Part 10

Much as we may regret the sacrifice of this commanding building and all the associations which clung to its fabric, we must remember that it had suffered considerable rebuilding since its first erection in about the year 1605, and even the famous front to the Strand was chiefly an eighteenth-century restoration. The history of the mansion has been hitherto far from clear, but the recent discovery of a contemporary plan of what appears to have been its original arrangement affords an opportunity for a new examination of the little evidence which we have. The plan referred to, and reproduced here by the very kind permission of its present custodian, belongs to the interesting collection of drawings, attributed to one of the Smithsons (a well-known family of architects of the reigns of Elizabeth and James), which was once in the possession of Lord Byron and is now preserved by Colonel Coke at Brookhill Hall, Alfreton. It will be remembered that Mr. J. A. Gotch brought these drawings before the notice of the architectural world some short time ago, by reading a most instructive paper upon them before the Royal Institute. Mr. Gotch was kind enough to draw my attention personally to this plan, which was entitled “The Platforme of my Lord of Northampton’s house in London.” The plan was not dated, but other drawings in the same collection bear dates ranging from 1599 to 1632, and it therefore seems pretty certain that it refers to the house built in the Strand by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, about the year 1605. Since, on Northampton’s death in 1614, the house changed its name to Suffolk House, we can safely refer the drawing to the period between 1605 and 1614—and its careful delineation of the garden makes it probable that it is a copy of a drawing prepared to show the design for the general lay-out of the grounds. There is a MS. note by Inigo Jones in his copy of Palladio which is preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, to the effect that the frontage of Northumberland House towards the Strand was 162 ft. long, and that the courtyard was 81 ft. square. The former measurement is exactly borne out by the plan, but the courtyard is drawn and figured as 90 by 86 ft. It is possible that Inigo Jones’s figures were taken between the projecting bay windows and porch.

Of the exterior of Northumberland House in its earliest days we have no drawing, but among a very precious little collection of diminutive drawings by Wenceslaus Hollar, preserved in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge, is a delightful sketch of Suffolk House as it was then called. Wilkinson in his _Londina Illustrata_ published an engraving based on this drawing, but I do not know that the original has been reproduced before. I have, however, been able to obtain by the kind permission of the trustees a direct photograph of Hollar’s sketch, which is reproduced here with Wilkinson’s engraving, and shows, even with so slight a rendering, the charming delicacy and picturesqueness of the artist’s work. Hollar seems to have made these and the companion sketches with a view to his large panoramic drawing of London which was published shortly after the Great Fire, and in which one can easily see how the sketch has been utilised in regard to this particular subject. It would represent the house, therefore, some fifty years after its first building.

Before examining the plan and drawings in detail it may be as well to state briefly the successive occupants of Northumberland House, as we shall have something to say on the changes which certain of the owners are credited with having made in the form of the building. The builder of the house was, as already stated, Henry Howard first Earl of Northampton, the son of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey the poet, and the founder of the three hospitals dedicated to the Holy Trinity at Castle Rising, Clun, and Greenwich. (_Vide_ p. 229.) Letters from the Earl are known to have been written from the house in 1609, and in 1614, at his death, the property passed by will to his nephew Thomas Howard Earl of Suffolk, one of the heroes of the Armada. Northampton House changed its name to Suffolk House during its occupation by himself and his son the second Earl, and soon after the death of the latter it passed by the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland. The new owner of the house—called by Clarendon the proudest man alive—was a son of the “Wizard Earl” who spent sixteen years of captivity in the Tower of London because of his supposed connection with the Gunpowder Plot, and in 1612 the son had joined his father in the Tower in order that his education might be properly supervised. The ninth Earl had moved his home from Blackfriars to Russell House, St. Martin-in-the-Fields (perhaps the same mansion which was called by Stow “Russell or Bedford House,” formerly the Bishop of Carlisle’s “Inn,” to which we have already referred), and had also resided for some time in Essex House. Another river residence, Syon House, Isleworth—still one of the seats of the Duke of Northumberland—was also presented to the “Wizard Earl” by James I., the year after his accession; and when Lord Hay, the future Viscount Doncaster and Earl of Carlisle, was courting Northumberland’s daughter he took a little house in Richmond Park, and we read that his barge came and went twice a day between Richmond and Isleworth.

