Lucy Worsley, ‘Bolsover Castle in the eighteenth century’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xI, 2001, pp. 169–184
text © the authors 2001 BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
LUCY WORSLEY
illiam Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle-on- at the Castle, with payments in for ‘wainscote at WTyne, died on Christmas Day, . He was Bolsover,’ and ‘repairs.’ More followed in the next still in the middle of his last great building project, year, with the building of a terrace walk by Joseph Nottingham Castle. His main seat was Welbeck Jackson, the troublesome local building contractor Abbey, Nottinghamshire, a converted monastery, and who had worked under the architect Samuel Marsh he also owned Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire (Fig. ). on the s state rooms. Bolsover, largely his creation, is well-known as a In Duke Henry left his estate to his daughter seventeenth-century cavalier’s pleasure house for Margaret, wife of John Holles, fourth Earl of Clare, retirement and entertaining, and as an intriguing for whom the title of Duke of Newcastle was example of a quirkily romantic kind of architecture. recreated in . The Castle passed through the It was begun in by Duke William’s father Sir female line twice more in the eighteenth-century: on Charles Cavendish, son of Bess of Hardwick, John Holles’s death in it was left to his daughter Countess of Shrewsbury and builder of Hardwick Henrietta, who married Edward, Lord Harley, who Hall, and completed by Duke William after his became second Earl of Oxford in . Countess father’s death. He decorated the small keep, known as Henrietta died in , leaving it to her daughter, the Little Castle, then added a grandiose range of another Margaret, married to the second Duke of state rooms and finally the extraordinary Riding Portland. After these confusing ‘short trips and House and stables, a palace for horses. Bolsover flittings’ from Cavendish to Holles to Harley to Castle is often described as curiously unaltered from Bentinck, the antiquary Samuel Pegge hoped in the seventeenth century period, when it was used for that the Castle would remain with its new owners ‘as entertainment and art, but in fact, as this article will long as the sun and moon endure.’ The Dukes of demonstrate, the supposedly dead years of the Portland did at least remain the Castle’s guardians eighteenth century have been surprisingly fertile in until when it was given to the nation. information about the use and influence of an old- After the death of Duke John, an inventory of his fashioned house. houses was made in . It shows that Bolsover had William’s son Henry, second Duke of Newcastle, become relatively sparsely furnished compared with succeeded in and used Bolsover as an occasional Welbeck. In Duke William’s lifetime, Bolsover had residence. His wife’s account book for the last week contained many rich pieces: there were twelve cloth- of March , for example, is annotated with ‘this of-silver chairs from the lower dining room, known account taken at Bolsover Castle.’ During Duke today as the Pillar Parlour, several ‘Cases off Crimson Henry’s time, or perhaps the very end of his father’s, velvett for the Cheares In the Parler,’ and the great stable at Bolsover was also converted into ‘Imbroidereye on the purple Velvtt bedd ... worth att formal rooms with the insertion of tall windows and a leaste £ .’ But in typical items are ‘old ragged chunky plaster cornice. Small-scale work continued Curtains,’ ‘rotten feather Beds’ and ‘moth eaten
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Fig. . William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, in front of Bolsover Castle’s west front. This plate after Abraham Diepenbeke is from the Duke’s book on horsemanship published in .
Blankets.’ Bolsover Castle had clearly lost some Chatsworth in the s, Elizabethan Hardwick status, and even in the seventeenth century, Duke could not compete in style or convenience. Still, William’s household had complained of its recent surveys of the archives show that in both chilliness. ‘My householde hate to liue at Bolsore,’ cases, the earlier houses were maintained, extensively begins one of his poems entitled ‘An Epigram on a repaired, occasionally used, and then found a Cold.’ A close parallel is provided by the other renewed purpose as tourist destinations, throughout branch of the Cavendish family, the Dukes of the period when it was thought, until now, that they Devonshire, at Hardwick Hall. After the rebuilding of were simply abandoned.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY had faced disputes over her inheritance in , but ABANDONMENT ended up with Welbeck and a good deal of freedom The conventional story of Bolsover Castle is of for a widow. As Horace Walpole noted in , she gradual decay culminating in the demolition of the had ‘passed her whole widowhood, except in doing Terrace Range by Henrietta, Countess of Oxford. ten thousand right and just things, in collecting and Her husband died in , and during the fourteen monumenting the portraits and reliques of all the years of her widowhood she became a compulsive great families from which she descended, and which builder. Her extensive work at Welbeck Abbey centred in her.’ reproduced features from Bolsover Castle in an unmistakable and exuberant Jacobean revival style. Her additions must have been inspired partly by sensitivity to the existing fabric: Welbeck, after all, THE COUNTESS OF OXFORD : still had its thirteenth-century undercroft, abutted by CONSERVATION WORK the more fanciful vaults typical of the Smythson In the light of her concern for the fabric of history, Lady family. But her work also went further than this. She Oxford’s reputation as the despoiler of Bolsover had something in common with Lady Anne Clifford, Castle needs examination. The usual assumption is a century earlier, who in widowhood retired to her that wholesale abandonment took place after the roof patrimony in Westmorland and repaired her family’s was removed from the Terrace Range in the s to ancient castles of Appleby, Skipton and Brough, provide material for the new work at Welbeck, quoting Isaiah . on commemorative plaques particularly the so-called ‘Oxford Wing’ or mounted onto her work. They read that ‘they that remodelled south-west wing, which had previously shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou been the abbot’s lodgings of the abbey as remodelled shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, by Robert Smythson. The source of the story is the and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, Jackson family, builders and inhabitants of Bolsover the restorer of paths to dwell therein.’ Lady Oxford, for centuries, one of whom in had ‘heard his too, found her ancestral home of Welbeck ‘in allmost grandfather say that, when a boy, he went to Welbeck Ruines,’ repaired it with the aim ‘to incline my family Abbey along with the wagons which conveyed hither to reside at the only Habitable Seat of my the lead roof from the range of buildings on the Ancestors,’ and kept them well-informed of her terrace.’ Mr Jackson senior was born in , so work as it progressed. Interestingly, she considered could have been able to remember the event, and Welbeck to be her only habitable house, and once the accounts bear him out. The payments hint at work to the main block was complete there, she nothing like the large volumes of building stone taken turned her attention to the inhospitable Bolsover. from Roche Abbey to Welbeck, but in Benjamin Like Lady Anne Clifford, Lady Oxford was Biggs was paid £ s. for ‘leading Stones from particularly conscious that the whole weight of her Bolsover’ to Welbeck, and in Reuben Lee was family’s history lay upon her shoulders. Her paid for the carriage of ‘two loads of Lead.’ At the grandfather’s settlement of his estate onto the middle same time Henry Davey was paid for taking ‘two of five daughters put an end to family unity, and her loads of Scafels & Ledders’ on the same journey, own lack of brothers meant that Henrietta was the scaffold boards and ladders presumably having been heiress to the whole Cavendish history and a necessary for getting the lead down from the roof. seventeenth-century building campaign which But Lady Oxford also carried out conservative affected at least six extraordinary houses. She, too, repairs. These are chronicled in a set of vouchers
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY detailing a campaign of work from – and repairs were being made to the ‘watch-houses,’ or recording expenditure of more than £ , and in more correctly, the conduit-houses, which brought a the main Welbeck building accounts, where over supply of water into the castle from the south. £ had been directed to the ‘Repairs of Bolsover The vouchers reveal that there was a clerk of Castle’ by February . The programme of works named Thomas Cooper who was responsible conservation work sounds surprisingly thorough. for making payments to the individual craftsmen. He The battlements ‘on the Tower’ (or Little Castle was paid expenses for ‘Self and Horse at times in itself) were taken down, cramped and set up again on attending the Workpeople during the repairing the three sides, for example, while those on the fourth Castle.’ He also acted as a middleman for providing were pointed. The ‘Cupola or Dome’ on the roof of furniture, receiving payment for Lady Oxford’s new the Little Castle was pointed and some of the mahogany chairs for the Pillar Parlour in October chimneys were rebuilt in new stone. Payments were . He had already been working in a similar made for one ‘Other Chimney taking down & setting capacity at Welbeck Abbey, for he appears in the again all ould stone.’ The steps up into the Castle and accounts there as having been paid a year’s wages of their stone balustrades received careful treatment £ on th, November , for ‘con = ducting the with the ‘Taking down the Rails on each Side the S. d Repairs.’ Steps (Twice).’ The battlements around the lodges Who decided what needed to be done, and by the gate were similarly taken down, ‘New Sett & provided the designs for these works? It could not pointed.’ The dimensions of all this work were have been John James, architect of the Welbeck work, measured by William Birch, a senior mason, who for he died in , and the Welbeck accounts record also carried out a good deal of work at Welbeck, and a payment of £ to ‘Mary James for Her deceased who was probably a relative of the ‘Robt Birch’ who Husbd John James Surveyor’ in February, . But was paid ‘for working marble Chimney Peices’ there were others on the Welbeck workforce who installed there in . were capable of carrying out a surveyor’s role. The The Riding House Range was also carefully Welbeck accounts mention a ‘Thomas Plat surveyor’ maintained. In ‘Scrueys and Nutts and Washers in December , and a certain ‘West: Webb’ who for ye roofe at ye Riding house’ were bought, and the was paid ‘for his draughts for the great Room’ in old roofs were repaired ‘over the Welfare Landry and February, . Plat was possibly a previously Riding House and the Offices Joining to them.’ unrecognised member of the Platt family of The laundry and offices were in the original forge mason/architects from Disley, Cheshire, and and shoeing house. At the same time, the Stables and Rotherham. Even James Ellins, the foreman of the Riding House were re-tiled, according to a bill for the works before Thomas Cooper, was paid ‘for Drawing carriage of the materials, and the windows blocked Paper’ in December , and the joiner Ignatius up. In , each truss of the Riding House roof was Stanley was paid a bill ‘for Drawing Plans & lifted onto the rough wooden corbels which survive, overseeing all the Build = ing Work’ in February presumably owing to a century of settlement. John . It seems likely that one of these people, rather Stanley, the carpenter, spent four days in ‘puting than an outsider, carried out the work at Bolsover, a Corbals Under the Beams.’ This care enabled hypothesis which is backed up by the local Burke one hundred years later still to say that ‘the complexion of the workforce at Bolsover. riding house is a very noble room, and the oak beams and rafters are even now, in as good order as on the day that they were put up.’ At the same time, minor
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CRAFTSMEN , ‒ whitewashing to the ‘Cove Celing in Capola,’ Of the twenty craftsmen named in the surviving which is probably the octagonal lantern which rises accounts for Bolsover Castle from –, no less from the top floor of the Little Castle through the than fourteen of the surnames can be traced in the roof. He also supplied the ‘Glue and Whiting used at estate archives back to the seventeenth century, and Bolsover Castle.’ This was in July , and in the belong to local building families who had long same year he began working with James Paine on the worked for the Cavendish or Holles families. Among Mansion House in Doncaster, Paine’s most those with a century’s worth of service were William important early commission. ‘Cassn:’ or ‘Casens,’ a nail and spike supplier, whose The Stanley family of carpenters also had wider forebear William ‘Cozen’ was described as ‘of horizons. John Stanley, who had carried out a great Boulsover, nailer’ in a sale document of nd April, deal of carpentry at Welbeck Abbey, completed work . John ‘Cosen’ supplied the nails for Duke worth £ s. d. for the Countess of Oxford in William’s – building programme, and Thomas on her Bolsover account. This included jobs such as ‘Cousins’ provided nails for new building at Welbeck repairing the roofs to the Castle, watch-houses and in . In a similar manner, the Nickelas Slater cupola, ‘Mending the Rings in the Stable’ and who glazed the chancel in Bolsover church in ‘Repairing y e Wainscoat & puting up Shelves in the was presumably related to the Thomas Slater who Lodg.’ An earlier John Stanley had been employed glazed windows at Bolsover in , and even on the second Duke of Newcastle’s work at Welbeck possibly as far back as the ‘Patri’ and ‘Cristo’ Slaters in , and they were both presumably related to who were paid as labourers in during the Edmund and Richard Stanley, who worked with construction of the Little Castle. As a final example, Paine at Worksop Manor from , and Henry the mason William Hallam who worked on the Little Stanley of Lincoln who worked with Paine at Burton Castle in was perhaps a relative of the joiner House, Lincolnshire, in – . John Hallam who constructed a new loft in Bolsover church and worked on the new building at Welbeck in , and even of the George Hallam mentioned at Bolsover in , or the ‘Hallam’ who brought THE CONTENTS IN THE stone from the quarries of Shuttlewood and Bolsover EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Moor to the site of the Little Castle during its The next important, but poorly-documented, event construction in – . The John Hallam in Bolsover’s history was the sale of its contents. In mentioned in is probably the so-called ‘poor , ‘a tradition among the oldest inhabitants of the mean Country Joyner’ who became Master village, handed down to them from their fathers,’ was Carpenter in the Royal Works. recorded, ‘of a great sale at Bolsover, which lasted ten Similarly, fourteen of the twenty surnames also days, when crowds of purchasers came from all the appear in the building accounts for Lady Oxford’s neighbouring counties, as in later times to Fonthill and work at Welbeck Abbey in the period shortly before Strawberry Hill, to carry off some relics of the grand the Bolsover campaign. Here, the well-known old mansion.’ Where are these relics now? Rather plasterer Joseph Rose ( c. – ) stands out. He than being sold, many ended up at Welbeck, such as made his first documented appearance at Welbeck in the pictures known to have hung in the Terrace , subsequently producing the extravagant ceiling Range. These can be traced in the catalogue of of the Gothic Hall. At Bolsover, ‘J.Rose’ provided the pictures at Welbeck Abbey from a list of ‘y e ‘plain Ceeling,’ repairs to ‘Plaster Floor,’ and pictures in y e d withdraw = ing room e at Bolsover’
