Part 6

The fourth plan is by far the most interesting from the topographical point of view, for it gives the divisions of all the gardens and forecourts and the outline of the riverbank. The northern boundary is now the south side of King’s Road, and the stable-yard is the Moravian Burial Ground. The open square to the north-east is Dovecote Close, now largely occupied by Paulton’s Square. And down by the river may be seen the quay, and the little street of houses (called Duke Street and Lombard Street) whose picturesque buildings gave way to the making of the Embankment. The lines of garden-wall running north and south are still largely intact, and bear out the general accuracy of the plan, although the measurements are wrong in many places. The terrace, with its archway and steps, is to be seen; but the house is drawn more as a feat of draughtsmanship than as a serious attempt to make it to scale. It represents perhaps another of Sir Robert Cecil’s schemes, but neither a comparison with Symonds’ earlier or Thorpe’s later plans will be found to support its exact arrangement.

Dr. King, the antiquary, and rector of Chelsea, writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, relates from his own observation how “in divers places [in this house] are these letters, R.C., and also R.C.E., with the date of the year, viz., 1597, which letters were the initials of his [Cecil’s] name and his lady’s, and the year 1597 when he new-built, or at least new-fronted it.” A letter in the Hatfield MSS. from Roger Houghton to Sir Robert Cecil, endorsed “Mr. Steward to my master,” and written “From your Honour’s House in the Strand” (June 22nd, 1597), says: “The bed chamber and withdrawing chamber at ‘Cheallseay’ are matted, and this day they are about to hang them. There wanteth your direction what stone you will that the ‘ffootpasses’ be made of to the chimneys in these two rooms, as also to the gallery, also whether you will have the hangings in the great chamber to be hung at their full length or tucked up.”

Sir Robert Cecil seems soon to have become tired of his new possession. We find him desirous of selling the property in 1599, and on the last day of February of that year it was bought by Henry, second Earl of Lincoln. The new owner was father-in-law to Sir Arthur Gorges, upon whom and his wife the estate was settled. Apparently at this time, too, a site was found for a new house, behind Lindsey House, which was occupied by Sir Arthur Gorges during the Earl of Lincoln’s lifetime. There seem to have been very serious quarrels between the two families, and much interesting and vigorous correspondence is extant concerning their differences. Mr. Randal Davies, in his _Chelsea Old Church_, has told the subsequent history of the house and of its notable tenants. The Earl of Lincoln died in 1615, and the house and land which he had purchased from Sir Robert Cecil passed to Sir Arthur Gorges. This, however, was not the complete estate of Sir Thomas More, for it appears that the property lying south of Dovecote Close and east of the terrace and garden of The Great House, was in the hands of the descendant of William Roper, who married More’s daughter and received it in dowry, for which reason it is not shown on Cecil’s estate plan. The Tudor home of the Ropers, Well Hall, is still to be seen, in part, at Eltham, where its fine brick walls and chimney-stacks overhang the ancient moat. Before his death the Earl of Lincoln reunited More’s former property by purchase, but in 1615 the two portions were again in separate hands, since he bequeathed his house and grounds to Gorges, but left Roper’s land to his son, the third earl. This latter parcel of the estate, which for a few years was thus a second time in the same ownership as The Great House, has quite an interesting history. It is specified in the grant of Chelsea to William Pawlet after More’s attainder as “the house and one pightell or close of land.” Evidently, therefore, there was already a building upon it, and Mr. Randal Davies confirms a suggestion of Mr. Horne that this was the “place called the new buylding wherein was a chappell, a library, and a gallerie, which Roper tells us More built a good distance from his mansion house.” To this I would add that it seems extremely probable, since the high terrace from The Great House to this site was not a natural one, but apparently built of brick and stone, that it formed a covered way communicating with the “new building.” However this may be, the association of the place with the name of More was so strong that it is mentioned by Aubrey as “the very place where was the house of Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England,” and Aubrey adds that “he had but one marble chimneypiece, and that plain, but indeed very good if it be not touch, which remains there still in the chamber that was his lordship’s.” These remarks are not inconsistent with the conclusions arrived at above, but so fixed was the tradition as to this being the site of More’s home, that even the clear evidence in favour of The Great House was assailed. The misapprehension was probably strengthened by the name of “Moorhouse,” perhaps bestowed upon it by Roper and his wife, and mentioned by the third Earl of Lincoln in a letter of 1618. The property was sold by the last-named to Sir John Danvers in 1622–3—three years after The Great House had again changed hands through its purchase by Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex.

