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The Grange, Northington

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Extract

In July 1972 the Hon. John Baring, owner of The Grange, Northington, Hampshire, held an auction to strip the house of all its saleable fittings: the staircase, doors, fireplaces and marble cladding were all removed. He then proposed to demolish the building, one of the earliest Greek Revival country houses in Europe, but the public outcry was so considerable that in 1975 it was taken into guardianship by the Department of the Environment. The house remained roofless and derelict until 1979–80 when the Department commissioned an independent architect, Donald Hankey, to restore the roof and exterior of the main east block and conservatory. The restoration presented a unique opportunity to examine the building in detail, revealing a great deal about the original seventeenth-century mansion, and how it had been converted to a Greek temple. The following account concentrates on the structural changes which took place in the main east block and in the conservatory. Some new information has also come to light about the gardens. The nineteenth-century extensions to the west of the house are omitted because they were demolished between 1972 and 1979, before restoration began.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1983

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References

Notes

1 The auction was supervised by Pearsons of Ando ver.

2 Considerable documentary research on the house has already been published: W. L. W. Eyre, A brief history of the Parishes of Swarraton and Northington (1890); Crook, J. Mordaunt, ‘Grange Park Transformed’, The Country Seat, ed. Colvin, H. and Harris, J. (1970), pp. 220-28Google Scholar; E. Mercer, ‘William Samwell and the Grange’, The Country Seat, p. 48–54; Redmill, J. ‘The Grange, Hampshire’, Country Life, 8 May 1975, pp. 1166-68Google Scholar; 15 May 1975, pp. 1242-45; R. W. Liscombe, William Wilkins (1980); D. Watkin, Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell (1974).

3 R. A. Windsor Castle Deeds 6/172 19 October 1795, hereafter called the Inventory. Access to this manuscript was provided by gracious permission of Her Majesty The Queen. The Conespondence of George Prince of Wales, ed. Aspinall, A., III (1965), letter 1033 Google Scholar; iv, letter 1563.

4 V. C. H. Hampshire, III (l908), 395-96.

5 Shown as an important building in Camden’s, Britannia, ed. Holland, P. (1637), p. 258 Google Scholar.

6 Hampshire Record Office (hereafter HRO) 11 M 52/1, 29 April 1662.

7 Lady Day 1664 PRO E179/375/32 pt 1 m 14; Lady Day 1673 PRO E179/176/569 m 9.

8 Powell, A., John Aubrey and his friends (1948), p. 191 Google Scholar. A clay pipe of a common Winchester type, dated 1670 ± 10 by Adrian Oswald, was found immured in the upper part of the west elevation.

9 Aubrey, John, Brief Lives and selected writings, ed. Powell, A., (1949), p. 267 Google Scholar: ‘Mr Samuel, an excellent architect that has built several delicate houses (Sir Robert Henley’s, Sir Thomas Grosvenor’s in Cheshire).’ The latter was Eaton Hall. Colvin, H. M., Biographical Dictionary of British Architects (1978), p. 712 Google Scholar.

10 History of the King’s Works, ed. Colvin, H. M., VI (1976), 214-17Google Scholar.

11 Ketton-Cremer, R. W., Felbrigg, the story of a house (1962), pp. 5658 Google Scholar. The plans and an elevation in SamweU’s handwriting are at Felbrigg Hall, owned by the National Trust.

12 Dunbar, J. G., ‘Building Activities of the Lauderdales’, Archaeological Journal, CXXXII (1975), 221-28Google Scholar.

13 It was totally rebuilt in the nineteenth century and then demolished. Illustrated in Campbell, C., Vitruvius Britannkus (1715-25), 11, 36 Google Scholar; and Acloque, G. and Cornforth, J., ‘The Eternal Gothic of Eaton’, Country Life, 11 February 1971, pp. 304-07Google Scholar.

14 Gibbs collection, loose folder.

15 The east-west trench, 32ft 10 in (10 m) long, was dug from a point 77 ft 41 in (23.57 m) north of the house and 38 ft 6 in (11.7 m) to the west.

16 W. Povey, ‘Hampshire Church Notes’, BLAdd Ms 14296 f62. The three storeys are the three main floors, excluding the basement and garret.

17 The plan shows the house 100 ft long. In fact it is 102 ft 8 in (31.29 m).

18 Colvin, H. M., History of the King’s Works V, 214-17Google Scholar.

19 The private stair was clearly part of the original construction being supported by specially made offsets in the walls. It went from the basement to the garret and was lit by windows borrowing light from adjacent rooms. One such window survives in the basement. The stair is described in the Inventory.

20 It is not known why Samwell illustrates two different types of exterior opening on the west wall of the quarter landings. The windows are in fact below the main flight of stairs.

21 The compartment between the north-west bedroom and the stairwell was reopened. In 1795 it was a wood store, and had been bricked up subsequently.

22 The Lord Keeper was Robert Henley, Lord Chancellor, created first earl of Northington in 1764. Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, P. (1906), III, 162 Google Scholar.

23 Walpole, H., Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway, J. and Wornum, R. N. (1888), 11, 64 Google Scholar.

