The lives of the British architects from William of Wykeham to Sir William Chambers

Front matter

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

LBRARIES

ITHACA, N. Y. 14853

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Wykeham and his Predecessors i

II. Thorpe, Chrismas^ Symons, Holt, Acroydk,

Chapter I William Of Wykeham And His Predecessors

Although William of Wykeham can in a way claim to be the first of those British architects of whom we have any adequate record,^ there must have been before his day many a mute inglorious builder whose work is preserved in the stately fabrics of our great cathedrals, and whose energy must have been expended on the erection of many a fortress ; but their names have not been preserved, and when we ask ourselves who erected such masterpieces as York Minster or Canterbury Cathedral, we are forced back on the hypothesis that such wonders of architectural skill were more or less the fortuitous outcome of many minds.

Indeed the process seems to have evolved itself in something like the following way : the plans and dimensions were discussed, it would seem, by a council of ecclesiastics,* who had given more thought to such matters than their brethren, and had received by word of mouth some general principles which they incorporated in their scheme ; these

1 The great and good Hugo of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, is said to have designed and partly built Lincoln Cathedral, but he was not an Englishman. For an account of this fine character, see Fronde's " Short Studies."

« As at Battle Abbey, where the first buildings were entrusted to William Faber, Theobald Vetulus, William Cocke, Bobert de Boloigne, and Bobert Blanchard ; or at Dorchester Abbey, where the monks altered and enlarged the monastery founded in 1140 by the third Bishop of Lincoln — to take these two from a thousand instances.

I A plans and dimensions were then probably handed on to underlings whose care it was to conduct the business arrangements, i.e., the enrolling of workmen, the acquisition of material, and the purchase, where necessary, of sites ; and finally the actual work of construction would be placed in the hands of a trained body of craftsmen, principally masons who, while following the general rules submitted to them, may conceivably have here and there given free play to their own natural fancies.-' Thus when we read that one Henry Latomus rebuilt Evesham Church in 1319,^ we shall not be far wrong if we regard his surname as a sort of anglicised Lithotomus, or stone cutter, and the man himself as probably the chief of the masons who were engaged on the work ; and we seem to be as far off as ever from any recognised head from whose brain the welding together of the ideas of various people would, in our own day, be due.

There are, however, certain names which have come down to us, to the bearers of which we can traditionally at least allocate the carrying out if not the actual inception of architectural landmarks. The first of these is that of Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, who is stated to have been appointed surveyor and overseer of the works connected with the erection of the Tower, by William the Conqueror. According to Stow, quoting Fitzstephen, Gundulf, was during this time (1078) lodged in the house of one Edmere, a burgess of London, and even if we may doubt whether Gundulf can be properly enrolled among British architects,^ as he was Bishop of an English See, and as, moreover, that portion of the Tower for which he is said to have been responsible was the great White Tower which has come to be regarded as one of our most important and cherished national possessions, I think his inclu-

1 See Prior's " Cathedral Builders of England," &o, &e.

2 John Leland.

3 He was in fact born at Rouen, and was a monk of the Abbey of Bee before accompanying William to England at the time of the Conquest.

sion may be regarded as justified. At one time he was also credited with the erection of Rochester Castle, but that fine relic has since been proved to be of a later date. He appears to have died thirty years after the commencement of his work at the Tower, which leisurely proceeding was not even completed in his life time.

Peter of Colechurch is the next claimant to the title of architect, although little enough is known about him. He is said, by Stow, to have first repaired, and then rebuilt London Bridge, in timber, in the year 1163. Where, however. Stow obtained this information is not very clear, and it is certainly better established that this "priest and chaplain of Colechurch," as he is called, erected the first stone bridge thirteen years later. Towards this work it is interesting to know that Richard, elected Archbishop of Canterbury on the death of Becket, contributed 1000 marks, appropriately, as it would seem, according to the line contained in some old verses preserved by Leland :

" Another blessed besines is Brigges to make."

Peter of Colechurch died in 1205, but the bridge was not yet completed, and even before his death, King John appointed another architect in his place, one Isembert de Xaintes, who had already had experience in this particular kind of work, as he had superintended the erection of the bridges in his native town and at Rochelle. But even Isembert did not participate in the completion of the lengthy undertaking which occupied no less than thirtythree years, for we find (1209) it being finished by Serle Mercer, William Almaine, and Benedict Botewrite, who are styled " principal masters of that work," and whom we might assume to have been architects or at lea^t surveyors, if we did not know that they were merchants.

