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Frogmore House before James Wyatt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Extract

Recent remedial work at Frogmore House, Windsor, presented the opportunity for an investigation into the origins and development of the building. In this paper the original house of 1680 is described and attributed to Hugh May. The subsequent history of Frogmore is outlined up to the late eighteenth century, when the house was altered and enlarged by James Wyatt. A previously unknown scheme of wall-painting was discovered during repairs in the staircase hall, and this is here analysed and assigned to Louis Laguerre. An inventory of the contents of the house in 1700 is appended.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1985

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References

Notes

1 The original map appears to be lost, but it is reproduced in Tighe, R. R. and Davis, J. E., Annals of Windsor, 2 vols. (London, 1858), 11, opp. p. 320Google Scholar.

2 Berkshire Record Office, D/EN T45.

4 Calendar of Treasury Books, 1685-1689 (London, 1923), 1686Google Scholar.

5 Berkshire Record Office, D/EN T45; Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights, Public. Har-leian Soc. 8 (London, 1873), 229Google Scholar; Colvin, H. M., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (London, 1978), 544Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 543-5.

7 Guildhall Library, grangerized copy of Lysons, D., The Environs of London 11, pt. 2 (1795), 209 (pointed out to me by HughBelsey)Google Scholar.

8 Chronologia Architectonica, 1671.,Google Scholar Bod-leian MS Top. Gen. c. 25, f. 49 quoted in Colvin, H. M., op. cit. (note 5), 544Google Scholar.

9 The plan is now in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.

10 An original door had been used in the blocking and seems to have served for temporary access, perhaps during the works. The original opening was, however, larger—in fact it was just the right size to accommodate a pair of double doors with exactly the dimensions of those used in the rebuilt wall opposite the staircase.

11 Berkshire Record Office, D/EN F29.

12 Earlier this century, however, it was thought to be ‘of the original date of the house’ (V.C.H., Berkshire, III (London, 1923), 4Google Scholar.

13 Thornton, P., Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland (New Haven and London, 1978), 109,Google Scholar mentions examples ‘at Tart Hall in 1641 and at Dyrham at the end of the century’.

14 Berkshire Record Office, D/EN T45.

15 This holding was acquired by Queen Charlotte in 1791, and the house was then demolished.

16 Berkshire Record Office, D/EN T45.

17 Sergeant, P. W., My Lady Castlemaine, Being a Life of Barbara Villiers (London, 1912), 264–6Google Scholar.

18 The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Beer, E. S. de (London, 1959), 779 (24 October 1684)Google Scholar.

19 The bell is signed R. P. Mr P. Ashworth has kindly informed me that this is likely to be Richard Phelps, of the Whitechapel Foundry.

20 The ceilings of the vestibule and the staircase hall are relatively modern and no trace of painting was found on them, nor on the south wall of the vestibule, which was rebuilt by Wyatt. Only a fragment remains on the inner face of the east wall of the staircase hall, because most of the plaster was removed from this area (together with a narrow strip from the flanking walls to north and south) as part of the programme of dry rot eradication. The plaster on the east wall was in very poor condition and the surviving fragment is much decayed, but it seems to have carried grisaille panels.

21 Virgil, , Aeneid, 1, lines 435–9Google Scholar.

22 There is a halo of damage around the head' of the figure of Dido on the north wall, suggesting that an attempt was made to remove her, like the figure of Venus on the south wall, though thankfully in this case it was unsuccessful.

23 Virgil, , Aeneid, iv, lines 7588Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., v, lines 1018-74.

25 Williams, R. D. and Pattie, T. S., Virgil: his Poetry through the Ages (London, 1982), 117Google Scholar.

26 Some of their account books survive (Berkshire Record Office, D/EN F30 and F30A) and are testimony to their economy.

27 Harwood, T. Eustace, Windsor Old and New (London, 1928), 277Google Scholar.

28 The Complete Peerage, ix, 740-2.

29 See Croft-Murray, E., Decorative Painting in England 1537-1837, 2 vols. (London, 1962 and Feltham, 1970) for a catalogue of the works of these paintersGoogle Scholar.