Bianca De Divitiis, 'Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views of Pitzhanger Manor-House', the Georgian Group Journal, Vol. Xi
Bianca de Divitiis, ‘Plans, elevations and perspective views of Pitzhanger Manor-House’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xIV, 2004, pp. 55–74
text © the authors 2004 PLANS, ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR-HOUS E
BIANCA DE DIVITIIS
t the beginning of John Soane published the mock ruins which Soane had built in the garden APlans, Elevations and Perspective Views of between and . Pitzhanger Manor House, and of the Ruins of an Dance’s wing was the only part of the property edifice of Roman Architecture … in a letter to a friend acquired by Soane in which he decided not to . Formed of eight pages of text and twelve demolish or modify, not only because in his judgement illustrations, this was a work on the suburban villa in it deserved to be kept in comparison with the rest of Ealing which he had designed and built for himself the building which lacked ‘symmetry and character’, and his family between and . Thirty years but also because it was a testimonial to the beginning had therefore passed since Soane had designed of his career, as it was the first project on which he Pitzhanger, and over twenty since he had sold the had worked when, as a boy of fifteen, he had first villa in to a General Cameron. His reasons for assisted his master (Fig. ). publishing a work on Pitzhanger and the way in As early as , only two years after the new which he described it are the subject of this article. house had been completed, and possibly encouraged The title of the work would imply that Soane was by the need to carry out some alterations and publishing materials produced in . In reality maintenance works, Soane had designed some both the text and the images were almost entirely changes to Dance’s wing which were never realized, created in for the publication, and on closer at first reducing its length and then transforming the examination both the plates and the descriptive text shortened south side into a bombé front (Figs. on Pitzhanger show significant differences from the and ). In seven years had passed since Dance original project of thirty years earlier. The publication had died, and Soane possibly felt more at liberty to gave Soane an opportunity to re-design some parts make improvements openly to his master’s work. In of his original villa and to update it by applying new his opinion, in order to ‘remove the defects of the ideas. Over sixty preparatory drawings for the twelve exterior, and make it, in some degree, harmonise with final plates were produced during the second half of the character of the interior’, it was necessary to by Charles James Richardson, Soane’s last extend the front of the edifice by adding corner pupil, who subsequently became his assistant. turrets. In his text Soane also suggested that the Richardson’s work was not confined to his usual traditional hospitality of the ‘old Manor-house’ could tasks of drawing the preparatory watercolours for the be evoked by then wainscoting the turrets with lithographic prints and transferring them onto stone; English oak. Although he referred explicitly to the in this case he helped Soane to re-design Pitzhanger, accompanying plates, the drawings in the publication by modifying the two-storey wing built by Soane’s did not in fact correspond completely to Soane’s text. first master, George Dance, in as an extension to As may be seen in the plans of Plate IV and in the two the pre-existing Gurnell family house, together with external views of the house in Plate V and VIII,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Office of John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, front elevation, March , showing George Dance’s wing unaltered. Sir John Soane’s Museum, // .
Soane added an extra bay at the south end of Dance’s Richardson would become a few years later one wing, where turrets are suggested by the addition of of the leading experts and promoters of sixteenth- attics, imitating a Tudor appearance, and repeated on century English architecture, and it is probable that each of the four corners of the edifice (Figs. and ). he played a major role both in the conception and in But the version selected by Soane was only one of the the execution of these two proposals in which the three possibilities prepared by Richardson on this emphasis on the towers adds a castle-like silhouette theme; the two views and the plans of the various to Dance’s wing, characteristic of the Elizabethan floors contained in vol. in the Soane Museum style seemingly recalled in Soane’s text, but lost in show two further hypotheses which correspond more the published images. Soane’s text had in fact been closely to Soane’s text. In the view of the entrance printed by James Moyes two months before the front and in the corresponding plans (Figs. and ) images were drawn on the lithographic stone by two turrets as tall as the building are shown at the Richardson (and subsequently printed by Charles corners: their distinctiveness is emphasized by pairs Ingrey): therefore Soane had had plenty of time to of continuous strip pilasters at the edges and by change his mind, and he chose a version for the crowning colonettes and pinnacles, which seem to illustrations closer to his style. evoke those of Longleat. A variation on this theme is While it is possible to interpret these alterations represented in the view of the rear of the building as an attempt on Soane’s part to modify Pitzhanger (Fig. ) where, almost like gatehouse towers, the two in line with contemporary trends in English turrets on the north side flank a large entrance arch. architecture, they are very different from the changes
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Office of John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, view from the south-east, showing George Dance’s wing shortened, with a bombé front. Sir John Soane’s Museum .