24 Watkin, D., Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell R.A. (1974), p. 70 Google Scholar. Inigo Jones disproved: Gentleman’s Magazine (1788), II, 871-72. Yet the myth seems to have lingered into the later nineteenth century. See the bust of Inigo Jones in a niche on the main staircase visible in Pl. 17b (c. 1871).

25 Samwell used oval windows in the basement at Ham House.

26 It would always have been concealed within the valley between the steep pitched roofs, and did not project above the roof line as at Eaton Hall.

27 The Prince of Wales had them filled with statues of Flora and Ceres made by Chenu for £14 14$. in 1799. R A Geo 25100-1.

28 RCHM Westminster Abbey (1924), Pl. 166, p. 86.

29 When the studwork was removed, a large painted wooden panel was found blocking the south opening. It appeared to be late eighteenth-century in style, showing a delicate urn with horses leaping out of the top. Unfortunately the paint and wood disintegrated rapidly after being photographed. Both openings were completely bricked up on the inside, using the grey mortar typical of Cox’s work in the 1870s.

30 G. F. Prosser, Select illustrations of Hampshire (1833), no pagination.

31 The library ceiling was lowered by Wilkins and servants’ rooms installed above it in the attic. The brick cornice of the library survives just above the inserted attic floor. Substantial diagonal beams set on Samwell’s brickwork survived across the southern corners of the room 6 ft 9 in (206 cm) above the cornice. They were possibly supports for a shallow domed ceiling, above coving which rose from the cornice.

32 These basic differences are not equally clear throughout the house: the mortar in Samwell’s basement is sandy yellow and not struck, very similar to that in Wilkins’ new structural wall rising from basement to attic in the south east quarter of the house. Nineteenth-century white lime mortar is also used in the upper part of the east portico.

33 A small staircase led up from it to Wilkins’ roof, and presumably previously to Samwell’s garret.

34 Subsequent investigation revealed traces of it on the north and south sides, while on the west façade it had been completely dismantled and the moulded bricks reused more or less in in situ.

35 Samwell’s window sills on the piano nobile are 36 in (96 cm) above the floor.

36 Harris, J., ‘Inigo Jones and the Prince’s Lodging at Newmarket’, Architectural History, 11 (1919), 2640 Google Scholar, fig. 2. Mr Hankey’s solution follows John Webb’s designs for Durham House, which in their turn derive from Palladio’s Palazzo Porto (see Quattro Libri, 11, 9).

37 Colvin, H. M., History of the King’s Works V, 214-16Google Scholar.

38 The rubbed brick interiors of the niches were pointed with brick coloured mortar, coated with a brick slurry and then limewashed several times.

39 The main and basement stairs at the Grange do not rise on parallel pitches, the basement stairs being shallower. This possible evidence of a change of plan may be connected with the unsatisfactory position of the west door and string course. The Felbrigg niche no longer exists, but was probably executed.

40 The lintel over the window immediately west of the door was a reused cyma recta moulding, possibly from the central door. Wilkins also reused a number of moulded stones in the external walls of his attic. Their original function and location are not clear. They are now in store at Fort Brockhurst.

41 Neale, J. P., Views of the Seats (1819), 11 Google Scholar, no pagination.

42 G. F. Prosser confuses the issue in 1833 by stating the house was an ‘Italian square villa of three stories in height, the upper in a ponderous roof of great elevation’. (Select illustrations of Hampshire.) If he was referring to the three main floors, ignoring both basement and garret, it would be possible to reconstruct an enormous roof such as that at Balmes House, Hackney. Here both the attic and garret have dormer windows. Metcalf, P., ‘Balmes House’, Architectural Review (June 1957), pp. 445-46Google Scholar. However Prosser lifts so many phrases from Neale that he is more likely to have made an error in counting the floors.

43 The basement windows were designed for more light than they receive at present. Most of them had to be enlarged after Wilkins vaulted and grilled over the areas. While describing the south elevation the Inventory mentions ‘iron wire guard along the areas’.

44 The projection is 11 ft 2 m (342 cm) long, projecting 2 ft (60 cm) from the central bay of the house and cut off at the height of Wilkins’ area vault.

45 The jambs of the central window were completely bagged in by Wilkins’ brickwork, indicating that some substantial masonry had been removed.

46 Blutman, S., ‘Geometrical Staircases’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians XXVI, No. 1 (1967), 3439 Google Scholar. C. Wilkinson ‘The Escorial and the Invention of the Imperial Staircase’, Art Bulletin, March 1975.

47 Summerson, J., Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 (1977), p. 560 Google Scholar.

48 Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, P. (1906), III, 162 Google Scholar. He particularly remarks on the Holbein and Van Dyck.

49 Sir John Soane Museum, Adam drawings collection vol. 30, nos. 130-33; vol. 50, no. 25.

50 This service wing must have been demolished by the time Smirke built the private wing on the same site. Neale and Prosser are again at odds over this. According to Neale (1819), ‘the lower (part of the house) contained the offices, these have been removed to the west end of the mansion’. Prosser (1833): Drummond ‘removed the offices to the west end of the mansion’.

