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The beginnings of Regents Park

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

John Summerson
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Extract

Among the records transferred to the Public Record Office from the Commissioners of Crown Lands in 1961 is a plan [PI. 17] for ‘roads, fences, water and plantations’ proposed for Marylebone Park, signed by John Nash and dated March 1811.1 This is the earliest known version of Nash’s design for the park, but in spite of its obvious importance has never been adequately published or described. Its interest is enhanced by the fact that it is the only plan which relates to the two well-known scenic panoramas [Pis20-35], also now in the PRO-2 Of these, only small sections have hitherto been reproduced. It therefore seems worth while to bring the three drawings together here, reproducing both panoramas in extenso.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 20 , 1977 , pp. 56 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1977 

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References

Notes

The photographs of the plan and panoramas were taken by John Webb FRPS and are reproduced here by courtesy of the BBC, in whose publication, Spirit of the Age (1975), the plan and two sections of the panoramas were reproduced.

1 PRO, MPEE58. For description, inscriptions &c. see PI. 17.

2 PRO, MR 1045 & 1047.

3 The account of the development of Regents Park in the author’s John Nash, Architect to King George IV (1935, 2nd edn 1949) was written before the Crown Lands papers became available for study, only the two panoramas being produced for his inspection. A fuller account is in Ann Saunders, Regents Park: A Study of the Development from 1086 to the Present Day (1969). Mrs Saunders, however, does not discuss the plan now under consideration or relate it to the two panoramas.

4 Surveyor General of Land Revenue, 1st Report (1797), App.3, p. 17.

5 Surveyor General of Land Revenue, 4th Report (1809), App. 15, pp. 245-246.

6 PRO.LR2, ix,f.18.

7 Commissioners of Woods, Forests & Land Revenues, 1st Report (1812), p. 10.

8 PRO, CREST2/742.

9 Commissioners of Woods, Forests & Land Revenues, 1st Report (1812), p. 11.

10 Ibid., App. 12(G), p. 113.

11 Ibid., App.12(H).

12 Reproduced in RIB A Journal, ser.3, xlvi (6 March 1939), p. 445Google Scholar. See also Summerson, J., Georgian London (1969), p. 175.Google Scholar

13 Summerson, J., John Nash (1949), pp. 114–116.Google Scholar

14 H. M. Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of English Architects (1954), s.v. Shaw, John.

15 The site of the proposed circus seems to have been between the present Avenue Road and Loudoun Road, extending northwards nearly to Adelaide Road and southwards to Circus Road which possibly derives its name from being intended as an approach road.

16 Commissioners of Woods, Forests & Land Revenues, 1st Report (1812), App. 12B, p. 86.

17 Ibid., p. 85.

18 Ibid., p. 8-j.

19 PRO, MPHH87.

20 Commissioners of Woods, Forests & Land Revenues, 1st Report (1812), App. 12B, p. 87.

21 PRO, MR1045.

22 PRO, MR 1047.

23 Compare the sketches in George Repton’s Note Book (RIBA Drawings Collection) and the perspective of Rockingham in Summerson, op. cit., pl.vi. It must be observed, however, that the refined presentation of architectural detail in these is very different from the coarse rendering in the panoramas.

24 It will be noticed that the road round the inner circus is shown in Pan A separated from the park by a dwarf wall with iron railings. In a note on the ‘March 1811’ plan, on the other hand, it is stated that the road is to be separated from the park by ‘a sunk fence’.

25 Spencer Perceval would have known the scene intimately. He had lived at Belsize House from 1798 to 1807 and used to ride through the Eyre estate on his way to Westminster. Thompson, F. M. L., Hampstead: Building a Borough, 1650–1964 (1974), p. 114.Google Scholar