Fig. . Office of John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, basement plan, October ( ?), showing George Dance’s wing shortened, with a bombé front. Sir John Soane’s Museum, // .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . John Soane, Plans, Elevations and perspective Views of Pitzhanger Manor- house , London, , plate IV, plans showing George Dance’s wing with the addition of one bay.
Fig. . John Soane, Plans, Elevations and perspective Views of Pitzhanger Manor-house , London, , plate VIII, view of the rear of the house, showing George Dance’s wing with the addition of one bay.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE which he proposed in . Then he had wanted the suburban villa of Pitzhanger to speak of him more clearly than any book could do; he himself had described the façade as his self-portrait. He had furthermore designed his new house as the centre of a symmetrical design – between the actual surviving building to the south, Dance’s wing, and the artificial ancient remains to the north, the ruins. In such a plan for the building, which saw it as a vehicle for Soane’s desire for social and professional legitimation, no longer had the same meaning. By trying to give Dance’s wing the appearance of a Tudor fortress-dwelling, Soane seems to have wanted not only to invent a further episode in the history of Pitzhanger, but also to widen its narrative value by absorbing its original autobiographical significance into a reflection and summary of changes in architecture over time. With the same synthetic approach to architectural history which he showed in the construction of the Pasticcio in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the capital from the Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, Round Temple in Tivoli is placed on top of a Hindu basement, ground and first-floor plans, showing the one, or in the different names he gave to the various first proposed alterations to George Dance’s wing. spaces in the house-museum (Champs Elysées, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Vol. /. Tivoli Corner, Monk’s Parlour), in these images of Pitzhanger Soane assembled in sequence latter under Henry VIII and his redistribution of the different episodes, both real and invented, in the their lands, thanks to which Pitzhanger became the history of the house and thus transformed it into the private property of a lord. This difference between expression not only of the classical architectural the written accounts, separated by over thirty years, tradition but also of the national one. which Soane gives of the ruins can also be found in This approach is also seen in the description of their design, for, if Dance’s wing was partially the ruins which Soane prepared for the publication modified, the artificial ruins and their hypothetical and which makes no reference to the various reconstructions were totally redesigned for the manuscripts he produced between and for publication. the entertainment of his guests. As part of his Soane had built the ruins to the north of his new attempt to invent a tradition for Pitzhanger he relates villa, at the opposite end to Dance’s wing, in an area the long history lying behind the artificial ruins in which he had succeeded in clearing by demolishing the garden. In they were the vestiges of Roman part of the original service wing and by extending the magnificence; in they tell the story of all the boundary wall by means of an enclosure. From his most significant episodes in English national history: earliest sketches for the ruins in and with the the Roman occupation, the conversion of ancient purpose of making the fiction more plausible Soane edifices into monasteries, the suppression of the also designed hypothetical reconstructions for them,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, view of the front of the house, , showing the first proposed alterations to George Dance’s wing. Sir John Soane’s Museum, Vol. /.
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, view of the rear of the house, , showing further proposed alterations to George Dance’s wing. Sir John Soane’s Museum, Vol. /.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE taking his inspiration from ancient examples which he had studied in books or seen during his tour of Italy (Fig. ). The quadrangular courtyard, formed by two lateral colonnaded wings, a triumphal arch giving entrance to the north and a prostyle temple raised on a podium to the south, recalls on a reduced scale the colonnaded courts in front of temples in the reconstructions in Palladio’s Fourth Book, such as the Forum of Nerva from which Soane borrows the concave entrance front. He also adopts the characteristic feature of ancient building in the Campania region, where a temple occupies the centre of one side of the courtyard, such as the so-called Temple of Serapis in Pozzuoli and the Temple of Isis in Pompei, both of which Soane had visited during his Grand Tour. The small temple of Clitumnus, which Soane, following Palladio, calls ‘the Temple between Foligno and Spoleto’, provided him with the solution of access to the high podium by means of lateral stairs; he also copied the cornice which is moulded on the podium and plain on the sides. However, Soane did not work only from historical models; the hypothetical reconstructions also reveal Fig. . John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, plan and similarities to the buildings on which he was engaged at elevation of the ruins, as if restored, . the time, above all the Bank of England, to the extent Sir John Soane’s Museum, /G/ /v. that the different reconstructions of the ruins at Ealing seem to reflect the successive phases taking In the British Library volume Richardson inserted place in the vast building site in the City. The same two views of the hypothetical reconstruction of the idea of a quadrangular enclosure with rectilinear internal courtyard dating from : the first faces the colonnaded wings and entrance through a triumphal temple and is a copy of a watercolour in the Soane arch which emerges in the sketches of November Museum, whereas the second, which has only had already been used by Soane in Lothbury Court recently been discovered, faces the colonnaded wing two years earlier, in – . In the drawings of the on the eastern side together with the figures of three reconstructions which Soane produced in for visitors (Fig. ). When in he came to work on his visitors, we find the feature which he used in the the publication on the villa in Ealing, which had been Governor’s Court of the Bank, which he worked on built many years before his arrival in Soane’s office, between and , a courtyard with an Ionic Richardson made use of the drawings which the colonnade on a rusticated base punctuated by arched architect and his pupils had produced at the time; in openings. Furthermore the Tivoli-like blank windows some cases, probably including the ruins, these found on the outer wall of the Bank can be seen drawings were the only sources available for through the columnar screen (Fig. ). reconstructing the state of the appearance of the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Office of John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, view within the courtyard of the ruins, looking south, as if restored, c. . British Library, .
