Architectural design having become an elegant occupation founded on so impracticable a basis, it is not surprising to find it pursued by amateurs. Lord Burlington was the most eminent of these, and he tried his hand, according to contemporary accounts, at a number of houses as well as at some semi-public buildings, such as the Assembly Room at York. Kent includes several in his book on Inigo Jones, where they suffer somewhat by comparison with the genuine work of the master. The well-known house in Burlington Street for General Wade was another of his creations, of which Walpole recounts that being ill-contrived and inconvenient, yet having a beautiful front, Lord Chesterfield said that as the General could not live in it to his ease, he had better take a house over against it and look at it. The villa at Chiswick was yet another of his designs, borrowed, as Walpole says, from a villa of Palladio’s. Though faulty in plan and arrangement, as that chronicler admits, yet these blemishes could not “depreciate the taste that reigns in the whole.” He then adds an observation which throws much light on the motives that underlay the architectural design of the time. “The larger court,” he says, “dignified by picturesque cedars, and the classic scenery of the small court that unites the old and the new house, are more worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur, which our travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long voyages.” It would seem that to have a bit of architectural grouping that really reminded you of Italy more than compensated for damp, draughty, and inconvenient rooms.

Henry, Earl of Pembroke, according to Walpole, was another of the “men of the first rank who contributed to embellish their country by buildings of their own design in the purest style of antique composition.” William, Earl Fitzwilliam, designed a new front to Wentworth Castle; General Conway erected a rustic bridge, of which every stone was placed by his own direction; but from a reference in one of Walpole’s letters to George Montagu, it was hardly a piece of architecture, but rather a mere piling up of large stones; this, however, the writer regarded as much superior to a regular Palladian structure. Mr Chute, at his seat of the Vyne, in Hampshire, designed and erected a theatric staircase. Dean Aldrich and Dr Clarke at Oxford, and Sir James Burroughs at Cambridge, were also amateurs, but they appear to have had more claim as designers than some of those whom Walpole extols. The amateur architect of the eighteenth century had, indeed, a long and even illustrious ancestry. Already in Charles II.’s reign Sir John Denham, a poet, had been surveyor of the works to the King. Wren, who succeeded him, was himself an amateur, in the sense that he received no early training in architecture, and that his reputation as a scientist was fully established before he turned his attention to art. But Wren was a man of exceptional genius and capacity, and soon mastered the technicalities of his new calling. Sir John Vanbrugh was a poet before he was an architect, yet to him we owe houses of the first importance, such as Blenheim and Castle Howard. Besides these amateurs there were men who had received a definite training as architects, John Webb, the nephew and son-in-law of Inigo Jones; Nicholas Hawksmoor, the assistant of Wren; James Gibbs; Colin Campbell; Thomas Ripley, of whom Walpole says that “in the mechanic part, and in the disposition of apartments and conveniences,” he was superior to Lord Burlington himself; and William Kent, the protégé and friend of the same munificent and gifted nobleman. But even among these professional architects the amateur spirit prevailed, and their clients had to adapt themselves to the houses provided for them, instead of the houses being adapted to the wants of the clients.

Other designers might be named of this period and of the preceding half-century, as well as of later times, but the present object is to trace in a brief way the gradual changes which took place in houses themselves, without burdening the reader with many particulars concerning their architects. The immediate source of inspiration for all designers of this period was the Italian, Andreas Palladio; and no designation has been more aptly bestowed on a phase of architecture than Palladian upon that of the eighteenth century. Every type of plan that was employed, every type of elevation, almost every kind of feature that was adopted, has its prototype among Palladio’s designs. In one instance, Mereworth “Castle” in Kent, Campbell, who designed it, states that he copied it from a villa by Palladio built near Vicenza for Signor Paolo Armerico. It is true that he introduced a few variations, but substantially it is the same design; a design which had already been adapted, with other variations, by the Earl of Burlington in his villa at Chiswick. This is the most notable instance of direct copyism; but a comparison of any of the published plans of that period with those given by Giacomo Leoni in his “Architecture of A. Palladio,” will show that they were all founded on Italian models, and derived little (except the names of some of the rooms) from English tradition.

This planting of Italian villas on English soil, where they were subjected to a climate wholly different from that of the land of their origin; this handling of the plan and elevation with a view to architectural effect, instead of with a view to the comfort of daily life, was of a piece with the artificiality of the age in other directions. Among the letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne is one written in 1739 to a friend whom he designates Philotes. In it he describes how he had lately visited another friend (Euphronius), who was shortly going to the wars in Flanders. As the warrior was not one of those who preserve the chance of fighting another day by running away, there was some probability of his never returning. Accordingly he had caused his portrait to be taken after a manner designed by his father-in-law. He was portrayed as Hector, his wife as Andromache, his sister-in-law and little boy as the nurse holding Astyanax. So much was the writer pleased with this “uncommon family-piece,” that he could wish it were the fashion to have all such pictures executed in some such manner. Architects, it is clear, were not the only designers who drew their inspiration from classic sources.

But however mistaken their ideals were, the architects of George I.’s time went a long way towards achieving them. Stateliness within and without, noble proportions, careful and refined detail—all these they produced in plenty. Possibly their noble clients, the “persons of quality,” the “persons of distinction,” were satisfied with the results, and were content to forego the comforts of home for the opportunity of living the stately life. Yet from contemporary observers we get occasionally a word of protest. After hearing a description of Blenheim, Pope says,

He tells Lord Burlington, too, that his noble rules would fill half the land with imitating fools, who, among other things,

The rules of art were supreme. They had achieved their supremacy by the time that George I. came to the throne. Inigo Jones was too original a thinker, too close to the old traditions, to be entirely fettered by them. Wren was too powerful a genius, too much occupied in solving constructional problems, to become their slave. He was too busy surmounting real architectural difficulties to occupy his time in half-hearted attempts to translate Italian villas into terms of English mansions; and some at least of his contemporaries refrained from the favourite pursuit of his successors. In the second half of the eighteenth century architects gave themselves a little more freedom of treatment, while still conforming to the very careful proportions of the classic styles. The brothers Adam, for instance, while indulging in no great flights of fancy, bestowed great care on the proportions and the detail of their work. The house, No. 20 St James’s Square (Fig. 161), is a good example of the refined manner of Robert Adam, although, compared with the productions of the early part of the century, it may be considered a little insipid.

Boughton House in Northamptonshire lies outside the usual run of classic houses of its period. It was built, or rather rebuilt, by Ralph, Duke of Montagu, who incorporated in his new house a considerable portion of his ancestral home, which had been first erected in the middle of the sixteenth century. Montagu had been ambassador at the court of Louis XIV., and on his return to England towards the end of the seventeenth century, he built his house, as one chronicler affirms, after the model of Versailles. It was a very modest version, it is true; but there is a French feeling about it, in rather refreshing contrast to the innumerable Palladian mansions of later years (Fig. 162). The “long arcade” is there, but there is a welcome absence of overpowering columns and cornices, and the windows are all adequate for their purpose. Its restrained treatment, indeed, leads the casual visitor to pronounce it dull; but its very simplicity produces dignity, and its detail is refined. Within, it has ranges of noble rooms (Fig. 183), which, like those at Hampton Court, have the drawback of leading one into the other without the help of a corridor. They are all panelled with large panels, and are full of fine furniture of the period, and fine pictures. There are several excellent staircases, of different and somewhat unusual design; and many of the ceilings exhibit the masterpieces of Verrio or his school (Fig. 209). The house was the centre of a vast and magnificent lay-out, in which great avenues, sunk gardens, canals, lakes, cascades, and statuary all played their part. The whole place, in spite of the decay of the gardens, retains much of its original interest, and gives a vivid idea of the home of a great noble of the time of William and Mary.

Another house with much work of the same period is Drayton, in the same county. This is an interesting edifice dating back to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The early roof of the great hall has already been illustrated (Fig. 84). Considerable alterations were made in the reign of Henry VI.; a long wing was added in Elizabeth’s time; and the close of the seventeenth century left perhaps the most lasting mark of all. The hall was refronted and furnished with a fine doorway (Fig. 163), and enormous sash windows. At the ends of the front courtyard columned arcades were introduced. A chapel was contrived against the ancient windowless wall of fortified times. Most of the old mullioned windows were replaced by sashes. Two venerable towers were crowned with cupolas on columns, which lift themselves up against the sky and proclaim the identity of the house at a glance. New staircases were contrived, one covered with a coved ceiling on which Lanseroon tried his skill. Many rooms were panelled with the large panels of the time. The long gallery in the attic of the Elizabethan wing was made into a library with rows of carefully designed shelves. A little room leading out of the library was fitted up as a boudoir for the Duchess of Norfolk; its ceiling was coved and gilt, and a mirror placed in the central panel; the walls were partly panelled and partly fitted with cases of curious Chinese objects; the floor was covered with a charming design in parquetry, where formal patterns were interspersed with dainty little birds, admirably drawn. The great hall was ceiled below the ancient open-timber roof. The whole place was renovated within and without, and newly furnished with fine chairs, settees, tables, and beds, which remain to this day in the house where they went when they were new. Nor was this all. The gardens were rearranged; stables were built; long walls of enclosure were raised, pierced with gateways into which splendid iron gates were hung. The front court was enclosed on one side with a long stretch of excellent iron railings. Quaint flights of steps led from one level to another. Innumerable lead urns, large and small, but all bearing delicately modelled designs, were placed at intervals along the balustrades, or mounted on great stone pedestals as worthy to form central objects in the various quarters of the garden. The whole place is another admirable example of how noblemen housed themselves in those days, and it has this advantage over Boughton, that it preserves its gardens, and that it has a longer and more varied history to look back upon.

Shortly after the work at Boughton and Drayton was finished, Sir John Vanbrugh was laying his “heavy loads” on the earth in various parts of the country. Heavy they may be, but no one can deny them vigour and force. Vanbrugh, like his contemporaries, troubled himself little about the niceties of planning from the point of view of daily life, nor did he even provide rooms of a size and dignity proportionate to the vast palaces he designed. But no architect of the time succeeded better in pleasing the passer-by with his stately buildings. Blenheim, the gift of a grateful nation to her most distinguished hero, was rivalled by Castle Howard (Fig. 164), the private enterprise of a wealthy nobleman. Eastbury in Dorset was nearly as large, and from the outset must have been something of a white elephant to its owners. At the end of the eighteenth century its possessor is said to have offered an annuity of £200 to any one who would live there and keep it in repair. Finding nobody willing to undertake the responsibility, he finally pulled down all but one wing. Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, though not so large, was still on an extravagant scale. The central block, a fine and massive piece of building, had nevertheless no great amount of accommodation, and it has never been rebuilt since it was burnt down in 1752. Both the outlying wings remain; the kitchen was in one, many yards distant from the dining-room; and some of the bedrooms in this block have to this day no direct communication with the outer air. The other wing contained, as usual, the stables; but so vast are its spaces that the standings within it that are used have had to be enclosed in order to keep them warm.

The plan of Castle Howard (Fig. 165) shows what splendour Vanbrugh and his clients aimed at. The house itself, with a long extending garden front, a lofty hall, and the prevalent curved colonnades flanking the chief entrance, is supported by two projecting wings, containing on one side the chapel, and on the other the kitchen and other rooms called the “hunting apartments.” Outside each wing is a large court—the stable court on one side, the kitchen court on the other, the whole disposition producing a frontage of 660 feet. Blenheim by the same reckoning extended 850 feet. The bird’s-eye view of Castle Howard (Fig. 164) shows the stately treatment of the exterior seen from the front; while Fig. 166 (from a photograph) shows the garden façade. It is a palace rather than a private house. The general view also shows how the buildings that compose the wings are treated absolutely alike, although their purposes are widely different. This practice must have resulted in extravagance and inconvenience at one end or the other, probably at both. Doubtless this aspect of the question occurred to the designer, but it must be remembered that the early eighteenth century frankly built for show rather than for use. Pope points this moral in his letter to Burlington—

The settled proportions in which architects then delighted, the double cube, Campbell’s sesquialtera and sesquitertia, resulted in fine apartments, of which the double cube room at Wilton in Wiltshire is the most notable. There is another room of similar proportions, but rather smaller, in the same county, in the Bishop’s palace at Salisbury. This is the drawing-room, built over some of Bishop Poore’s twelfth-century vaulting. It is 50 ft. by 25 ft., a fine apartment, well adapted for the semi-private functions which diversify the daily life of a great Church dignitary, but perhaps a little too large for ordinary family use. On the opposite side of the close is a house which aptly illustrates the type of plan familiar in the architectural folios of the time. It is a large square house of almost stately appearance. A flight of steps leads up to the spacious entrance hall, which is two storeys high, and contains an excellent staircase. Straight across the hall is the dining-room, of reasonable size. To the left lies a room which extends the whole depth of the house from front to back, a distance of between 30 and 40 ft., while its width is not quite half as much. There can be little doubt that the room is too long for its width, and that there would have been more comfort had the architect been less ambitious. For the purposes of daily life the occupants prefer a smaller room on the other side of the hall. The bedrooms are few in number, and the actual accommodation of the house is by no means so large as its appearance suggests, much space being sacrificed for the hall.

Another example of the fine houses of the eighteenth century is Campbell’s Wanstead in Essex (Fig. 167), built shortly before 1720. In his “Vitruvius Britannicus” he gives three designs for this house, two in the first volume and one in the third. The second design, somewhat modified in detail, was carried out; these modifications are shown on the third design, which also includes a tower at each end of the façade; it was, however, quite as well that these towers were not built, for they would have been no improvement. The view here given was taken from the house itself, which was pulled down in 1822. It is a dignified composition, one of the least extravagant of its period, but the plan, although more compact than many, is ill-adapted for the ordinary routine of household life.

If we leave the architecture of the masters and of their books, and turn to the ordinary houses of the time, we find something much more home-like and convenient. These smaller houses reflect, though dimly, the stately handling of their more pompous contemporaries. They are generally a complete and symmetrical whole, and if in the course of time their owners wish to enlarge them, it becomes a problem of some difficulty how to do so without spoiling their appearance. The entrance door is in the middle of one front, and is flanked on either hand by three or four sash windows, spaced so as to fall into groups. The group over the door is often surmounted by a pediment, or has some special treatment, as at Rothwell manor house (Fig. 192). The angles of the building generally have quoins, the roof is hipped every way, and at the eaves there is a projecting cornice of varying degrees of richness. The chimneys are gathered together in large solid stacks; the roof surface is broken by dormers. The whole effect is simple and quiet. The large spaces of plain walling, the large area of the window openings, the large chimney-stacks are all in complete contrast to the lively windows, steep gables, and detached chimney-shafts of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses. There are innumerable examples of this kind throughout the country. Every old-fashioned town has two or three, occupied by leading inhabitants, the doctor, the solicitor, the maiden ladies. Not a few manor houses are of the same type, with rooms of reasonable size and height, and the eating-room within easy reach of the kitchen. A good specimen of a small house is Fenton House, Hampstead, of which the plan is given in Fig. 168, and the side elevation in Fig. 169. The plan is compact and well arranged, there is no attempt at grandeur, and the rooms are accordingly disposed with a view primarily to comfort; yet both within and without the effect is handsome; there is nothing pretentious on the one hand, nor mean and makeshift on the other. The elevation follows the usual simple lines mentioned above.

It is seldom that these houses are dated, and they have not been considered of sufficient importance for any one to record the year of their building; it is therefore not possible to place the examples here illustrated in chronological order, except in the case of the house at Burwash in Sussex (Fig. 170), which bears the date 1699 in a plaster panel on the soffit of the hood over the front door. Two features which agree with the date, and place it earlier than the other examples, are the wood mullioned windows and the panelled chimneys. The next three illustrations (Figs. 171, 172, 173) were probably all built during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. They have sash windows of which the wood casing forms a broad white margin to the opening. One has architraves to its windows, one merely key-stones by way of ornament, and one has no relief of this kind. Varieties such as these, unpretending as they are, impart a certain amount of character. The remaining two examples (Figs. 174, 175) date from towards the end of the century. They show how formal and spiritless house design was growing. The absence of a wide overhanging cornice seems to deprive them of half their character. On the other hand, they are too simple and unpretentious to excite that active dislike which some of the more laboured houses of yet later times arouses.

The iron gates and railings of the period from William III. to George II. afford some of the finest specimens of craftsmanship which the country can boast. Those at Drayton House have already been mentioned. They were mostly wrought for the Duchess of Norfolk about the year 1700, and much of the work bears her monogram. From the wealth of examples which the gardens and park offer, two have been selected, one from the side of the front court (Fig. 176), and one from the broad avenue which runs westward from the entrance front (Fig. 177). In the former the device of placing the massive hammered leafage in the tympanum of the arch, with the bright sky as a background, is singularly happy. In the latter the combination of the delicate ironwork with the lofty stone piers crowned with large lead urns produces a noble effect, which is heightened by the remote position of the group from the house at the end of an avenue never meant for traffic. It was only a lordly munificence which could place so notable a feature where in the ordinary way it would be but dimly visible.

At Eaton Hall in Cheshire is another fine example (not, however, in its original position) of somewhat unusual design (Fig. 178). Here, too, the more elaborate part of the work is high up, where it now shows against the sky; the lower parts are plain, and veil, without obscuring, the view. The pillars instead of being in stone are built up of ironwork. Clever as the idea is, the effect is not so monumental as when the delicacy of the metal is bounded by the solidity of stone or brick.

There is a splendid range of gates and railing at Carshalton in Surrey, erected in 1723 (Fig. 179) as part of the embellishments of the gardens and park of Carshalton House, which was to have been built for Sir Thomas Scawen from the designs of Giacomo Leoni. It never was built, however, and these gates (of which the designer is not known), together with some others of less pretension, and a bridge, are all that remain of an ambitious scheme. The stone piers at either end, surmounted by lively lead figures, help the monumental effect, an effect which would perhaps have been even finer had the range of ironwork not been quite so long.

But it was not only large houses to which these fine adjuncts were applied. The neighbourhood of London abounds in charming specimens attached to houses of quite small size, such as that in Fig. 180; and even in London itself there are still left interesting examples, many of them yet retaining the extinguisher used by the linkboys after piloting their patrons through the difficulties of the dark and ill-paved streets.