The Duke of Beaufort's Garden in Upper
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Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, ‘“New making” the Duke of Beaufort’s garden in Upper Grosvenor Street’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XII, 2002, pp. 149–162 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2002 ‘NEW MAKING’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT’S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET TODD LONGSTAFFE - GOWAN uch is known about the late seventeenth- nineteen the Duke ‘travelled for his general Mcentury garden of Beaufort House in Chelsea – education’, accompanied by his steward, Dominique the princely pleasance created by Mary, st Duchess of du Four. Whilst in Italy Beaufort acquired a ‘large Beaufort in the early s. Very little, however, has quantity of statues, Busts, and pictures’, and been published on Beaufort House, Mayfair, and commissioned the celebrated ‘Badminton Cabinet’ nothing on its equally extensive gardens which were from the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence – created by the Duchess’s great-grandson between possibly one of the greatest works of decorative art – . ever commissioned by a British patron. He also From the mid seventeenth century the Dukes of appears to have studied architecture – possibly under Beaufort kept ‘a very large House with a Garden his Roman landlord, the antiquary Giovanni towards the River Thames ’ (on the site of the present Francesco Guarnieri. Surviving architectural day Savoy Hotel). The st Duke ‘finding it crazy, and drawings in the Badminton archive suggest that the by its Antiquity grown very ruinous, and altho’ large, Duke was a competent draughtsman. Beaufort was a yet not after the Modern way of Building, thought it patron of the architects James Gibbs, William Kent, better to let out the Ground to Undertakers, than and Francis Smith as well as the ‘landskip gardener’ build a new House thereon’. He therefore ‘bought Charles Bridgeman, and appears to have been on Buckingham House at Chelsey [in ], in an Air he terms of easy familiarity with many of the architects thought much healthier, and near enough to the and artists he employed. Town for Business…and having the Conveniency of The rd Duke acquired the lease of his house in a Prospect over the Thames ’. This remained the Upper Grosvenor Street in for £ , . Beauforts’ principal London (albeit suburban) Beaufort House in Mayfair – latterly Gloucester residence until the st Duke’s death in . Neither House, and more recently Grosvenor House – was the nd Duke (d. ) nor the rd Duke, however, lived erected in – by Walter, st Viscount Chetwynd. in Chelsea, which was sold in ; both resided in The large detached house stood on a trapezoidal modest town houses in Piccadilly until the mid s, parcel of land which enjoyed a long frontage to Park when the third Duke, eager to establish a more Lane; it is the site of the present day Grosvenor magnificent establishment in town, moved to the House Hotel (Fig. ). The dwelling was set back western fringes of the fashionable Grosvenor Estate some ninety feet from Upper Grosvenor Street in a in Mayfair. funnel-shaped ‘Gravill’ courtyard. The latter had a Henry Somerset, rd Duke of Beaufort ( – ) narrow opening into Upper Grosvenor Street called succeeded to his estates at the age of seven. He was the ‘Grate Gate’ which was flanked by a pair of educated at Westminster School and matriculated at porters’ lodges. A narrow passage on the east side of University College, Oxford at the age of thirteen. At the house led from the court to the back garden, THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET Whilst many purchasers might have been content to buy the leasehold of the large house and its capacious south-facing garden, Beaufort, with characteristic extravagance, demanded and secured the lease of ‘two other Several Pieces of Ground lying Southward’ of his new garden in order to protect his ‘free Prospect into and over Hyde Park and the Adjacent Country’. It should be remembered that when the Duke took his new premises that Park Lane – or Tyburn Lane as it was then known – was ‘a narrow, rutted and unlit track alongside a high brick wall which screened it from the park’. The road was still unpaved and ruinous and dangerous to passengers in many parts. It was not until the early s that many of the ‘independent houses of substance’, such as Camelford, Breadalbane and Somerset House, began to appear in Park Lane; and none had a garden to compare with that of Beaufort House. The Duke’s newly refurbished garden was evidently of sufficient consequence to figure prominently on Rocque’s Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster in (Fig. ). The garden plan is, in fact, delineated with striking accuracy: a variety of elements depicted on the Survey are described in the – building accounts – most notably the Court, the ‘Grase plat