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The Architects of Christ Church Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

James Weeks
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Extract

Architecture in Oxford between the Civil War and the early Georgian period presents a fascinating picture of great stylistic change and originality, as vernacular building traditions largely inherited from the Gothic of the Middle Ages were superseded by new design philosophies derived from Renaissance interpretations of classical architecture. The new architecture was driven by an increasingly élite and academic taste, largely dependent upon expensive foreign books and even more costly foreign travel, and necessitated fundamental changes to the established building practices of the colleges, which had hitherto relied largely on local master masons for both construction and design. As architecture ‘was something outside the ken of the average Oxford don’, knowledgeable men, especially those who had travelled abroad and seen modern buildings, became important arbiters of taste, and often drifted into architecture as a result. The first and most famous Oxford man to take this path was Christopher Wren of Wadham College in the 1660s, but he was followed a generation later by Henry Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church, after whose death in 1710 the mantle passed to George Clarke of All Souls College. It is with the significance of the latter two men’s activities at Christ Church that we will presently be concerned.

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Architectural History , Volume 48 , 2005 , pp. 107 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2005

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References

Notes

1 Howard, Colvin, ‘Architecture’, in The History of the University of Oxford, volume v: The Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, L. S. and Mitchell, L. G. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 831–56 (p. 831)Google Scholar.

2 The ensuing description of the university background relies mainly on the chapters by Gareth Vaughan Bennett and Howard Colvin in Sutherland and Mitchell, The History of the University of Oxford. See also The Victoria County History of the County of Oxford, ed. H. E. Salter and Mary D. Lockwood (London, 1954).

3 See especially Howard Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford (New Haven and London, 1983), especially the bibliography in it, for more details of these other projects.

4 Canon William Stratford to Edward Harley, 20 September 1716, in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, K. G., preserved at Welbeck Abbey, VII (London, 1901), p. 217.

5 A Catalogue of Architectural Drawings of the 18 th and 19 th Centuries in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford, ed. Howard Colvin (Oxford, 1964), p. xviii.

6 Colvin, Catalogue, p. xviii; Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, pp. 23-24, 51, 54; Colvin, ‘Architecture’, p. 832; Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edn (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 250-51. Alan Bean, ‘The patronage and architectural activities of Dr. George Clarke (1661-1736)’ (MA Report, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1972), pp. 23-25. Walter George Hiscock, A Christ Church Miscellany (Oxford, 1946), pp. 49-75. A much fuller account of the historiography of the Library, and other issues, is given in James Weeks, ‘The architects of Christ Church Library, Oxford’ (MA Dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2003).

7 Most of the designs and engravings are in a portfolio in Christ Church Library, formerly listed as West Table b.1.5. One sketch is at Worcester College, no. 145 in Colvin, Catalogue. The original accounts are in Christ Church Library, ChCh MS 373, with William Townesend’s contract on fols 5v-6r; they were published by Jean Cook and John Mason as The Building Accounts of Christ Church Library 1716-1779 (Oxford, 1988). Townesend’s undated set of estimates is in Christ Church Archives, MS Estates 127, fols 3-5. Canon Stratford’s letters to Robert Harley, which mention the project briefly, are in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report, vii (1901).

8 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 49. The engravings are undated, so Hiscock must have assumed they were made just before work began.

9 Walter George Hiscock, Henry Aldrich of Christ Church: 1648-1710 (Oxford, 1960) provides the fullest treatment of his architecture, although certainly the most speculative. Almost all the reader may require is to be found in Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 69-71.

10 Hiscock, Henry Aldrich, p. 13, and Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 49. Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 70-71. The drawing is located in the portfolio discussed in note 7, above.

11 Jean Marot, L’Architecture Francoise (‘le grand Marot’, Paris, c. 1670), printed in facsimile (Paris, 1968), unpaginated.