In the centre of the bridge stood a chapel and crypt, in which its first architect, Peter of Colechurch, was buried in 1205, four years before the completion of the work; and when the bridge was pulled down in 1832, bones, supposed to be his, were found beneath the flooring of the chapel.

The names of the other architects, anterior to Wykeham, that have come down to us are obviously those of men who accompanied the Conqueror to this country or came hither at a later date from France or Normandy ; of such were William de Sens, who built the choir of Canterbury ; Helias de Berham, who was apparently occupied for no less than twenty-five years on work connected with Salisbury Cathedral, and Edward Fitzodo, who was surveyor, under Henry III., of the works then undertaken at Westminster.

Of these very little is known beyond the bald facts here stated ; it is probable, however, that Helias de Berham is identical with that Elyas who is mentioned in a record for the year 1209, as being employed in superintending work at the king's palace at Westminster ; while in the Cotton MSS. there is a letter of Gervasius, a benedictine monk of Canterbury, relative to the building of that cathedral after 1 174, which throws a little additional light on the personality of William of Sens, for in this epistle, which contains a minute account of Bishop Lanfranc's original structure and the restoration which it underwent, it is stated that this work was carried out under the direction of William of Sens, and a certain William the Englishman who is said to have completed the structure, and who, according to Dallaway, " is the first architect or master-mason, a native of this country, concerning whom anything satisfactory is known ! " The same authority says also that he was the first " who boldly attempted to work the ribbed and vaulted ceiling in stone and toph." ^

This is extremely tantalising because, although we do know a fact or two about William of Sens, we appear to have no record at all of William the Englishman of whom Dallaway thus speaks, other than this note which is to be

» The letter of Gervasius was incorporated in the " Daoem Scriptores " published by E. Twisden in 1652. It is of the highest value because of the rarity of any MS. on architecture so early as the reign of John.

found in Walpole's " Anecdotes of Painting," and which seems to indicate that its writer was well acquainted with the details of his life, and merely spared us this crumb, as supposing, apparently, that all the world was equally well informed. It seems fairly obvious that the title of "the Englishman" was assigned to this particular William to differentiate him from William of Sens ; but who this shadowy personage was, will probably never be more clearly shown. Carter, in his " Ancient Sculpture," points out, in England not a single original plan, as drawn by the architects of great abbeys and churches survives, as they do on the Continent ; and this, of course, sufficiently accounts for the obscurity of the genesis of these great buildings and the disappearance of the names of those who, if not architects in the modem acceptation of the term, took a leading part in the design and construction of edifices that still exist. In this connection, however, it is interesting to know that in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel at Worcester Cathedral there are two bas-reliefs representing an architect in the act of presenting a plan to the superior of a monastery, and receiving what appears to be a carved head from a lady. Although the actual period of these interesting relics is unknown, they are of great antiquity and are said, by Bloxam, to date from the middle of the thirteenth century. If proving nothing else, tliese reliefs help to show that ecclesiastical buildings were not erected without a plan.

When we come to the days of Wykeham himself, three names appear which we can connect more or less closely with the architecture of the period. The first is that of Walter de Weston, who, by a patent dated 1 33 1, is stated to have been employed on work at St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. Walpole, as edited by Dallaway, gives him something of an imprimatur by including his name among the architects — ^but he does no more,

Alan of Walsingham has a somewhat better claim, for he is at least known to have been responsible for much of the beauty of Ely Cathedral, notably the octagon and the louvre, and if he is identical with Alan the Sacrist mentioned in the life of Bishop Hotham,i then he also constructed the Campanile Novum vchich occupied twenty years in building, and cost the great sum, for those days, of over ;£2400. Alan is styled "Vir venerabilis et artificiosus Frater"; and although this might equally well denote a mastery in mason's work, I think we may safely assume that he occupied a position as near that of an architect of our own day as was consistent with the building methods of the period in which he lived and worked.

The name of William Winford is more familiar to us, for, as I shall have occasion to mention later, he was Wykeham's right-hand man during the restoration of Winchester Cathedral, and superintended the work during the absence of Wykeham himself. As there is every reason to suppose that he also co-operated in the designs, j ust as a head pupil in a modern architect's office might do, we can with safety place him among the early architects of this country. Wykeham specifically mentions him in his will in the following words : " Volo etiam et ordino quod dispositio et ordinatio hujusmodi novi operis fiant per Magistrum Wilhelmum Winford et alios sufficienles^ discretos, et in arte ilia approbates, ab executionibus meis, si oportuerit, deputandos." From the fact that Wykeham chose Winford as his chief coadjutor in the great work of restoration at Winchester Cathedral, it seems not improbable that he may have also employed him in the earlier undertakings at Oxford and Winchester ; and that he thus places him, by name, first of those whom he wishes to continue his schemes after his death, is sufficient evidence of the confidence he reposed in Winford's capabilities as an architect and integrity as a man.

