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‘AN ENDLESS VARIETY OF FORMS AND PROPORTIONS’:

INDIAN INFLUENCE ON BRITISH GARDENS AND GARDEN
BUILDINGS, c.1760-c.1865

Two Volumes: Volume I
Text

Diane Evelyn Trenchard James

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy

University of Warwick, Department of History of Art
September, 2019

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………. iv

Abstract …………………………………………………………………………… vi

Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………. viii .

Glossary of Indian Terms ……………………………………………………....... ix List of Illustrations ……………………………………………………………... xvii Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 1

1. Chapter 1: Country Estates and the Politics of the Nabob ………................ 30

Case Study 1: The Indian and British Mansions and Experimental Gardens of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal …………………………………… 48 Case Study 2: Innovations and improvements established by Sir Hector Munro, Royal, Bengal, and Madras Armies, on the Novar Estate, Inverness, Scotland …… 74

Case Study 3: Sir William Paxton’s Garden Houses in Calcutta, and his Pleasure

Garden at Middleton Hall, Llanarthne, South Wales ……………………………… 91

2. Chapter 2: The Indian Experience: Engagement with Indian Art and

Religion ……………………………………………………………………….. 117

Case Study 4: A Fairy Palace in Devon: Redcliffe Towers built by Colonel Robert Smith, Bengal Engineers ……………………………………………………..….. 151 Case Study 5: Indian Stones in a Suffolk Garden: The Pyramid at Great Bealings built by Edward Moor, Bombay Army …………………………........................... 166 Case Study 6: The Indian and British gardens of James Forbes, East India Company Merchant, Topographer, Revenue Administrator and Artist …………………….. 183

3. Chapter 3: Indian Style: Inspiration and Appropriation ………………… 199

Case Study 7: Thomas and William Daniell and the Architecture and Gardens of Sezincote, Gloucestershire, and Melchet Park, Hampshire ……………………… 215

Case Study 8: Humphry Repton and the Building of Brighton Pavilion ………... 241

Case Study 9: The ‘Hindu’ Bridge at Dromana, Co. Waterford, Ireland:

Political Statement or Honeymoon Fantasy? …………………………………….. 269

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………. 302

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………….. 306

Illustrations ……………………………………………………………… Volume II

Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to thank my supervisor, Rosie Dias, for her help, encouragement and support throughout my research and the difficult last years of writing my thesis. My research and my invaluable trip to India were funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, for which I am very grateful. Thanks also go to the Company of Arts Scholars for their Research Award which enabled me to frequently travel to the British Library for primary research.

My appreciation goes to the staff of the many archives, libraries, museums and record offices in UK, Ireland and America who helped with my researches. Thanks also to the authors, academics and researchers who assisted me particularly Raymond Head, who kindly spent time with me early in my studies; also, Tillman Nechtman, Andrew Ginger, Andrew MacKillop, Crispin Bates, Ashok Malhotra, Alijos Farjon, and Susan Johnson-Roehr, for their kindness in sharing their knowledge, and help in accessing documents and information. Thanks also to Margot Finn, Kate Smith, Helen Clifford, Ellen Filor, and Jan Sibthorpe of the East India Company at Home project for supporting my endeavours.

My appreciation is also extended to the owners and staff of the many properties I visited, for their kindness in allowing me to walk their landscapes and for sharing archival information particularly Larry Bartel, Jonathan and Selina Peto, Ronald and Erica Munro Ferguson, Rob Thomas, Louise Austin, Helen John, Edward Peake, Stephen Twigger, the Reverend Nick Brown, Barbara and Nicholas Grubb, and Lewis Wasserstein.

A big thank you to the History of Art Department staff, Michael Hatt, Louise Bourdua, Jenny Alexander, Louise Campbell, Julia Brown, and Claire Nicholls, to the Warwick Graduate School for their support, and the staff of the University of Warwick Library. Many thanks also to my fellow PhD students: Claire FitzGerald, Kayoko Ichikawa, Anne Musset, Carlo Avilio, Charlotte Stokes, Stefano Colombo, Matteo Carpiniello, and Delia Moldovan, and to my garden historian friends, Timothy Mowl, Dianne Barre, Jeri Bapasola, and Clare Hickman for their inspiration.

