig. . Francis Richardson, detail of his design for proposed alterations to the garden layout at Welbeck Abbey, dated . Harley Foundation. Peter Smith.
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Lady Oxford was responsible for one of the first architecture of Welbeck is its eclectic use of different serious attempts to revive the Jacobean style of styles, three to our certain knowledge, Palladian, architecture in England. The work at Welbeck is pre- Gothick and Jacobean Revival, probably four with dated by William Kent’s interiors in the Cumberland Mrs Delany’s reference to ‘a room fitted up with Suite at Hampton Court Palace of . It slightly chine and japan’. The use of two different styles was pre-dates Thomas Wright’s work at Stoke Park House certainly not uncommon in the mid-eighteenth in Gloucestershire, where, beginning in , he century; Thomas Wright’s Stoke Park, for example, extended the exterior in the Jacobean Revival style. had a Jacobean Revival exterior and classical interior It may also pre-date the Jacobean Revival room at decoration. There are a number of examples of Baggrave Hall in Leicestershire, built c. for John interiors being in two styles, such as Chesterfield Edwyn, and James Paine’s Library at Felbrigg Hall House in London, where the French Rococo and the in Norfolk, designed in and completed in Palladian styles were mixed. But only Claydon . It is post-dated by the mixture of Gothick House in Buckinghamshire, which mixes four styles, and Jacobean Revival styles at Marks Hall in Essex, Rococo, Palladian, Chinese and Gothick, has a carried out for General Honeywood about . It decorative scheme comparable with Lady Oxford’s is therefore amongst the very earliest examples of the eclectic creation at Welbeck. However, it should be revived Jacobean style, though its place in the remembered that Lady Oxford and her contempo - development of the Gothick Revival is far more raries, like Horace Walpole, Mrs Delany and Dr complex. Welbeck is not amongst the earliest phase Pococke, all described the Jacobean Revival style of the Gothick style associated with the works of chimney pieces at Welbeck as Gothick. Wren or Hawksmoor. Neither does it pre-date the The accounts prove that most of the major earliest Gothick garden buildings, or the very earliest improvements to Welbeck Abbey were at least houses like Clearwell Castle, William Kent’s Esher underway before John James died in . James was Place, Frampton or Stout’s Hill. But Welbeck is at paid large sums of money, and he was by far the most least contemporary with most of what might be experienced carpenter and designer mentioned in termed the earliest examples of the second phase of the accounts. It therefore seems likely that he was the Gothick Revival, that phase dominated by responsible for most of the design work. The fact Sanderson Miller, Henry Keene and Horace that Ignatius Stanley, carpenter, was later paid ‘for Walpole, whose work at Arbury, Adlestrop, Radway over seeing all the building work’ suggests that he Grange and Strawberry Hill is either contemporary took over James’s role, probably under the close with Welbeck Abbey or a little later. Perhaps more supervision of Lady Oxford. Henry Flitcroft was importantly Welbeck is the earliest use of the Gothick presumably consulted about a specific problem, style at a great house or a major country seat, rather hence the single payment to him of only guineas than a villa or a suburban seat. Even the great ‘for his trouble’ the year after John James died. Inverary Castle, designed in by Roger Morris, Recent research suggests that Henry Flitcroft may was not decorated internally until many years later. well have been responsible for producing at least one The only closely contemporary rival in size and scale contemporary design in the Gothick style, Shobden to Welbeck’s Gothick Hall can be found at Hartlebury church in Herefordshire. He would therefore have Castle Chapel, by Henry Keene, c. – , though its been a sensible choice for advise on the work here at plain and simple fan-vaulting cannot compare with Welbeck Abbey. There is clear evidence that James the quality and complexity of the work at Welbeck. was responsible for most the Palladian and Jacobean What is almost certainly unique about the Revival work at Welbeck, but no direct evidence to