The general date of the drawings of John Thorpe in the Soane Museum would seem to assign his plan of The Great House, Chelsea, to the time of the Earl of Lincoln, or that of the Earl of Middlesex. The plan, which bears no inscription, was identified by Mr. J. A. Gotch, by a close comparison with Kip’s view. In its south elevation it corresponds exactly with the engraving, and, most significant of all, both drawings show the two square lodges set anglewise about the gate that divides the two front courts. Assuming, as seems probable, that Cecil did not alter the northern side of the original house very much, that portion might well have become too antiquated for the Earl of Middlesex, who, when pulling down the northern wing, may have modified the south front and the other features of the house. It must be conceded that the presence of the plans of the adjoining Danvers House (built 1622–3) in the Soane collection renders it possible that Thorpe was the architect, and in such case he may easily have been consulted regarding The Great House itself. This theory would account for the inclusion of both houses in the same collection of plans. Thorpe’s plan of Chelsea House is disappointing in that the new arrangement appears distinctly uninteresting when compared with the earlier plans in the Hatfield MSS. But it has the corroborative evidence of Kip’s view, and is therefore probably more accurate than some other of his plans have been found to be. Mr. Gotch has pointed out the interesting fact that in the plan we have one of the first examples of the corridor or passage of modern times, attention to which is called by the draughtsman in his quaint phrase “A long entry through all.”

The Earl of Middlesex added to the estate by the purchase of “Brickbarn Close” and “The Sandhills,” two properties lying to the north of the present King’s Road, and these he converted into the Park, shown in Kip’s view. Till recently this district, though partly built upon, retained much of its old character and a goodly number of its trees. Its northern part, the Elm Park estate, was built over some years ago, and more recently the remaining portion has been cut up into roads, and, amid unavailing protests, is completely given over to the builders.

As a result of the royal displeasure which Cranfield incurred, Chelsea House was surrendered in 1625 to the Crown, and in 1627 Charles I. bestowed it upon the Duke of Buckingham. After the assassination of the latter his duchess continued to reside here, and Mr. Davies gives us the interesting information that his daughter, the Duchess of Lennox, decided to come in 1646 “to her house at Chelsea to be under Dr. Mayerne’s hands for her health.” This brings under notice the other house on More’s estate, now called Lindsey House, which was then in the occupation of Sir Theodore Mayerne. Tradition says that it was he who bought the original farmhouse which Sir Thomas More had purchased and left standing, and that he rebuilt it for himself. On page 57 will be found a quotation from the Parliamentary Survey of Eltham, to the effect that Sir Theodore Mayerne, formerly physician to James I., and ranger of Eltham Park, no longer resided there, but at his house in “Chelsey,” which confirms the other evidence to be found in the parish records. The house still stands as rebuilt by the Earl of Lindsey in 1674, and not much altered in appearance since its delineation in Kip’s view.

After The Great House had been occupied during the Commonwealth by the Parliamentary Commissioners (Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke and John Lisle), the second Duke of Buckingham regained possession. Lost to him, through his debts, the house ultimately passed (1674) into the hands of the trustees for George Digby, Earl of Bristol, and his Countess sold it in 1682 to Henry, Marquis of Worcester, afterwards Duke of Beaufort, the house remaining in his family until 1720. It was during this period, about the year 1699, that Kip’s beautiful view of the mansion—then called Beaufort House—was published, a priceless record of the property, so ruthlessly defaced and destroyed by Sir Hans Sloane after he had purchased it in 1737.

Mr. Randal Davies, whom I have followed in the account of the occupants of the house, has printed[19] the interesting conveyance of the property to Sloane, and if its description is carefully collated with the information in Kip’s view one is struck by the wonderful accuracy of the latter. Here is The Great House, as shown by Thorpe, its lodges and its forecourts, the wharf with its brick towers east and west, the orchard, and “one garden environed with brick walls ... and a terrace on the north end, with a banqueting house on the east end of the terrace,” as well as the “one great garden ... extending from the terrace and banqueting house unto the highway on the north.”[20] The “banqueting house,” as already stated, is alike in detail with the sketch of “A Summer House, Chelsea,” in the Smithson collection of seventeenth-century drawings now in the possession of Colonel Coke. But, valuable as is the representation of The Great House, the print has much more information to give us. The great park is there shown in all its original beauty; the Duke of Beaufort’s stables and yard, since converted into the historic chapel and burying-ground of the Moravians, is to the west; and nearer the river are the beautiful Jacobean House of Sir Arthur Gorges (our sole evidence of its character and design) and the house and garden of the Earls of Lindsey. And to the east, below the wide area of Dovecote Close, laid out as a large kitchen-garden, are the beautiful pleasure grounds of Danvers House, which had been destroyed but three years before the drawing was made.