An immense vote of thanks goes to my family who have supported me through the years and encouraged me along the way. To my father who will be one hundred and two this year, a big thank you for all your help and advice over the years. Thanks also to my daughter, Ruth, and her family, Damian, Mabel and Tabitha, and to my son Dominik, and his family Rosie and Keely, for their support and understanding. I dedicate this thesis to my husband, Philip, without whose advice, help, and encouragement, my thesis would not have been possible.

Abstract

This thesis examines the short-lived development of Indian design in British architecture and gardens between c.1760 and c.1865, coinciding with the height of the trading and territorial ambition of the East India Company and the return of military officers and government officials from India to Great Britain and Ireland. Although only a relatively small number of gardens and houses in rural counties were built with elements of Indian onion domes, chhajja cornices, minarets, or temple pools, their presence within – as well as absence from – the British countryside is indicative of the careers, aspirations and motivations of those involved (both directly and less directly) with empire, as well as of the controversial position which they often occupied in political and social spheres.

The thesis demonstrates that ‘nabobery’ is only one of the appropriate lenses through

which to analyse Indian design in British gardens and architecture in this period. The first chapter explores ways in which East India Company returnees established domestic roots via various building and landscaping projects as they endeavoured to

re-join British society, though not as a homogenous group of ‘nabobs’, but as

individuals manifesting their personal motivations and concerns. The second chapter

examines how returnees, who had spent many years in India’s interior, researching,

collecting, and painting Indian art and architecture as an integral part of their Company work or leisure activities, used their scholarship to memorialise India in

more modest houses and gardens. The last chapter establishes how views of India’s

landscapes were used by architects, landscapers and patrons with no previous contact with India, adapting Indian design and imbuing it with new significance and meaning. Through new scholarly research across nine case studies, the thesis therefore illuminates a variety of practices and motivations underpinning the aesthetics of the Indian-influenced garden and architecture in the period.

Declaration

I declare that this thesis is my own work and that it has not been submitted for a degree at another university.

Abbreviations

DEV EH
Devon Record Office English Heritage

EICAH GA
East India Company at Home Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucester

Archives Départementales des Alpes Maritimes, Nice, France National Portrait Gallery
NIA NPG

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Royal Academy
ODNB RA

Glossary of Indian Terms
Al'hinna

Henna, or Mehndi (Lawsonia inermis), the shoots and leaves of this plant are used as a dye to decorate parts of the body.

Amalaka

A segmented or notched disk in stone, inspired by the shape of the Indian

gooseberry (Phyllanthus emblica).

Baboo

A Hindu man, especially one of a relatively high status; also used for a Bengali with a veneer of English education.

Bangla

A cottage built for early European settlers in Bengal, later used to describe a bungalow.

Bagh

Garden, orchard, or pleasure garden.

Banian (banyan)

A Hindu trader, especially from the province of Gujarat. Applied in Calcutta to native brokers attached to houses of business, or people employed by a private individual.

Banyan

The Indian Fig Tree (Ficus religiosa or indica). When the branches drop shoots to the ground, they take root and support their parent branches, so that one tree will often cover a large expanse of ground.

Bibi

Has undergone a variety of meanings: a Mughal lady; a lawful wife; a European maidservant; a courtesan.

Brahmin

A member of the highest priestly caste of the Hindus.

Budgerow

A keelless barge, formerly used by Europeans travelling on the Ganges.

Bulbul

A bird: a species of the genus Pycnonotus, belonging to the Thrush family,

sometimes called the ‘nightingale’ of the East.

Camitop

God-grove in Tamil Nadu.

Chadar

Kashmiri water ramp, or waterfall.

Champa (champak)

The Indian tree Michelia champaca, a species of magnolia with orange-coloured highly fragrant flowers.

Charbagh

Persian formal garden, quadripartite, where a square garden is divided into four equal parts.

Chhajja

Mughal and Hindu term for projecting eaves usually supported on large carved brackets, giving protection from sun and rain to buildings.

Chhattri

An umbrella-shaped pavilion.

Chunam

Prepared lime; fine polished plaster made from shell, sea sand.

Culgiah (culgee)

A jewelled plume surmounting the sarpech upon a turban.

Diwan

Tax Collector; the head financial minister or treasurer of a state under Muslim governments.

