In a note in the Archaeological Journal for 1959 Nikolaus Pevsner paid tribute to the remarkable work of Robert Willis, whose observations and judgements remain valid after more than a century, and continue to form the basis for all work on the buildings that he discussed. An analagous position will surely be held by Pevsner himself, whose observations and judgements have been applied to a far greater range of buildings. Therefore it can only be described as temerity to embark on the discussion of a building that has received the attention of both these scholars as well as others hardly less distinguished. The reason for reopening the discussion is that too little regard has been paid to the importance of the retrochoir of Winchester Cathedral and its significance in relation to other eastern extensions of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The emphasis has been on problems relating to the building history and not enough consideration has been given to the function of the building. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss this latter aspect, but first it is necessary to consider some of the problems concerning the design, the date and the sequence of construction, as the solutions offered hitherto are not wholly convincing.

The increasing reference to medieval moulding profiles in architectural writings has created new problems. Whereas a background knowledge of other forms of stylistic evidence, such as tracery patterns and ground plans, may be expected from the reader, the same is not true of mouldings; and there is hardly ever space in a specialized publication for the author to provide the necessary context. It is thus difficult to check the validity of the evidence presented.

Such reference works as exist are mainly nineteenth-century, and generally do little to enlighten this situation. Anyone who has wrestled with the best known of these, Paley, will have experienced typical difficulties: examples imprecisely identified, without dates, drawn from only certain geographical areas, and with no sense of a European setting. The examples selected are mainly parochial, whereas modern research needs to know more about the mouldings of major building schemes significant as stylistic trendsetters in their own time. Above all, their value as reference works is reduced by the lack of an analytical index of mouldings arranged by type, rather than the cumbersome arrangement by period adopted by Paley and most of his successors. This is not to underestimate the importance of the pioneering work of the antiquarians, but merely to admit that the needs of architectural history have changed in the last hundred years.

It is clear that any explanation of the course taken by English country house design at the time of its first vigorous growth in the sixteenth century cannot be founded on a simple iconographical basis. A detailed knowledge of the processes by which the houses were constructed is essential to an understanding of their finished appearance and, as in any other age, due regard must be had to the characters of the individual personalities involved. In recent years, such an approach has considerably advanced our comprehension of the country houses, principally in the north Midlands, associated with Robert Smythson. Although at present the evidence is wanting for a biographical study of similar importance for any other part of the country, an examination of the documentary sources for a particular region could well prove fruitful in establishing a comprehensible picture of aesthetic control and design which may have a more general application.

At Monterano, on the ridge of a mountain close to Oriolo in the area of Lake Bracciano, stand the ruins of a church dedicated to S. Bonaventura. It is devised on a Greek cross ground plan and forms the projecting headpiece of a longitudinally oriented monastery (Pls 12a, 12b, 13b). A faded inscription was still visible in 1964 on the architrave of the main façade ‘MDCLX’, but there was space for about two or more numerals which had disappeared. The complete inscription was probably ‘MDCLXXVII’, the date when construction began by the order of the Principe Don Angelo Altieri, nephew of Pope Clement X. The building was for the Padri delle Scuole Pie, who were called to instruct the people of the rural district surrounding Monterano in such basic skills as reading and writing, and in the elements of the Christian religion. At that time the Altieri family had only recently moved into the area, having in 1671 purchased from the Orsini the site at Monterano and the late medieval baronial palace. The building of the church and convent after 1677 was accomplished in breve tempo according to a chronicle of 1760 referred to by Ottarino Morra.

On 24 December 1767 Richard Potenger, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and lately Under-Secretary of State, wrote to the Provost of King’s, John Sumner, as follows:

Adam was by no means the first architect considered or approached to design a new altar-piece for King’s College Chapel. Almost a decade earlier, in late 1758 or early 1759, Sir James Burrough was consulted by the College and in consequence submitted two plans, both of which, ‘as it was to be a work of public view and of lasting use, Mr Upton, as was thought advisable, took with him to London for the opinion of those who might be competent judges in such a matter’. The judgement was not very favourable; all those consulted emphatically agreed that the altar must be gothic. ‘Mr Stewart particularly is of this opinion, which I mention the rather as he is well known to disapprove entirely of the present fashionable taste for Gothic architecture.’ From this remark it would appear that the ‘Mr Stewart’ consulted was in fact ‘Athenian’ Stuart, at that time back in England preparing his Antiquities of Athens for publication. In accordance with the advice, the College approached another architect, James Essex. Essex had at that time been working with Burrough and ‘the Provost was lately informed that it was probable Mr Essex had assisted Sir James in drawing this plan, and upon enquiring of Mr Essex he finds that Mr Essex was the person who actually drew the plan under the direction of Sir James’.

Cambridge was a crucial centre of patronage and taste at the beginning of the Greek Revival’s popularity during the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century. Yet beyond the University there seems to have been little opening for practitioners of the style in East Anglia as a whole. Thus William Wilkins, Francis Goodwin and William John Donthorn, all three born in Norfolk, made their careers in London. Donthorn, the least noticed of the three, did however develop local connexions in Norfolk, particularly as a country house architect. Few of his houses remain today, yet we may assess his idiosyncratic contribution both from early photographs and from his drawings at the Royal Institute of British Architects.