Richard Hewlings, ‘The Architect of Weston Park, Staffordshire’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xx, 2012, pp. 22–32
text © the authors 2012 THE ARCHITECT OF WESTON PARK
RICHARD HEWLINGS
lthough Weston Park, Staffordshire, has been , or to the construction of a chapel at Woodhey A attributed to the Restoration architect William and a church at Weston between and . The Taylor in two recent publications, the format of these house at Weston is only mentioned in the past tense, works did not allow the argument for this attribution or as a model for the builders at Woodhey. For to be set out in full. The documentary evidence is instance, the note of an agreement made in February fragile – a date written by the owner, Elizabeth, Lady with the carpenter and joiner Allixander Wilbraham, in a copy of Godfrey Richards’s edition Webdale records that he was to roof and saw at of Palladio at Weston Park, and a letter from William Woodhey ‘as good & Substantiall as any att West’; Taylor in the possession of Yale University. But that his ‘perticons’ were to be ‘as Good as any at further inference can be drawn from the account Weston’; that his ‘Boarding fouring & laying the books of the Wilbrahams’ friends, the Myddeltons of floors w th dowling & Corking’ was to be ‘as well as y e Chirk Castle, Denbighshire; visual and architectural Great parlor att Weston; and that his ‘Seeling joycs analogies with some of Taylor’s other works can be & Ashlar’ was to be ‘as well done as any att Weston’. observed; and the Wilbrahams’ religious and In Lady Wilbraham noted ‘The demands for political opinions were apparently in conformity Carving such Corinthyan Capitalls (& to performe with those of Taylor’s other patrons. ym very well) as upon y e best stear head att Weston’. In Weston was inherited by the six-year-old Noting the price of marble for paving the church in Elizabeth Mitton ( – ), who married Sir , Lady Wilbraham recorded ‘A marble Harth for Thomas Wilbraham ( c. – ), third Baronet, of ye drawing room att Weston Cost five shillings’. Woodhey, near Nantwich, Cheshire, in . Sir This gives some idea of the expensive finishes at Thomas and Lady Wilbraham owned a copy of the Weston, but it casts no light on the history of the first English edition of Palladio, issued by the printer building. Godfrey Richards in . The book, still at Weston, None of Lady Wilbraham’s notes bear dates has fourteen pages of notes about building in the earlier than , except for one on the last page, flyleaves, all in the same hand, and most dated after which records the cost of getting stone ‘for Building Sir Thomas’s death in . They cannot, therefore, Weston house ’. This record, presumably have been his notes, and indeed one of them records retrospective, is the only known evidence for the date that a referee of joiners’ prices was to be chosen of work at Weston Park, presumably the beginning of ‘by me EW:’, indicating that Lady Wilbraham was it, when the assembly of stone must have occurred, the author. or even before. Almost all of them refer either to building work Three years later than this, on August , the at Woodhey Hall, which they reveal as under architect William Taylor wrote to one of his patrons construction between February and November ‘from Weston in Stafford Sheer’. That the author
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX THE ARCHITECT OF WESTON PARK was a surveyor is revealed by the contents of the letter, and an architect as well by its enclosure of an architectural drawing. William Taylor was a member of the London Carpenters’ Company, and had made a living both as a builder and an architect in London after the Great Fire. The date, probably within the construction period of a house whose materials were being assembled in , suggests that Taylor was employed there; although his employment could have been either as builder, surveyor or architect – or as all three. Contemplating work in at an unspecified place, probably Woodhey, since it was then in course of construction, Lady Wilbraham noted the prices for brickwork given by different tradesmen, and these included ‘Mr Taler’. Three of these are given in the present tense, thus: ‘M r Webdalle demand [sic] s: a rod for [a bricke & halfe] The Londeners demand s a rod for y e same Mr Web demands s: a rod for y e same’ But three are given in the past tense, thus: ‘Mr Taler demanded 43s: per: Rod Measuring over all & att all thicknesses Fig. . Weston Park: south front, viewed from east. Mr Russell demanded s: a Rod for a bricke & halfe Wm: Smith had s: per__ thousand viz per: Rod’ The presumption must be that she knew of Taylor, references to Weston Park other than those cited Russell and Smith’s past work. She could have above. Her husband was alive at the time of its learned this from her neighbours; the next line construction, and, as he chose to sit as MP for Stafford reveals that Lady Wrottesley of Wrottesley Hall was in , rather than for a Cheshire constituency, he may one such source: ‘The Lady Wriothesley gives s: a have regarded it as his principal seat, in preference to thousand for Brickwk for all her house from bottom Woodhey. He might be expected to have managed it of foundation to top of y e Chimneys’. But she could as his own property, even if jure uxoris . Nevertheless as easily have learned it from work to her own Lady Wilbraham’s dated notes run from , three property, even as far back as sixteen years previously, years before Sir Thomas’s death, and it is evident when William Taylor was writing from Weston. The that, at least in the case of Woodhey, she was an inference to be drawn from that is that Taylor may active, conscientious and knowledgeable patron of have been employed as a builder at Weston Park; builders, whether her husband was or not. This was and, as there is no evidence that any other known unusual among female patrons, but not unique. architect was employed there in –, he is most Lady Wrottesley was evidently another, as indicated likely to have been its architect as well. above. So was Lady Bridgeman, who directed the Lady Wilbraham’s notes do not include any rebuilding of Castle Bromwich Hall in – ;