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY which was made in the later seventeenth century by panelling very similar in style to the Little Castle, Thomas Farr, steward to Henry, second Duke of with stencilled designs, which quite plausibly could Newcastle. It does seem true that the Terrace Range have come from any of the Little Castle’s second floor was stripped between the time of Henry and of rooms. However, the panelling on the Star Chamber’s Henrietta. But on the other hand, at some point inner walls was probably always plain, as the c. between and the nineteenth century, pictures inventory lists the room’s tapestry hangings. The were taken from Welbeck to Bolsover. These included earliest mention of panelling being taken to Welbeck a set of paintings of Roman emperors and empresses, (as opposed to being moved about within the Little copies of the famous set by Titian for the Dukes of Castle by the nineteenth-century tenants) is , Mantua later acquired by Charles I. They hung in the making it unlikely that Lady Oxford was responsible Star Chamber in the Little Castle for at least for any limited removals which did take place. years. Also, in the s, the fourth Duke of The inventory of Welbeck reveals that at Portland made a gift of the famous portrait of Bess of Bolsover ‘a few articles were left in the Pillar Parlour, Hardwick to the Duke of Devonshire, announcing by the Great Dining Room, and the Marble Room,’ letter his intention ‘to remove Bess of Hardwick from including a ‘Tea Aequipage with a Dutch tea kettle Bolsover to Hardwick, where she will not only be and lamp.’ Evidently the Little Castle was still used much better off, but (begging pardon of my by Lady Oxford for its original purpose, ancestors) in much better company...’ Given Lady entertainment and retirement from Welbeck. She also Oxford’s intense interest in her picture collection, thought it worth carrying out limited refurnishing which resulted in new inscriptions being applied to because in the Pillar Parlour was kept up to date many works, it seems safe to hazard the guess that she with ‘ Mahogany Dumb Waiters’ ordered specifically was responsible for at least some of the movements to for the room. They were accompanied in the same and from Bolsover. bill on the Bolsover account by twenty-two mahogany As so many pictures found their way to Welbeck, back stool chairs in check cases, a mahogany close it has often been speculated that panelling from the stool with a leather-covered seat, and two marble Little Castle made a similar seven-mile journey into tables on frames. Panelling in the Star Chamber the next county. The idea is repeated by Nikolaus was painted Prussian blue by , showing that Pevsner and Mark Girouard, referring specifically to the original grey scheme had been updated in the the Star Chamber, where the highly decorative eighteenth century. panelling of the external walls is countered by very Even after Lady Oxford’s time, and before the plain work on the internal. Girouard claimed that Reverend Gray, the Castle’s nineteenth-century Winifred, Duchess of Portland provided the tenant refurnished the Little Castle, it was evidently information that it had been taken to the reasonably comfortable. A round table around the Horsemanship Room, an elaborate panelled room on central pillar of the Pillar Parlour was shown by what is now the entrance floor, (formerly the first Gough in his view of (Fig. ). It was also floor) of the old (ie. monastic west wing) of the described by Bray in , Pilkington in , Abbey. However, no sign of the Star Chamber and it was still there in , after which time it was panelling at Welbeck was found during a recent joined by the clutter of the Grays (Fig. ). Another search. The Horsemanship Room panelling must inventory was made in which listed other items have been specially made for the room with its Greek still in the Little Castle, including ‘fourteen key design repeated in the stonework. But a first mahogany chairs in the Pillar Parlour, twelve in the (formerly second) floor room does indeed have Star Chamber, and ten in the Marble Room.’ The
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Fig. . A ‘hasty sketch of a room in Bolsover,’ made in September . The Pillar Parlour fireplace is shown complete with obelisks. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Gough Maps.
Marble Closet was still furnished in with ‘an old Marble fireplaces had long been a feature of the tea table, and a set of old china’ and ‘seems to have Cavendish family residences. Marble chimney pieces been used as a drawing-room.’ had been provided in for Henry, second Duke of Newcastle, at Nottingham Castle, by ‘Mr Hall’, a carver who had also worked at Welbeck during the lifetime of William, first Duke of Newcastle. He too BOLSOVER FIREPLACES FOR WELBECK had an ancestor involved in the construction of the These repairs and improvements show that Lady Little Castle: the mason who worked the re-used Oxford certainly still valued Bolsover Castle in the ‘window stuff that came from Kirkebye’ in February, manner that houses such as St Michael’s Mount and was called Halle. As the surviving accounts Cotehele were kept as historical curiosities, and she break off before the interiors are fitted out, it is even went so far as to make plans for elements of its tempting to speculate that Halle himself was involved Jacobean style to be reproduced at Welbeck Abbey. in the construction of the original fantastical designs
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Fig. . H. W. Todd, The Pillar Parlour at Bolsover Castle, . English Heritage.