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI LADY OXFORD ’ S ALTERATIONS AT WELBECK ABBEY , ‒ link him to the Gothick interiors. John James’s name consciously against his taste after his death. She quite is not usually associated with the Gothick style, but possibly owned a copy of Batty Langley’s Ancient he was an experienced restorer of real gothic Architecture of or his Gothic Architecture of , buildings, like Rochester and Lincoln cathedrals, and which inspired her interest in the Gothick. But it he was also the architect responsible for the seems to have been her desire to imitate the construction of at least one major Gothick project, architecture of the Smythsons that truly inspired her the west towers at Westminster Abbey, designed by taste in architecture. It was not to her medieval Nicholas Hawksmoor. Even more importantly he ancestors that she paid homage here at Welbeck, but knew in detail the one building that specifically to the time of her great-grandfather the first Duke of inspired the design of the ceiling of the Gothick Hall Newcastle, hero of the Civil War, inveterate builder at Welbeck, the Henry VII Chapel, at Westminster and expert horseman, who had when young presided Abbey, where he had supervised restoration work over something of a golden age at Welbeck. This from . As we have seen, most of the surviving period was epitomized by King Charles I’s visits Gothick ceilings are dated after James’s death, when he was lavishly entertained both here and at and , but most of the construction work for the Bolsover, and when masques by Ben Johnson were building associated with these ceilings was underway performed, with costumes by Inigo Jones. It was this by at least . It is therefore quite possible that same Duke who commissioned the great set of Van James was responsible for providing the designs for Dyck portraits, of which she was so proud, and the the ceilings in the Great Staircase, the Gothick Room extraordinary interiors of the Little Keep at Bolsover, and the Gothick Hall before his death in late . which she used as her architectural inspiration. John James’s only known statement about the Gothick style, in which he complains of ‘works so complicated as the window-heads and the windings and turnings of so many Gothick Ornaments,’ is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS actually a complaint about how difficult it is to The architectural development of Welbeck has never been estimate the cost of the repair of Gothick ornament, fully documented and my attempts to elucidate Lady Oxford’s contribution are still developing as new rather than a criticism of the style itself. More information is uncovered in the archives at Welbeck. This importantly, James was greatly in need of money at should not therefore be considered as anything more than this time due to the failure of one of his investments. a first attempt to piece together this small part of the So it is not hard therefore to imagine John James, enormously complex architectural history of Welbeck. I am flexible and reliable architect that he was, doing his deeply indebted to both Welbeck College and the Welbeck very best to satisfy the idiosyncratic architectural Estate for allowing me access to their respective sections of the Abbey buildings. I would like to thank the Curator at ideas of his client, Lady Oxford, and in the process Welbeck Abbey, Derek Adlam, for sharing his detailed producing some of the finest and most original knowledge of the house and its archives, David Bradbury architectural creations of his whole career. for sharing his knowledge of Welbeck and for his assistance There can be little doubt that it was Lady Oxford with photography and Lucy Worsley for allowing me to see who was the inspiration, decision-maker and draft copies of her forthcoming articles on both Bolsover Castle and Lady Oxford. I am especially grateful to Sally possibly even on occasion the designer of the work Jeffery for her helpful assistance with the career of John carried out here at Welbeck. How she came by such James and to Richard Hewlings for all his editorial original architectural ideas is not known. Obviously assistance. I would also like to thank Welbeck College, the her husband’s taste for the Baroque had little Welbeck Estate and the Harley Foundation for permission influence on her, perhaps she even rebelled to take photographs and to publish them.