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Fig. . Weston Park: south front, centrepiece. Fig. . Weston Park: central stack, south elevation. although the house was unambiguously her (living) was evidently a cordial one, and both families would husband’s, all of the eighty surviving letters from the have been able to observe work in progress on the architect, William Winde, are addressed to her. other’s house. So was the widowed Dame Mary Myddelton of In addition, and perhaps as a result, they shared Chirk, who was responsible for the rebuilding of building tradesmen. On February, three weeks Chirk Castle between and , during the after her grandson’s wedding, Dame Mary Myddelton minority of her grandson, Sir Thomas Myddelton, agreed with ‘Nicholas Needham, carver in wood and second Baronet ( – ). stone, … and his twoe men’ to work at Chirk Castle. While both family seats were in the course of One of these two men was Thomas Dugdale, reconstruction, the Wilbrahams and the Myddeltons described elsewhere as Needham’s servant. Four formed a connection. In February Sir Thomas years later, when Dugdale received a payment, it was Myddelton married Elizabeth, the Wilbrahams’ ‘in pursuance of agreement made at weston’. Either eldest daughter. The Chirk accounts note that ‘Sir Needham or Dugdale, or both, must have been Thomas [Myddelton] went to Weston to be marryed’ present when this agreement was signed, and why on January, and that he did not ‘returne wth yor else would they have been at Weston unless they ladye, from weston’ until June. During this interval were working there? No carving in wood or stone of lamb was brought up from Wrexham to Chirk to mark that date survives inside Weston Park, but the richly the visit of Sir Thomas Wilbraham, presumably carved stone ornament of the south front (including accompanied by his lady, on March. The alliance some primitive figural sculpture) may therefore be
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Needham’s or Dugdale’s work (Figs. ). William Taylor did not design an entirely new Needham’s other man may have been the joiner house at Weston. From the evidence of the fabric the Jonathan Hooke, as Hooke was paid for joinery in Wilbrahams inherited a quadrangular house of the same rooms and on the same days as Dugdale which the internal faces of the east and south ranges was paid for carving, as if they were a team; and it is still survive. The work of c. – comprised the thus possible that he too came to Chirk from Weston. rebuilding of the rest of these two ranges; the north Hooke may therefore have been responsible for the and south ranges were rebuilt later. No doubt only surviving feature of that date within the house, retention of the previous fabric prevented Taylor from a stair with flat-cut balusters from the second floor giving either façade the characteristic proportions of to the roof (Fig. ). It is even possible that the a Restoration country house—compact, and often agreement under which Dugdale was paid in unified by a pediment or a steep hipped roof. The was the agreement made by Dame Mary Myddelton facades at Weston are three storeys high, each storey with his master in February , when both families slightly less high than the one below it, but each were at Weston for the wedding which united them. façade is treated as one composition under a The Myddeltons benefited from the Wilbrahams’ balustraded parapet. This might have produced expertise as well as from their tradesmen. Dame Mary tower-like compositions (like the contemporary Myddelton died in February , and responsibility Ashdown House), were it not that both facades are for direction of work at Chirk Castle might therefore long—nine bays to the east and eleven to the south. have fallen to Sir Thomas. He was, however, able to replace his grandmother’s expertise with that of his mother-in-law. Thus in July he sent a man called Evan of the Nant on a ‘journey to Weston, for my lady Wilbraham’s direc cons about the wainscot in the greate roome in the bell Tower’ at Chirk Castle. By that date she was his former mother-in-law, as the young Lady Myddelton had died, with their three- day-old child, in April , and the connection of the two families had ceased to exist; nonetheless her advice was evidently still regarded as valuable. It seems unlikely, however, that it was advice about design, for the Myddeltons had already had the advice of a professional architect, obscurely described in the accounts as ‘the contriver’. Between June and October ‘mr Taylor, the contriver,’ had been paid for ‘contriveing at the Castle for en weekes’. The relationship between Taylor and Lady Wilbraham at Chirk, and the division of their responsibilities there, may therefore have been based upon a similar relationship and division of responsibilities at Weston. It would appear probable that Taylor was the architect at Chirk because he had Fig. . Weston Park: stair from second floor to roof. previously been the architect of Weston Park. Gareth Williams.