[19] _Chelsea Old Church_, by Randal Davies, F.S.A.

[20] The gate into the King’s Road, shown in the engraving, is probably that stone gateway now at Chiswick which was designed by Inigo Jones and taken to Chiswick on the destruction of Beaufort House.

As already described, Sir John Danvers bought the land shown to the right of Kip’s view in 1622–3. That he built the house shown in the Thorpe drawings is corroborated by John Aubrey’s minute description of house and garden in his MS. “Natural History of Wiltshire,” preserved at the Bodleian. His rough sketch of the garden is here reproduced for the first time, to show how it confirms the general lines of the drawing published by Kip. It would be interesting to quote Aubrey in full, but a few sentences must suffice. He says: “’Twas Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, who first taught us the way of Italian gardens. He had well travelled France and Italy and made good observations.... He had a very fine fancy, which lay chiefly for gardens and architecture.” There is no doubt that the plan of the house was greatly in advance of its time. Pepys “found it to be the prettiest contrived house that I ever saw in my life,” and Aubrey describes it as “very elegant and ingeniose.” He adds that “as you sit at dinner in the Hall you are entertained with two delightful Vistos: one southward over the Thames and to Surrey, the other northward into that curious garden. Above the Hall is a stately Roome of the same dimension, wherein is an excellent organ of stoppes of cedar. Sir John was a great lover of musick, and especially of J. Coparario’s Fansies.” Again of the garden he tells of its “boscage of lilacs,” its “syringas,” its “long gravelled walks margented with hyssop” and “several sorts of thyme.” “Sir John was wont on fine mornings in the summer to brush his beaver hat on the hyssop and thyme, which did perfume it with its natural essence and would last a morning or longer.” He also tells of the “figure of the gardener’s wife in freestone coloured,” and “the like of the gardener, both accoutred according to their callings,” of which the King’s mason, Nicholas Stone, notes thus in his diary: (1622) “Unto Sir John Daves at Chelsey, I made two statues of an old man and a woman and a diall, for which I had £7 a piece.” And finally Aubrey thus continues: “At the four comers of the garden, about the ovall, are four low pavilions of brick leaded flatt and some firre and pine trees, shumacks, and the quarters all filled with some rare plant or other. On the east side of the Hall is a neat little Chappele or oratorie finely painted; next to it a Drawing room whose floor is chequered like a chesse board of Box and Ewgh panels of about six inches square. At the east and west end of the House (without) are two high fastigiated turrets the Fans whereof are the Crest of Danvers _sc._ a golden Wyvern volant.” Aubrey says the garden was 8 chains 9 yards by 4 chains 9 yards wide.

From these descriptions we obtain a charming idea of the beautiful little house which has gone the way of nearly all the buildings that peopled this “Village of Palaces.” The Earl of Radnor was a tenant here from 1660 till 1685, and after him Thomas Lord Wharton, who inherited the property, lived there. The house was not demolished until 1720, but in 1696 on the site of the garden were built the first houses of Danvers Street by Benjamin Stallwood, as may still be seen recorded on a little tablet at the corner of the street. The foundations discovered when Crosby Hall was built on the site were sufficient to determine the general position of the building, but were not sufficient to plot it exactly.

I am indebted to Mr. Walter L. Spiers for his kind permission to make the copies of the Thorpe plans that are here published.

—W. H. G.

COCKERSAND ABBEY AND ITS CHAPTER-HOUSE

VII.

COCKERSAND ABBEY AND ITS CHAPTER-HOUSE.

With but little variation the great majority of monastic establishments follow the well-defined lines which custom and the exigencies of the conventual life had laid down in the early years of the Church. It is consequently only occasionally that an abbey or priory ruin in this country presents any important deviation from the general plan of them all, and it is in the endless variety of their detail that most of their interest is centred. The Abbey of Cockersand is thus fortunate in having possessed and retained a chapter-house of that polygonal form which flourished in this island alone, and even here never became a common feature. In addition to this, the abbey choir stalls, a unique example of early wood-carving, have also been preserved, though removed from their original position. The chapter-house at Cockersand, while it does not challenge comparison with the great structures at Lincoln and York, being indeed of comparatively small size, is yet a refined and beautiful expression of “Early English” art which has hitherto almost escaped notice. The stalls also, though a cast of part of them rests in the Architectural Museum in Tufton Street, have hardly received the recognition they deserve.

