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A Constructional History of the Sash-Window, c. 1670–c. 1725

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Hentie Louw  and
Robert Crayford
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Extract

The revolutionary new window type that emerged from the London joiners’ workshops during the period c. 1670 to c. 1685 (see Part One) owes its existence to two novel features in particular, the introduction of the glazed wooden sliding frame or ‘sash’, and the application of a counterbalancing mechanism. The first technique, a French innovation of about half a century earlier, greatly enhanced the weather-proofing capacity of the window and, because of its rigidity, also permitted a more effective exploitation of advances made in the manufacturing of large sheets of clear flatglass (for mirrors & windows) than had previously been the case. The second, an English invention, released the full potential of the new wooden frame and encouraged the development of a large openable window which, in terms of convenience and technical efficiency, was superior to anything else on the market. In order to understand why this development took the course it did we need to look briefly at the general state of fenestration in English architecture at the time of the sash-window’s appearance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 42 , 1999 , pp. 173 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1999

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References

Notes

1 For an analysis of the impact made by the seventeenth-century revolution in window-glass making on fenestration see, Louw, H. J., The Origin and Development of the Sash-window in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with special reference to England (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Oxford University, 1981, hereafter referred to as Origin & Development), pp. 84–97 Google Scholar.

2 Letter from Erasmus to Dr Francis, Cardinal Wolsey’s physician, quoted in Beman, Walter, On the History and Art of Warming and Ventilating Rooms and Buildings, 2 vols (1845), 1, pp. 124-25Google Scholar.

3 On this see especially, P. Thornton, Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland (1978), hereafter Interior Decoration, passim. The French engraver, Abraham Bosse (1602–76) produced a famous set of engravings depicting high-middle-class domestic interiors in Paris during the 1630s. (About one hundred of these were reproduced by Blum, André as L’œuvre Gravé d’Abraham Bosse (Paris, 1924)Google Scholar. These views — which show a large variety of new window types — complemented architectural treatises like those of Le Muet and would have been known to English designers. A similar, albeit less extensive, series of English interiors brought out by Edmund Marmion during the 1640s, is now in the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Cat. no. PL.2973). Robert Hooke obtained a set of Bosse’s engravings for 5s. 10d. through the joiner, Roger Davis, who visited Paris in 1677 (Diary, pp. 290-91, entry for 12 May 1677).

4 Architectural History, 5 (1962), Item III/7/1 (iii), pp. 53, 143. See also, item I/14/I, pp. 33, 76. There are several references in the royal accounts from the 1620s onwards to ‘wainscott wyndowes’, and ‘wainscott casements’, being used in Whitehall, St James’s and the other royal residences (PRO Office of Works Accounts AOI/2423/51–, hereafter referred to as Works).

5 For example, wooden windows figure prominently as part of the wainscot work listed in an inventory accompanying the lease of two of the houses in Covent Garden to Sir Edmund Verney in 1634. Archaeologia, 35 (1853), pp. 194-201.

6 Gerbier, Balthazar, A Briefe Discourse (1662), pp. 17–18 Google Scholar.

7 The making of wooden casements was a critical factor in the Newcastle upon Tyne carpenters’ and joiners’ disputes from the 1670s until the second decade of the eighteenth century. See Louw, H. J., ‘Of “Ancient Rights and Privileges”: Demarcation Disputes between the Companies of Joiners and Carpenters, Millwrights and Trunkmakers of Newcastle upon Tyne c. 1580–c. 1740’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th Ser, vol. XVII (1989)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as ‘Ancient Rights’, pp. 98-101. Some of these windows may have survived in Newcastle, but have not been properly researched. An excellent example of an ornamental wooden casement window of the type, dating from c. 1660-70, survives at no.8 Saddler Street, Durham. (Information from Mr Martin Roberts, Durham City Council Architects’ Department.)

8 Gunther, R. T., The Architecture of Sir Roger Pratt (Oxford, 1928), pp. 286–300 Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as Pratt.

9 Ibid., p. 73.

10 Louw, H.J., ‘The Origin of the Sash-window’, Architectural History, 26 (1983), pp. 60–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, hereafter referred to as ‘Origin’.

11 Letter quoted in, Lloyd, Nathaniel, A History of the English House (1931), p. 16 Google Scholar. It is perhaps worth pointing out that Robert Hooke, in January 1676, mentioned a conversation he had with Wren on the topic of how best to frame glass (see Part One, Architectural History, 41, p. 110 n.87).

12 Morris, C. (ed.), The Illustrated Journeys of Celia Fiennes 1685-c. 1712 (1982), p. 157 Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as Fiennes). Elsewhere she refers to it as the ‘London fashion’, ‘London form’, or ‘London mode’. For comparison with the observations of foreign visitors, see Marie, C. A. de Sainte (1685), quoted in Architectural History, 26 (1983), p. 69 Google Scholar, and de Valb, H.. Misson, Memoirs et Observations faites par un Voyageur en Angleterre (The Hague, 1698), p. 292 Google Scholar (transl, into Dutch, 1699, and English, 1719).

13 See, for example, the Newcastle Courant, Febr. 1723/4 onwards for Newcastle upon Tyne. The nationwide trend is confirmed by a series of illustrated town maps/prospects: Newcastle (Corbridge, 1723); York (Cossins, 1727); Great Yarmouth (Harris, 1720s).