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NOTES
A S Turberville, A History of Welbeck Abbey and Its Only the entailed Harley family estate at Brampton Owners, Volume I: – , London, , Bryan, Herefordshire, passed to his cousin and male – ; Richard W Goulding, ‘Henrietta, Countess heir, Edward Harley, rd Earl of Oxford [ The of Oxford’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, Complete Peerage, X , – ]. XXVII, , – . Goulding, op. cit. , . Lady Oxford was born at Clerkenwell, Middlesex, Turberville, op. cit., , letter to Marquess of on February , [Lucy Worsley, ‘Lady Oxford’, Titchfield, September , . The New Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford, Ibid. , , letter to Marquess of Titchfield, forthcoming] though Goulding originally suggested December , . she was born on February , [Goulding, op. Ibid. , , letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, cit. , ]. June , . Lady Oxford also repaired Bolsover Castle and built Ibid. , . herself a small house, Cavendish Lodge, in Clipstone Mrs Paget Toynbee (ed.), The Letters of Horace Park, near Mansfield , ‘ to which she could repair for Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, III, Oxford, , absolutely complete privacy’. [Turberville, op. cit., –. – ; Lucy Worsley, Bolsover Castle in the Lady Llanover (ed.), The Autobiography and Eighteenth Century’. infra. , ‒ .] Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, Turberville, op. cit. , – . London, – , III, , letter from Mrs Delany to The nd Duke chose to leave all his Cavendish Mrs Dewes, September , . estates to his third and favourite daughter Margaret Many of these pictures by John Wootton are now on rather than divide them between all his surviving loan from Welbeck Abbey to the National Trust at daughters. [ Ibid. , –.] Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire [Souden, op. cit. , Celia Fiennes wrote of Welbeck Abbey in ‘the , –, , and ]. house is but old and low buildings,’ whereas Daniel Turberville, op. cit. , illustrated opposite p. . Defoe c. described Welbeck as ‘beautify’d with Turberville, op. cit. , . large additions, fine apartments, and good gardens’ Goulding, op. cit ., –. [Christopher Morris (ed.), The Journeys of Celia As Horace Walpole noted on his visit in August Fiennes , London, , ; Daniel Defoe, A Tour , ‘there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks through the whole Island of Great Britain , G D H that have escaped...though the last Lord Oxford Cole (ed.), London, , II, ]. cut down above an hundred thousand pounds Tubeville, op. cit ., – . worth’ [Toynbee, op. cit. , ]. Ibid ., . Turberville, op. cit. , , letter to Lady Mary Lady Oxford failed to recover either Nottingham Wortley Montagu, October , . Castle or the Haughton or Clumber estates in See above note . Nottinghamshire [ Ibid ., – ]. Since Lady Oxford’s father had remodelled the Turberville, op. cit. , . exterior of much of the Abbey before his death in Turberville, op. cit. , , n. . Edward Harley was , she had no need to rebuild the exterior. In fact keen to marry an heiress, for, though his father it may be that the Duke’s alterations were Robert Harley, Lord Treasurer and st Earl of interrupted by his unexpected death, and that Lady Oxford and Mortimer, was a successful politician he Oxford was simply completing the remodelling of the was not a rich man, owning only one small family Abbey that her father had begun [see above note estate at Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire [James ]. Lees-Milne, The Earls of Creation, nd ed., Turberville, op. cit. , – . London, , ]. Terry Friedman, James Gibbs , New Haven and Lees-Milne, op. cit. , – . London, , –. Turberville, op. cit. , . London, British Architectural Library, RIBA David Souden, Wimpole Hall, Cambridge , National Drawings Collection (hereafter cited as RIBA), Trust Guidebook, London, , . N / (–), entitled ‘Welbeck Abbey.
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Topographical drawing showing laid out elevations certain repects. It shows buildings such as the of the buildings facing on to the Quadrangle Court, gatehouse inside the courtyard which had already c . Unidentified eighteenth century English been removed by the late Duke, and possibly also draughtsman.’ Sally Jeffery has recently suggested sections of the formal gardens which Richardson that this drawing might be by John James. himself had already removed, and it therefore seems Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Gough Maps , fo. likely that this plan is based on an earlier survey. v, illustrated in A Hamilton Thompson, The Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Record Office, Premonstratensian Abbey of Welbeck , London, , Portland Papers (hereafter cited as NRO), opposite p. . The right hand section of this Deposit, DD. P and DD. P, especially DD. P facade was obviously much older, consisting mostly / /– , estimates and accounts, and DD. P of monastic buildings that had been roughly // and , //–, //–, //; Sally Jeffery, converted into domestic accommodation in the English Baroque Architecture, The Work of John sixteenth century. James, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London Walpole Society , XXX, – , ‘Vertue Notebooks, University, , –. Vol. VI’, , fol. b. Dr Richard Pococke (later Turberville, op. cit. , , n. . Bishop of Ossory), who visited Welbeck on August NRO, DD. P //, February , /. described a similar arrangement. ‘The RIBA, N / –; Howard Colvin, A Biographical buildings are round a court, there being only an Dictionary of British Architects, – , rd opening to the garden; on the side of the entrance edition, New Haven and London, , . are brick buildings for offices, which are to come NRO, DD. P //. down, to the right is a very fine riding house, to be NRO, DD. P //, February /. converted to a stable for fifty horses. On the other Colvin, op. cit., . two sides are buildings of free stone, which have Ibid. , . been repaired by the lady Oxford, and afford much Turberville, op. cit. , . convenient room’ [J J Cartwright (ed.), ‘R Pococke’s This doorcase and its inscription were moved Travels Through England’, Camden Society , XLII, forwards by Ernest George who added a rusticated XLIV, London, –]. projection, topped with a segmental pediment, to This survey drawing of shows the west front the central bay of this facade. [Pete Smith, ‘Welbeck with twelve windows and the Ignatius Stanley plan Abbey and the th Duke of Portland’ in The of (Fig. ) shows the same front with fourteen Edwardian Great House , Malcolm Airs (ed.), windows, suggesting that Lady Oxford extended Oxford, , forthcoming]. this front to the north by two bays. Today this front Hamilton Thompson, op. cit. , opposite p. . still has fourteen windows. One payment was made to ‘Ignatius Stanley, Joiner There are unfortunately no known views of the for Work done in the Duke’s Apartment & Rooms’ eastern facade of Welbeck Abbey at this time. The [NRO, DD. P //, April , ], a second was only early illustration of the eastern facade survives made to Stanley ‘for Work done in the Duke & in the background of one of Duke William’s famous Duchess of Portland’s Bedroom and Dressing horse pictures, painted c. , which now hangs in Rooms’ [NRO, DD. P //, January, /] and a the entrance hall at Welbeck Abbey. It shows a very third was made to ‘Thomas Greaves, Plasterer for irregular, largely early seventeenth century facade, work done on the Duke of Portland’s Appartments’ which does not correspond with the plan by Stanley [NRO, DD. P //, April, ]. of . The regular yet closely spaced windows on The only other rooms in the Oxford Wing recorded the central section of this facade, visible on this plan in pre– photographs were remodelled by the (Fig. ), may well be part of the Duke’s remodelling th Duke in the nineteenth century. and the three slightly wider spaced windows to the NRO, DD. P //, . north were presumably part of Lady Oxford’s RIBA, N / . additions. I am grateful to both Sally Jeffery and Richard Welbeck, Welbeck Abbey Archives, two garden Hewlings for pointing out this idiosyncratic method plans by Francis Richardson dated . The survey of decorating a scale found on other known plan does not correspond with the survey in drawings by John James.
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See above note . RIBA, N / (–). NRO, DD. P //, March, May and , October RIBA, N / (). [three separate payments]. According to these drawings the original Pillar Welbeck, Welbeck Abbey, The Harley Foundation. Parlour chimney-piece measures ft wide, ft high This facade was recorded in at least one late- and ft deep, whilst the adapted design measures ft Victorian photograph taken from the south-east wide, ft high and only ft ins deep. which still shows the same gabled east front to the Sally Jeffery has suggested that the handwriting is right [Pete Smith, ‘Welbeck Abbey and the th Duke very similar to James’s known style. of Portland’ in Malcolm Airs (ed.), The Victorian Gunnis, op. cit. , . Great House , Oxford, , , fig. ]. Idem . Terraces were later raised before the east and west Idem . fronts by Repton, so that these fronts also now Idem . appear to be only two storeys high [Dorothy Stroud, Toynbee, op. cit. , – . Humphry Repton , London, , – ]. Turberville, op. cit ., . NRO, DD. P //, April . Ibid. , , n. . NRO, DD. P //, May . NRO, DD. P //, December . This is not that unlikely, in view of some of the other NRO, DD. P //, February , /. horse-related buildings built here and at Bolsover