before ye house’, the ‘Sweepes’, the ‘Coatch Road’, and the ‘Great Slope’. Rocque – who described himself as a ‘dessinateur des jardins ’ – stated in his Proposal (c. ) that his New, Accurate, and Comprehensive PLAN would ‘admit…an exact Description of all…considerable Houses and Gardens’. The Fig. Plan of Beaufort House and its garden in . layouts of other ‘considerable’ town gardens at Gloucestershire Record Office . Marlborough, Montagu, Burlington and Devonshire Houses, which are also shown on the Survey, also ft. wide by ft. long. The domestic offices were appear to be reasonably accurately portrayed. It is situated in a small block west of the house, and the not, therefore, surprising to find Beaufort House stable block stood further south along the Park Lane garden fastidiously delineated on the Survey, frontage. Access to the stables, the garden, the drying especially as the Duke is known to have subscribed yard and the offices was gained by the ‘Back Gates’ to the new map. set in Park Lane. Whilst it is clear from the building accounts in THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET Fig. John Rocque, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster , , showing Beaufort House and garden in the triangle bounded by Upper Grosvenor Street, Park Street and Tyburn Lane (now Park Lane). the Badminton muniments that the Duke lavished of most of the garden materials – from the imported great expense on the refurbishment of his newly turf to the ‘pink Edgings’ and the ‘Colleflower acquired house, the precise nature of the plants’. We know, for instance, that ‘ yards of Box improvements is unrecorded. There are, however, at d pr yard’ planted yards of hedging, that ‘ full accounts for the ‘New making & altering’ of the Honnysuckells of Dutch Sorts’ were planted in ‘ye garden. These records are particularly interesting as Borders and on ye Dwarfe wall Round ye Sweepes’, they document the building of one of London’s and that the three-quarter acre garden was recast grandest early eighteenth-century town gardens. with astonishing speed. The garden was created in Among the papers there is a scrupulous account of the short spell between th December and th the day by day construction of the gardens, as well as January , although doubtless there was some weekly reports which list all the labourers and their form of garden in place when Turner arrived. contributions, and notes on the provenance and cost Building a large garden in town could be a costly THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII ‘ NEW MAKING ’ THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT ’ S GARDEN IN UPPER GROSVENOR STREET and complex exercise. The Duke’s garden cost £ at the Palace when he undertook the Duke’s s d. The mobilisation and supervision of teams of commission, he appears to have come to London for gardeners, and the supply and delivery of plants and the duration of the work. He informed the Duke that building materials were among the responsibilities he gave the work ‘My Caire and attendance…all the that were generally entrusted to a master gardener. Time it was Doing’ because it was ‘what your Grace Master gardeners were professional serving pleases to order me’. Turner did, nonetheless, work gardeners who had undergone strict and protracted closely with his foreman Robert Winter; and both indentures. They were generally over twenty-five men collaborated regularly with William Banks, who years old, and had, as journeymen, been apprenticed served as the Duke’s clerk of the works. for at least one year in three distinct situations: a Presumably Turner and Winter recruited their public botanical garden, a public nursery and a gardeners outside London as the vouchers record private garden. In the case of Beaufort House that the Duke contributed towards some of the garden the Duke’s London Estate Steward, Michael gardeners’ lodgings and travel expenses, including Aiskew, contracted ‘Richard Turner – Gardiner’ to tolls, and ‘watredge & porteradge’ of their tools. carry out the improvements. Skilled journeymen gardeners and common garden It is not known how Turner came to work for the labourers abounded in the western suburbs – and Duke. It is possible that he apprenticed under around Hampton Court in particular. It is, in fact, Charles Bridgeman, who had been employed by the possible that many of the gardeners employed by Duke at Badminton in Gloucestershire in the early Turner at Beaufort House garden also worked at the s. Turner might also have worked under Palace, as most of the Palace garden staff were not on Bridgeman at one of his London commissions. It is the Royal payroll, but employed directly by the Royal conceivable that at some time prior to he came Gardener. into contact with the celebrated landscape improver Surviving building vouchers suggest that work to when the latter was Master Gardener at Hampton the garden began in August when Robert Edwards Court ( – ).