14 On this see Louw, H.J., ‘“The Advantage of a Clearer Light”: The Sash-window as a Harbinger of an Age of Progress and Enlightenment’, in Farmer, B. and Louw, H. (eds), Companion to Contemporary Architectural Thought (1993), pp. 300-08Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as ‘Clearer Light’.

15 Ibid., pp. 301-02.

16 Wilsford, Thomas, Architectonice: The Art of Building (1659), pp. 25–28 Google Scholar.

17 Pratt, pp. 73-74, 95, 154.

18 Ibid., p. 95. The folding casements surviving in the banqueting house at Drayton House, Northants., built by the second Earl of Peterborough (d. 1697), have their iron saddlebars on the outside, a practice which Pratt specifically warned against because of the corrosive effect on the glass.

19 The Orangery at Versailles, built by Mansart in 1681-86, for instance, has its arched openings filled with double-glazed wooden windows, 25 ft 3 in × 11 ft 9 in, of which an area of 170 sq. ft opened in four double casements, with glass panes of approximately, 14 × 11 inches. (Information: Centre de Recherches sur les Monuments Historiques, Paris, Reference Sheets D5965–D6230.) French windows were introduced into England early in the seventeenth century, but never became popular (other than as glazed doors). Some from the Wren period survive at Hampton Court Palace in the Old Orangery.

20 North, Roger, Of Building, ed. Colvin, H. M. and Newman, J. (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as North, p. 57n. See further, pp. 53-57, 73-74, 133.

21 On this see Louw, Origin & Development, pp. 106-21.

22 Muet, Pierre Le, Manière de bien bastir pour toutes sortes de personnes (Paris, 1623/47)Google Scholar, translated and published by Robert Pricke as The Art ofTair Building (1670). Two more editions appeared before the end of the century. Le Muet’s edition of Palladio’s First Book (Paris, 1645–47), translated and published by Godfrey Richards (1663 — in 7th edition by 1700), included an illustrated section on the design of doors and windows which, according to Richards, were ‘well approved of by all Artists, both for their manner and proportions’ (2nd edition, 1668, ‘Preface’).

23 Apart from those listed in note 22 see: Savot, Louis, L’architecture Françoise (Paris, 1623/73), Ch. XXII, pp. 122-30Google Scholar; André Félibien, Principes de l’Architecture (1676); Bullet, Pierre, L’Architecture Pratique (1691), pp. 262-66Google Scholar; D’Aviler, Augustin, Cours d’architecture (1691), pp. 132-45Google Scholar.

24 Palladio, for example, linked the width of the window opening (and through that its height) proportionally to the depth and not the height of the room. Inigo Jones recognized this shortcoming of Palladio’s formula and adopted the latter’s directive (derived from Vitruvius) for establishing the height of the principal door as a guideline for windows as well (compare para. 2, Palladio, Four Books, Bk I, Ch. XXV, with Jones’s notes in the margin of his copy of Quattro Libri, ed. Allsopp, H. B. (1970), 1, p. 55 Google Scholar, line 5). This was clearly not a satisfactory arrangement, as it did not fit in with Palladio’s other recommendations for the proportions of windows. John Webb, followed Scamozzi, who — with experience of Northern European conditions, and probably under French influence — criticized Palladio for this and recommended that windows should be half the floor-to-ceiling height of rooms. John Webb, ‘Of Windows’, manuscript in Worcester College, Oxford (Harris & Tait Cat. nos 231-33).

25 Discussed in Reddaway, T. F., The Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (1940), Ch. III, pp. 80–82, 284-85Google Scholar. For an account of the influence of this ruling on the development of subsequent urban house façades see, D. Cruikshank and A. Burton, Life in the Georgian City (1990).

26 Engravings of these canal houses from the period 1660-85, which were published during the 1690s, were reprinted as Een Amsterdams Grachtenboekje uit de Zeventiende Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1963), ed. van Eeghen, I. H. Google Scholar.

27 Robert Hooke was appointed Surveyor under the Act, together with Peter Mills and Edward Jerman, as representing The City; Wren, together with Roger Pratt and Hugh May, were nominated by the king.

28 Quoted in Mayor, J. E. B. (ed.), Cambridge under Queen Anne (Cambridge, 1911), p. 426 Google Scholar.

29 Hawksmoor, Nicholas, ‘Explanation of Designs for All Souls 17 February 1715’ (Oxford, 1960), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar.

30 Pratt, pp. 95, 233. Richard Neve, City and Country Purchaser or Builders Dictionary (1703/26), hereafter referred to as Dictionary, under ‘Bricklayers’, note 2, p. 55. There is an entry for joiners making a ‘splay window in the ‘King’s Cabinet Roome’, at Whitehall Palace in January 1661/2 (Works 5/2), which suggests a wider interpretation of the word. For an analysis of medieval practice see Parsons, D., ‘An Investigation of the Light transmitting Properties of Early Medieval splayed windows’, Archaeometry, 16 (1974), pp. 55–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Blenheim Accounts, British Library Add. MSS 19595, fols 72b, 118. See also, Vanbrugh, John, The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, IV (1928)Google Scholar, ‘The Letters’, edited by Geoffrey Webb, Appendix II, pp. 218-23. Hereafter referred to as ‘Letters’.