12 John Summerson, Architecture in Britain 1530-1830, 9th edn (New Haven and London, 1993), p. 290.

13 Henry Aldrich, Elementa architecture civilis ad Vitruvii veterumque disciplinam, et recentiorum præsertim a Palladii exempla probatiora concinnata (Oxford and London, 1789) [First published anonymously as Elementorum architecturæ pars prima de architectura civili (w.p., w.d.: London, 1750), pl. 40. See the many examples of such reconstructions in Andrea Palladio, 1 Quattro Libri Dell’Architettura (Venice, 1601), Book 4; Inigo Jones’s copy, bought by George Clarke from Michael Burghers in 1708, is reprinted in facsimile as Inigo Jones on Palladio, 2 vols (Newcastle, 1970). Also Vitruvius, I Dieci Libri Dell'Architettura, ed. & trans. Daniel Barbaro (Venice, 1567), pp. 278-85 (in Book 6); a facsimile edition was printed in Milan, 1987.

14 See Guide Rionali di Roma. Rione III — Colonna. Parte II, ed. Carlo Pietrangeli (Rome, 1982) p. 16, for the conversion of the temple into the Land Customs House.

15 Hawksmoor’s friendship with Aldrich is attested by Summerson (1993), p. 289.

16 Aldrich W. 1, in Christ Church Library, contains several engravings showing similar window surrounds, including those of della Porta’s Palazzo Chigi, and Vignola’s Palazzo Borghese in Rome. However, since Aldrich had a wide body of knowledge, with books covering French, Dutch, and Italian architecture, such examples serve only to indicate a general interest.

17 Many of the unbuilt designs are dealt with in Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford; and Roger White, Nicholas Hawksmoor and the Replanning of Oxford (London and Oxford, 1997).

18 The unusual placement of every pilaster at identical intervals around a perfect square locks all three ranges into the same unifying grid and is discussed in Weeks, ‘The architects of Christ Church Library’, p. 20.

19 Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 24, has already suggested the south block was intended for ‘Fellows’ (although uniquely the senior members of Christ Church are called ‘Students’). To avoid semantic confusion, academics are here referred to generically as ‘fellows’ and ‘dons’.

20 Ibid., p. 9.

21 Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, p. 23.

22 The characterization of Aldrich as a Palladian avant la lettre (that is, before the development of the Palladian movement in English architecture) is commonplace, see for example Summerson, Architecture in Britain, p. 289, and Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 71.

23 Petter, Helen Mary, The Oxford Almanacks (Oxford, 1974), p. 5.Google Scholar

24 Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 24. Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, p. 51. For the quotation see note 4, above.

25 The square corner pillar featured in the Villa Pisani at Bagnolo, and the Villa Trissino at Meledo, respectively pp. 47 and 60 in Book II of Clarke’s copy of Palladio’s Quattro Libri (see n. 13).

26 This drawing is in Worcester College Library: no. 70 (pi. 53) in John Harris and A. A. Tait, Catalogue of the drawings by Inigo Jones, John Webb, and Isaac de Caus at Worcester College, Oxford (Oxford, 1979).

27 Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, p. 51.

28 Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 24.

29 A fact noted by Bean, ibid., p. 25.

30 Summerson, Architecture in Britain, p. 290; Colvin, Catalogue, p. xviii; and Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 25, recognize this.?

31 Harris, ‘Dr George Clarke, in memoriam’, Connoisseur (1964), p. 264.

32 For an illustration see Petter, Oxford Almanacks, p. 55.

33 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, pp. 52, 55. Subsequent historians have followed his dating of the final engraving to 1717, for example Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 24.

34 Cook and Mason, Building Accounts, p. 5.

35 See Petter, Oxford Almanacks, pp. 9-12, for Clarke’s role in the production of the Oxford Almanacks. Other ones similar in concept to the those featuring Christ Church in 1724 and 1725, for instance those in 1723 (Brasenose) and 1731 (Magdalen), were copied accurately from drawings supplied by Clarke, which actually do survive (see Petter, Oxford Almanacks, pp. 54 and 58).

36 Christ Church Library drawings portfolio, fol. 5.

37 Christ Church Library drawings portfolio: fols 6 and 7. The less accomplished shading in the central first- floor bay of the later impressions might be due to Burghers’s decline as he grew older. James Thornhill described him in the 1720s as a ‘bad graver’ (Petter, Oxford Almanacks, p. 11).