51 Lord Henley in Memoires of the Life of Robert Henley, Earl ofNorthington (1831), quoted in Duthy, J., Sketches of Hampshire (1839), p. 150 Google Scholar.

52 Eyre, W. L. W., A brief history of the parishes of’Swanaton and Northington (1890), p. 46 Google Scholar.

53 Gentleman’s Magazine II (1788), 871-72. This article also mentions an avenue running up the valley to the south of the house, traces of which survived in 1890 (Eyre, p. 47).

54 Eyre, p. 47.

55 The most significant aspects of this work are already published: J. M. Crook (1972), E. Mercer (1972), J. Redimii (1975), R. W. Liscombe (1980).

56 Liscombe, p. 235.

57 Mallet, J. L., in Mallet, B., Thomas George Earl ofNorthbrook (1908), p. 8 Google Scholar. For Henry Drummond’s character and life: Bolitho, H. and Peel, D., The Drummonds of Charing Cross (1967), pp. 129-45Google Scholar.

58 Liscombe, pp. 56-57.

59 The east portico was based on the Theseion and the north and south porticos on the Choragic monument of Thrasyllus; J. M. Crook (1972), pis 94 and 95. Wilkins may also have seen Robert Mitchell’s Plans and Views, Designs to elucidate the Style of Grecian Architecture, illus. in Blutman, S., ‘Book of designs for country houses’, Architectural History XI (1968), fig. 9aGoogle Scholar.

60 Eyre, p. 46.

61 Crook, J. M. The Greek Revival, Country Life Books (1968), pls 23 and 24, p. 34Google Scholar. Drawings RIBA E4/10. A timber west pediment was eventually added, perhaps after the insertion of the cupola.

62 Prosser (1833), no pagination.

63 Watkin, p. 70.

64 He further enlarged the south-east room by moving its north wall one bay to the north.

65 Wilkins made his wide span floors with a light girder truss construction, easily distinguished from Samwell’s black oak beams and Cox’s rolled steel joists.

66 Gardeners’ Magazine, 1 (1826), 107.

67 Wilkins may have been influenced by his father’s interest in the theatre. Wilkins senior leased and redesigned the Theatre Royal, Norwich, in 1799 and got Humphry Repton to write a play for it. Liscombe, pp. 13-15. Wilkins’ own drawings in Magna Graecia also show a dramatic appreciation of buildings in their landscape.

68 And provide most unhygenic roosts for pigeons.

69 J. L. Mallet in B. Mallet ut supra, p. 8.

70 Gardeners’ Magazine, 1 (1826), 106.

71 HRO 11M52/200-202. March 1816.

72 J. L. Mallet in B. Mallet, p. 8.

73 Prosser (1833), no pagination.

74 Watkin, pp. 250, 253, 69-71, 170-74. Gardener’s Magazine, 1 (1826), 105-09; 11 (1827), 170-71.

75 Watkin, p. 253.

76 Carlyle, Jane Welsh, Letters to her Family, ed. Huxley, L. (1924), pp. 288, 346, also 353-55Google Scholar, Christmas at The Grange in 1851.

77 In the possession of the Hon. John Baring.

78 Samwell’s oak beams had begun to sag in the hall ceiling. One remedy was to attach them by cables to the attic ceiling joists, but Cox then inserted steel joists alongside the oak beams.

79 Prosser (1833); photos Winchester City Museum PWCM 3238, 3252, 3245.

80 Cockerell placed a small cupola over his vestibule to the dining room which led from the first landing on the stairs. Presumably the area was already poorly lit. Cox’s before and after plans show certain inaccuracies. He shows the service stairs to the north of the main staircase ascending in the wrong direction, and omits Wilkins’ main structural wall in the south-east part of the basement while showing it on all the floors above.

81 Watkin, pp. 69-71.

82 Gardeners’ Magazine, 1 (1826), 107; J. M. Crook (1972), p. 224; Watkin, D., Thomas Hope and the Neo Classical Idea (1968), p. 145 Google Scholar. Sir Charles Barry was also involved in the garden design: a drawing from his office for a garden at The Grange was sold at Sothebys in 12 June 1980, lot 89. I am grateful to Professor Crook for this information.

83 Winchester City Museum PWCM 3224, 4708, 4710, 4711, 4707, 4714, 13881.

84 Prosser (1833).

85 Fry’s, The Outdoor Magazine XII, 67 (October, 1909)Google Scholar. The Sporting Estates ofEnglandby ‘East Sussex’, pp. 56-61. This mainly describes the game in the park.

86 Sale catalogues: Sotheby’s, 10 February 1965, Old Master Paintings, L. C. Wallach. Phillips Son & Neale Ltd, 23 November 1964, The Grange Northington. See also Whitman, G. W., ‘The Grange, Alresford’, The Antique Collector (October 1935) pp. 267-72Google Scholar.

87 Eyre (1890), p. 46.

88 This is awaiting restoration and possible reassembly elsewhere on the site.

89 For instance, the Bishop’s Palace Winchester.

90 For a photograph before Cox see Redmill, , Country Life, 15 May 1975, pl. 5, p. 1245 Google Scholar.