The marriage settlement of 1642 between Algernon Percy, the tenth Earl of Northumberland, and his bride, the Lady Elizabeth Howard—who was, by the way, granddaughter of the Earl of Northampton—arranged for the transference of Suffolk House to the bridegroom in return for the sum of £15,000. Gerald Brenan in his _History of the House of Percy_ states that the name of the mansion was straightway changed to Northumberland House, but we have the evidence of Evelyn’s Diary and Hollar’s inscription which testify to the persistence of the name of Suffolk House for many years later. Algernon Percy was succeeded by Josceline the eleventh Earl, who died in 1670 and left an only daughter Elizabeth. The house passed out of the Percy family with her marriage in 1682 to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Since there was already a Somerset House in the Strand it is probable that the mansion was still called Suffolk House, but in 1749 the Duke’s son Algernon, who had succeeded his father the year before as seventh Duke of Somerset, was created Earl of Northumberland with remainder to Sir Hugh Smithson, who had married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, his only surviving child. Sir Hugh on his succession to the earldom assumed the name and arms of Percy, and in 1766 he was raised to the dukedom. From this time the house was certainly called Northumberland House until the time of its compulsory sale in 1873 and its demolition in the following year. Thus on three occasions an heiress of the name of Elizabeth carried the mansion with her dower.

With this historical framework before us, let us now examine briefly the plans and drawings of the building. It has been freely stated that the plan of “Northampton House” as first built constituted only three sides of a quadrangle, and that Algernon Percy, the tenth Earl of Northumberland, added the fourth side towards the river, employing as his architect Inigo Jones. The reason given for this enlargement was that the principal apartments formerly faced the Strand, but that the Earl, desiring greater privacy, removed them to the river front. On the face of it this story seems highly improbable, for a house of this size and position would naturally be approached by a gateway on the north side towards the Strand, and its great hall would be as certainly in the southern range. The plan from the Smithson collection shows this arrangement just as we might expect—the hall, a noble apartment of 73 by 43 ft., having the mediæval form and shape and being screened by a loggia or “cloyster” quite in keeping with the fashion during the opening years of James I.’s reign. It seems scarcely possible that the planning of the southern range as shown here could be by Inigo Jones, especially at so late a date in his career as 1642, and indeed all the evidence of the plan, besides its inscription, tends to support a much earlier period. It remains only then for the sceptic to suggest that the original design of the house was not completed, but we must remember that we have Hollar’s evidence for the southern staircase towers, and it seems more than probable that any work by Inigo Jones must have taken the form of a rebuilding or merely a new facing to the front. The Strand elevation became so famous that Walpole attributes its design to Bernard Jansen and Gerard Chrismas. It must originally have been as fine a composition as any Jacobean building could show. The centre or gatehouse of four storeys, flanked on either side by bold double pilasters, each pair separated by niches, was furnished with a fine oriel window over the archway like those at Burghley and Bramshill.

At the extremities of the front rose the two characteristic towers, carried up two storeys above the roof and furnished with fine lead cupolas; and between the towers and the gateway the intervening wall was divided into three storeys, the upper two being pierced with windows and the ground floor having recessed niches set in square frames. Above was a parapet formed of letters, for Evelyn tells us, when on a visit to Audley End (August 31st, 1654), that “instead of rails and balusters there is a border of capital letters as was lately also on Suffolk House, near Charing Cross.” From the register of burials in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields we learn, too, that at the funeral of Anne of Denmark a young man was killed by the fall of the letter S from this parapet. It has been stated that part of the letters C Æ remained after the removal of the rest, and Vertue, and Walpole following him, interpreted them as standing for “Chrismas ædificavit.”

It is quite possible that in 1642 the Earl of Northumberland employed Inigo Jones to design some alterations in the house, the more so as we find the general dimensions figured in the famous architect’s own handwriting in his copy of Palladio already mentioned. But I very much doubt whether he really rebuilt the garden front. Inigo Jones died in 1652, and on June 9th, 1658, we find the following note in Evelyn’s Diary: “I went to see the Earl of Northumberland’s pictures, whereof that of the Venetian Senators was one of the best of Titian’s.... This was in Suffolk House: the new front towards the gardens is tolerable, were it not drowned by a too massy and clumsy pair of stairs of stone without any neat invention.” Evelyn is evidently referring to work which had just been executed, and not to an alteration of some fifteen years before. Hollar’s view, too, suggests that the earlier design had been little altered, and his drawing was probably not executed until after Inigo Jones’s death.

We have now to come to eighteenth-century records. An engraving by J. Maurer of Charing Cross in 1740 is the earliest view of the Strand front. The very beautiful drawing by Canaletto, an engraving from which is reproduced on p. 176, shows the same view in 1753, apparently after the front had been rebuilt by Daniell Garrett in 1748–50. The famous lion of cast lead appears here over the centre of the building. It was erected in 1752, and is now preserved at Syon House. On March 18th, 1780, the street front was badly damaged by fire, and was again rebuilt. Its final appearance can be seen from the photograph, with its towers lowered one storey and its whole appearance reduced in picturesqueness, save perhaps where some lingering suggestion remains of its past beauty, within its central group of bold pilasters.

