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A Scottish origin for English Palladianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

H.M. Colvin
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Extract

It is becoming clear that the Neo-Classical movement known as English Palladianism had complex origins: or, to put it in other terms, the triumph of Burlingtonian Palladianism was preceded by several false starts and private initiatives which for one reason or another failed to accomplish the revolution in taste over which Lord Burlington was to preside in the course of the 1720s.

Let us look for a moment at some of these pre-Palladians. In Oxford there was Dean Aldrich of Christ Church (died 1710), whose Peckwater Quadrangle might easily be mistaken for a Georgian square in John Wood's Bath. Aldrich's architectural revolution was almost confined to his own college, but he also had a programme of Palladian publication. It is not I think generally known that although his Elementa Architecturae- a treatise strictly based on Vitruvius and Palladio - was not published until forty years after his death, 44 pages were printed in his lifetime, and that before his death he had set a young Oxford don called Fairfax the task of translating Palladio's Antichità di Roma. But the translation, characteristically, was not from Italian into English, but from Italian into Latin. We may conclude that Aldrich's initiative was too academic to be influential on a national scale, too local to affect the general course of English architecture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 17 , 1974 , pp. 5 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1974

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References

Notes

For their kind permission to reproduce the drawings illustrated in Figs 7a & b I am indebted to the Earl of Leven and the Earl of Seafield, respectively. Figs 8a, 9a &10a are reproduced by permission of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland. Figs la & b, 2a & b, 3,4a, 5a, 6a, 8b, 9b & 12 are reproduced by permission of the Curator of the RIB A Drawings Collection.

1 One copy of the early printing of Aldrich’s treatise is in Worcester College library, together with the MS. There is another in the Bodleian (8° Rawl. 1068). Charles Fairfax’s Latin edition of Palladio’s Antichitd was published at Oxford in 1709.

2 Notably in one of his designs for the new ‘Dormitory’ at All Souls, which was based on a drawing by Webb in his own collection, and in a design for Christ Church library with fenestration copied from Palladio’s Basilica at Vicenza. For these and other Palladian elements in Dr Clarke’s drawings see Hudson’s, T. P. unpublished PhD thesis on ‘The Origins of Palladianism in English Eighteenth-Century Architecture’ (Cambridge 1974).Google Scholar

3 Hist. MSS. Comm. Stuart Papers, vi, 163 Google Scholar. Mar’s drawings are deposited in the Register House at Edinburgh.

4 For Benson, Hewett and Kensington see Vol.V of the History of the King’s Works.

5 Goodfellow, G. L. M., ‘Colin Campbell’, Architectural Review, August 1966, pp. 145–146.Google Scholar

6 This is revealed by a letter at Cawdor Castle for knowledge of which I am indebted to Mr John Dunbar and Mr Timothy Connor.

7 It can briefly be stated here that in his will (PCC 243 ABBOTT) Colen Campbell mentions his ‘sister Henrietta Grant now the wife of the Reverend John Grant’ - a lady recorded as Donald Campbell’s daughter in the family genealogy printed in The Book of the Thanes of Cawdor (Spalding Club, 1859). Moreover a document in the Bodleian Library (MS Rawlinson D.923, f.34) reveals that after the architect’s death Henrietta Grant disputed his estate with his widow Jane Campbell.

8 Stutchbury, H. E., The Architecture of Colen Campbell (1967), p. 18.Google Scholar

9 One gives details of the Villa Rotonda which according to Stutchbury (op. cit.) ‘cannot have been taken from any published description’. Similarly, as Mr Connor has pointed out to me, the precise dimensions of bridges at Vicenza and Rimini, Vol. III, p. 10, suggest personal inspection. See addendum below.

10 The reconstruction of Dalkeith is documented by accounts now deposited in the Register House at Edinburgh.

11 Register House, Edinburgh, RHP2541, inscribed ‘Mrs. Smith &McGill’s 3rd design of Cullen House’. The draughtsmanship is McGill’s.

12 Register House, Edinburgh, GD 26/15/67. The inscription on this drawing is in Smith’s hand.

13 Register House, Edinburgh, RHP4093.

14 Hist. MSS Comm, Xth. Report, App.I, p. 197.Google ScholarPubMed

15 Register House, Edinburgh, GD40/viii/28.

16 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 1701–1718, ed. Armet, H. (1967), pp. 282–283.Google Scholar

17 Mylne, R. S., The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland (1893), p. 200.Google Scholar

18 Register House, Edinburgh, E307/2 & GD 18/5004.

19 Acts of Parliament of Scotland xi, p. 139.Google Scholar

20 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh 1701–1718, ed. Armet, H. (1967), pp. 282–283.Google Scholar

21 Book of the Old Edinburgh Club xvii (1930), p. 83.Google Scholar

22 In the possession of Miss J. M. H. Mylne of Great Amwell, Herts, who kindly allowed me to consult them.

23 Catalogue of the RIBA Drawings Collection: Colen Campbell (1973), p. 7.Google Scholar

24 Dunbar, J. G., The Historic Architecture of Scotland (1966), p. 164.Google Scholar

25 For Whitehill (now Newhailes) House, Musselburgh (Smith’s own house), see Country Life, 15 September 1917, and Hannan, T., Famous Scottish Houses: The Lowlands (1928), pp. 133–136 Google Scholar. For Hamilton Palace see Adam, W., Vitruvius Scoticus, pl. 8 Google Scholar, Country Life, 7, 14 &21 June 1919, and Rosalind K. Marshall, The Days of Duchess Anne (1973). For Yester see Vitruvius Scoticus, pls. 28-29, and J. G. Dunbar, ’The Building of Yester House’, Trans, of the E. Lothian Antiquarian &Field Naturalist ’ Soc. xiii (1972)Google Scholar. For Dalkeith see Vitruvius Scoticus, pls. 23-24. Raith House in Fife (1693-98) is another house of the same kind that can probably be attributed to Smith. Designs for houses resembling Raith and Whitehill are among the drawings at the RIBA.

26 E.g. in the monument to the 3rd Duke of Hamilton (died 1694), originally in Hamilton Collegiate church and now in Bothwell church, Lanarkshire, for which the contract and drawing (reproduced by Rosalind K. Marshall, op. cit.), dated February 1696, are in Hamilton MSS Box 463/10/2. This drawing may perhaps be a specimen of the younger Smith’s draughtsmanship.

27 See note 22 above.

28 Records of the Scots Colleges in Douai, Rome, etc., New Spalding Club (1906), i, p. 118.Google Scholar

29 See note 20 above.