of John Smithson which have graced the Little Castle showing the obelisks that have since been lost. since . Richard Hewlings deduces from the scale-bar at the Horace Walpole, after visiting Welbeck in August, bottom that it is in the hand of John James , described the many noble families whose blood (c. – ), Lady Oxford’s surveyor at Welbeck, combined in the Countess of Oxford. He found ‘all and Peter Smith’s article in this volume reaches a their histories inscribed; all their arms, crests, similar conclusion. In she wrote of her devices, sculptures on chimneys of various English intention to install in the dining room ‘a more marbles in ancient forms (and, to say truth, most of Gothick Chimney Peice designed partly from a fine them ugly.)’ This theme of marble chimney pieces one at Bolsover, but composed of great Variety of survives into Lady Oxford’s new work and there is a English Scotch & Irish marbles & Alabaster & not series of interesting drawings of fireplaces proposed one bit of Foreigne in it.’ The London carver for Welbeck, of which one has exuberant strapwork Thomas Carter’s (?– ) bill for ‘The Expence of and Jacobean detail very closely based on the Three Gothick Chimney pieces of Several Sorts of fireplace in the Pillar Parlour at Bolsover, and English Marble’ made for Welbeck, presumably to
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY these drawings, includes extra time ‘For Derbysh who ‘added double windows on the windy side.’ Marble for the Grounds behind the Columns in the However, the delicate design of the original glazing Dining Room Chimney-peice, instead of Wainscot.’ bars and the similarity in design to her ‘Gothic An important feature of the Little Castle originals, Room’ at Welbeck, now an office, suggests Lady too, was the use of jewels of local black touchstone, Oxford. Further evidence is given by a voucher from which was mined and marketed in Derbyshire by , which refer to the re-glazing of two separate William Cavendish’s step-uncle, Gilbert, the seventh ‘sash’ windows, and these are two of the only three Earl of Shrewsbury. candidates on the site. Another hint of the gothick The drawings in the past have been attributed to taste comes in a blacksmith’s bill for ‘Gothick the Thomas Carter, whose bill records that he had Grayles With Turned Knot And Bright Ends.’ So 1 been paid £ , s. 2⁄ d. for four chimney-pieces by Lady Oxford installed pointed ‘gothick’ windows in nd June . Several other Carters working in a Jacobean castle, and Jacobean decoration into a carving and design are known in London in the genuine, if heavily-altered, monastery. The difference eighteenth century, including the famous between the two styles did not seem to matter to her. draughtsman John Carter, and interestingly enough a Both signified antiquity. John Carter was employed at Bolsover in the period The Bolsover fireplace drawings are by no means – . He was responsible for payments made in the earliest, but are certainly an early, example of an the capacity of supervising minor repairs to the eighteenth-century urge to recreate Bolsover’s Castle’s system of lead pipes, to casements, locks, Jacobean, as opposed to the pointed gothic, style. doors and windows. In this period, the well-known There are many other examples of interior John Carter was employed in the offices of Henry decoration from the earlier eighteenth century in the Holland and possibly James Wyatt, and was Tudor or Jacobean style. Baggrave Hall, beginning to be known as a draughtsman. As a Leicestershire, contains an eighteenth-century fervent admirer and protector of the gothic, perhaps Jacobean scheme, probably the work of John Edwyn, Bolsover would have been an attractive place to the owner who remodelled the house in the s. work? The Bolsover John Carter took an interest in Marks Hall in Essex has a combination of early the history of the Castle, for he was recorded in Gothic revival windows with a ‘Jacobean’ as the possessor of an ancient almanack which gives frontispiece, and an ‘oak parlour’ re-fitted with the only documentary reference, apart from the genuine panelling, all the work of General building accounts, to the date of its building. Honeywood about . The tendency also However, the foreman at Bolsover also owned a horse appeared in painting; Horace Walpole had himself and draught which was used for mundane tasks such depicted in ‘Van Dyck’ dress, and at Aston Hall, a as bringing coal and a horse-trough from the quarry, life-size portrait of the builder, Sir Thomas Holte, which perhaps suggests a local man of the same was made in the early eighteenth century for the hall name. by his great-grandson the fourth Baronet. Wearing In addition, Lady Oxford added incongruous appropriate early seventeenth-century dress, he pointed ‘gothick’ features to Bolsover Castle, such as stands in an eighteenth-century landscape, with the windows, formerly sashes but now converted to Aston Hall in the background. These scattered double glazing, in the Pillar Parlour (Fig. ). The examples of a Jacobean revival are possibly only the usual explanation is that they were installed by the tip of an iceberg of other small-scale pieces of nineteenth century tenants of the Castle, the Grays. sympathetic fitting-out of seventeenth-century They were almost definitely altered by the Grays, houses by their eighteenth-century owners, many of
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Fig. . The Pillar Parlour at Bolsover Castle, showing the gothick windows. English Heritage.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY which would have been lost during nineteenth- THE DUKES OF PORTLAND century antiquarian refurbishments. It seems likely After Lady Oxford’s death in , Bolsover passed that in all of these cases that the patrons, rather than to her daughter Margaret ( – ), who had married trying to make a positive statement through the use of William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland in . the style, treasured their existing houses. In the first flush of their inheritance, the second But could there be a more positive interpretation Duke and his wife still used Bolsover Castle as the of this new appreciation of the Jacobean style and the traditional destination for a day’s trip out from revival of interest in old-fashioned houses like Welbeck in . Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, Bolsover Castle? It has often been pointed out that accompanied the Castle’s new owners. The roads to the gothic is a usefully flexible vehicle for meaning. Bolsover were excessively bad, but the visitors were The High Tory and probable Jacobite sympathiser not disappointed. ‘It is a most delightful spot,’ wrote Sir Roger Newdigate’s Gothick Arbury Hall, for Mrs Delany, ‘there is a singularity and prettiness in example, can be contrasted with the gothic additions the castle I don’t know how to do justice to.’ But she made by his descendants to the house of that did qualify her picturesque praise with the comment Parliamentary martyr, John Hampden, in that the Castle possessed ‘one of the most pleasing Buckinghamshire. A centenary monument in Great views without water I ever saw.’ Hampden church was made in , and the In , Bolsover Castle was described as having remodelling of the house commemorated ‘the whole been ‘a frequent residence of the second duke, but cause of gothic liberty.’ The unusual thing about since his death, it has been deserted.’ However, the Bolsover Pillar Parlour chimney design is that it documentary evidence reveals that this is not provided a much higher level of archaeological accurate. The second Duke of Portland died in , accuracy than could be expected in revivalist features but the third Duke, despite being Prime Minister, at the time. The well-known Lightholer ceiling of the visited regularly. The Castle was used as a stud and hall at Burton Constable, for example, is a bizarre several of his horses were kept in the Castle Yard, or combination of Renaissance and classical, as is the Outer Court as it is now known. In , folklore has staircase at Baggrave Hall. Neither could be – nor it, the Castle was considered as a prison for French were intended to be – mistaken for real Jacobean work. prisoners, but earlier in the decade, fires were still The Bolsover designs were based on a real family being lit to air the rooms for the Duke’s coming. The history and a long tradition of marble fireplaces, and steward had to provide two guineas for the Duke Lady Oxford’s programme, as far as it went, was graciously to dispense to the poor, for example, on about family piety. Horace Walpole usefully August, , ‘the day His Grace dined at summarises the atmosphere at Welbeck in August, Bolsover Castle,’ and another guinea went to the bell , months after her death, and gives a key ringers who had presumably contributed to the explanation. ‘Oh! portraits!’ he exclaims. ‘I went to sense of occasion. Other, less important, visitors also Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of arrived from the main house and their horses were Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: fed, resulting in the purchase of ‘one Strike of Oats every chamber is tapestried with them; nay, and with for Doctor Hayes horses, and some Gentlemen with ten thousand other fat morsels; all their histories him from Welbeck the day they dined at Bolsover inscribed ...’ ‘Indeed is it a sort of duty,’ wrote Castle.’ Some repair works in – were Lady Oxford’s friend, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, administered by the steward Joseph Fletcher, John ‘to support a place which has been so long dignify’d Carter’s successor. These included further and distinguish’d by your ancestors.’ plumbing work to the lead pipes, ‘nailing the fruit
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY trees’ in the garden, and the purchase of white would put the demolition well after Lady paint. Oxford’s time, and make the second or third Duke of One of the more striking features of the neglect of Portland responsible. Bolsover Castle was the demolition of the When were the outer westward-facing battlements battlements which lined the ‘Stone Walk’ along the along the south drive terrace demolished? (These top of the fountain garden wall (now partially were recreated by English Heritage in –.) An reconstructed by English Heritage). Were the original engraving of Rooke’s view of of the west face of battlements dismantled by Lady Oxford at the same the Castle shows battlements still edging the time as the unroofing of the Terrace Range? Knyff terrace. A view by Hooper, from , does not and Kip’s very detailed view from seems to show the terrace battlements, but it is inaccurate in show that some of the inner battlements of the missing out the battlements along the top of the walkway were missing, or else, like the obelisks from building which still survive today, so cannot be relied the original s wall, were never restored after the upon. The illustrations in Dewar’s book of Civil War. However, generalised battlements clearly appear to show an absence of battlements along the appear in Samuel and Nathaniel Buck’s view of terrace, which would give a date for their removal of and the view from England Displayed , but between and . So the Countess of Oxford there are no battlements at all on the walkway in cannot be given responsibility for all the demolition Rooke’s view of . A date of between and work at the Castle.
Fig. . Designs for chimney-pieces found in the steward of Welbeck’s account for –. From the Portland of Welbeck archives and reproduced by permission of the Principal Archivist, Nottinghamshire Archives.
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
S REPAIRS The Hallam family also make another The circulation pattern of the Little Castle was opened appearance. James Osborn and William Hallam had up considerably at some point in the eighteenth worked together as masons on the Little Castle in century. The changes, which were reversed by the . The John Hallam who had worked at Welbeck Ministry of Works, disrupted the linear progression in the s had a namesake who worked at Bolsover along a hierarchy of rooms which dominated the in , and a Thomas Hallam was paid for ‘helping original design. The new doors allowed passage from the masons’ at Bolsover in . Meanwhile, James the ante-room straight to the Pillar Parlour, for Osborn was acquainted with Carr through his work example, and gave secondary entrances to the most as mason and stone supplier at Ossington between intimate rooms of all, the Marble and Elysian Closets. and . The web of connections is such Old photographs show that the panelling that although Carr’s involvement is