38 ChCh MS 373, fol. 6r. More details of this contract in note 7.

39 See note 7, above for the location of the estimate.

40 Petter, Oxford Almanacks, p. 55, prints the plate’s inscription: ‘W. Williams delin. I Harris Fecit.’ [sic],

41 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 55, does state, although without citing any evidence, that Townesend made the drawing in early 1729, after the long hiatus.

42 Colvin, Catalogue, p. xviii (including quote); Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 250; Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 25.

43 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 52.

44 Domenico di Rossi, Studio d'Architettura Civile, 3 vols (Rome, 1702, 1711, 1721), see vol. 1, pis 1-13. Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, p. 25, points out Clarke’s ownership of this work. As it contained no general elevation, he must have consulted some other volume, perhaps Marot, c. 1670 (see Figs 23a and 23b, above).

45 Now at Worcester College. Colvin, Catalogue, no. 115 (pi. 106).

46 Bean, ‘The patronage ... of Dr. George Clarke’, pp. 9, 12. Clarke would have seen the Office of Works designs when he became involved, first with Greenwich Hospital as a member of the Admiralty (1702-05 and 1710-14), and then with attempts to rebuild Whitehall (in the 1710s). The Whitehall design referred to here is for the central block of the river front, and is given as pi. IX in Wren Society, vm (original in All Souls College, Oxford).

47 The most revealing Clarke drawing of the north range at Worcester College is given as pi. 3 in Colvin, Catalogue. See Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 52 for the discussion of the alternative ground-floor design.

48 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 52.

49 Ibid., p. 52.

50 See Colvin, Catalogue, pi. 3 for details of the Worcester College drawing. For a list of Townesend’s work, see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 985-87.

51 For All Souls, see especially Howard Colvin and John Simon Gabriel Simmons, All Souls: An Oxford College and its Buildings: The Chichele Lectures, 1986 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 36-37. For Magdalen, see Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, pp. 78-104. For Hawksmoor’s involvement at Worcester, see Colvin, Catalogue, p. xxiii. Hawksmoor’s roles in the other projects are covered in White, Nicholas Hawksmoor.

52 Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, p. 47; Summerson, Architecture in Britain, p. 291.

53 See note 51, above.

54 Ibid.

55 Pevsner, Nikolaus and Sherwood, Jennifer, The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, Harmondsworth (1974), p. 47.Google Scholar

56 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 50, believed these two plans were ‘crude copies made around 1760, probably by Dean Gregory’, even though they display features which were anachronistic by his time, such as the southern Venetian window. If Hiscock is right, however, the Dean must still have been a pedantic enough copyist to present us with Clarke’s original intentions.

57 ChCh MS 373, fol. 6r. More details of this contract in note 7.

58 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, p. 69.

59 Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, London (1976), p. 107.?

60 Hiscock, Christ Church Miscellany, pp. 68-75; Cook & Mason Building Accounts, pp. 1-10.

61 The attribution of the drawings to Gibbs was made by Hiscock in the drawings index at Christ Church, and on their architectural, stylistic and artistic evidence is almost certainly correct.

62 Illustrated in Bibliotheca Radcliviana 1749-1949, catalogue of an exhibition in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (1949), pis 6 and 7; also in Colvin, Unbuilt Oxford, pi. 77.

63 Past writers (see note 59, above) have taken too literally the statement in Anon., , An Essay on the Life of David Gregory, D.D., late Dean of Christ-Church, Oxford (London, 1769), p. 15 Google Scholar, that ‘the whole of the internal part was executed to his [Dean Gregory’s] taste and direction’.

64 Summerson, Architecture in Britain, p. 289.

65 See note 4, above.

66 The three most relevant general histories are those of John, Newman, ‘Oxford Libraries before 1800’, in the Archaeological Journal, 135 (1978), pp. 248–57 Google Scholar; ‘The Architectural Setting’, in The history of the University of Oxford, vol. VII: Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford, 1997), pp. 135-77; and also Myres, J. N. L., ‘Oxford Libraries in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries’, in The English Library Before lyoo: Studies in its History, ed. Francis Wormald and Cyril Ernest Wright (London, 1958), p 5.Google Scholar These cover Oxford libraries up to the eighteenth century. The rest of the collection of essays by Wormald and Wright elaborates on the English library context up to 1700. Their accounts are not, however, particularly detailed or exhaustive on the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Oxford library projects.