Chapter 18

Fig. 191.—Kedleston, Derbyshire, 1761. Plan of the Principal Floor.

Although Holkham is his most notable achievement—unless we except the Horse Guards, which has some resemblance to it in general treatment (Fig.190)—Kent was fully employed during his thirty years of active work. He designed many houses and many gardens. One of the most pleasing of the buildings at Stowe, the Temple of Ancient Virtues, was his. His help was obtained in directions other than architecture, and Walpole tellsus that he designed birthday gowns for two ladies, to which he gave a decidedly architectural turn. He must have spent much time in producing “The Designs of Inigo Jones,” and it is not improbable that he was the power behind the throne in respect of the architectural efforts of Lord Burlington.

Fig. 192.—KEDLESTON HALL,Derbyshire.The Hall.

Brettingham had a certain connection with Kedleston, as he seems to have designed and built one of the wings. He was succeeded by James Paine, to whom the general design is attributed, which followed the lines started by Brettingham. The house was to have had four outlying wings, much after the fashion of Holkham, but only two were carried out. The original plan looks very striking on paper (Fig.191), but it is one further proof of the way in which comfort was sacrificed to grandeur by the architects of that time. All the principal rooms are noble, those, that is, which were to be used on grand occasions; the others are quite subordinate. The basement, which contains rooms in daily use, seems overweighted by the superstructure, and is in fact too low to allow the light to penetrate freely to the remoter parts of the entrance. The bedrooms were, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who visited the house with Boswell in September 1777, “but indifferent rooms.” The hall is a lordly apartment with a row of lofty columns down each side (Fig.192). Some of the columns are monoliths, and one is of alabaster from the locality. Dr. Johnson thought the house “would do excellently for a town-hall; the large room with the pillars would do for the judges to sit in at the assizes; the circular room for a jury-chamber; and the room above for prisoners.” It is quite true that many of these large houses produce an impression similar to that created by public buildings.

The situation of the house is in keeping with the ideas prevalent at the time. It is not, as of old, the centre of a formally disposed lay out, with vistas stretching away from its principal windows. It stands, indeed, askew with all points of view, on a slope of the park, backed by a long range of trees which crowns the summit of the hill; behind another group of trees lie the stables, connected to the house by a sunk way. A contemporary bridge in the park, over which the approach is carried, lies in haphazard relation to the house. But this wasall part of the design, which aimed not at any formal lay out, but at a result which should convey the impression that everything was unstudied, and that skill was bestowed not in making an effect, but merely in seizing on the effects supplied by nature and using them to the best advantage.

Fig. 193.—ELEVATION OF SIR WATKIN WYNN’S HOUSE IN ST JAMES’S SQUARE, LONDON.

Fig. 194.—Houses in Portland Place, London.

Fig. 195.—ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON.

Paine did not finish the house. Before it was completed he was replaced by the brothers Adam, who carried out all the decoration of the interior and also designed much of the furniture.

Of the brothers Adam (there were four of them), Robert was the most gifted, and it is his work which gave rise to the well-known “Adam” style. He, too, had a training of several years in Italy (from 1754 to 1758), but, more adventurous than other students, he paid a visit of some weeks’ duration to Spalato in Dalmatia, where he occupied himself, with the help of companions, in taking measurements and making drawings of Diocletian’s palace. According to one authority[78]these studies were the foundation of his future style. Much of the furniture at Kedleston, however, is more nearly allied to the typeestablished by Kent than to that which we are accustomed to associate with Adam; presumably he had not yet established his own individuality. In his architectural work he had a great idea of obtaining “movement” by giving rhythmical projections to a façade, and a picturesque but ordered variety to the skyline. This was his intention, and the adoption of the word is his own; it is doubtful whether observers and critics would have discovered enough of the one to have adopted the other of their own accord. Indeed the exteriors of his buildings are often tame. He broke away, it is true, from the conventions of the preceding half-century, but although the result was to a certain extent novel, it can hardly be deemed more attractive. The fact is that he laboured under the same drawback which beset all the architects of the eighteenth century, the glorification of architecture at the expense of practical building. Instead of making his architecture reflect the requirements of the persons who were to use the edifice, he made the interior arrangements to fit the preconceived exterior. This is exemplified in a small instance in the fact that, having designed two houses to form one architectural composition, he was obliged to make the party wall cut a window in two, a mutilated half of which lighted a room in each of two separate houses. We have already seen how the same sort of difficulty beset Wood’s houses in Bath; and exactly the same fault in regard to windows is to be found in Grainger’s work at Newcastle. The absurdity is only fully realised when one of the houses has to be remodelled or rebuilt, when, among other odd results, it is found that a window has to be shorn in two, one half removed and the other left.

Adam’s excellence lies in his eye for proportion, in the refinement of his detail, and in the fastidious handling of his ornament. A house in St James’s Square (Fig.193) and another in Portland Place (Fig.194) are characteristic examples of his work. At first sight they appear insipid, and might easily escape the eye; but when the attention is once caught it is arrested by the detail which appeals to the cultivated taste; the intellect is charmed with the extreme care bestowed upon every part of the ornament, or rather, considering the enormous amount of work which occupied Adam’s time, by the wonderful intuition which produced such harmonious results.

Fig. 196.—Doorway in Mansfield Street, London.

Fig. 197.—Entrance and Porch at 20 Portman Square, London.

Fig. 198.—WINDOW AT SUTTON COURT.

He can hardly be said to have made a permanent mark inhis large architectural conceptions. With the help of his brothers he rebuilt a whole district of London which was called after them, “the Adelphi.”[79]The long terrace on an arcaded basement was much admired, and it has been claimed for him that he planted by the side of the Thames a worthy version of the splendours of Spalato, but the building (Fig.195) hardly bears out this contention. It is Spalato much diluted. The lesson to be learnt from this as from most of the architecture of that period is that no reproduction of ancient glories, whether direct or modified, can be of abiding interest. Architecture to be interesting must meet certain definite wants, must reflect the needs of the hour and of the individual, and as these must of necessity be ever changing, so must architectural expression. Each work of every architect presents a fresh problem which ought to be solved in its own way.

It is in particular features, such as doorways, windows, balustrades, and panels, that Adam’s gift of design shows to the best advantage. A doorway in Mansfield Street (Fig.196), with its large fanlight, is characteristic of one treatment; the projecting porch from Portman Square (Fig.197) is equally so of another. The window from Sutton Court (Fig.198) would be a prosaic affair, but for the fanlight and the detail imparted to the surrounding woodwork. It should be noticed that, in keeping with his delicate mouldings, the sash-bars are thin, in complete contrast to the more vigorous handling of his predecessors.

The delicacy of his detail was more appropriate to the inside of a house than to the outside, and nothing pleased him better than to design the whole decoration of a room—doors, chimney-piece, ceiling, plaster wall panels, lockplates and door handles, grate, and the whole of the furniture. Pretty, graceful, and refined, but rarely virile, his work appeals to the less tumultuous emotions; indeed he made his mark not so much by his architecture as by his decoration, which exhibits extraordinary fecundity and fertility of design.

Fig. 199.—Vicarage at Puddletown, Dorset.

Fig. 200.—House in St Giles, Oxford.

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