far from certain, surrounding the doors is eighteenth-century in it certainly seems possible. character, and it is intriguing to note that John Carr The third Duke of Portland’s accounts show that did similar work at Hardwick Hall in opening up the in general life at Bolsover was bucolic and casual. circulation of the top floor. As he was also so Two men, for example, spent a day going from extensively employed by the family at Welbeck, Bolsover Castle to Welbeck ‘with my Lord dukes perhaps he was asked to look at Bolsover too? Cow,’ women are paid for ‘goathering up the Dung in Examination of the names of the craftsmen the Castleyard,’ and catching moles in the Castle involved may support this hypothesis. Of the forty- Walk is another regular occupation. The masons two craftsmen and labourers named in the surviving were given ale when they finished the new stone wall accounts for Bolsover from the s, thirteen of around the Castle Yard. By this time, the Terrace them still have names recognisable from the Range does seem to have been completely seventeenth-century accounts, but more significantly, abandoned, for stone was taken from the ‘Old several had worked with Carr previously. John Carr Ruines’ to re-use in the new wall, just as the makes his first appearance at Welbeck in when a seventeenth-century builders, in similarly cavalier payment was made ‘To Mr John Carr Architect (by fashion, had re-used the medieval fabric to construct his Graces Ord r.) in full for his Attendance at the present house and walls. Welbeck & Drawing Designs &c:’ The Francis But does the building work go beyond Mellor of Chesterfield who performed the plumber’s maintenance? It is clear that a new stable was work at Bolsover was certainly known to Carr, for he constructed, possibly a conversion of the ground appears in the Welbeck accounts as being paid in floor rooms at the eastern end of the Riding House February for a ‘Bill of work done in the New Range. The ‘Castle Wall account’ shows expenditure Kitchin, Offices below, & Rooms above &c. & Hall of £ s. on the making of the wall which still & portico &c. to th of Septem last as settled by Mr encircles the outer court or Castle Yard. There is Carr.’ In Carr was working on the stables at also another interesting fireplace design from this Welbeck and in began the new east front. period which survives in the Nottinghamshire William Handley, the mason at Bolsover, was also Archives (Fig. ). It incorporates Bolsoverian within Carr’s ambit, and it may be significant that features such as touchstones, little masks presumably between and he supplied the tiles at to be carved in alabaster, and a similar frieze to Little Ossington, in Nottinghamshire, where Carr worked Castle originals. It was discovered inside Joseph on the church and his assistant Lindley on the Fletcher’s account book for , the year in which house. John Carr was remodelling the stables at Welbeck. In
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY a different hand to the s drawings, it is more ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS pompous and Baroque in character than pure Many thanks to Mark Askey, Howard Colvin, John Cornforth, Nick Hill, Michael Hall, Richard Hewlings, Jacobean, and it sits on the same page as a more Peter Smith and Giles Worsley. Michael Partington and straightforward classical design as if to show that the Lynn Hulse’s diligent documentary work for English designer could turn his hand to different styles on Heritage should also be acknowledged. request. Bolsover’s influence was still being felt.
TOURISTS BEGIN TO ARRIVE NOTES By , the Castle had gained a reputation as a Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Archives (hereafter tourist destination. Recent research into the NA), DD.P ... , account book of Frances, Duchess of Newcastle. continued importance of country house visiting as a NA DD.P ... , Thomas Farr’s account book for pastime throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth Henry Cavendish, second Duke of Newcastle. centuries is mirrored at Bolsover. John Byng NA DD.P ... . described it as ‘the Windsor Castle of Derbyshire,’ NA DD.P ... . and was keen to see the Riding House for he had Samuel Pegge, S ketch of the Bolsover and Peak ‘ever had the wish, and some little ability, in putting Castles , London, . NA DD. P. . , ‘Inventory of valuation of goods of horses upon their haunches,’ and thought the John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, .’ Terrace Range ‘might easily be render’d habitable.’ London, British Library (hereafter BL), He was perhaps not the most desirable kind of Add.MS. , f. r.– v. tourist for he records pinching brasses from the BL Add.MS. , f. . church in the next parish before arriving at Bolsover. Nottingham, Nottingham University, Hallward Library, Department of Special Collections and Perhaps surprisingly, he seemed less struck by the Manuscripts (hereafter NU), PW . b. Castle’s architecture than its excellent condition, and Smith, supra , ‒. he praised the Duke of Portland for keeping it in D.J.H. Clifford (ed.), The diaries of Lady Anne such good repair that ‘by additional furniture it Clifford , Stroud, . might in a few hours be rendered habitable.’ He went A.S. Turberville, A History of Welbeck Abbey and its on the say that the Duke should offer it as a Owners , , I, , Countess of Oxford to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, October, . residence, perhaps to a school, ‘which shou’d allways Mrs Paget Toynbee (ed.), The Letters of Horace be done with these old houses.’ Walpole, Fourth Earl of Oxford , Oxford, , III, The Castle appeared in the second edition of –. Bray’s tourist itinerary. He did the building a great Rev. J. Hamilton Gray, Bolsover Castle , Chesterfield, disservice in describing it in an often-quoted passage , . NA DD.P .... as ‘nothing more than a house, as ill-contrived and NA DD. P. . . inconvenient as ever was formed,’ because the NA DD.P .... actions of Lady Oxford and subsequent owners NA DD. P. .– , all transcribed for English already show an appreciation of its historical Heritage by Michael Partington. importance. With the dawning of a romantic age, NA DD.P .... Bolsover Castle was increasingly valued as a NA DD. P. . .r. NA DD.P ..., March th, . picturesque ruin, and its reputation would only rise. NA DD. P. ..v.