Fig. . Office of John Soane, Pitzhanger Manor, view within the courtyard of the ruins, looking east, as if restored, c. . British Library, .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, view of the ruins ‘as they are’, c. . British Library, .
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, revised proposal view of the ruins, c. . British Library, .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
architectural elements of the ruins shown in this drawing are very similar to those in Basevi’s watercolour done on December , only a few days after Soane had sold Pitzhanger to General Cameron, and now among the preparatory drawings for the publication kept in vol. in the Soane Museum. It is difficult to establish whether Richardson sketched on site the few ruins which remained, or worked from the drawings, like Basevi’s , which showed the appearance of the ruins when Soane still owned Pitzhanger. If we assume, however, that the ruins shown in the first watercolours which Richardson produced between the end of July and the middle of August are similar to those designed by Soane thirty years earlier, the subsequent drawings are very different. In an additional and hitherto unknown watercolour in the British Library volume (Fig. ), and in an another, dated August , which is included in the volume Crude Hints in the Soane Museum, both of which can be attributed to Richardson, the ruins are shown for the first time with the modifications which we will see again in Plans, Elevation and Perspective Views of Pitzhanger. The prostyle temple has gone and with it the bases of Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, the Corinthian columns of the pronaos and the half- plan of the ruins as if restored, . sunken column shafts which thirty years earlier had Sir John Soane’s Museum, Vol. / . led to much speculation on the entrance levels and property as it had been thirty years earlier. By it access to them. The remains of the temple façade is probable that very few traces remained of the ruins. shown in these two drawings are composed instead In the second edition of Plan, Elevation and of two pairs of double pilaster strips; the entablature Perspective Views of Pitzhanger printed barely a month of the entrance door overlaps the two middle pilaster after the first, Soane complained of the conditions of strips after Bramante’s design of San Pietro in the artificial ruins: in his own words, they had been Montorio. In the background a curved loggia, ‘removed, and the site thereof metamorphosed into a made up of Doric columns without bases, appears flower parterre, and ultimately a depot for coals, for the first time: it replaces the two rectilinear lateral woods, and ashes’. It was probably this very wings found in Soane’s reconstructions at the transformation which gave Soane the idea and the beginning of the century and emphasises the convex opportunity of making changes to the initial project. form of the courtyard’s northern side. A note added to one of the British Library At the same time Richardson also drew the plans drawings ( The ruins as they are ) implies that they are and sections of the complex of buildings restored to depicted as they were in (Fig. ). The various their ‘ancient grandeur’: these drawings show how
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, sections of the ruins as if restored, looking north and looking east, . Sir John Soane’s Museum, Vol. / . the project of reconstruction was not limited to external peristyle. Once again, in the design for this the sacred precinct, as designed in , but imaginary restored edifice, Soane, with Richardson’s incorporated the house as far as the service wing and help, relied more on the designs he had produced in was linked to the so-called ‘colonnade’, or rather the recent years, than on the resources of ‘warm covered passageway formed by Doric columns, imagination’. The use of columns and of the similar to those now seen in the ruins, which triumphal arch found in his designs for public connected the main part of the villa to the service buildings in London, which had been re-published buildings to the north and to the ruins themselves in the same year in Designs for Public and Private (Fig. ). The original solution, modelled on the Buildings , reappear in this latest version of the Temple of Clitumnus, to the problem of access to the ruins. The triumphal entrance arch copies the high podium from which one enters the temple, was monumental gateways to the city, with the same use discarded; the stairs are now enclosed within the of coupled columns and high attics (Fig. ). The curved wall linking the entrance arch and the long screens of columns, which form a kind of
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, view of the ruins as if restored (above) and as if excavated (below), c. . British Library, a–b . peristyle around the building, recall those which produced, only to be omitted from the final Soane designed for the grand public buildings which publication, such as those found in vol. of the Soane mark the Processional Route. Museum or the drawing of the internal courtyard The external view of the completely restored included in the British Library volume (Fig. ). ancient edifice, of which Richardson inserted an Soane preferred to match the mock scientific analysis additional copy in the British Library volume found in the text of the various hypotheses on the (Fig. ), is the only one which Soane included in origin of the ruins with illustrations of plans and Plans, Elevetions and Perspective Views… . Over the elevations of the reconstructions; he used views only course of the twenty-one working days spent on the to show the ruins in their ‘present state’, at first half ruins several other views of the reconstruction were buried then completely excavated, such as BL, b
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, view within the courtyard of the ruins as if restored c. . British Library, .