32 Morris, Robert, Essay in Defence of Ancient Architecture or a Parallel of the Ancient Buildings with the Modern (1728), pp. 91–92 Google Scholar.

33 Pratt, pp. 158-63.

34 Ibid., p. 295. It is interesting to note that Guy Miège, in his A New Dictionary (1677), has only one entry for ‘Chassis’ namely ‘Chassis de Papier’, which he translates as ‘Chassis, or Paper Windows’. In the second (1688) edition of the dictionary, the former term has been replaced by the following: ‘Fenêtre à Chassis’ = ‘sash window’, ‘sash is here corruptly said from the French chassis.’

35 A contract for the Perse Building, Caius College, Cambridge, 1617, specified as follows: ‘30 dooble casements of iron well and cleane wrought fitly and strongly placed and fastned in the windows of the 3 stories’. Quoted in Willis, R. J. and Clark, J. W., The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1886), 1, p. 205 Google Scholar.

36 Fiennes, p. 232.

37 Wren’s correspondence with the various government officials concerning this matter, dated 20-21 September 1693, has survived and is printed in full in Wren Society, XI, pp. 47-48.

38 Works 5/35.

39 For the Dutch examples at Het Loo Palace and Zeist Castle, 1685/6, see Berends, G., ‘De oudste schuifraam kozijnen’, Restauratievademecum, RV Blad, ‘Kozijn, raam’ 03 (The Hague/Zeist, 1993)Google Scholar. Earlier versions of these reconstructions were reproduced in Louw, ‘Origin’, p. 58, Fig. 3. An excellent example of contemporary French practice is provided by the Orangery windows at Versailles. See above, note 19.

40 Letter to Secretary of State, Graggs, quoted in Whistler, Lawrence, The Imagination of Vanbrugh and his Fellow Artists, (1954), p. 44 Google Scholar. See also Vanbrugh’s letter to the Duke of Newcastle, dated 4 January 1718/9, ‘Letters’, pp. 108-09.

41 See above, note 24.

42 North, passim.

43 For a discussion of this see Louw, Origin & Development, pp. 46-49. See also Wren, S., Parentalia (1750), pp. 336-37Google Scholar.

44 H. W. Robinson and W. Adams (eds), The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-80 (1935), hereafter referred to as Hooke Diary, p. 239, entry for 29 June 1676: ‘saw glasse defective by Mr. Haywards ill-framing’.

45 Ibid., p. 453.

46 Vanbrugh, ‘Letters’, p. 211.

47 Ibid., p. 212.

48 Wren Society, VIII, p. 52.

49 In a letter to Hentie Louw dated 21 October 1986. The evidence for this is contained in Calendar of the House of Lords MS Vol. VIII (1708-10), Item 2596. This applies to Item no. 12 of the Act as well.

50 On this see Ayres, James, Building the Georgian City (1998), hereafter Georgian City, p. 148 Google Scholar.

51 See above, note 29.

52 For example, Thomas Bastard (d. 1720); Alexander Fort (d. 1706); Thomas Fort (d. 1745); Roger Hurlbutt (fl. 1669-1710); William Thornton (d. 1721). None of these styled themselves ‘architect’.

53 Wren Society, VI, pp. 37-38. See also note 48.

54 For an attempt to sort out the complicated building history of this project see Davies, J. H. V., ‘The Dating of the Buildings of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich’, Tlie Archaeological Journal, 113 (1956), pp. 126-36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Since McLellan had previously made a sash-window for the Duke at Old Hamilton Palace in 1690 ( R. K. Marshall, , The Days of Duchess Anne (1973), p. 194 Google Scholar), the technique studied while in London must have been related to the new, stronger version of the B2 Type ovolo sash, of which the Hampton Court windows seem to have become the national model. The household accounts for Hamilton Palace provide for the carriage of ‘two boxes of two Chess windowes one box with the pieces thereof one box with one chair and two caises for the chesse windowes’, from Edinburgh to Hamilton between June 1694 and March 1695 (Hamilton Papers (Lennoxlove), Cat. no. F1/654/44). And McLellan’s bill for the period up to June 1695 includes an entry for ‘upputting two windows there [west quarter] that wer brought from London, hinging of their Caisements, takeing off two pare of waynscot broads of them & cutting them lesser for yr windows’ (ibid., F1/667/5, fol. 1). See also the correspondence of the Duke with his wife about this matter: Letters dated 2 and 7 November 1693, held at the National Archives of Scotland: Cat. Nos GD406/1/7308 and GD406/1/7310, and below, n. 170.

56 Strafford Papers: British Library, Add. MSS 22238, fols 145-46, 150-51, 158, 165, 169, 172, 177-79; Add. MSS 22233, fol. 478.

57 Illustrated in Lees-Milne, J., English Country Houses: Baroque (1970), p. 237 Google Scholar, Plate 377.

58 Thornton’s bill for joiners’ work at Castle Howard include the following entry for August 1711: ‘Mr Thornton one day makeing Patterns For doore Joynts -£0–01-08’, i.e. for the great north entrance door. Work examined 26 March 1713. Castle Howard Archives, ‘Accounte Booke of All the Mason and Carpenter Worke done at Hinderskelfe’, Cat. no. G 2/1/1, Vol. 1, fol. 133.