Of the house and its courtyard Seymour, following Strype, wrote in 1735: “A noble and spacious building, having a large square court at the entrance, with buildings round it, at the upper end of which court is a Piazza with buildings over it sustained by stone pillars, and behind the buildings there is a curious garden which runneth down to the Thames.” There is a view of the south front by S. Wale (1761), which if it shows anything of the work which Evelyn criticised will explain the half-hearted praise which it met with from this competent critic. In it we miss the southern towers, which had no doubt been destroyed, but two ungainly wings extend themselves at either side towards the river. A pavilion and wings were designed by Mylne, and a drawing-room by Robert Adam. From Skinner’s _History and Description of London and Westminster_ (1795) we learn that the two wings extending towards the river were 100 ft. long or over; indeed, the left wing was “a state gallery or ballroom, 106 ft. long, the breadth being a fourth part of the length and the height equal to the diagonal of the square of the breadth”! This room had nine windows towards the garden, and over the cornice another row of lights. Altogether the house had 140 rooms, and the last disposition of its buildings may be seen on Horwood’s large plan of London (1799). The pretty garden of the Smithson plan, which afterwards Evelyn commended for its tastefully arranged terraces and copses, had become but a “fine lawn surrounded by a neat gravel walk and boarded next the walls by a border of curious flowers, shrubs, and evergreens.” It was this garden which Evelyn specially mentioned as the occasion of his quaint little work entitled _Fumifugium_, where he speaks of its flowers as “wrapped in a horrid cloud of smoke, issuing from a brewery or two, contiguous to that noble palace.” We fear the smoke, in spite of his serious protest, is still with us, but the more substantial palace has disappeared and is but a memory.

Robert Adam’s contribution to the sumptuous design of the various interiors of Northumberland House must have been of a very important character. We owe to the painstaking and minutely particular drawings of the Adam brothers, and to the care of Sir John Soane, the fact that the substance of the chief designs executed there remains in safe keeping. Adam was employed by the Duke of Northumberland on very extensive schemes, both at Alnwick and at Syon, and it was evidently intended that his London residence should not be overshadowed by either of his country seats. At the Soane Museum are drawings of the ceilings of both the drawing-room and the dining-room, from which we may see that the former apartment measured 35 ft. 10 in. by 21 ft. 9 in., and the latter 45 ft. 4 in. by the same width. The designs for the ceilings are very elaborate—there being two drawings for the drawing-room, the richest of which is marked as executed. In addition to the last-named there are internal elevations of the drawing-room, showing on one side four lofty windows with mirrors between, and on the other side an elaborate fireplace. Three other drawings for this fireplace are also included, showing quite a different design in considerable detail, even to a complex pattern in marble for the hearth, and this is the one that seems to have been carried out. The drawings show Adam’s fertility of invention and deftness in arrangement at their best, and if any of the features of these rooms have been preserved it would be interesting to compare the charming character of the drawings with their actual execution in marble.

One other relic of the house is said to exist in the East End. In the gardens of Tudor House, Bromley-by-Bow, is a large stone gateway, which, it is stated, was removed from Northumberland House at the time of its demolition (_vide_ _The Parish of Bromley-by-Bow_, The Survey of London, Vol. I.).

—W. H. G.

THE ABBEY OF BARKING, ESSEX

XIII.

THE ABBEY OF BARKING, ESSEX.

The Benedictine nunnery of Barking stood upon the eastern bank of the river Roding, about a mile above its confluence with the Thames. The precise date of its original foundation is a little uncertain, but probably the correct date is that given in the Chertsey register, namely 666.[26] In any case, it was before the founder, St. Erkenwald, became Bishop of London in 675. The Venerable Bede gives the following account of the circumstances:—

This man (St. Erkenwald), before he was made bishop, had built two famous monasteries, the one for himself and the other for his sister Ethelburga, and had established them both in regular discipline of the best kind. That for himself was in the County of Surrey, by the River Thames, at a placed called Chertsey: that for his sister, in the province of the East Saxons, at the place called Barking, wherein she might be a mother and a nurse of devout women.

[26] Brit. Mus., Cott. MS., Vit. A. 13.

Bede makes but slight reference to the buildings of the convent, but mentions “the narrowness of the place where the monastery is built,” which hardly seems applicable to the present site. It is possible, therefore, that the first position was subsequently abandoned. It may be gathered, further, that the chapel of the convent was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin and that the nuns’ cemetery lay to the west of it.