(Fig. ). summary of his work, as he had done with the family Richardson worked on Plans, Elevations and tomb, or as a separate publication like the various Perspective Views of Pitzhanger over five months from works on the house-museum. Given this context, it the end of July until the end of December . In was to be expected that Soane would also wish to the months before working on this he had helped record his work on the suburban villa. But it was not Soane prepare the second edition of the Description merely a wish to complete the record which led him of the house-museum as well as the further version of to publish Pitzhanger. Soane seems to have attached Designs for Public and Private Buildings . In a certain importance to this work, although posterity Soane was immersed in publishing activities. He was has always regarded it as secondary to his other nearly eighty and he had reduced his professional large-scale publishing projects. First, it was the architectural work to a minimum; the publications subject of a monograph; secondly, Charles Ingrey, on which he spent most of his time were intended to the lithographer whom Soane chose for the work, record his architectural career over more fifty years was the most expensive among those whom the and transmit the memory of it for posterity. Of the architect employed; and lastly, the amount of time three projects which he had designed for himself spent on the project and of material produced on Pitzhanger was the only one which he had not this occasion by Richardson was considerable. published by , either as part of a broader The importance which Soane gave to this
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
publication might seem excessive, given that the villa meeting which had taken place that morning. Turner had not belonged to him for over twenty years, nor, it writes that he would have arranged for Mrs Soane to seems, had it occupied his attention for a very long attend that evening ‘to waive her right of dower’, if time. However, new evidence shows that Pitzhanger Soane had received £, and was in agreement. But was far from being a distant memory for Soane and he added that he had in the meantime advised Messrs. also suggests that the publication of Plans, Elevations Seymour & Co., Cameron’s lawyers, to consider and Perspective Views… was intended as the carefully whether ‘it would be advisable for Mrs Soane beginning of yet another large scale project. to make a surrender to Mr Clifton with the possibility Two significant episodes show that Pitzhanger that something might interfere with his completion of remained important to Soane beyond , when he the purchase’. Cameron’s lawyers agreed with finally succeeded in selling the house to General Turner that it was not advisable, and therefore Turner Cameron after Christie’s had placed no fewer than concluded that he ‘will not trouble Mrs Soane this sixty-five advertisements for sale in the newspapers. evening as the business at the present stands over’. It has always been believed until now that Soane had Shortly after this episode other meetings took no connection with the house after its sale in ; place in the various legal offices, suggesting that however, it is now known that Soane was directly some kind of negotiation involving Soane, Cameron involved in , when in his turn General Cameron and Clifton with their respective lawyers was in entered into negotiations with one Mr Clifton to sell progress. Turner’s letter of the August reveals Pitzhanger. In a letter dated August one of that these negotiations centred on the right of Soane’s lawyers, Mr Turner, wrote to him following a dower relating to Pitzhanger, a right which Mrs
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Fig. . Charles James Richardson, Pitzhanger Manor, plan of the estate, . British Library, .
Left: Fig. . James Shuttleworth, Plan of a Copyhold Estate [Pitzhanger Manor] at Ealing, Middlesex, for sale by Mr Shuttleworth , , with a view of the front of the house.