Diwani

The office of diwan; the right to the revenues of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.

Durbar

An Indian ruler’s court; a public audience or levee held by an Indian ruler, or by a British colonial ruler.

Firman

A grant or permit.

Furlough

Leave of absence; a permit or licence given to a soldier (or more rarely, an official) to be absent from duty for a stated time.

Garbhagriha

‘Womb-house’, a cave like sanctum, which holds the main deity.

Ghat

A path or stairs leading down to the river; a quay or ferry.

Guru (Gooroo)

A teacher of spiritual education.

Howdah

A seat for riding on the back of an elephant, typically with a canopy.

Iwan

In Islamic architecture, an entrance vaulted space, or, a hall facing a court in a madrasa or mosque.

Jaghirdar

The holder of a jaghir.

Jaghir

An hereditary assignment of land and of its rent as annuity from the king's or

government's share of a district’s produce. For private use or for the maintenance of

a public (especially military) establishment.

Jali

Pierced marble screen.

Jemadar (Jamadar)

Second in rank in an EIC native company of sepoys.

Jugnee

An ornament or jewel worn by women as a necklace.

Khusa-grass

Cuscus grass (Vetiveria zizanioide) with fragrant fibrous roots.

Koyilkatu

Temple forest in Tamil Nadu.

Lakh

One lakh in the eighteenth century was 100,000 rupees.

Linga (lingam)

A phallic symbol of Shiva worship.

Maithuna

Sculptures of couples engaged in various aspects of lovemaking.

Maqbara

A mausoleum.

Maratha

A Hindu warrior race.

Medhumad’ha

A water nymph in Hindu mythology.

Mogree

Especially in South Asia: Arabian jasmine (Jasminum sambac).

Munshi

A writer, interpreter and educated teacher of languages, particularly Persian, Urdu and Arabic.

Musjid (masjid)

A mosque for daily prayers. Jami-masjid, a mosque serving the population of an area.

Musnud

A seat made of cushions, especially one used as a throne by an Indian prince.

Nawab

A Muslim official who acts as a deputy ruler or viceroy of a province or district under the Mughal empire; any governor of a town or district, or person of high status.

Nizam

The title of the hereditary ruler of Hyderabad.

Nullah

A watercourse, river-bed, or ravine; a drain or channel for rain or floodwater.

Palanquin

A covered box-litter, usually for one person, carried on two horizontal poles by four or six bearers.

Pinnace

A small light vessel, usually having two square schooner-rigged masts, often in attendance on a larger vessel and used to carry messages.

Punkah

In India, a large cloth fan on a frame suspended from the ceiling, moved backwards and forwards by pulling on a cord.

Purgunna

A sub-division of an administrative district, comprising a number of villages.

Raja

Originally: an Indian king or prince, later extended to a petty chief or dignitary (zamindar) or a member of the Hindu nobility in India.

Ryot

A peasant or cultivating tenant.

Ryotwari characterized by

Peasant system of land tenure; relating to land tenure in India by agreement between the government and the cultivators, without the intervention of a zamindar.

Sadashiva

The perfect aspect of Shiva. Sometimes represented in sculpture with ten arms and five heads.

Sarasvati (Saraswati)

Sarasvati is the goddess of the third sacred river, meeting the Ganga and the Yamuna rivers underground.

Sarpeach

An ornament of gold, silver or jewels worn in front of the turban.

Sati (suttee)

A former practice in India where a widow was consumed on to her husband's funeral pyre.

Shiva

The third deity of the Hindu triad, to whom are ascribed reproductive powers (symbolised in the Lingam and the Yoni). The sacred Hindu river, the Ganges (ganga) flows from his hair.

Shringara-rasa

One of the nine rasas in the classical dance arts of India. Translated as erotic love, romantic love, or attraction to beauty.

Stupa

A solid dome or tumulus-like structure built to contain relics of Buddha.

Tatties (tatty)

A screen or mat usually made of the fragrant khasa (cuscus grass) (Vetiveria zizanioide) which, having fragrant fibrous roots, was fixed to open windows and doors and kept constantly wet, providing a cooling effect in the house.

Tirtha

Among Hindus a place of pilgrimage and bathing, generally on the banks of holy rivers.