59 Strafford Papers, 22238, fol. 150.

60 Ibid., fols 177-78; 22233, fol. 478.

61 Lees-Milne, Baroque, pp. 237-38.

62 Louw, ‘Ancient Rights’, pp. 98-101. See also note 7.

63 There were three joiners amongst 35 master-craftsmen from handicraft guilds who petitioned Council of State on 4 May 1654 about the presence of alien craftsmen operating in London, citing the way they were maltreated while working in France, especially Paris, as one of their grievances. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, LXXI, no. 20. S.P. 31.3/4, pp. 148–49.

64 State Papers Domestic Car. II. 395 no. 61. Cal. SPD., 1677/8, p. 271. For other master-craftsmen travelling to France that year see Ibid., pp. 330, 333, 619. See also, Hooke Diary, pp. 276, 290–93.

65 Prince William of Orange and his entourage first encountered the new window type — at a critical stage of its development — when residing at Whitehall Palace during successive visits between November 1670 and February 1671. From the Office of Works accounts it is known that the prince’s apartment for his second visit, October to November 1677, had sash-windows newly fitted (Works, 5/28). William had good reason personally to have noticed the windows. A diarist from that era, SirBeresby, John, recorded (Memoirs and Travels, 1734 (1904 edition), p. 150 Google Scholar) how the prince, when drunk one evening, managed ‘to break the windows of the Chambers belonging to the Maids of Honour, and he had got into their apartments, had they not been timely rescued.’ Wouter Kuyper raised the possibility (Dutch Classicist Architecture (Delft, 1980), p. 181, hereafter referred to as Classicist Architecture) that one of William’s houses, Soestdijk, built 1674–78, may have had some sash-windows installed, but this matter has not been resolved.

66 Colvin, , A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 (1995), p. 18 Google Scholar. We could find no evidence of visits to Holland by either Fort amongs the official records. Thomas Fort may have had a liberal education for it is recorded that his father, Alexander, tried to get him accepted at the Mathematical School, Christ’s Hospital, London, in February 1690 because of his precocity in the subject (H.O. Letter Book (Secretary’s) 1, p. 260. Cal. S.P. Dom., William & Mary, 1789/90, p. 461). This would seem to make the period c. 1698-1702 the most likely for Thomas Fort’s employment in Holland.

67 Mathias Jansen, the Dutch joiner employed by the Lauderdales (see Part One, Architectural History, 41, p. 104), became denizen, together with other foreign craftsmen, in 1661 ( Shaw, W. A., ‘Denizations and Naturalizations of Aliens in England and Ireland 1603-1700’, Publications of the Hugeunot Society, XVIII (1911), p. 86 Google Scholar). In 1678 he was living in London again ( Moens, W. J. C., The Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers 1571–1874 of the Dutch Reformed Church, Austin Friars (Lymington, 1884), p. 39 Google Scholar). A certain Casper Braem is described in the State Records as ‘A Hollander, having served 7 years in the trade of joiner according to the laws of the Kingdom’ (Shaw, op. cit., p. 101). Hagens Hull, a joiner ‘born abroad’, became denizen in October 1681 (ibid., p. 124). Roger Pratt employed ‘Flemish joyners’ during the construction of his own house, Ryston, Norfolk, in 1669-72 (Pratt, p. 170), and Robert Hooke recalled the master-joiner, Roger Davis, in October 1674, bringing a ‘Dutch Cabinetmaker’ to a coffeehouse (Hooke Diary, p. 129). Gerrit Jensen, a Flemish cabinetmaker and glass-seller, worked as part of a whole community of foreign craftsmen, mainly French, at Chatsworth in the 1690s ( Thompson, Francis, A History of Chatsworth (1949), p. 36)Google Scholar.

68 Letter from Lauderdale to William Bruce from Ham House, 7 November 1672. Quoted in Mylne, R. S. (ed.), The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1893)Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as Master Masons), pp. 183-84.

69 Pratt, p. 276.

70 Originally published in Paris in 1650. Translated and published by Evelyn, John as A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modem (1664), p. 119 Google Scholar.

71 For a general survey of the trend see Thornton, Interior Decoration. Also H. A. Tipping, Grinling Gibbons and the Woodwork of his Age 1648-1720 (1914). Leading figures in the English architectural world like Wren and Evelyn championed the increased use of woodwork on the interiors of buildings as a counter-measure to the growing French-inspired fashion in England for upholstery, which they regarded as effeminate (see Wren, Parentalia, op. cit., p. 261 and Evelyn, John, Silva (1670 ed.), Ch. XXVI, p. 132 Google Scholar, under ‘Juniper’). Richard Neve, writing in the early eighteenth century, identified ‘wainscoting’ as one of the ‘great Improvements’ of the architecture of the period (Dictionary, 1703 and 1726 editions, under ‘Building’).

72 Joseph Gwilt, An Encyclopaedia of Architecture (1842), Item 1686: ‘There is a species of oak … imported from Holland, known under the name of Dutch Wainscot, though grown in Germany, whence it is floated down the Rhine for exportation.’ This error was repeated in later handbooks (eg. Rivington’s, Spon’s).