Soane could still claim in , and on the basis of again Soane was involved, albeit not, it would seem, which she could have inherited a part of the property, for legal matters. The most recent owner, Mr Clifton, customarily a third, if her husband died before her. had died, and his executors had entrusted the sale of In Soane had obtained information through the the property to Mr Shuttleworth. At the beginning of ‘Steward of the manor’ on the ‘custom respecting the the volume in which Soane gathered together many right of Dower’; it seems probable that, when of preparatory drawings for the publication on Soane sold Pitzhanger, he retained a legal interest in Pitzhanger he also inserted a cutting from The Times the house on behalf of his wife, possibly as a kind of of the advertisement for the auction, as well as security, given that Cameron had apparently not yet Shuttleworth’s pamphlet publicizing the sale, which paid the entire sum owing on the house. Soane’s had four pages of text and a lithograph with a view of Journals show that, when the house was sold, the entrance front of the house and a plan of the Cameron had paid only £, s, much less than estate (Fig. ). The British Library volume the agreed purchase price which must certainly have includes a watercolour plan of the estate, the only exceeded £, . Cameron had contracted to pay one which exists after , which can be attributed Pitzhanger by instalments; it is thus possible that in to Richardson: the close similarities down to the Cameron still owed £, , the sum mentioned smallest details with Shuttleworth’s lithograph are by Turner in his letter of August. Cameron’s debt such that it seems probable the office provided the would have meant that Mrs Soane’s right of dower auctioneer with the preparatory drawing (Fig. ). was still legally valid. This hypothesis is strengthened when one recalls In Pitzhanger was again put up for sale and that Soane and Richardson had close contacts with
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE lithographers in London, of whom Shuttleworth, in Pitzhanger , in which the description of the house addition to being an auctioneer, was one of the most leads to a reconstruction of the troubled history of celebrated. It might also be more than fortuitous the family. In comparison with the years in which that just over a month after the auction held on Soane owned Pitzhanger, his family circumstances June Richardson began to work on the had changed radically: his wife had died in drawings for the Pitzhanger volume. The sequence November , followed by his elder son, John, of events would suggest that the sale provided seven years later. His relation with his second son Soane with an additional stimulus to begin working George had broken down irretrievably. He had again on what had been his suburban residence. already made changes to the house in the first edition While it is not possible to establish Soane’s of Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views ; the involvement in the two sales, the evidence which we passage of time and the disappearance of his wife have reveals quite clearly that his connection with and son left Soane free to change his version of the Pitzhanger was active well beyond . events associated with the house in subsequent The subsequent publishing history of Plans, editions. Barely a month after the publication of Elevations and Perspective Views of Pitzhanger… Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views of reveals the importance which Soane placed on this Pitzhanger, Soane produced an enlarged version particular publication. It seems to have marked a which he dated Wednesday February with turning point in his publishing activity, a transition the title Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views, of between the publications which concentrated on his Pitzhanger Manor House, and of the Ruins of an professional activities and the vicissitudes of his Edifice of Roman Architecture, … To which is added, career to more personal works in which he related Memoirs of his family, and his own professional life, the troubled story of his family. That this change etc. etc. etc. in Letters to a Friend, from to occurred with the volume on Pitzhanger is . The fifty-six page work, with no illustrations, significant, for Soane saw the house not only as was printed by James Moyes in fifty copies and was a statement of his professional and social achievements collage of texts which had already been published or but also as part of a deliberate strategy for his family. would shortly appear. A printed note prefaces the He planned to leave the house to his elder son John text, in which Soane claims for the first time that on the assumption that he too would become an King Louis Philippe had first encouraged him to architect and ensure the professional continuity of produce a work on Pitzhanger. In this second the family name. When the sale was first version Soane adds the story of his two sons to the announced in The Times in it was clear that eight pages of the original text. John is the link Pitzhanger was not, nor could ever become, the between the description of the house and the history Soane family house; but behind this reality it was of Soane’s family, for it was his elder son’s decision also clear that his hope of founding a dynasty of not to work on the hypothetical reconstruction of the architects, like the Adam and Dance families, was ruins, as his father wished, and then to ‘to sacrifice destined to fail. Thus it was Pitzhanger which first the beaux arts to the belles lettres ’ which caused made Soane understand that his strategy had failed; Soane such ‘severe mortification’ that he and his wife his explanation of what had gone wrong started from decided to sell the house. To these unwelcome the work on this project and made it impossible to actions John added another which caused his father separate the history of the house from that of his displeasure and disappointment, when he met Miss family. Other publications appeared shortly after Preston and married her on June . Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views of Soane’s account of George in the second