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NA MS.DD. P. . r. BL Add.MS. , f. – . NA DD. P. . . ‘The Duke of Portland, the present owner, has taken J.B. Burke, A Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the some of the fine oak wainscotting off the walls to use Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain , London, in Welbeck, a method of robbing Peter to decorate , I, . Paul which it is hard to approve...’ The Lady’s NA DD. P. .. Realm , September, . Information kindly NA DD. P. . . provided by Rosalys Coope. NA DD. P. . . R.W. Goulding, Bolsover Castle , sixth edition, , NA DD.P .... . Goulding was the th Duke of Portland’s NA DD.P .... librarian. NA DD.P .... NA DD. P. . . Colvin, op. cit ., – ; J.D. Potts, Platt of James Pilkington, A View of the Present State of Rotherham, Mason-Architects – , Sheffield, Derbyshire , London, , II, . , passim . Information from Richard Hewlings. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Gough Maps, 4, fol. 72v NA DD.P .... (50B) pic. D. NA DD.P .... Pilkington, loc.cit .. NA DDP. . . Rev. R. Ward, Guide to the Peak of Derbyshire , NA DD P. . . Birmingham, , . NA DD P. .. . Lucy Worsley, ‘The Romaunt of Bolsover Castle,’ NU PW . . The Victorian ,V, November, , . NA DD P. .. , th May, , ‘To John Hallam F. Gregory, ‘Bolsover Castle. A Review of the upon bill ... Welbeck new building. £ .’ Seventeenth Century Buildings,’ The Transactions NA DDP. . . of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire , LI, NA DD P. . ., published by D. Knoop and G.P. , . Jones, (eds.), as ‘The Bolsover Building Account, Goulding, Bolsover Castle, cit. , . – ,’ Arts Quatuor Coronatorum , I, . Pilkington, op. cit. , , . Alice Dugdale, ‘John Hallam: “a poor mean country William Bray, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and joine r”?’ Georgian Group Journal , VII, , – . Yorkshire , second edition, London, , . NA DD.P .... NA DD.P ... , th December, . NA DD. P. .. NA DD. P. . , ‘Mr Hall the carver’ was paid £ . Peter Leach, James Paine , London, , . possibly in the first fortnight of July, . NA DD. P. . . Knoop and Jones, op. cit. , . NA DD P. .. , th June, . John Stanley is Toynbee, op. cit. , –. paid £ ‘Upon bill ... Welbeck new building.’ Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Leach, op. cit ., . Collection, N ., –. Leach, op. cit ., . Smith, supra , . Burke, op. cit ., I, . BL Add MS , draft letter from the Countess of Catalogue of the Pictures belonging to his Grace the Oxford to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Dover Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey etc ., Compiled by Street, June th, . R.W. Goulding ... revised for press by C.K. Adams, NA DD. P. . . . Cambridge, . NA DD. P. . . , ‘The Expence of Three Gothick NU PW . . Chimney pieces of Several Sorts of English Marble,’ Lucy Worsley, ‘A Set of Seventeenth Century paid and signed by Thomas Carter, June, . Caesars from Bolsover Castle’, Collections Review , For example, NA DD. P. . . English Heritage, II, , – . Colvin, op. cit. , . William George Spencer Cavendish, th Duke of Pegge, op. cit. , . Devonshire, Handbook of Chatsworth and NA DD.P ... , f. . Hardwick , , . Mrs Hamilton Gray, ‘Memoirs and Memorials,’ in Mark Girouard, Robert Smythson & the Elizabethan Autobiography of a Scotch Country Gentleman , n.d., Country House , , , note . privately printed, .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI BOLSOVER CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
NA DD. P. . .r. Pegge, op. cit. , Plate . NA DD. P. .. ‘M.D.’ [Dewar] Bolsover Castle: A Tale from Gordon Nares, ‘Baggrave Hall, Leicestershire,’ Protestant History of the Sixteenth Century , Country Life , CXI, June , , . Richard London, . Hewlings drew my attention to the Jacobean-style Nicholas Cooper and Ben Cowell, ‘Hardwick Hall,’ work at Baggrave and Marks Halls. lecture at the Society of Antiquaries, March . Christopher Hussey, ‘Marks Hall, Essex,’ Country NA DD. P. ... Life , LIV, Sept. th., , – . NA DD. P. ... Oliver Fairclough, The Grand Old Mansion , , NU, Denison Papers, De B . William Handley of Birmingham, . Newark, bricklayer, worked at the Residence House, Chris Brookes, The Gothic Revival , London, , Southwell [Norman Summers, A Prospect of , . Southwell , Southwell, , ].Information Ivan Hall, ‘Architecture and Ancestry, William provided by Richard Hewlings. Constable and Burton Constable-III,’ Country Life , H.A. Johnson, ‘The Architecture of Ossington CLXXI, May , , . Hall’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society , Paget, op. cit ., III, –. LXXXIV, . Information provided by Richard Lord Wharncliffe (ed.), The Letters and Works of Hewlings. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu , London, , , . NA Portland Collection, uncatalogued ‘Bundle ’. Lady Llanover (ed.), The Autobiography and NA Portland Collection, uncatalogued ‘Bundle , Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany , III, f. . –, . NA DD.P ... . Burke, op. cit. , I, . NA DD.P ... . R.W.Goulding, ‘Bolsover Castle-II,’ Country Lif e, C. B. Andrews (ed.), The Torrington Diaries , XLII, Aug. th., , . London, , II, – . NA DD. P. . . Bray, op. cit ., . NA DD. .. .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XI