73 On this see NED (Oxford, 1928), s.v. ‘wainscot’.

74 See above, note 4. Salzman, L. F., Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1952), p. 256 Google Scholar, gives only one earlier example for England, namely the wainscot windows made for the Queen’s Chamber at Guildford Castle in 1245. There are illustrations of such windows in French illuminated manuscipts from the period.

75 Gerbier, Balthazar, Council and Advice to all Builders (1663), p. 94 Google Scholar.

76 Pratt, pp. 236, 271. Gerbier (Council and Advice, pp. 64–65) lists 15 Northern European ports, in addition to Christiania (Oslo), exporting the commodity to Britain. (‘Drammen’, incidentally, is the name of a Norwegian port near Oslo.)

77 Pratt, p. 271. Pratt seems here to refer to both soft- and hardwood being sawn (by hand, at that stage in England), into ½-inch-thick planks!

78 Works, 5/13, 5/25, 5/32. Bills of Thomas Kinward, Master Joiner.

79 Tollemache Papers, Buckmister Estate, Leics. (hereafter referred to as Tollemache), Cat. no. 441. Bill for Henry Harlow, joiner.

80 Evelyn, , Diary, ed. de Beer, E. (Oxford, 1959), p. 639 Google Scholar. Thirteen years earlier, Evelyn (Silva, 1664, 1, p. 107) stated that the best wainscot wood came from Spain and Norway.

81 Tollemache, 441, the timber merchant, Oliver Atkinson’s bill, approved by William Samwell, 28 April 1673.

82 Hooke Diary, p. 205.

83 Works, 5/33.

84 NED, s.v. ‘clapboard’.

85 Briseux, C. E., L’Art de Bâtir des Maisons de Campagne (Paris, 1761), Vol. 11, Pt 7, Ch. II, p. 159 Google Scholar.

86 Roubo, A. J., L’Art du Menuisier, 4 pts in 3 vols (Paris, 1769-74), Pt 1, Ch. II, p. 24 Google Scholar, and ‘Table Alphébétique’, Vol. IV, p. 1288, under ‘Maille’ (i.e. ‘Mesh’ of medullary rays): ‘Joiners call “wood cut on the mesh”, when the cuts have been made according to the direction of the rays of the tree.’

87 Roubo warns (p. 33) that a defect of this wood could be that because of its varying texture it causes difficulties with polishing, and small pieces may fall out. As a consequence wainscot was never cut absolutely down the medullary rays, but at a slight angle.

88 Although Evelyn illustrates a ‘Norway Engine’ as an example of a water-driven, multi-blade sawmill in Silva (1679 edition), it was Dutch technology and transport that were predominant in the field throughout the seventeenth century, and into the early eighteenth century. Already in 1630, 53 out of a total of 123 industrial mills active in Amsterdam and on the Zaan river were devoted to timber-sawing, and the Dutch did not lose this technological advantage to the Northern timber producers until the second quarter of the eighteenth century. See Israel, Jonathan, Dutch Primacy in the World Trade, 1585-1740 (Oxford, 1989), p. 114 Google Scholar, and passim. Also, Astrom, Sven-Erik, ‘Technology and Timber Exports from the Gulf of Finland 1661-1740’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 23 (1975), pp. 1–14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kent, H. S., ‘The Anglo-Norwegian Timber Trade in the Eighteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 2nd Series, VIII (1955/6), pp. 62–74 Google Scholar.

89 In a letter to a client, dated 6 September 1690. Quoted in Beard, Geoffrey, ‘William Winde and Interior Design’, Architectural History, 27 (1984), p. 154 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 Blenheim Accounts, British Library, Add. MSS 19591, fol. 97. Contract with Hopson, dated 25 September 1707.

91 St. Paul’s Accounts: Entries for August 1696 and December 1709, Wren Society, xv, pp. 12, 183. A comparison of the measurements of surviving windows with the sizes given for them in the accounts suggest that the wainscot boards were reckoned according to Dutch scantling (1 × Amsterdam ft = 11.304 English inches). This would accord with our finding that a sash made from 2½ inch ‘stuff’ actually measures 2⅛ inch when finished.

92 Wren Society, XIX, p. 37.

93 Works, 5/145, fols 133-37. Joiners’ contracts May-June 1682.

94 Wren Society, XIX, pp. 76-77.

95 Wren Society, VII, pp. 98, 127.

96 Ibid., p. 204. These were presumably replacing the paper sashes installed in January 1699. See Part One (ArchitecturalHistory, 41, p. 127 n.43).

97 South front, ground-floor apartments now called ‘Drawing Room’, ‘Stone Parlour’ and ‘Library’. See Townshend Archives, Raynham Hall, Norfolk. Bill for joiners’ work since 1703 by Matthew May, dated 7 May 1705 (at the time of inspection still uncatalogued in the Raynham archives). Some of the sash bars have pronounced distortions. Charles Hopson’s contract for joinery at the James II Privy Garden Building, Whitehall, dated June 1685, specified English oak to be used for both the sills and the bottom rails of the sashes (Works, 5/145, fol. 200).

98 Egmont Papers, British Library, Add. MSS 46964A, fols 34-36. Letters from William Taylor to Sir John Perceval, dated 5 and 22 October 1703. Information from Dr Eddie McParland, University of Dublin.