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Pitzhanger volume reprints Facts and Results relating It had long been Soane’s practice to extract and to the conduct of Mr George Soane , published in , recombine parts of his publications. The passage of which was itself expanded in as Details respecting events and new developments continually obliged the Conduct and the Connexions of George Soane…also him to modify and expand his texts. As with the Frederick Soane . Also in Soane extracted the episode of the Law Courts, but even more so account of John and his family from the second version because his own family was involved, Soane did not of the Pitzhanger volume and made it into a separate publish simply to enhance his reputation or to earn publication intitled Memoirs of Mr John Soane, Mrs. money but give his own version of events in the hope John Soane, Miss Soane and Captain Chamier: also a that those involved would come to revise their own brief description of Pitzhanger Manor-House and views: ‘In justice to myself and to prevent all Domains, so far as they are concerned with these misunderstanding or misinterpretation, after my memoirs; with Plans, Elevations and Perspective views. decease … I have considered it to be imperative By John Soane, Architect…. From to . As the upon me to print, and perhaps circulate, the title shows the text and illustrations relating to following Statement of Facts as they from time to Pitzhanger were included in this publication as a kind time occurred; for, notwithstanding all that has of explanatory preface to the subsequent account of passed, I would yet indulge the hope, that the parties John. The description of the ruins and the most interested may read attentively, reflect on it accompanying illustrations were omitted since they seriously and act fairly. If they do so, in candour and played no part in this new version of the events. Soane sincerity, ALL MAY YET END WELL’. makes no reference to John’s failure to work on the reconstruction of the ruins but attributes his abandonment of architecture to his meeting and marriage to Miss Preston. It was this event which NOTES obliged him – this time he did not mention his wife – to The research for this article has been carried out sell Pitzhanger. The account is also brought up to date with the help of a Research Support Grant from The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. I to , and includes the episode of the elopement of should like to thank Sue Palmer (the Archivist of Sir John’s daughter with Captain Chamier and the letters John Soane’s Museum), Howard Burns and Maria between Soane and his daughter-in-law on the Luisa Scalvini for their help. I am grateful to education of his first grandson on whom he had Stephen Parkin for the translation of my Italian text. pinned all the hopes which his own son had The drawings are bound in four volumes kept in Sir disappointed for the creation of a family dynasty of John Soane’s Museum (hereafter cited as SM), viz ., SM, vol. , Miscellaneous Sketches of the House of architects. Ealing… ; SM, vol. , Sundry views of the Exterior Finally, between and Soane and Interior made by C. J. Richardson and incorporated the entire text and illustrations in the Sundry Designs for Artificial Ruins made by Sir original volume on Pitzhanger in Memoirs of the John Soane at the time for his Publication ; SM, Professional Life of an Architect . He again includes the Crude Hints , which includes three studies of the ruins; SM, vol. , extra-illustrated copy of the self-aggrandising story that it was Louis Philippe who Memoirs of the Professional Life of an Architect. To encouraged him to publish the drawings of these drawings must be added sixteen watercolours Pitzhanger, adding two letters from the king’s bound in a volume compiled by C.J. Richardson, secretary the authenticity of which has never been now in the possession of the British Library [BL, established. The description leads on inevitably to c. b. – (hereafter cited as BL); Bianca De the story of John and the eventual sale of the property. Divitiis, ‘A newly discovered volume from the office
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
