Andor Gomme, 'Chevening: the Big Issues', the Georgian Group Journal, Vol. Xiv, 2004, Pp. 167–186
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Andor Gomme, ‘Chevening: the big issues’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XIV, 2004, pp. 167–186 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2004 CHEVENING: THE BIG ISSUES ANDOR GOMME hevening House, Kent, is one of the most are Campbell’s engraving in volume II of Vitruvius C remarkable and important buildings in the Britannicus , published in (Fig. ), and an estate history of English domestic architecture. At one go it map of which includes a perspective and established an entirely new, classically balanced basement and ground-floor plans of the house formula for elevational design which, initially slow to (Fig. ). There are significant differences of detail catch on, came to define the pattern of house-building between these two, which are best revealed by for years from the mid-seventeenth century, superimposing information from the estate map on across an exceptional range of social position and to Campbell’s elevation (Fig. ), though with one corresponding scale of needs or desires. Perhaps important caution: close examination of the even more important, but intimately bound up with perspective shows, rather surprisingly, that it must be the façade design, is its plan – radically new to from the south-east and therefore shows not the England, but structurally as well as socially rational entrance but the garden front of the house. This is in that the transverse load-bearing walls, which proved by the differing shapes of the perrons on the economically house all the stacks, contain and define two fronts (as shown in plan) and by the presence in a state centre: a box of all the principal entertainment the perspective of a mysterious, and unexplained, rooms which leaves the side ranges free for variable cuboid of brickwork standing against the side of the layouts of family and subsidiary apartments. It thus perron and just proud of the house wall: this and its helped to fix as well as to match new habits of society twin (hidden in the perspective) are plainly visible and settled what became by the end of the century, on the ground-floor plan – at the back. There is, and remained for years thereafter, the standard however, no reason to believe that in the two layout of all but the very largest country houses, and elevations were not, except in details of doorcase and thereby permanently affected those of much more perron, identical. Campbell, we find, has removed modest ambition. The aims of this paper are twofold: the cross-windows and changed the proportions of first, to present the case for Inigo Jones as the architect those in the upper storeys and the roof, has removed of Chevening; second, to establish the whereabouts voussoirs from the basement and string-courses from in the house of the room for which John Webb is below the first- and second-floor windows, one of known to have made ‘ornaments of wainscot’. which is explicitly commented on by Roger North, Chevening was so drastically altered between and added one below those of the ground floor as and that its precise original form is not well as a basement plinth; he has changed the easy to establish. There are three sources for our cornice completely to a conventional Ionic with a knowledge of what the exterior of the house looked pulvinated frieze, has added urns to the belvedere like before Thomas Fort attended to it in and balustrade and redesigned the doorcase and the James Wyatt in the s: the two more important perron of approach steps. The effect of these THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV CHEVENING : THE BIG ISSUES Fig. Chevening, north front: engraving by Colen Campbell, in Vitruvius Britannicus , II, . Fig. Chevening: perspective from south-east, . Chevening Estate . THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV CHEVENING : THE BIG ISSUES Fig. Chevening, north front: Campbell’s elevation adapted to show details from the estate map. Andor Gomme. changes is certainly to make the house appear more Mahon and a year later as the first Earl Stanhope. A in line with early eighteenth-century Palladian taste, forecourt was created with independent office wings as interpreted by Campbell himself, and they may and, more importantly for our understanding of the simply represent a device to assimilate to Campbell’s original, a projection was added to each of the side own practice a house which he attributed to Inigo elevations. In , during Stanhope’s rebuilding Jones, since he was anxious to be recognized as an operations, John Harris’s History of Kent was apostle of that master. If so, it would not be the only published; it included a bird’s-eye view of house which Campbell looked at through somewhat Chevening (Fig. ) drawn by Thomas Badeslade, distorting Palladian lenses. which shows the new additions and the front of the The status of Campbell’s engraving, however (for house