99 Pratt, p. 72. For a good general introduction to the three historic methods of manufacturing window glass see R. McGrath and A. C. Frost, Glass in Architecture and Decoration (1961), passim.

100 Works, 5/8. Whitehall Palace, February 1665/6.

101 Neve, Dictionary, under ‘Glass’.

102 On this see Louw, H., ‘Window-glass making in Britain c. 1660-c. 1840’, Construction History, 7 (1991), p. 48 Google Scholar.

103 Neve, Dictionary, 1726, p. 145. For the explanation of the origin of the name see James Ayres, Georgian City, pp. 189-90. So far we have found only one reference where the generic term for this kind of glass was used, namely in an inventory made for Kensington Palace in 1697. Under ‘The Old Bedchamber’ is listed ‘One spunglass sash’. Scheurleer, Th. Lunsingh, ‘Documents on the Furnishing of Kensington House’, Walpole Society, XXXVIII (1960/2), p. 35 Google Scholar.

104 Neve, Dictionary, pp. 144-50. A unique insight into the demands of the contemporary country-house market is given by a record of all the glazing work done over the period, September 1687 to March 1709, at Boughton House, Northants. It is entitled, ‘Boutten: A Bill for ye Right Honble ye Earl of Montague Begun ye 24 September 1687’ (Boughton Archives, no Cat. no.).

105 Strafford Papers, 22238, fols 145–46. The first instance of the use of the large three-pane sash-window was probably at Whitehall Palace in 1682 (see page 203), followed by the massive windows giving to the Queen’s Drawing Room on the East Front of Hampton Court c. 1693. This arrangement became popular in the larger country houses in the first decade of the eighteenth century, and in the grander town house about a decade later.

106 Strafford Papers, 22238, fols 169, 172, 178.

107 Strafford Papers, 22233, fol. 478.

108 Strafford Papers, 22238, fol. 172.

109 Louw, ‘Clearer Light’, pp. 304-07.

110 Smith, John, The Art of Painting (1687), Ch. XXVI Google Scholar. For the use of curtains see Thornton, Interior Decoration, Passim. Also, the inventories for Kensington Palace, 1697/9, Lunsingh-Scheurleer, ‘Kensington House’, op. cit., pp. 15-58.

111 Works, 19/48/1: Painters’ bill, Kensington Palace, March 1692: ‘for painting ye Bottoms of Glasses for ye Maids of Honour’.

112 Fiennes, p. 106. There are references to 24 ‘waved Venice plates’ in the Queen’s Dressing Room, Whitehall Palace in May 1685, at a cost of 2s. 0d. each (Works, 5/39). In January 1687/8 10 panes 12 × 11 in of the same, used in Lord Godolphin’s rooms, came to 3s. 0d. per square (Works, 5/41).

113 Neve, Dictionary, under ‘Glass’, Item XI.

114 Moxon, Joseph, Mechaniek Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works (1703), p. 118 Google Scholar. Hereafter referred to as Mechaniek Exercises.

115 Louw, ‘Demarcation Disputes’, pp. 10-13.

116 Latham, R. and Matthews, M. (eds), The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1970–83), hereafter ‘Pepys Diary’, VII, p. 245 Google Scholar. Entry for 14 August 1666, ‘… comes Mr Foley [Robert Foley, ironmonger to the navy] and his man with a box of great variety of Carpenters and Joyners tooles which I had bespoke, to me, which please me mightily, but I will have more.’ As far as is known none of these have survived.

117 Moxon, Mechaniek Exercises, pp. 63–116, section on joinery, first published independently in 1678. Moxon describes English tools, but illustrates French ones. The plate was also printed the wrong way round, and thus shows left-handed planes. For a useful recent discussion of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century joiners’ tools and trade see Ayres, Georgian City, pp. 139–56.

118 The first commercial planemaking business in London was established in 1703. See Goodman, W. L., British Plane Makers from 1700, 3rd revised edition (Needham Market, Suffolk, 1993), p. 17 Google Scholar.

119 Brooking Collection, Cat. nos G.C.1607.01 and G.C.1611.01. Both frames come from London houses dating from the first quarter of the eighteenth century. On the former, from 27 Southampton Street, c. 1707, 3/16th-inch irons were used; on the latter, from St James’s Place, c. 1700–20, 5/16th-inch irons. In both cases the varken was used in conjunction with ploughs.

120 These planes were also made in Rotterdam during the eighteenth century. H. Janse, , Van Aaks tot Zwei (The Hague/Zeist, 1998), pp. 58–59 Google Scholar, 76. Also, van der Sterre, G., Vier Eeuwen Nederlandse Schaven en Schavenmakers (forthcoming, Leiden, 1999)Google Scholar. Information from H. Janse.

121 Whelan, John, The Wooden Plane: its History, Form and Function (Mendham, N.J., 1993), p. 127 Google Scholar; Tools & Trades History Society Newsletter, 5(1984), pp. 44-46.

122 The sash-fillister, which appeared c. 1770 (Goodman, Plane Makers, pp. 99–103), is the most significant of these.

123 An eighteenth-century version of the joiners’ rod is shown in Roubo, , L’Art du Menuisier, II (1770), p. 278 Google Scholar, Plate 100. A more recent illustrated account of the process can be found in Ellis, George, Modern Practical Joinery, 4th edition (1921), pp. 428-31Google Scholar.