of Sir John Soane’ , The Burlington Magazine , manuscript copy of the text also in SM, Crude Hints . CXLV, March , – ]. Soane, Pitzhanger , cit. , . John Soane, Plans, Elevations and Perspective Views SM, Archive, /G/ /v. of Pitzhanger… , London, , . Licisco Magagnato and Paola Marini (eds.), Andrea On October Soane took down the old Palladio, I quattro libri dell’ architettura [Venezia, porch at the entrance of the kitchen building, and ], Milano, (hereafter Palladio), libro IV, rebuilt it the following day in front of the kitchen capitolo VIII, . garden on the south side of the property, where it Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, John Soane’s still stands today. He also altered the path before the Architectural Education, – , unpublished Greenhouse [SM, Soane Note Book ]. In the Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, , – . following days he redesigned Dance’s edifice [SM, SM, Archive, /G/ /–; Palladio, libro IV, capitolo // of October ; SM, // – ( // XXV, – . dated November; // bears the inscription SM, Archive, /G/ / v. October .. ); SM, // dated October ; BL, . SM, // ]. BL, is a copy of SM, Crude Hints , fols. – ; Soane, Pitzhanger, cit., . Christopher Woodward (ed.), Visions of Ruins. Ibid., . Architectural fantasies & designs for garden follies , SM, vol. /– . London, , . SM, vol. /. BL, is similar to the watercolour in SM, Crude In Richardson published Observations on the Hints , fols. – , also drawn in , but from a Architecture of England during the Reigns of Queen more distant point of view. Elizabeth and James I; this publication was This could explain why Richardson included in the followed by other volumes and articles in The British Library volume a watercolour of the Builder concerning Elizabethan architecture [Mark Breakfast Room [BL, ] and one of the Library Girouard, ‘Attitudes to Elizabethan Architecture, [BL, ], both belonging to the original design of – ’, in John Summerson (ed.), Concerning Pitzhanger Manor in . Differing only in some Architecture. Essays on architectural writers and details from Gandy’s watercolour perspectives of writing presented to Nikolaus Pevsner , London, these two rooms, exhibited at the Royal Academy in , – , in particular – ]. [SM, P ; SM, P ], it is probable that SM, Archive, / /, James Moyes’s bill for printing Richardson used them as models that would replace of copies of a text named Account of Pitzhanger the far larger originals, in order to reproduce them Manor House and for subsequently changing the in the illustration plate of the publication which title is dated October . The Day Books reveal showed these two rooms (Plate VII). Both that Richardson began drawing the plates for the drawings, in particular the one of the Library which publication on lithographic stone only on the includes Gandy’s final mise en scene in the form of a October , completing this work on the pencil sketch, show the two interiors as they were following December [SM, Day Book ]. when Soane was the owner complete of their Furthermore the last bill of the lithographer Charles furniture, that had been moved to Lincoln’s Inn Ingrey which printed the plates is dated January Fields by the time of the sale, and the original [SM, Archive, / / ]. decorative scheme, that over twenty years had most For Soane’s attitude to Elizabethan architecture see probably been modified. Confirmation of this John Summerson (ed.), ‘The Book of Architecture hypothesis comes from the fact that the same of John Thorpe in Sir John Soane’s Museum’, differences in the colour scheme in comparison with Walpole Society , XL, , . Gandy’s perspective which appear in the British David Watkin, Sir John Soane. Enlightenment Library drawing of the Breakfast Room were Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures , recopied by Richardson in the corresponding Cambridge, , – . watercolour in the extra-illustrated copy of the S. Feinberg Millenson, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Memois [SM, vol. , plate VII]. Ann Arbor, , – . SM, Curator’s Cupboard; John Soane, Plans, SM, Archive, /G/ /–; there is a further elevations and perspective views of Pitzhanger
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Manor-House…to which is added Memoirs of the The tomb had been published in as plate of Family and its own professional life…in letters to a the second edition of Designs for Public friend, from to , London, , p. ; this Improvements. edition is bound in a volume compiled by Arthur Apart from John Britton’s work, The Union of Bolton in May with the title ‘Sir John Soane / Architecture, Sculpture and Painting… , Soane had Memoirs &c.’. by himself published two editions of the BL, . Description of his house-museum ( and ). A series formed by five drawings in vol. ( – ), The third would appear in . together with BL, , might represent the first SM, Archive, / / : on Charles Ingrey’s bill dated phase of Richardson’s work on the ruins. The January for ‘printing Impressions’ at s. drawing SM, vol. / is dated August . each, Soane added a note that for the same thing on It is interesting to note that in the watercolour SM, March he had paid Hullmandel s. d.. vol. / , Richardson drew ogival arches, instead of SM, Archive, / / . circular ones in the basement, and showed a SM, Correspondence, XIV B . Turner refers to pavement with pebble decoration: both these Soane in the third person. features appear in the Monk’s Yard built at Idem. Lincoln’s Inn Fields in [SM, vol. / ]. Idem. BL, . SM, Soane Note Book : September , ‘Call Soane could have seen Bramante’s tempietto during on Mr Turner, Mr Seymours in Margaret St’; his stay in Rome between and . He September , ‘Wrote to Mr S. Turner… At probably knew Serlio’s plate, where this detail of Seymour & Co. in the Evening to meet Genl. the door is included, whereas Palladio omits it Cameron & Mr Clifton’; SM, Soane Note Book : [Francesco Paolo Fiore (ed.), Sebastiano Serlio, L’ October , ‘go to Ealing if possible … at Eal. Architettura. I Sette Libri e ‘Extraordinario’ nelle Gave the Housekeeper -, Gardner .. Saw Mr prime edizioni (Venezia ), Milano , libro Clifton’ . It is also interesting to note that Mrs Soane III, XLI – XLIIII; Palladio, libro IV, capitolo XVII, had gone to Ealing in the afternoon of the June – ]. [SM, Mrs Soane Note Book ]. Soane, Pitzhanger, cit. , . The