The next event in the architectural history of the house is its destruction by the Danes in 870. The pagan army had destroyed the convents of Northumbria and, passing southwards, had devastated the great Fen monasteries, Barking sharing the same fate shortly afterwards. It lay waste for about a century, until the reign of Edgar the Peaceable, when one of that monarch’s recurring fits of repentance moved him to rebuild the abbey. He had taken, it appears, a certain nun, Wulfhilda, by force from the abbey of Wilton; and, in reparation, he refounded and endowed the convent at Barking, placing Wulfhilda at its head. Probably, at this period, the name of the first abbess, St. Ethelburga, was included in the dedication.

The house was almost certainly rebuilt early in the twelfth century, when, under a succession of royal and distinguished abbesses, it enjoyed the zenith of its prosperity. The final dedication of the abbey church took place in the time of abbess Mabel de Bosham (1215–1247).[27]

[27] Dugdale’s _Monasticon_, i., p. 441: 1817.

From this time to the Dissolution, the architectural history of the house is almost a blank, the only record of importance being a licence, dated 24th April, 1319, to the abbess “to fell 300 oaks in her wood of Hainault, for repair of the Church of her Abbey and divers others houses of the Abbey, which are in ruins.”[28]

[28] Cal. Pat. Rolls (1317–1321), p. 327.

The abbey was surrendered into the hands of the King’s Commissioners on 14th November, 1539, by Dorothy Barley, the abbess, and thirty nuns. The house was then valued at £1,084 6s. 2¼d. gross and £862 12s. 5½d. net, making it the third richest in annual revenue of the English nunneries.

In 1541, the destruction of the buildings was begun. Among the accounts of James Needham (Surveyor General to Henry VIII.), preserved at the Bodleian Library,[29] is a lengthy document relating to the undermining and casting down of the abbey church and cloister, of which the following is an extract:—

From Sunday xix. day of June to Sunday xvii. of July, 33rd Henry VIII. Payments made & payd for o^r Souvraigne lorde the King for work done by his graces comandement in undermynding & casting downe the late Abbey Chyrche of Barking.

_Carpenters._—Working not onely in taking downe and breking uppe the bordes of the cloyster w^t other tymber & not thus only working but also making the handebarowes & whele barowes & in like manr. helmyng of pyckaxes & other necessares for the myners & laborers to occupie.

_Myners._—Working not onleye in undermynding and casting downe ij. Rounde Towres but also taking uppe the benches in the cloyster & in lyke man^r providing of the ffayrest coyne stones & other coyne stone for the loding of lighters, to be ymployed at the Kinges man. of Darteforde.

_Comyn Laborers._—Working not onelye in ridding & clering oute the ffayrest & best coyne stone, casting the rubbyshe a syde & not thus working onely but also making & mynding of the hey ways & in lyke manr. leveling the grownde for the lande carr. of the said stone from the late abbey to the water syde.

[29] Bodl. Lib., Cod. Rawl. D. 782.

The account is continued month by month, with little variation in terms, and concludes on 10th December, 1542. In August, 1541, the carpenters were engaged in “taking downe the tymber in the steple,” and the miners “in undermynding the steple and other places of the late Abbey Chyrch.” The lead of the roof was employed in repairs to Greenwich Palace in 1541.

The site and the demesne lands of the abbey were granted by Henry VIII. to Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, for life.[30] On his death in 1550, they were given by Edward VI. to Edward, Lord Clinton, the patent bearing date 27th May 6th Edward VI. (1552).[31]

[30] Pub. Rec. Office, Particulars for Grants, 1515.

[31] _Ibid._

The earliest view of the site of the abbey is a drawing by Mr. Smart Lethieullier,[32] dating from about 1720–30, preserved in the British Museum.[33] It shows that, at that time, little more of the abbey remained above ground than is at present in existence, the only notable difference being the presence of the north-east gate of the precinct. In 1724 he carried out some excavations on the site of the abbey church, and produced a plan purporting to show the results, which was subsequently published by Lysons.[34] Another original drawing, somewhat different in detail, is in the British Museum.[35] Both plans are, however, so hopelessly inaccurate as to be almost valueless.

[32] Smart Lethieullier (1701–1760), F.R.S., F.S.A., of Aldersbrook, in Little Ilford (where he lies buried), was in his day a well-known antiquary and collector.

[33] Add. MSS. 27,350, fo. 123.

[34] _Environs of London_, iv., facing p. 71 (1796).

[35] Add. MSS. 27,350, fo. 124.