Roger Morris and Lydiard Tregoze’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol

Richard Hewlings, ‘Roger Morris and Lydiard Tregoze’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XIV, 2004, pp. 33–47 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2004 ROGER MORRIS & LYDIARD TREGOZE RICHARD HEWLINGS ydiard Park, at Lydiard Tregoze, four miles west seemed disquietingly facile. In Morris had only Lof Swindon, is the most important English just been identified. He was not one of those country house of ‘Palladian’ type whose architect has, architects whose existence had been continuously until now, been unknown. In the preceding article noted since his lifetime, unlike his relation Robert Carole Fry publishes her discovery of the nd . Lord Morris, whose publications had assured his recorded St. John’s payment to ‘Ro: Morris’ on September attention. Five of Roger’s designs had been published, , which strongly suggests that Roger Morris was all by Woolfe and Gandon in Vitruvius Britannicus , its architect. It has, however, been attributed to two (New Park Lodge, Richmond, and Combe Bank) Morris before, on the basis of its appearance. In , in vol. IV ( ), and three (Wimbledon House, when it had not long been in public ownership, Kirby Hall, and the Palladian Bridge at Wilton) in Christopher Hussey published a largely unsurpassed vol. V ( ). All five designs are inscribed ‘R. Morris account of it in Country Life. His first article (of two) Arch.’, and were inevitably taken to be the work of noted the ‘utmost magnificence’ and ‘assured Robert. accomplishment’ of the principal rooms, and ‘the Roger’s name first appeared in print years exquisite simplicity of the elevations’. In his view after his death, in January , when a letter to ‘a master mason … alone’ could not have been Country Life distinguished him from Robert for the responsible for this. His second article raised the first time. A brisk exchange of correspondence had stakes a little bit further. established Roger Morris as an architect by the … the analogies are definitely with London and not following April. The January letter, from Edith Olivier, with any provincial centre; the execution is first-rate identified him only as clerk of works of the Palladian and the themes are not only consistent in each room Bridge at Wilton. In February James Lees-Milne but with one another, producing the impression that testified that the architect’s drawings for Inverary they were selected and combined by a knowledgeable Castle were clearly signed ‘Roger Morris’. In March and fastidious mind Hussey revealed his discovery that Vertue had clearly And he was prepared to identify whose mind it was. called Roger Morris architect of Chichester Council ‘The general resemblance of the fronts, with their House, and Hussey speculated on what else Morris pavilions, to Wilton’, where Roger Morris had might have done at Goodwood. In April W.J. Hemp worked in – , and of the internal decoration to broadcast Morris’s post as Carpenter and Principal Marble Hill House, of which Morris was the architect, Engineer to the Board of Ordnance, his intimacy led him to attribute its design to Roger Morris. with the Duke of Argyll and Earl of Pembroke, his It is difficult to disagree with Hussey’s particular date of death and much of his genealogy. In March observations, and no one has disagreed with his of the following year Hussey enthusiastically conclusion. Nonetheless his attribution always attributed Trafalgar House, Standlynch, Wilts., to THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV ROGER MORRIS & LYDIARD TREGOZE Fig. Lydiard Park, view from the south before the rebuilding of c. –, on an early eighteenth-century estate map. Ward-Boughton-Leigh archives, Warwickshire Record Office. Morris on the basis of misinformation—that Morris’s edition of Howard Colvin’s Biographical Dictionary , wife, Mary, was the sister of Sir Peter Vandeput, who it had disappeared from the edition. built the house. Further information about Morris’s * * * work at Wilton and at Eastbury emerged in and No accounts or letters have been found to confirm or respectively. deny Christopher Hussey’s insight. Date and builder Thus in an attribution to a newly discovered alone are known from a stone inscription inside the architect of such apparent importance may have been attic storey. more tempting than it would be today. Since the This house was Rebuilt AD: MDCCXLIII by Iohn careers of other previously unknown ‘Palladian’ Lord Viscount St. Iohn who Married Anne the architects (Daniel Garrett, Stephen Wright, or John Daughter & Coheiress of Sr. Robert Furnese Barronet Sanderson, for instance) have been established, and of Waldershare in the County of Kent now we might wish to consider them too as possible Lord St. John was the second Viscount, and in architects of Lydiard Park. Furthermore Hussey’s he had not long inherited, although still within the inclusion of