looking more like the Campbell version than which no preliminary drawing is known), also needs that of : the engraving is certainly not altogether to be examined. Volume II of Vitruvius Britannicus reliable in detail, but, probably significantly, it shows appeared in , shortly after Chevening had, as no cross-windows and all the string-courses have Campbell’s own introductory note records, passed gone, as has the rooftop balustrade, though the into the ownership of General Stanhope. Soon original cornice seems to have survived and to have afterwards, the house underwent a substantial been repeated on the newly built projections. The transformation at the hands of Thomas Fort, working plate in Vitruvius Britannicus is dedicated to the for its new owner, ennobled in as Viscount previous owner, the dowager Countess of Sussex THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV CHEVENING : THE BIG ISSUES Fig. Chevening from north-west: engraving by Thomas Badeslade, from John Harris, History of Kent , . (widow of the fifteenth Lord Dacre, later first Earl of taken as giving a rough idea of what Chevening Sussex) and, despite the amendments to the façade, looked like directly after Fort’s work there, it seems is evidently intended to represent her house; the reasonable to suppose that he and Stanhope together plan of the ground floor closely follows that on the were influenced by Campbell’s ‘Palladianized’ map, including of course none of Fort’s version of a house whose overall form the latter additions. The possibility therefore suggests itself wanted, for reasons of architectural politics, to that Campbell’s ‘improvements’, together with his record in his book. mention of the new owner, were a piece of self- advertisement designed to attract Stanhope, who did indeed subscribe to the volume of Vitruvius Britannicus in which Chevening appeared. There is THE CASE FOR JONES no reason to suppose that Campbell himself was in This preamble has been necessary because claims of any way involved in Stanhope’s alterations to his the great importance and influence of Chevening house; but Fort will certainly have known this volume , depend as much on its formal appearance and plan as not only through Stanhope, but because Campbell upon whether the broadly accepted date for its had also included Roger Hudson’s house at Sunbury, building can be sustained. As for the latter, I believe Middlesex, ‘designed and conducted by Mr Fort, that we now have good reason to hold that it can. The Anno ’ (Fig. ). If Badeslade’s drawing may be fundamental point was set out long ago by Tipping, THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV CHEVENING : THE BIG ISSUES Fig. Sunbury, Roger Hudson’s house; engraving in Colen Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus , II, . who, thinking that stylistically the house looked as if would have been known by his daughter, who was still alive when her son [the seventeenth] was compiling it should have dated from after the Restoration, his family history. nevertheless accepted that Hasted’s statement in his History of the County of Kent that it was built for the This family history survives and confirms Hasted’s thirteenth Lord Dacre was to be relied on: statement: It was direct from the seventeenth Lord Dacre that Richard [ th] Lord Dacre ... rebuilt his House at Hasted got his information ... the rebuilding by the Chevening Upon a plan of Inigo Jones, as ’tis said; and thirteenth baron is positively asserted. About this, it really seems to be so, being Built in a good Taste; see surely, his descendant is not likely to have been a View of it in Campbell’s Vitruvius Britanicus [sic]; It mistaken. The only alternative builder is the Earl of has since been much altered by the st Earl of Stanhope Sussex [grandson of the thirteenth baron], and that and in regard to the Architecture, not for the better.’ THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV CHEVENING : THE BIG ISSUES The thirteenth baron succeeded to the title and carefully drawn, its accompanying plans can be estates in and died in ; this implies a date verified in the present building, and the crucial cornice for Chevening of some time in the s, which has is confirmed in the Badeslade/Kip engraving. A become fairly widely agreed. Yet, so innovative is the further distinguishing mark is the use of lugged design that some historians are reluctant to accept it. window architraves throughout the elevations, features John Newman is cautious – ‘ if the tradition is to be which at this date appear likewise to be unique to trusted, ..., if Chevening was really built before Jones; two lugged doorway lintels of considerable ’ – and Oliver Hill and John Cornforth would refinement do in fact survive at the east and west clearly prefer it to date from the s, though they basement entrances, though the jambs have later go on to quote John Summerson’s then recently been cut away, evidently to allow access for large stated reason for sticking to the traditional date.