Contemporary with Wykeham and Winford was William Rede, Bishop of Chichester in 1369. He is said to have been the best mathematician of his time, and is credited

1 Leland.

with the erection of the Castle of Amberley,^^whose"ruins may still be seen in the beautiful valley of the Aran, and the Library at Merton College, Oxford. It is, at this distance of time, impossible to say exactly what this tradition means. If in both these cases Rede acted merely the part of the patron, he cannot be regarded in any other light than that of a munificent and far-seeing prelate who divided his wealth between the claims of learning and the requirements of a troublous period ; if, on the other hand, he actually designed the buildings at Oxford and at Amberley, and as a mathematician of great repute this is not at all improbable, then he may in some way take his place beside the great prelate-architect, about whose career I must now say something.

So much has been written concerning Wykeham, and his career touches on so many sides the history of the country, that it will here only be necessary to speak of him in his connection with the architectural development of his time. He was born at Wickham, in Hampshire, in 1324, and, after being educated at Winchester where, among other things, he paid particular attention to geometry, " the science of which is called masonry," he was taken into the household of Sir John Scures, as secretary. Sir John was at this time Governor of Winchester Castle, and custodian of other strongholds in Hampshire, and there seems some reason to believe that Wykeham acted as a kind of clerkof-the-works to his patron. In 1340, Scures was succeeded in his post by Sir Robert Daundley with whom Wykeham remained, and having been presented by Daundley to Bishop Edingdon, the latter introduced him to the notice of the king. He was just the man Edward, who at this time was bent on vast building designs at Windsor and elsewhere, wanted, and, although on first entering the royal service, Wykeham's position seems to have been a subordinate one, it was not long to remain so.

By 1356 he had been created Surveyor of the Royal

1 It seems more probable that Eede's predecessor in the see, John Langton, built the castle, and that Eede enlarged and improved it.

Works at Windsor, and powers had been given him to obtain all the necessary material for the projected works, as well as to " press " into his service such artificers as he might require. His pei-sonal allowance was fixed at one shilling a day as long as he remained at Windsor, and two shillings a day when his duties called him elsewhere, a salary that was doubled by a grant dated November 14 of the following year. Wykeham appears to have received carte-blanche from the king for the contemplated improvements ; and he set to work to destroy the existing fortress and to build a palace in its place.

From a contemporary chronicle ■"■ we learn that, at Wykeham's instigation, Edward caused many fine buildings at Windsor to be levelled to the ground, and on their site to be built many more beautiful and sumptuous erections. Stone-masons and carpenters were pressed into the service from all parts of the country, so much so, indeed, that no one was able to find any of either trade to do work for him, unless he could manage to employ them secretly. In a word the king and his energetic architect had absorbed the whole building trade of the country in the erection of the lordly pleasure house that was gradually rising at Windsor.

There can be little doubt as to the excellence and Seauty of the new fabric which Wykeham raised. It was unlike anything else in the country, for it far surpassed any other royal or noble dwelling ; and with this beauty was combined strength. The nature of the site, of course, stood for much in this respect ; but then the site had not been able to differentiate the old castle from anything but a fortress, and there is no doubt that it was Wykeham's genius that created a royal abode so durable that it might still be standing in its entirety, as the Round Tower, its chief characteristic, does so stand ; and so adaptable to

1 "Continuatio Chronici Eanulphi per Johannem Malverne ab an Dom. 1326, ad an. 1394." The MS. is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, and it is quoted by Lowth in a note to his Life of Wykeham.

later requirements that not till the reign of George IV. was there any suggestion that it was not fitted to be the abode of the monarchs of this country.

We all know the wonderful pile as it exists to-day, and if little of Wykeham's original work still remains intact, or at least unrestored,^ there seems reason to believe that Wyatville rebuilt the greater portion on the lines of the original, and, as one of Wykeham's biographers says, that " the spirit of the clerical architect was awakened in the layman."