124 Moxon, Mechaniek Exercises, p. 63.

125 Neve, Dictionary, under ‘Glazier’s Work or Glazing’.

126 It is recorded that the sash-windows at Newmarket were severely decayed by 1720. Following a special survey nine windows were replaced and the rest repaired by Thomas Fort. See Order Book of the Office of Works, entries for 30 November, 14 December 1720, and 14 February 1720/1. (Works, 4/2, fols 24b, 26b and 29). A detailed report on the Newmarket sash, with a structural analysis, has been prepared by Andrew Whittrick on behalf of English Heritage, and should be consulted for more specific information on this window.

127 Berends, G., ‘De oorspronkelijke kruiskozijnen van Kasteel Amerongen’, Restauratievademecum RV Blad 02 (The Hague/Zeist, 1991)Google Scholar. These windows were kept open with either metal or wooden pegs in a series of holes made direcdy in the window style, just like the earliest English chassis, but unlike the French sliding windows which used a swivel stop set at a single height.

128 The tall double-transomed, compass-headed windows, shown in the centre of the façade of Denham House, on a painting attibuted to Peter Hartover of before 1674 (illustrated in John Harris, The Artist and the Country House (1979), plate 79), were almost certainly Type A2 sashes. For Holyrood Palace see Mylne, Master Masons, Chapters 9-10, especially the original elevation for the Inner Court, east side, drawn by the master-mason in charge of the project, Robert Mylne.

129 Works, 5/13, fols 427-32, An extraordinary account bound in at the back of the 1669 volume. The date of 1669 for this work is accepted by The History of the King’s Works, v, pp. 448-49, but the account includes entries for minor items dated November and December 1678, and most of the craftsmen mentioned were not officially employed by the Office of Works until the 1670s. This specific account therefore must date from 1678. While it was not uncommon for extraordinary accounts in the series not to correspond with ordinary accounts with which they are bound up, it does seem strange for a later account to be included in an earlier volume unless there is some connexion. It is, therefore, not inconceivable that some related work was done on the building in 1669, hence the reference to ‘Old Shash Windowes’, for which no other entry could be found.

130 Works, 5/14, fols 414-26; Works, 5/15, fols 399-422.

131 For an analysis of Dutch printed sources for architecture from the period, and their availability on the British scene see Kuyper, Classicist Architecture, Ch. 25.

132 Works, 5/25.

133 Works, 5/38. Duchess of Portsmouth’s bedchamber and closet. Feb./March 1684/5. See also note 126 above.

134 Works, 5/28: Joiners’ bill, March 1676/7.

135 Works, 5/28.

136 Works, 5/145, fols 133-37; Works, 5/35: Bills for Alexander Fort, Roger Davis and John Gibson, June 1682 to January 1682/3.

137 The Scottish architect, James Smith, designed this house for David Crawford, secretary to the Duke of Hamilton, while working on Hamilton Palace, Lanarkshire, in 1696. Two of the original sash-windows have survived in the rear elevation. One is still in situ, the other is now on display in the building which serves as the Low Parks Museum, Hamilton.

138 Works, 5/23.These windows were almost square in form, two being 6 ft 9 in × 5 ft 6 in, and the other 5 ft 9 in × 5 ft o in, all unbalanced. The frames were composed of heavy sections of wainscot oak: 8 × 6 in for the outer frame, 6 × 4 in for the mullions and transoms in the first case; 4½ inch square for all members in the second.

139 Please note that the scale given for the detailed plans in this figure is wrong: instead of 50 mm read 100 mm.

140 Works, 5/145, fols 135-37: contracts for Roger Davis and Alexander Fort.

141 Works, 5/145, fol. 200.

142 Quoted in Taylor, Bridget, ‘William Taylor: New Discoveries’, The Georgian Croup Journal, VIII (1998), pp. 6–7 Google Scholar, n.65.

143 British Library, Add. MSS 33442, fol. 14.

144 Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, pp. 142–43.

145 Apart from the Montagu House and Combe Abbey incidents referred to in Part One (Architectural History, 41, pp. 109-10), the following cases are recorded: Kensington Palace, April 1693, painters’ bill for, ‘16 Shasse Lights in the Window blowne downe by the Gt. Starcse’ (Works, 19/48/1); Hampton Court Palace, June 1699, joiners’ bill for, ‘fastning up of 2 Shashes and frames in the Queens Lodgings which was blown down by the wind’ (Works, 5/50).

146 Wren Society, XVII, p. 71.

147 The craftsmens’ bills for the Ball Room contract is missing, but it is known that four large sash-windows were installed there in 1696/7, which served as the model for Kiveton House, Yorkshire (King’s Works, v, p. 236). A reference in the Kiveton account suggests as much. It stipulates that the sashes be made ‘in such a manner as the Princes’ sashes are hung in the ball-room at St James Palace’ (our emphasis, see Part One, Architectural History, 41, p. 129 n.123).

148 St Paul’s Accounts, vol. WB44, fol. 34.

149 Works, 5/41 joiners’ bill dated September 1687.

150 Brooking Collection, University of Greenwich, Cat. Items: GC 1608.01, GC0157.01.

151 Salmon, William still lists sash-making under ‘Carpenters’ Work’ in Palladio Londinensis (1st edition, 1734), p. 48 Google Scholar, and as ‘dealwork’ in The Country Builders Estimator (1737 edition), p. 24, but the fourth edition of Palladio Londinensis (1752) omits any reference to carpenters’ involvement in sashwork; it only includes cased frames in deal and wainscot, classed as joiners’ work (p. 49).