Trafalgar House with the two other life of a very much older and very much better known buildings in which he saw resemblances to Lydiard brother, for which some explanation is required. diminishes confidence in his attribution; in this Both brothers were the children of Henry St. erroneous attribution was corrected, revealing John ( – ), who had been put in possession of Trafalgar to be the work of John James. There has Lydiard Tregoze in by his father, Sir Walter St. therefore been some cause to treat Hussey’s attribution John, rd. Baronet, although Sir Walter did not die with reserve. Although mentioned in the until . An early eighteenth-century view of THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV ROGER MORRIS & LYDIARD TREGOZE Fig. Lydiard Park, plan, . The room names currently used are, from left to right, ante-room, library, hall, dining room, drawing room, bedchamber and closet. Crawford and Gray Architects. Lydiard Park shows a house whose front elevation September, the attainder including the loss of his was styled somewhat in the manner of William peerage. In France, James III appointed him his Hurlbutt (Fig. ). This could have been done for Secretary of State and created him Earl of Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, or even for Sir Walter, who was but he opposed the rebellion of and detached married to his cousin Johanna, daughter of the Oliver himself from James, who dismissed him in March St John who had built Thorpe Hall, Peterborough, . The first step in his rehabilitation came in the in –. following July, when his father (by then Sir Henry, Henry St. John married twice. His only son by th baronet since ) was elevated to the peerage his first marriage, also Henry, born in , was the as Viscount St. John, also with remainder to his sons famous Secretary of State in the Tory administration by his second wife. Bolingbroke was pardoned in of – , and subsequent political philosopher, and returned to the country in , although known to posterity as Lord Bolingbroke. He was his peerage remained abeyant during his life, only made a peer in , as Viscount Bolingbroke, with coming alive again for his heirs. special remainder to the sons of his father by the Beside Lydiard Tregoze, the family had an estate latter’s second marriage. Of these the second son and at Battersea, in Surrey, and the st . Lord St John lived ultimate heir was John, re-builder of the house in mainly in London, first in Bury Street, then from , who was born in , nearly twenty-four years to in Berkeley Street, and from at least after his famous elder brother. in Albemarle Street, where he died in . Yet As is well known, Bolingbroke fled the country Bolingbroke, although always in need of money, did in March and was attainted the following not take on Lydiard. He had the use of his wife’s THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV ROGER MORRIS & LYDIARD TREGOZE house at Bucklebury on the Berkshire Downs (and in a pavillon in a fashionable convent, he evidently thus not far from Lydiard) until her death in , did so only for their recreational opportunities. He when she left it to her sister. By then he was was also clearly aware of the expressive possibilities ‘superintending buildings’ at Marcilly-sur-Seine, of his residence. He made use of rural retreat as a near Nogent-sur-Seine, in Champagne, the home of political stance. He was pleased to know that he was his second wife, formerly the Marquise de Villette. nicknamed ‘the Thracian’ in his absence at From to they leased the Château de la Bucklebury, the reference being to Xenophon, Source, near Orléans, where he built a new house awaiting his country’s call. As an obviously and ornamented the grounds which surround the political gesture he renamed Dawley Dawley Farm , spring from which the property takes its name. In and had rakes and spades painted on the walls of the he bought Dawley House in Middlesex, and hall. All this suggests a belief that the value of a engaged Gibbs to alter and enlarge it. But in he country seat was solely political. So he may have retired to Chanteloup in Touraine, with the later use resigned Lydiard to his brother because, excluded of a château at Argeville, near Fontainebleau (for the from the House of Lords, he had no political hunting), and of a pavillon in the convent of Notre opportunities. Dame at Sens, of which his step-daughter was There are indications that Bolingbroke’s abbess. He sold Dawley in . In he resignation of his interest in Lydiard Park took place returned to England again, and from then until his in . He retained the income from the death in he evidently had the use of the family woodlands, the advowson of the church and, manor house at Battersea, although his father’s strangely, the contents of both Lydiard Park and will, made in , makes it clear that the lease of Battersea Manor House apart from the pictures.

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