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The building of Dodington Park

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Anne Warren
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Extract

Dodington Park, Avon was built by Christopher Bethel Codrington, a descendant of the famous Christopher Codrington, founder of the library at All Souls, Oxford and of the college for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Barbados. The estate had been acquired by the Codrington family at the end of the sixteenth century, with its large gabled Elizabethan house and adjoining church. A branch of the family emigrated to the West Indies and there built up an extensive holding of sugar plantations, the income from which was used in 1796 to commission a new house by the fashionable architect James Wyatt.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 34 , 1991 , pp. 171 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1991

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References

Notes

Abbreviations

GRO

Gloucester Record Office

Accounts

Estate accounts

S.B.Accounts

Summary building accounts

1 GRO D 1610P58/1-15.

2 GRO D 1610 A 76-79.

3 GRO D 1610 A 96.

4 GRO D 1610 A 97.

5 The Diary of Joseph Farington. Vols I-VI edited by Garlick, Kenneth and Macintyre, Angus (1978-79), Vols VII-XVI edited by Kathryn Cave (1982-84)Google Scholar.

6 Harris, J., ‘C. R. Cockerell’s “Ichnographica Domestica”’, Architectural History, 14 (1971), p. 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Farington, 16 Oct. 1806, p. 2887.

8 Harris, ‘C. R. Cockerell . . ., p. 14 (Sir R.C. is obviously a mistake. Cockerell means Sir C.B.C.).

9 Macmillan’s, Encyclopaedia of Architects (1982), p.455 Google Scholar.

10 Summerson, J., Architecture in Britain 1510-1830 (1953), p.462 Google Scholar.

11 Guide to Dodington, English Life Publications (1982), p. 2.

12 Hussey insists that the old house was demolished first, but this and other evidence contradicts this. C. Hussey, English Country Houses: Late Georgian 1800-1840, p. 42.

13 This may be the SW view of Dodington Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798. See Linstrum, D., The Wyatt Family, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the RIBA (1973), p. 38 Google Scholar, and also the Royal Academy Catalogue for 1798.

14 Fergusson, F., ‘James Wyatt and John Penn, architect and patron at Stoke Park Buckinghamshire’, Architectural History, 20 (1977), p. 49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wyatt’s work at Stoke Park, like that at Dodington, typifies his approach to design.

15 Linstrum dates Wyatt’s entry into partnership with Armstong as 1799 not 1798, Sir Jeffry Wyatville: Architect to the King (1972), p. 19.

16 GRO D 1610R.1.

17 D. Watkin, Thomas Hope and the Neo-classical Idea (1968), Appendix B, p. 246. (Strictly speaking, the order used at Dodington is not pure Greek Doric.)

18 Fergusson, ‘James Wyatt .. .’, p. 50.

19 I have been unable to trace any family connection.

20 GRO D 1610R.1.

21 Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris 1st Earl of Malmesbury (1844), Vol. 4, p. 124.

22 See Girouard, M., Life in the English Country House (1978), p. 256 Google Scholar, for a discussion of cold baths.

23 Dodington was one of the first houses to install hot air central heating. Small apertures in the hall floors allowed the hot air to circulate. For a discussion of central heating, see Girouard, loc. cit., p. 263.

24 Vitruvius Britannicus, Vol. 4, Plate 83.

25 See Hussey, Late Georgian, p. 54. He tells us that the original chimney-piece in the drawing room had Wedgwood plaques.

26 Harris, ‘C. R. Cockerell .. .’, p. 14.

27 For an account, see Farington, 17 May 1818, p. 5203.

28 Harris, ‘C. R. Cockerell. . .’, p. 14.

29 Watkin, Thomas Hope, p. 177. He tells us that tent rooms were not introduced until the 1830s.

30 Hussey, Late Georgian, p. 24, fig. 33.

31 Gunnis, R., Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 (1953), p. 51 Google Scholar; Beard, G., Georgian craftsmen and their work (1966), Appendix 1, p. 162 Google Scholar.

32 Gunnis, Dictionary, p. 42; Beard, Georgian Craftsmen, p. 173.

33 Ibid., p. 172.

34 Robinson, J. M., The Wyatts. An Architectural Dynasty (1979), p. 178 Google Scholar.

35 Gunnis, Dictionary, pp. 421, 422.

36 Beard, Georgian Craftsmen, p. 165.

37 Gunnis, Dictionary, p.229.

38 Farington, 29 March 1804, p. 2283.

39 Robinson, The Wyatts . . ., p. 157.

40 Dale, A., ‘James Wyatt and his Sons’, The Architect and Building News, Vol. 193, p. 296 Google Scholar.

41 I found this inside the front cover of the estate account book for 1799-1813. GRO D 1610 A77.

42 Farington, 2 Nov. 1797, p. 914.

43 Jenkins, F., Architect and Patron (1961), p. 146 Google Scholar.

44 Farington, 16 Oct. 1806, p. 2887.

45 Idem., 18 Sept. 1813, p. 4424.

46 Harris, ‘C. R. Cockerell .. .’, p. 14.

47 Dale, A., James Wyatt (1936), p. 31 Google Scholar. His estimate is also £120,000.

48 The Gentleman’s Magazine, Sept. 1817, reports that Codrington’s purchase of estates at Wapley and other parishes meant that his estates then extended fifteen miles in one continuous line.

49 Hussey, Late Georgian, pp. 45-48.

50 Linstrum, RIBA Catalogue, The Wyatt Family, Fig. 30.

51 Harris, ‘C. R. Cockerell. ..’, p. 14.

52 Ibid., p. 10.

53 Farington, 10 Nov. 1798, p. 1087.

54 Repton, H., Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803), p. 103 Google Scholar.

55 Girouard, Life in the English Country House, pp. 219-20.

56 Farington, 22 Dec. 1798, p. 1117.

57 Robinson, op cit., p. 63.