152 Louw, ‘Ancient Rights’, passim.

153 On this see Janse, H., Vensters (Nijmegen, 1971), pp. 58–60 Google Scholar. For early survivals (c. 1710) of this type of frame, Boot, L. H., ‘De verschillende types schuiframen van het Huis “Groeneveld” te Baarn’, Bulletin KNOB (1981), pp. 30–37 Google Scholar. Marot, Daniel illustrates several houses with sash-windows in his Nouveau Livres des Bâtiments (Amsterdam, 1705)Google Scholar.

154 Centre de Recherches sur les Monuments Historiques, ‘Fenêtres (menuiserie) à chassis coulissants XVI et XVII siècle’, Booklet IV (Paris, c. 1957).

155 As compared, for example, with the joinery of Hotel 7 rue des Grands Augustins, dated 1671. Ibid., items, D2615-8.

156 The thickness of frame that serves for a 2–foot–wide A2 Type sash is inadequate for a B2 Type sash of 4–feet width, because the bending stress increases fourfold and the deflexion eightfold.

157 Works, 4/2, fol. 95b.

158 Pepys, Diary, VII, pp. 214, 242-45, 251-52, 258.

159 Works, 5/145, fols 135-37.

160 On the problems encountered with mitres in joinery during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries see Ayres, Georgian City, pp. 141-42. Nathanial Lloyd observed that in late-medieval England mitres were associated with joinery, and ‘mason’s joints’ with carpentry (History of the English House (1931), p. 26). The block joint introduced in late-seventeenth-century window joinery links up with the latter tradition.

161 For example, at the so-called ‘Stone Hall’, Stokesley, North Yorkshire, first quarter of the eighteenth century.

162 British Library, Add. MSS 33442, fols 2, 61, 63.

163 Bill, E. G. W., The Queen Anne Churches (1979), p. 8 Google Scholar.

164 See above, note 148.

165 Belton House, North Front, First Floor, Ante-room to the Library (c. 1721); Lumley Castle, Co. Durham, South Front, First Floor State Rooms (Music Room, c. 1722); Bavington House, Northumberland, North Front, Staircase (c. 1720s). Probably also The Octagon, Twickenham (1720).

166 Works, 5/54: extraordinary account, joiners’ bills for July to November 1686; Wren Society, VII, p. 122.

167 Works, 5/50: joiners’ bills for Feb. 1699/1700. Also, Dec. 1699.

168 Now Apartment 37, first floor opposite Service Yard. The staffbead still had its joiners’ mark in Roman numerals, indicating its original position in the State Apartments.

169 Wren Society, XVII, p. 65.

170 In a letter to the Duchess from London dated 2 November 1693 the Duke of Hamilton informs her of his negotiations with a joiner, whom Mr John Dunbar has identified as Charles Hopson (in correspondence with Hentie Louw). The Duke was mystified by the request for specific information on the window openings: ‘… tho I tell him the windoes are 4 foot 6 Inch wide & ten foot high, yet he desires to know how long the cheks [cheeks?] are on ether side & top in the stone, to receive the chases which he says the timber on ether side tope & bottom, must be 6 Inch large 3 Inch wt in the ston & 3 Inch wt out so the lay light of the chase will be 4 foot. I know not if you will understand this or when you read it at Mr James Smith if he will but the workman I treat wt desires an exact draught of an windoe that he may know how to make the timbers…’ (NAS, GD406/1/7308). The matter was resolved shortly after by having the Edinburgh joiner James McLellan take instructions directly from Hopson.

171 Works, 5/50.

172 Works, 19/48/1.

173 A French fashion plate from the 1690s, illustrated in Thornton (Interior Decoration, Plate 31), shows a sliding window with such a wire pull (immediately to the right of the top corner of the mirror).

174 Works, 5/145, fol. 200.

175 Works, 19/48/1.

176 Works, 5/35; 5/54.

177 Pointed out to Hentie Louw by Mrs Barbara Hutton of York.

178 Works, 5, Volumes 8, 9, 15, 18, 27, 32, 35, 37.

179 Works, 6/7, fols 34–35.

180 Works, 5/37.

181 Hooke Diary, p. 201.

182 Neve, Dictionary, under ‘Painting’. See also Louw, H., ‘Colour Combinations: External Paint Colours on Historic Buildings in England c. 1580-c. 1840’, Architects’ Journal, 192 (4 July 1990), pp. 44–46 Google Scholar; Bristow, I. C., Architectural Colourin British Interiors 1615-1840 (1996), pp. 11–15, 28-38Google Scholar.

183 Louw, Origin & Development, pp. 106ff.

184 Letter from Wren to the treasurer of Christ’s Hospital, London, 24 November 1694, quoted in Wren Society, XI, p. 74. Regarding the Fort case (mentioned on p. 190, note 66), it should be noted that Wren wrote this letter in support of the campaign for a better education in the ‘Mechanick Arts’, in which he believed England was lagging behind the Continental nations.