Trimurti

The Hindu Trinity or Triad, Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva.

Toorkey

A horse from Turkistan.

Tulsee

A species of basil (Ocimum sanctum), sacred to Vishnu, frequently planted in the vicinity of a Hindu temple.

Tykhana

An underground chamber to which to retire during the heat of the day.

Veda

Any one of the four Vedas, the ancient sacred books of the Hindus.

Wazir

The principal minister of a Mughal Prince.

Yoni

A figure or symbol of the female organ of generation as an object of veneration among Hindus.

Zemindar

Under Mughal rule, a landowner responsible for collecting land revenues on behalf of the rulers. Under British rule they paid the land revenues direct to the British government.

List of Illustrations
Introduction

Basildon Park, Berkshire, October 2013. Author’s Photograph.

Sezincote House, Gloucestershire, August 2014. Author’s Photograph.

Chapter 1: Country Estates and the Politics of the Nabob

1.1 1.2 1.3
Gillray, James (1756/57-1815), Count Roupee, published by Hannah Humphrey, hand-coloured etching, published 5 June 1797. National Portrait Gallery, London, ref: NPG D12616.

Palladian garden-house near Madras. Inscribed on mount: 'House built by

Thomas Powney Esq., 2 miles from Fort St George on the Mount Road’,

c.1790. Watercolour. The British Library Board, ref: Add.Or.740. The individual garden houses on Garden Reach and Fort William, 1785.

Mark Wood, A Survey of the Country on the Eastern Bank of the Hughly, from Calcutta to the Fortifications of Budgebudge including Fort William

and the Post at Manicolly Point, 1780-84 (published 1785). British Library Board: Maps K.Top.115.38.

1.5
Grimm, Samuel Hieronymus (1733-1794), Stansted House and Park, 1782. Watercolour. British Library Board, Add MS 5675, f. 39(70).

Hook House, Hampshire, the Seat of John Hornby, 1830.

Lithograph by Graf with hand-colouring by Graf. https://www.sandersofoxford.com [accessed 16 April 2019].

1.7 1.8
Gonsalves, Jose M. (fl. 1826-c. 1842), Government House, Parell, Bombay. Lithograph, coloured, 1833. British Library Board, ref: X840(2).

A view of Parell House and the signal flagstaff from Lowice Castle. May

1811. British Library Board, ref: WD315. Hook Summer House on the Beach near Hook. Survey of Southampton River, The Brambles and Cowes Road, with The Adjacent Parts, by Lieut. Murdoch Mackenzie, 1783. Published 1808. British Library Board, ref: Maps SEC.1.(17).

India House, Margate, August 2014. Author’s Photograph.

Case Study 1: The Indian and British Mansions and Experimental Gardens of Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal

1.10 Zoffany, Johann (1733-1810), Warren Hastings, 1783-84. Oil on canvas.
Yale Center for British Art, ref: B2012.17.

1.11 Gillray, James (1756/57-1815), The Bow to the Throne – alias – The Begging

Bow, published 6 May 1788 by S. W. Fores. British Library Board, ref: P3310.

1.12 William Prinsep (1794-1874), Belvedere House, 1838. Watercolour. The
British Library Board, ref: WD4382.

1.13 The grand rear entrance to Belvedere House, Alipore., 2014. Author’s
Photograph.

1.14 D'Oyly, Sir Charles (1781-1845), The Suspension Bridge at Alipore, over

Tolly's Nulla, Plate 21 of 'Views of Calcutta and its Environs'. Lithograph, coloured 1848. British Library Board, ref: X 666.

1.15 Belvedere House and Estate in A. Upjohn’s, Map of Calcutta and Its

Environs, from an Accurate Survey, taken in the Years 1792 and 1793,

c.1794. The British Library Board, ref: Maps K.Top.115.43.2.TAB.
1.16 Hastings House, Alipore, 2014. Author’s Photograph. 1.17 William Hodges (1744-1797), A View of the Fort of Bidjegur, 1787. Aquatint

with etching, coloured. Plate 10 of ‘Select Views in India’.

British Library Board, ref: X307(10).

1.18 William Hodges (1744-1797), Natives drawing water from a Pond with

Warren Hastings’ House at Alipur in the distance (on the right), 1781. Oil on

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