There is a well-known story told in connection with Wykeham's work at Windsor, which, even if apocryphal as some have suggested, is yet not uncharacteristic of the architect's readiness of wit. It is said that on one of the walls of the castle Wykeham had caused to be cut the words " Hoc fecit Wykeham." The king's attention was drawn to these words, and thinking, perhaps, that they denoted too much vainglory in the architect, he complained to him about the circumstance, and showed that he resented it, whereupon Wykeham is said to have replied that the words were not intended to indicate that " Wykeham made this," but that " This made Wykeham," inferring that the work he had been commissioned to do for his royal master had been the means of making his fortune, as it undoubtedly had. Whether the king forgave the act for the ready wit which had enabled the architect to extricate himself from a difficult position, or whether the ambiguity of the Latin made it impossible for him to contradict such an assertion, report does not say, but that he bore no ill-will to Wykeham on account of the incident, is proved by the fact that his satisfaction at the result of the work done at Windsor, not only found vent in the preferments he heaped on the head of its author but also in the growing favour and even affection with which he regarded him.

Mr. Moberly gives the following details of the work undertaken by Wykeham at Windsor : " To the east of the 1 Much of the foundation work executed by Wykeham remains.

lo LIVES OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS

round keep was a square plateau, with a precipitous side to the north. Around three sides of this were built certain walls with apartments behind them, the keep itself closing in the fourth or west side." This, of course, coinciding roughly with the present position of the royal apartments, the visitors' apartments, the Saloon and Waterloo Chamber, &c. " The entrance gate to the whole castle was at the western end of the south side of this square,'' in fact where St. George's Gateway still stands ; " but the king's palace was a block of buildings adjoining the north wall. You entered the castle gate, and crossed a spacious court to the palace gate, which again was at the south-west of the palace. To your left as you entered — and therefore to the west, and thus defended both by the proximity of the keep, and by the precipice on the north — was the square of the king's and queen's apartments, built round a court called the Brick Court, where probably Wykeham exercised his skill for the first time in working this material, which had recently been imported from Flanders, the native country of Queen Philippa. To your right as you entered lay the hall and chapel, forming a long continuous range of building, divided by a partition wall, exactly as at Wykeham's two colleges at Oxford and Winchester, while a transverse range connected them with the apartments to the north, and thus separated (divided) the enclosed space into two oblong courts, called respectively the Horn and the Kitchen Court."

The Winchester Tower standing to the north-west of the Round Tower perpetuates by its name the great architect who first contrived a palace out of what had formerly been but a stronghold. The actual fabric was completed in 1363, and was then ready for the glazing, to which end glass was sought for throughout the country and glaziers were remorselessly pressed in to the royal service. In this year the expenditure on the works is estimated at ;^5S,ooo of our present money ; nor did this actually complete the improvements which appear to have been inter-

WYKEHAM AND HIS PREDECESSORS ii

mittently going on for at least another six years, by which time the building was considered finished.

Simultaneously with the great work at Windsor, Wykeham was employed by the king (1361) in the erection of Queenborough Castle. Here he had natural obstacles to overcome consequent on the lowness of the ground on which the building had to be raised, as well as the inequalities of the site; but he was not a man to be daunted by such circumstances; and the difficulties being so pronounced, the triumphant success of the undertaking helped to further display the ability that the work at Windsor had shown him to possess. . From a plan by Hollar, reproduced by that industrious Captain Grose whom Bums has immortalised, we gain some idea of the formation of this castle of which little now actually exists. The keep, of an irregular circular formation, was about 200 feet in diameter, within it being a courtyard ; around it were five small round towers, and the entrance was guarded by a square turret, while linking up these towers was a raised fortification adapted to the need of warfare which was then largely carried on by bow and arrow. On the ground floor of the keep were a dozen chambers, and some forty more were contained in the higher stories ; a moat, 48 feet wide, surrounded the outer wall, and enclosing this moat appears to have originally existed another wall; access to the eoiceinte of the castle being by two bridges on the west and north-east respectively. This elaborate work occupied some six years in building, but it is probable that had there not been such a general press for men to work at Windsor, it would have been completed in a much shorter time.

By the age of forty-four Wykeham had reached a dual position of power and splendour seldom attained by a subject ; still a young man, he was able to throw all a young man's energy into a hundred schemes for the betterment of life and education, which his comprehensive brain conceived, and which the power he had attained enabled him to execute. The first of these to which he now tui-ned his attention was the rebuilding of the ah-eady dilapidated religious houses, and the amendment of the rules by which they were governed. With this object in view he ordered the executors of his predecessor in the bishopric, Edingdon, to put into thorough repair the various erections under the episcopal jurisdiction. These, we are told, comprised no fewer than twelve diiFerent castles, manor-houses, or palaces belonging to the cathedral of Winchester, and it is interesting to know that they were situated at Wolvesey, South Waltham, Merwell, Sutton, High-Clere, Farnham, Esher, Wargrave, Southwark, Taunton, &c. Wykeham also received, as property of the See, vast quantities of cattle of all sorts, as well as a sum of money amounting to over ;£i8oo, equal now to about ;£25,ooo, in lieu of crops that had been either alienated or destroyed.