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Fig. . Weston Park: east front. This only became the entrance front in , when the porte-cochère was added to the design of William Burn. Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation.
Fig. . Weston Park: south front. Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation.
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Fig. . Weston Park: stable, south elevation.
The nine-bay east façade (Fig. ) allowed the was to be found at Chipley in the same county. architect to divide it, conventionally, into three The balustraded three-storey elevation (Figs. & ) groups of three, with a pediment over the central is found in Taylor’s design for Escott House, and group, but he treated the eleven-bay south façade on the house attributed to him at Wembury, both in (Fig. ) in a manner unique for its day. The two end Devon. The front door at Weston (Fig. ) has pairs are slightly brought forward and grouped garlands carved in sunk panels on the flanking under segmental pediments; the central bay is faced pilasters, which can also be found on the west in stone; and the windows of the fourth and eighth window of Minsterley Church. The stable at bays are distinguished from their neighbours by the Weston has rainwater heads dated , by which addition of cornices. The need to break up this long time Lady Wilbraham may have been employing front in such a rhythmic and hierarchical manner another architect. But, if it too was designed by may account for the provision of richly carved stone William Taylor, it may be noted that it has a door with ornament, carefully distributed. a flat-ended pediment (Fig. ), similar to pediments Some of these distinctive features recur in Taylor’s at Escott, Aldenham and Minsterley, to a door into other buildings. The segmental pediment (Figs. ) the chapel at Chirk, and to a door attributed to is found at Minsterley Church, Shropshire, and on Taylor at Mount Edgcumbe, Cornwall. the frontispiece attributed to Taylor at Dunster Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Weston Castle, Somerset; and a serpentine version of it Park was a long gallery on the second floor of the
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Fig. . James Paine (here attrib.), plan of second floor of east wing of Weston Park, c. . Staffordshire Record Office . east range, recorded in a survey plan made by James ( –) and Aldenham ( – ), all in Shropshire, Paine shortly before , by which time he had and at Kedleston ( ), in Derbyshire, was at least divided it into bedrooms (Fig. ). Few long galleries within his geographical range. were built as late as the s. But among them were In addition the distinctive character of his the galleries at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire, and patronage circle was Dissenting, or at least anti- Halifax House, St James’s Square, one or both of Catholic. Most of his patrons supported the exclusion which were contrived by William Taylor, described of the Catholic Duke of York from the succession. as Lord Halifax’s ‘architector’, and at Longleat, Their political leader was the Earl of Shaftesbury, also contrived by William Taylor in –. Among and their intellectual mentor was John Locke. As them also is the Long Gallery at Chirk Castle, the recently as it was discovered that Taylor had most complete of the surviving rooms there ‘contrived’ acted as architect for Shaftesbury himself. And by William Taylor. only in December was it revealed that Taylor William Taylor’s patronage circle was also was described as ‘architector’ of the Marquess of distinctive. Taylor’s existence was unknown until Halifax, the famous ‘Trimmer’. , and his patronage circle was not explained Sir Thomas Wilbraham’s beliefs conformed to until . By origin a London carpenter, much of these. His upbringing was described as ‘godly’, and his work was for a particular circle of men with himself as ‘sober’, and a ‘believed Presbyterian’ business in the City and estates either in the West whose chaplain was a non-conformist. The chapel Country or the west Midlands, or both. Weston, not which Lady Wilbraham built at Woodhey in far from work by him at Rossall ( –), Minsterley has a pulpit and reading desk, but no altar, and was