Situated on a flat tract of land lying between the estuaries of the rivers Lune and Wyre, half-way up the coast-line of Lancashire, the Abbey of Cockersand is remarkable for the dreariness of its surroundings. The level meadows, intersected in every direction by dykes that stretch for two miles inland from the ruins, were at one time little better than a great salt-marsh, inundated by the spring tides and fit for little else but pasture. The outer walls of the abbey itself, built upon a slight eminence looking over the desolate sands of Morecambe Bay, were again and again undermined by the attacks of the sea. “St. Mary in the Marsh upon the Cockersand” was indeed, in position and surroundings, no desirable retreat, and it is singular that a convent of considerable wealth and importance should have risen in so remote a spot. Founded first as a hospital towards the close of the twelfth century, it soon rose to the dignity of an abbey, being colonised by Premonstratensian canons from Croxton in Leicestershire. Its history is chiefly a record of disputes with the neighbouring priories of Lancaster and Cockerham, and presents few features of interest to the general reader. At the close of the fifteenth century the records of the successive visitations of Bishop Redman provide a more intimate picture of the life of the inmates. Excessive drinking, it appears, was indulged in, and two of the canons had to be exiled to other houses for a more serious offence. When the abbey fell amongst the greater monasteries in 1539, it was tenanted by twenty-three canons. Their home soon after came into the hands of the lords of Thurnham Hall, whose successors hold it at the present time. With the exception of the chapter-house there is little of interest to be found amongst the ruins. The accompanying ground plan (which is sufficiently indicated by the remaining fragments of walls and the mounds of fallen masonry) will show the general arrangement of the building. The aisleless nave of the church, a feature of common occurrence in convents of the Premonstratensian order, was no doubt similar to those still partially standing at Bayham, Titchfield, and Egglestone. The chapter-house was approached from the cloister by a vestibule, probably divided into three aisles and vaulted in stone. Externally the building has been refaced with a red sandstone, and consequently all the features of interest it may once have possessed have now disappeared. It is finished on the three eastern sides with an embattled parapet, and has a low-pitched pyramidal slate roof. The original entrance on the west face still remains, though the mouldings are much weathered. It is a plain semi-circular arch, formerly springing from side shafts, which are now missing, and probably dates from the foundation of the abbey. Internally the chapter-house is an octagonal apartment, 27 ft. 9 in. in diameter, having a fine vaulted roof springing from a central column and forming, on plan, four quadripartite bays. This arrangement is very unusual, as it throws the window openings out of the true centre of the vaulting cells above them. There is, however, no apparent awkwardness in the result. The central pier is formed of eight clustered and engaged shafts, keeled on the outward face and having each a moulded capital, the bell of which is ornamented with the stiff leaf foliage of the Early English period. The vaulting ribs, consisting of three main members divided by deep hollows, are all of similar section, except the wall ribs, which are formed with a simple hollow only. At the intersections are foliage bosses, four in number, of excellent workmanship. It is unfortunate that the building was for long used as a burial-place for the owners of the neighbouring Thurnham Hall, as this has necessitated the raising of the floor level, which is now some distance up the central column and above the sills of the windows, and has quite destroyed the original proportions of the building. The window tracery, if any existed, has now entirely gone, some portions of geometric work on the north side being of very doubtful date. Each opening had two shafts on either side, one free and one engaged, and the internal hood mouldings terminate in sculptured heads, all much defaced.

The polygonal or circular chapter-house became a favourite feature of English work in the thirteenth century. There is evidence of the existence of some twenty-four of these buildings, and of these ten still remain complete. The form was most popular amongst the secular canons, amongst whom it received its highest development. The Benedictines came second with five examples,[21] followed by the Augustinians with five and the Cistercians and Premonstratensians with two each. The example at Alnwick Abbey, which with Cockersand is representative of the last-mentioned order, was a circular structure some 25 ft. in diameter, of which only the foundations remain. In regard to geographical distribution, these buildings were spread over the whole of England from Tavistock in Devon to Carlisle, while three instances occur in Scotland, at Elgin, Inchcolm, and Restalrig. Elsewhere they are almost unknown. The earliest example and the prototype of all the rest is the chapter-house of the Benedictine cathedral of Worcester, which dates from _circa_ 1130. It was originally circular, and still retains this form internally, and is surrounded by a Norman wall arcade. It is possible that the form was suggested by the earlier round churches, some of which, as at Ludlow Castle, were aisleless and roofed with a timber pyramid “spire form.” The close proximity of other monastic buildings, and the consequent fear of fire, led to the insertion of the central column and the stone vault. The column was, however, always looked upon as an incumbrance, and was finally dispensed with and the building vaulted in one span. Of the later examples of this class of building the best instance is the beautiful little fifteenth-century chapter-house at Howden (Yorks), which apart from the fall of its vault, is still practically complete.

[21] There were also doubtful examples at Belvoir Priory and St. Margaret’s, Lynn.