Nor was this requisition merely made with the object ot swelling Wykeham 's own coffers ; he had better motives, as we shall see, and he determined that he would exact what was due to him and his See, in order that he might husband it for the great schemes that were already forming in his brain. With the same object in view, he personally visited all the religious houses in his diocese, and having noted improvements to be made and abuses to be corrected, he subsequently sent commissioners to attend to the one and to reform the other. His early training as an architect and a surveyor stood him in good stead in the next great work of reformation to which he set himself : the repairing of all the episcopal buildings under his jurisdiction.

One of the first steps he took towards this extensive scheme was to purchase the stone quarries of Quarr Abbey in the Isle of Wight, in order that he might have an ample store of the best building material to draw upon. The Abbot of Quarr also associated himself with Wykeham in the matter, and largely through his influence numbers of workmen from the neighbourhood were drafted into the service of the bishop who, in order to leave no stone unturned, wrote a circular letter to other ecclesiastical authorities in the island desiring their co-operation in collecting both skilled and unskilled labour. All these workmen were paid liberally by Wykeham himself, who is said to have expended no less than 20,000 marks (;^i 3,000) on the repairs and reconstruction of the episcopal buildings within his diocese.

But it was not only the structui-al improvements of these religious houses that received the bishop's care and attention ; he directed with as much ardour his investigations into their internal administration, and in the progress he made through the diocese in the summer of 1373, he visited each of them, and having noted abuses and irregularities, he, during the following year, sent commissioners with full power to correct them. The list of these monasteries, religious houses, and churches, which Lowth gives in a foot-note, comprises no less than forty odd, and sufficiently shows how large was the work undertaken by Wykeham. Nor was he content with one such investigation. Three several times, at varying intervals, did he visit them all, after each perambulation issuing orders for their better administration.

It is interesting to learn that amidst all this activity in his diocese generally, Wykeham already had an eye to his own cathedral which, twenty-three years later, was to receive such magnificent additions at his hands. Mr. Moberly quotes part of a letter written by Wykeham, in April 1 37 1, two days before his circular to the clergy of the Isle of Wight, in which, refen-ing to some new work going on at the cathedral, he makes complaint of certain unknown depredators having "stolen from their place stones hewn and unhewn, chalk and cement, and sundry instruments for the new work of our church aforesaid, which were got ready at great expense for making good the building" ; and he solemnly excommunicates them for these misdeeds which, apart from their illegality, may be supposed to have touched him as an architect very nearly.

After the cathedral itself, that which is more closely associated with Wykeham's name than any of the other buildings in his diocese is the Hospital of St. Cross, which had been originally instituted in 1 132 by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen, and which Wykeham spent no less than six years in reforming according to the original intentions of its founder. These institutions may be summarised thus: That thirteen indigent men should receive lodging, clothing, and a daily allowance of bread and beer, " three messes each for dinner, and one for supper " ; and that, in the event of any regaining health and strength enabling him to obtain work, he should be discharged and his place filled up. Besides this, it was intended that one hundred poor " of modest behaviour, and the most indigent that can be found," should each be served daily with a loaf of coarse bread and an allowance of beer, with permission to carry away with them what remained over from their dinner ; while it was also ordered that charity generally should be distributed to deserving objects as the funds of the Hospital allowed.

Like many men, whose career has not been initiated by a thorough grounding in classical education, and who have made a name for themselves, Wykeham continually felt the want of such an early training, particularly as the position he had attained was ever and anon bringing him into contact with those luckier than himself in this respect, who had gained in the schools of France and Italy what they could not easily have obtained at home. This latter point struck him forcibly, and he, no doubt, considered it little short of scandalous that there were in England so few seats of learning in which the scholars should be fitted with a relatively liberal education and prepared for the struggles of the world. His wealth was great ; as a churchman he had no direct heirs ; his frugality patent to all eyes ; indeed, he seems not to have escaped the charge of parsimony in a generation in which outward show was regarded as a necessary concomitant to power and position ; but he had an object in view, and he bore the imputations which were directed against him in silence, until all his plans were completed, and he at length surprised his contemporaries by announcing his resolve to erect a college for the perpetual maintenance and education of no less than two hundred scholars. The country had hardly time to cease wondering at such a splendid destination for the wealth which all the world knew he had been accumulating, before it heard that much of the ground on which the college was to rise was already purchased,^ that magnificent plans had already been prepared, and that men and materials were already engaged for carrying out this princely project.