Llanover, op. cit. , , letter from Mrs Delany to Mrs Castle by both her ancestors and her descendants Dewes, September , . [Mark Girouard, Robert Smythson and the The present Red Drawing room is roughly the same Elizabethan Country House , New Haven and dimensions, though it was remodelled by John Carr London, , – and – ; Pete Smith, op. c. , altered again by the th Duke, and then cit. , – ]. redecorated by Ernest George [Pete Smith, ‘Welbeck Turberville, op. cit. , . Abbey and the th Duke of Portland’ in Malcolm Her taste for the Jacobean Revival style also Airs (ed.), The Edwardian Great House , Oxford, extended to jewellery. Derek Adlam, the curator at , forthcoming]. Welbeck Abbey, has recently discovered that at least Welbeck, Welbeck Abbey Archives, Welbeck one of the famous Welbeck Miniatures, restored for Albums by George & Yates. Lady Oxford, has a Jacobean Revival setting. NRO, DD. P //, October , . Goulding, op. cit. , , letter to Lady Mary Wortley This type of arched coving appears occasionally in Montagu, June , contemporary Baroque design. Nicholas Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors: Hawksmoor used a somewhat similar form of coving – , London , revised , –. on the ceiling of St Alphege, Greenwich, where John Ibid ., . James and his partner Robert Jelfe were employed as RIBA, N / (). Attached to this drawing is a list of carpenters [Kerry Downes, Hawksmoor , nd marbles chosen for the Drawing room chimney-piece edition, London, , – , plate ]. Other [N / ()]. This would suggest that it relates to this similar examples survive in the halls at Gilling hearth drawing, but the size of the hearth is not that Castle, Yorkshire and Beningborough Hall, of the Drawing room chimney-piece. It is closer in Yorkshire [Kerry Downes, English Baroque size to the surviving hall chimney-piece and also has Architecture , London, , figs. and ]. exactly the same coloured Cavendish symbols. It It may have looked similar to the surviving staircase therefore seems likely that these two drawings were landing at Donnington Grove, Berkshire [Terence mistakenly put together by a later hand. Davis, The Gothick Taste , London, , , fig. ]. In a lecture given to the Georgian Group in NRO, DD. P //, October , . February I suggested that the Jacobean Revival NRO, DD. P //, November . plaster ceiling in this room might also have dated Geoffrey Beard, Craftsmen and Interior Decoration from the mid-eighteenth century, but new in England, – , Edinburgh, , – . photgraphic evidence has recently come to light in Ibid. , . the Welbeck Archives which proves that this ceiling Llanover, op. cit. , , letter from Mrs Delany to Mrs was inserted by Ernest George. Dewes, September , .
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NRO, DD. P //, October , and November The present drive, which slopes down to the ground . floor level of the main house, was presumably dug Goulding, op. cit. , ; NRO, DD. P //, July . out for the th Duke to gain better access to his new NRO, DD. P //, October , . underground rooms [Smith, The Victorian Great The Gothick decoration in this room is similar in House , cit. , –]. style to the Gothick designs of Nicholas Turberville, op. cit. , , n. , letter to the Marquess Hawksmoor, which of course James would have of Titchfield, May , . been familiar with, since he was the executant Goulding, op. cit. , , letter to the Marquess of architect responsible for the building of the west Titchfield, July , . towers added to Westminster Abbey to Tim Mowl and Brian Earnshaw, Trumpet at a Hawksmoor’s designs [Kerry Downes, op. cit. Distant Gate , London, , , fig. . –]. NRO, DD. P //, . The Oxford Wing is the only part of the Abbey Mark Laird, The Flowering of the Landscape Garden, known to have been designed by Robert Smythson Philadelphia, , –, –, –, figs. –, [Girouard, op. cit. , –]. ; Tom Williamson, Polite Landscapes, Gardens & Llanover, op. cit. , . Society in Eighteenth- Century England , Stroud, cI had assumed that it might be connected to the , –; Christopher Thacker, The Genius of Chinoiserie chimney-piece and mirrors in the Gardening, The History of Gardens in Britain and present Swan Drawing room, but recent research Ireland , London, , ; David Jacques, now suggests that these Chinoiserie fittings were Georgian Gardens, The Reign of Nature , London, purchased from Ireland by the th Duke in the mid- , . Francis Richardson drew Lord Petre’s nineteenth century [Derek Adlam, Welbeck Abbey]. designs for Worksop Manor in [Marcus Binney, NRO, DD. P //, August , ‘To Jos. Rose, ‘Worksop Manor, Nottinghamshire-I’, Country Life , Plasterer his Bill for the Great Hall – £ ...’ March , , – ]. Pairs of ‘before’ and ‘after’ NRO, DD. P //, August , ‘To Ignatius garden plans by Richardson survive for Lowther Stanley his bill for ye Great Hall – £ . ..’ James Castle, Cumberland, dated [Architectural Osborne, mason, also submitted his bill for the Drawings from Lowther Castle , Howard Colvin, J Great Hall the same day for £ . .. Mourdant Crook, Terry Friedman (eds.), NRO, DD. P //, July . Architectural History Monograph: No. , Society of Turberville, op. cit. , opposite p. . Architectural Historians of Great Britain, , Smith, in The Victorian Great House , cit, . –, cat. nos. and ; illustrated Laird, op. cit., Smith, in The Edwardian Great House , cit. . figs. –], Hale Hall, Lancashire, dated [the Tim Mowl, ‘Henry Keene, – , in Roderick ‘after’ plan illustrated in colour in Jacques, op. cit. , Brown (ed.), The Architectural Outsiders , London, fig. IV] and Atherton Hall, Lancashire, dated , , fig. . [both plans illustrated in Garden History , I, , Geoffrey Tyack, Warwickshire Country Houses , – ]. Richardson also worked at Thoresby Park in Chichester, , – . Nottinghamshire [S Seymour, ‘The Dukeries The account books record a final payment of £ Estates: Improving land and landscape in the later to ‘Mary James for Her deceased Husband John eighteenth century’, Transactions of the Thoroton James Surveyor’ in February , suggesting that Society of Nottinghamshire , XCVII, , ], and at James was working here right up until his death in Cannon Hall in Yorkshire [Laird, op. cit. , ]. I am December [NRO, DD. P //, February ]. particularly grateful to Richard Hewlings for his Jeffery, op. cit. , – . assistance with the career of Francis Richardson. Goulding, op. cit. , , n. , letter to the Marquess of NRO, DD. P //, October , . For a more Titchfield, June , . detailed analysis of Richardson’s work at Welbeck Ibid. , , letter to the Marquess of Titchfield, May , see Laird, op. cit. , , n. and . . NRO, DD. P //, April . Ibid. , . NRO, DD. P / , item (previously DD. P Idem. / //). For details of the plants purchased see Laird, op. cit. , –.
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NRO, DD. P //, November , . NRO, DD. P . / , quoted in Worsley, op. cit. , . Welbeck, Welbeck Abbey Archives, two garden NRO, DD. P //, February /. plans by Francis Richardson dated . Joan Lane, ‘Shobden Church, Herefordshire. A Toynbee, op. cit. , . rococo-gothic masterpiece.’, Apollo , January , Lady Oxford’s son-in-law, the nd Duke of Portland, –. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for continued to spend substantial sums on bringing this information to my attention. improvements to the gardens at Welbeck from Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, cit , . to [D J Bradbury, Welbeck Abbey and the th Ibid ., – . Duke of Portland , Mansfield, , ]. Jeffery, op. cit. , –. H M Colvin (ed.), History of the King’s Works, V, Colvin, cit. , . London, , –; Juliet Allen, ‘New Light on No copies of any of Batty Langley’s books William Kent at Hampton Court Palace,’ Biographical Dictionary, survive in the Library at Architectural History , , , –. Welbeck. Timothy Mowl, ‘The Castle of Boncoeur and the Lady Oxford would no doubt have been well Wizard of Durham’, The Georgian Group Journal , acquainted with the famous biography of her great- , –. Stoke Park was only begun in , just grandfather, The Life of William Cavendish, Duke of as work at Welbeck Abbey was nearing completion. Newcastle , written by his second wife, Margaret, Gordon Nares, ‘Baggrave Hall, Leicestershire,’ Duchess of Newcastle. Country Life , June , , – . Lady Oxford did also spend relatively large sums on John Maddison, Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk , National restoration work at Bolsover Castle [Worsley, infra. , Trust Guidebook, London, , and –; Peter ‒ ]. The interiors of the Little Keep were Leach, James Paine , London, , – and . themselves something of a milestone in an earlier the Christopher Hussey, ‘Marks Hall, Essex,’ Country phase of the history of the Gothick Revival, which Life , September , , – . I am indebted to Nikolaus Pevsner dubbed ‘Good King James’s Richard Hewlings for bringing these examples of Gothick’ [Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Good King James’s the Jacobean Revival style to my attention. Gothick’ Studies in Art, Architecture and Design , I, Henry Keene also designed the slightly later London, , – ]. Gothick fan-vault at Hartwell Church, –, which with its central pendant and delicately tarceried fans does come close to rivalling the Gothick Hall [Mowl, ‘Henry Keene,’ cit. , –, fig. and , fig. ]. Claydon House was remodelled for Ralph, nd Lord Verney between and [James Lees- Milne, Claydon House , National Trust Guidebook, revised Gervase Jackson-Stops, London, ; Christopher Hussey, English Country Houses Early Georgian , London, , – ].
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