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XX THE ARCHITECT OF WESTON PARK evidently not intended for the sacrament. Her endowment required the incumbent to be ‘someone of the reformed or protestant Religion or Communion opposed to popery’. As Parliamentary candidate for Stafford in the second election of he stood in the country interest. Nevertheless it is interesting to note that Weston Park is not austere. The carved embellishment of its south front and the records of dowled and calked floors in the great parlour, Corinthian capitals on the best stair, and marble hearth in the drawing room indicate that Presbyterian godliness and sobriety did not exclude display from the lives of the country gentry in Restoration England. If Taylor was the architect of Weston Park, critical appraisal of him is in need of upward revision. Fig. . Weston Park: stable, south elevation, carved Although Needham’s or Dugdale’s figurative carving cartouche in the pediment. The arms are those of on the south front may be naive, the architectural Sir Thomas Wilbraham ( c. – ). Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation. ornament is not (Fig. ). For instance, the friezes of the window entablatures have a cyma reversa profile (Figs. & ), uncommon at any time save the mid and House, put up between and , and on the late seventeenth century, but at that date distributed Royal Exchange, built between and . among architecturally ambitious buildings all over There is little doubt of the prestigious quality of the the country. They include the Tiltyard Tower in first three of these four buildings, commissioned Hampton Court Palace, a structure of the s with respectively by the Duke of Buckingham, a door evidently inserted in the mid-seventeenth Archbishop Laud, and Queen Dowager Henrietta century; Aynhoe Park, Northamptonshire, Maria. Their architects are not known for certain, designed by Edward Marshall before ; Hutton- but Inigo Jones is a convincing attribution for the in-the-Forest, Cumberland, built by Edward Addison first of them, Sir Balthasar Gerbier for the second, in – (probably to the design of someone better and the third was at least executed by the King’s educated); The Close, Carlisle, perhaps also by Works under the supervision of Sir John Denham; Addison; and Arthington Hall, Yorkshire, designed Edward Jerman is known to have been the architect by an unidentified architect a little before . of the Royal Exchange. Taylor was a Londoner, and Another feature of Weston Park, the giant these were presumably his sources. The use of segmental pediment over the end bays of the south these features may not take Taylor into the front (Fig. ), is also characteristic of prestigious Wren/Hooke league of philosopher-architects, but it English architecture of the mid-seventeenth indicates that he could at least compete in the lively century. The earliest English examples may be company of Jerman, Marshall or Addison. those on the York Water Gate, London, of , and in the Canterbury Quadrangle in St John’s College, Oxford, put up in . After the Restoration giant segmental pediments were placed on the reredos of the Queen’s Chapel at Somerset
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS miles south of Weston, was rebuilt by Sir Walter I am indebted to Gareth Williams for his assistance Wrottesley ( – ), third Baronet., ‘about the same time’ as his third marriage, which must have in preparing this article, and for opening all doors, occurred after , when his second wife died: actual and metaphorical, at Weston Park. Major-General the Hon. George Wrottesley, ‘A History of the Family of Wrottesley’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire , NS, VI ( ) ( ), pp. – , which also records a rainwater head dated (ibid. , p. , note ). Nikolaus Pevsner, NOTES The Buildings of England: Staffordshire Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of (Harmondsworth, ), pp. – , gives as British Architects – (New Haven and the date. It is possible that Wriothesley, the name of London, ), p. ; Richard Hewlings, ‘A lost a great, if extinct, noble family, came more easily to architect revealed’, Country Life , August , , Lady Wilbraham than that of her neighbours. pp. –. There are other references to Weston, but to the Basil Duke Henning, The History of Parliament: place, rather than to the house. One is a ‘Note att The House of Commons – , II (London, Weston y t nine stack of Coals makes one Kill of ), p. . brick w ch containes : thousand’ (Weston Palladio , Eileen Harris, British Architectural Books and front flyleaf ); and another is a note of ‘The rates of Writers – (Cambridge, ), pp. –. nayles from Wolverhampton to Weston’ in , Weston Park, Library, acc. no. . , Godfrey compared with ‘Nayles