dower is the portion of the deceased husband’s SM, vol. / . The only images of the colonnade estate that his widow inherited for life. This are those drawn by Richardson, a sketch of July inheritance did not represent a return of property [SM, vol. /] and the corresponding fair copy of that had been brought by the women into the the following month [SM, vol. /]. The marginal marriage [I am grateful to Christopher Jessel for inscription on the watercolour in vol. (‘omit this’) sharing with me his professional expertise on this suggests that Soane initially planned to include this legal issue, and to Roderick Smith for advice]. image in the publication but then decided against it. It has not been possible to establish precisely how Soane, Pitzhanger, cit. , . the dowry worked in the case of Pitzhanger Manor, Robin Middleton, ‘The history of John Soane’s which was a copyhold under the Bishop of London Designs for Public and Private Buildings ’, in The and was subject to the payment of a rent. None of Burlington Magazine , CXXXVIII, , – . the manorial documents held in the manuscript The version is n. of the appendix. section of the Guildhall Library has provided any SM, vol. / . information respecting the property of Pitzhanger, Sean Sawyer, ‘The Processional Route’, in Margaret nor relating to the functioning of the dowry in the Richardson and Mary Anne Stevens (eds.) John case of a copyhold estate in Ealing. Only Faulkner in Soane Architect. Master of Space and Light , London, states that ‘the widow of a copyholder, if a , – . spinster at the time of her marriage, hath one third BL, a. of his lands for her dower during her life’ [Thomas SM, Day Book . Faulkner, The History and Antiquities of Brentford, BL, . Ealing and Chiswick , London, , ]. SM, Day Books –. SM, Archive, // : bill of the lawyer Thomas SM, Day Book ; Middleton, op. cit. , – . Lowton to John Soane ‘As to the Sale of your
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV PLANS , ELEVATIONS AND PERSPECTIVE VIEWS OF PITZHANGER MANOR - HOUSE
Mansion at Ealing to Major General Cameron for indicated in Pitzhanger’s sale pamphlet. We can his services from the October to March assume that that they were relatives and that G.E. ’. In this bill Lowton mentions at the Shuttleworth as auctioneer, surveyor and land agent November : ‘Also attending Mr Dickins the put work in the direction of John Shuttleworth, the Steward of the Manor for information as to the lithographer of estate plans. I am grateful to Prof. custom respecting the right of Dower &c .’. It is Michael Twyman for this information. interesting to note that Lowton charges Soane also SM, Day Book . for his expenses ‘searching & perusing the will of On November Soane replied to a Mr Gillow Thomas Gurnell’, who had been the previous of Oxford Street who had called on him about the owner of Pitzhanger, and immediately after for existence of a ‘seat in the church belonging to the obtaining ‘information as to an annuity of £ House’. Soane wrote that such a seat did exist ‘at granted by Thomas Gurnell to his Daughter Mrs the time General Cameron purchased the premises Mitchell’. – what has passed since Mr S is ignorant of’ [SM, SM, Journal, October ; SM, Journal, Letter Book – , ]. A Mr Gillow of Oxford December . Street, perhaps the same as Soane’s enquirer, is SM, Archive, /B/ //: in this letter dated mentioned in the pamphlet advertising September , Mrs Soane suggested that her Shuttleworth’s auction amid the names of various husband decline the offer of £ proposed by people to whom interested purchasers could refer in James Christie who was in charge of the sale of order to obtain information relating to the sale of Pitzhanger, and to stand firm on £ , ; Gillian Pitzhanger. Although further research would be Darley, John Soane. An accidental romantic , New required, one might claim that the acquaintance Haven and London, , . with Mr Clifton in for the legal problems SM, Archive, // : under December connected to the dowry was a precedent for Soane’s Thomas Lowton’s bill records ‘Attending Mr involvement in the sale. Seymour and conferring with him on the proper SM, Archive, /G/ /–; Soane, Pitzhanger, cit. , . plan for completing this Purchase & securing the The Times , Thursday July , , col. . remainder of the Purchase Money which was to be See note above. made by Installments’ . As Duc d’Orléans, Louis Philippe lived in exile in It should be noticed that from December the Ealing in the early s [Peter Hounsell, Ealing legal business relating to Pitzhanger had passed and Hanwell Past, London, , ]. from Mr Lowton to Mr Turner, who intervened on SM, Archive, / /, James Moyes’s bill for the agreement with General Cameron [SM, Archive, copies dated June . / // ]. Louis Philippe’s visit is not mentioned in any of SM, vol. . Soane’s various diaries, notebooks or journals. BL, ; SM, vol. . Shuttleworth’s lithographic Furthermore Soane kept all the letters that were sent print is placed between pp. and of the pamphlet; to him in relation to his publications and no the plan of the estate represented is slightly larger evidence has been found of the two letters than that in Richardson’s watercolour. published in the Memoirs . Michael Twyman, A Directory of London John Soane, Memoirs of Mr John Soane, Mrs John Lithographic Printers. – , London, , , Soane, Miss Soane and Captain Chamier… , . Apparently there were two Shuttleworths London, , preface. carrying on different businesses over a long period from the same premises at No. Poultry, the one
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV