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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Culverthorpe Hall in Lincolnshire is within eight miles of Belton House. It is said to have been built c. 1679 for Sir John Newton: the designer is unknown, but appears to have been aware of advanced Artisan Mannerist patterns. Sir John Brownlow had Belton erected between 1685 and 1689 to designs attributed — none too securely — to William Winde. It is, however, known that the master mason was William Stanton of Holborn, London, and that in 1686 another London mason, John Thompson, was working under Stanton at Belton. Newton came from a long-established prominent family having contacts with the west country, and seems to have acquired land at Culverthorpe by 1672. Brownlow was of a recently advanced family whose fortune derived from the law. Not surprisingly, given the metropolitan quality of the work at Belton, Newton seems to have kept an eye on what his neighbour was doing, and this essay will look at what documentary evidence survives for some of Sir John Newton’s building activities and in so doing will refer at times to those at Belton.
1 Pevsner, N., Harris, J. and Antram, N., The Buildings of England Lincolnshire (1989), p. 244 Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., p. 136. Gunnis, R., Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1815 (1963), pp. 367, 391Google Scholar.
3 There are fifteenth-century memorials to members of the Newton family in Bristol Cathedral.
4 Creasey, J., Sketches Illustrative of the Topography and History of New and Old Sleaford in the County of Lincoln and of Several Places in the Surrounding Neighbourhood (Sleaford, 1825), p. 67 Google Scholar.
5 An indenture dated 20 March 1685 between Samuel Marsh of Welby and Sir John Newton shows that Marsh obtained Heydour quarry from Newton, but that Newton retained the right to take from the pits ‘such and soe many loades of stones as he or they shall need or have occasion for to be used in and about their own proper works and buildings’ (Lincolnshire Archives Office, hereafter LAO, MON 3/31/14). The coincidence of this date with the commencement of Belton House suggests that Marsh acquired the quarry with an eye to supplying that venture.
6 LAO, MON 7/12/48.
7 Cole, R. E. G. (ed.), ‘Lincolnshire Church Notes made by Gervase Holies AD 1634 to AD1642’, Lincoln Record Society, vol. 1 (1911)Google Scholar. See also Lincolnshire Life, August 1982, p. 19.
8 LAO, MON 7/11/34.
9 The handwriting is similar to that on other late seventeenth-century architectural drawings, notably those associated with Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, and of these, the drawings of the west front and the doorcase to the great hall (Bodleian Library, MS Gough Drawings a. 2, fols 81 and 76. Colvin, H., ‘Letters and Papers relating to the rebuilding of Combe Abbey, Warwickshire 1681-1688’, The Walpole Society, L (1984), pp. 248–309 Google Scholar). The Culverthorpe drawing — now bound into a large folio — is on a fine laid paper without watermark, and with evidence that it was once folded. The word ‘Thorpe’, no doubt the last of an address, is just visible on the reverse edge within the binding. The hand is comparable to an anonymous note in the same volume (p. 24) dated 1690.
10 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 245. Creasey, op. cit., p. 67.
11 LAO, 2CRAGG 2/2/18, 19. The sketch map is undated but has a watermark of 1793.
12 Creasey, op. cit., p. 67.
13 Church Close field is indicated on the plan of c. 1793. A map attached to a sale catalogue for Culverthorpe estate dated 1918 shows the site of old St Bartholomew’s chapel on this field. This same map shows a north garden layout similar to that of c. 1793 and the ‘new’ chapel in its present position (LAO, FANE 9/2/17). It therefore suggests that any remodelling of the garden in 1912 involved only minor alterations. The remodelling of the grounds attributed to Stephen Switzer in the early eighteenth century concerned the making of a lake to the south of Culverthorpe Hall, away from any possible location for the chapel (Pevsner, p. 245; LAO, MON 7/11/33).
14 LAO, MON 7/12/65.
15 LAO, MON 7/12/66.
16 LAO, MON 7/12/69. The identity of Mitchell is unknown, but he, too, may have been a mason. Several of that name are known in London, but the Culverthorpe Mitchell could well be a local man. Of the Londoners Gunnis, op. cit., p. 261, mentions Edward Mitchell (fl. 1672-1716) who in 1692 was Master of the Mason’s Company. Little else is known of him, but he may be the Mr Mitchell mentioned in the company Court Book for 1678. That year a Nicholas Mitchell was recorded as working at St Paul’s Cathedral. The Masons’ Company General Search of 1694 mentions a journeyman called William Mitchell. Also in 1694 Edward Mitchell is stated to be working for John Miller, but is classed as a ‘foreigner’ and therefore seems to be no longer of the Masons’ Company. Two years later he appears as journeyman to Robert Smith. Edward’s variable status suggests that, if indeed it is he at Culverthorpe, he may have been working under Stanton ( Knoop, D. and G.Jones, , The London Mason in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, 1935), p. 67, 70, 73, 78, 83Google Scholar).
17 Cust, Lady S., Records of the Cust Family, 2nd ser. (1909), p. 146 Google Scholar.
18 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 136.
19 Gunnis, op. cit., p. 367. Wren Society, vol. x, pp. 95-98. Stanton worked alongside Edward Pearce at St Andrew, Holborn.
20 Colvin, H., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (1995), p. 916 Google Scholar. Hill, O. and Cornforth, J., English County Houses, Caroline 1625-1685 (1985), p. 207 Google Scholar. Harris, J., ‘The Building of Denham Place’, Records of Buckinghamshire, vol. XVI (1957-58)Google Scholar.
21 H. Colvin, loc. cit. Pevsner, op. cit., p. 244.
22 LAO, MON 7/12/286.
23 Scamozzi, V., L’idea dell’Architectura Universale (Venice, 1615)Google Scholar. See also the treatment of columns and pilasters at J. Van Campen, Mauritshuis, The Hague, c. 1633, and in Britain Raynham Hall, Norfolk, 1622; Stoke Park, Northamptonshire, 1629; Ashburnham House, Westminster, c. 1660. The diagonal setting of Ionic volutes was standard Dutch practice in the seventeenth century except where the capitals were garlanded (as at the Sebastiaansdoelen in The Hague — and at Eltham Lodge). Scamozzi’s treatise was published several times in Holland during the seventeenth century.
24 Evelyn, J., A Parallel of the Anaent Architecture with the Modern (1664), pp. 40–43, 55Google Scholar. John Evelyn was known to Lincolnshire patrons, particularly the Andersons of Broughton. They were related by marriage to the Monsons with whom many of the Newton papers are deposited.
25 Neve, J. Le, Monumenta Anglicana (1717-19), vol. IV, p. 143 Google Scholar. Similar columns may be found on Stanton’s monuments to Sir John Brownlow (d. 1697) at Belton, and to Sir William Ellys (d. 1680) at Nocton, Lincolnshire. The latter is attributed to Stanton on stylistic grounds.
26 Garlands with rosebuds of a similar character may be found on Stanton’s monument to Sir John Brownlow, d. 1679, at Belton.
27 LAO, MON 7/12/71.
28 LAO, MON 7/12/72. The letter is from Jackson to John Newton.
29 LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/48.
30 LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/49.
31 LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/274.
32 LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/67.
33 LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/70.
34 The gates and walls are not shown in Badeslade’s print of Culverthorpe Hall of c. 1740. One further consideration in the making of the walls and railings was that they be rabbit-proof as indicated by Jackson’s letter of 1 November, 1693. In addition to the main walls a melon garden was also being made. (LAO, Misc. Dep. 197/275 and 57.)
35 Pevsner, op. cit., p. 139.
36 Celia Fiennes noted the fine ironwork at Burghley House on her visit of 1697. Fiennes, C., The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (1983), p. 90 Google Scholar.
37 LAO, Cragg 2/17/2, p. 37.
38 LAO, MON 7/12/101.
39 Sir Michael Newton was a member of the Spalding Gendemen’s Society, one of the first of the antiquarian societies.
40 LAO, Cragg 2/17/2.
41 LAO, Cragg 2/17/1. Holies, op. cit., makes no mention of the dedication of the former church at Culverthorpe.
42 The link with the Eyre family was perpetuated in that the younger Sir John Newton’s daughter, Susannah, married William Eyre Archer, the kinsman of the architect Thomas Archer whose pavilion at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, also has paintings by Louis Hauduroy. Hauduroy’s work at Culverthorpe no longer exists, though the bill survives (LAO, MON 7/12/286): they had been obliterated by 1825 (Creasey, op. cit.). The network of Huguenot sympathizers among Lincolnshire patrons extended to the Monsons, Nelthorpes, the Cecils of Burghley and Gabriel More of Grantham.