if carried from Richards, The First Book of Architecture by Andrea Wolverhampton to Woodhey’ (Weston Palladio , Palladio (hereafter cited as Weston Palladio ), front front flyleaf ). flyleaf . Henning, loc. cit . Weston Palladio , front flyleaves and . Briony AK McDonagh, ‘Women, Enclosure and Weston Palladio , front flyleaf . Estate Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Weston Palladio , front flyleaf . Northamptonshire’, Rural History , ( ), Weston Palladio , rear flyleaf . p. , reveals, in particular, that Elizabeth Prowse of New Haven (Conn), Yale University, Beinecke Rare Wicken oversaw the construction of Wicken church Books Library, Osborn fb . after the deaths of her husband and his father, its Colvin, Dictionary , pp. – . architect, in . Notes – on pp. – of her Weston Palladio , rear flyleaf . article furnish abundant evidence of women as Allixander Webdale agreed to execute the carpentry managers of landed and other property. I am at Woodhey on February : see Weston indebted to Dr McDonagh for an introduction to Palladio , front flyleaves and . this feature of eighteenth-century society. This was presumably Thomas Webb of Middlewich Geoffrey Beard, ‘William Winde and interior (died ), the mason who designed Erdigg Park design’, Architectural History , ( ), pp. –. in : Colvin, op. cit ., p. . Richard Hewlings, ‘The Contriver of Chirk’, ‘Wriothesley’ must be a mistake, as the last National Trust Historic Houses and Collections Wriothesley Earl of Southampton, the fourth, died Annual , June , forthcoming. in , and for four generations previously there WM Myddelton (ed.), Chirk Castle Accounts AD had been no married younger sons to have – (Horncastle, ), pp. , ; Hewlings, established cadet branches: GEC, The Complete ‘Chirk’, cit . Peerage , XII ( ) (London, ), pp. – ; Sir Myddelton, op. cit ., ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Myddelton, op. cit ., ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (London, Myddelton, op. cit ., ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . ), pp. –; Benj. W Greenfield, ‘The Myddelton, op. cit ., , ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . Wriothesley Tomb in Titchfield Church’, Papers Myddelton, op. cit ., ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . and Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club ( ), Myddelton, op. cit ., ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . p. . On the other hand Wrottesley Hall, a few Myddelton, op. cit ., , .
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Myddelton, op. cit ., , ; Hewlings, ‘Chirk’, cit . Gallery”: its origins, development, use and Hewlings, ‘Lost Architect Revealed’, cit .; a fuller decoration,’ Architectural History , ( ), pp. , account of Weston Park by the author is in ; Wrottesley, op. cit. , p. . preparation for the Weston Park Foundation. Mark N Brown, ‘Savile, George, first marquess of The roof was rebuilt by John Carr in [Stafford, Halifax ( – )’, Oxford Dictionary of National Staffordshire Record Office, Bradford MSS, E/ ; Biography (Oxford, ), XLIX, pp. – ; Pete Brian Wragg (ed. Giles Worsley), John Carr of York Smith, ‘Rufford Abbey and its Gardens in the th (York, ), pp. –, and its earlier form is not and th Centuries’, English Heritage Historical known. Review , ( ), pp. –. John Harris, ‘William Taylor, new attributions’, Colvin, Dictionary , p. ; Christopher Hussey, Georgian Group Journal , ( ), pp. – . ‘Longleat, Wiltshire – IV’, Country Life , April Bridget Clarke, ‘William Taylor, new discoveries’, , p. . Georgian Group Journal , ( ), p. . Hussey, ‘Chirk’, op. cit ., pp. (fig. ) and Clarke, op. cit ., p. ; Harris, op. cit ., p. . (description). Harris, op. cit ., p. . Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of Christopher Hussey, ‘Weston Park, Staffordshire – I’, British Architects – (London, ), p. . Country Life , November , p. . It may be Clarke, op. cit ., – ; Colvin, Dictionary ( ed.), noted that the date of Taylor’s death has yet to be pp. – . discovered, but he was still alive in : Colvin, Richard Hewlings, ‘Achitaphel’s Architect’, op. cit ., p. . Georgian Group Journal , ( ), pp. –. Clarke, op. cit ., pp. , ; Harris, op. cit ., p. ; Smith, op. cit . Christopher Hussey, ‘Chirk Castle, Denbighshire – Henning, loc. cit . III’, Country Life , October , p. (fig. , Julian Treuherz and Peter de Figueiredo, Cheshire door at the left). Country Houses (Chichester, ), pp. –. Harris, op. cit ., p. . It is possible that this Henning, loc. cit. pediment-type was a convention of the moment, There is no published documentation of work to rather than a personal signature. There are other the Tiltyard Tower, but Mr Lee Prosser suggests examples: in London (Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, by that the door might be an intervention by Inigo Edward Jerman, –); Northamptonshire Jones. (Aynhoe Park, by Edward Marshall, before ); Gordon Nares, ‘Aynhoe Park, Northamptonshire – I’, Yorkshire (Halnaby Hall and Moulton Manor); Country Life , July , p. (fig. ). Cumberland (Moresby Hall, by William Thackeray John Cornforth, ‘Hutton-in-the-Forest, Cumberland’, c. , Rose Castle, by William Thackeray –, Country Life , February , pp. (fig. ) and Drawdykes Castle, by William Thackeray ; . Hutton in the Forest, by Edward Addison c. ), Elizabeth Hagglund, ‘Cassandra Willoughby’s and Scotland (see Colvin, Dictionary , pp. –, sv Visits to Country Houses’, Georgian Group James Smith). Journal , ( ), p. ; Brian Wragg (ed. Giles Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, M B; the Worsley), John Carr of York (Otley, ), pp. –; drawing is attributable to Paine by its hand. Paine’s Peter Thornborrow, ‘John Carr’s West Yorkshire subdivision of these rooms must have been complete Buildings’, York Georgian Society , , p. ; Giles by , when he began submitting bills for the Worsley, ‘Crediting Carr’, Country Life , CLXXXII, chimneypieces with which he had supplied them: 5 May , pp. –; Hugh Montgomery- Staffordshire Record Office, R . Massingberd, ‘Sheepshanks of Arthington’, Late examples of long galleries can be found at The Field , Jan . Bolsover ( –), Althorp ( –), Nottingham Segmental pediments were an Antique feature, Castle ( – ), Sudbury ( s– s), Shavington found, for instance, on the alternate aedicules within ( – ), Chatsworth ( – ), and Wrottesley the Pantheon. Their earliest modern use may have (c. –): Rosalys Coope, ‘The gallery in England: been on the frame of Donatello’s Annunciation in names and meanings’, Architectural History , Sta Croce, Florence, made in : Christoph ( ), pp. – ; Rosalys Coope, ‘The “Long Luitpold Frommel, The Architecture of the Italian
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Renaissance , London, , p. . A segmental Simon Thurley, ‘The Stuart Kings, Oliver Cromwell pediment in giant form was what Alberti intended and the Chapel Royal – ’, Architectural for the Tempio Malatestiana at Rimini ( ) and History , ( ), pp. –; Simon Thurley, what Mauro Codussi built at S Michele in Isola ‘Somerset House’, London Topographical Society , ( ), Venice: Frommel, op. cit ., pp. , . ( ), p. . Thereafter more giant segmental pediments were Ann Saunders (ed.), ‘The Royal Exchange’, London built in Italy, of which the most conspicuous was Topographical Society , . that on the inner face of Michelangelo’s Porta Pia It may be noted, however, that the porch of Castle ( ): Frommel, op. cit ., p. . Giant segmental Bromwich Hall has a giant segmental pediment. pediments were frequent in France from the time of Armorial evidence reveals that this was built after Lescot’s rebuilding of the Louvre courtyard in : , but no more precise date is known: Geoffrey Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Le Premier Volume Beard, ‘Castle Bromwich Hall, Warwickshire’, des plus excellents Bastiments de France (Paris, Country Life , May , , p. . It may have been ), passim ; Rosalys Coope, Salomon de Brosse among Taylor’s sources, or Weston Park may have (London, ), pls. –, –, , –, –, been its source; indeed it is possible that Taylor –, , , , , , –, , , , designed it. – , ; Allan Braham and Peter Smith, Wren’s ‘Definitive Design’ of St Paul’s Cathedral, Francois Mansart (London, ), passim; Robert settled by , included open segmental pediments W Berger, Antoine le Pautre (New York, ), over the ordinal crossing arches beneath the drum, pls. , , , , , ]. and over the first-floor windows of the transept John Harris, ‘Who designed the York Water-Gate?’, terminals : Kerry Downes, ‘Wren and the new Country Life , November , pp. –. Cathedral’, in Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Howard Colvin, The Canterbury Quadrangle, Andrew Saint, St Paul’s (New Haven and London, St John’s College, Oxford (Oxford, ), pp. –, ), pls. , , and . Jerman or Taylor –. I am grateful to Dr Anthony Geraghty for may have been aware of Wren’s intentions and his drawing my attention to this example. sources before these features were settled.
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