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The Genesis and Evolution of Fonthill Abbey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

John Wilton-Ely
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Extract

‘Some people drink to forget their unhappiness. I do not drink, I build.’

Architecture for Beckford was not only a means of escape from a hostile society into a total environment of fantasy; paradoxically, it also enabled him to express his life-long aspirations for social recognition. Fonthill Abbey was to become a legend in his lifetime as the ideal setting for his protean activities as an outstanding patron and collector — a veritable Palace of Art. In the uneasy collaboration with the wayward genius of James Wyatt, Beckford also developed an approach to design in which architecture assumed the romantic properties of landscape. The effects of this potent fusion of nature and artifice, sustained in his later creation of Lansdown Tower and its gardens, were to reverberate in English architecture until the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 23 , 1980 , pp. 40 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1980

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References

Notes

Various references to the life of Beckford and his creation of the Abbey in collaboration with James Wyatt have been taken from the following publications: B. Alexander, England’s Wealthiest Son (1962); id., ‘Fonthill, Wiltshire — II and III’, Country Life, 1 and 8 December 1966; W. Beckford, Life at Fonthill: 1807-1822. From the Correspondence of William Beckford, translated and edited by B. Alexander (1957); Brockman, H. A. N., ‘Fonthill Abbey’, Architectural Review (June 1944), pp. 149-56Google Scholar; id., The Caliph of Fonthill, 1956; A. Dale, James Wyatt, 1956; The Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. Garlick, K. and Macintyre, A., vols I and II (1978), vols III and IV (1979)Google Scholar; L. Melville, Life and Letters of William Beckford (1910); Wilton-Ely, J., ‘A Model for Fonthill Abbey’, in The Country Seat, ed. Colvin, H. M. and Harris, J. (1970), pp. 199–204 Google Scholar. Certain works discussed in this article and exhibited in 1976, appeared in the pioneering exhibition devoted to Beckford held at Bath in 1966 as indicated below. References are also taken from the following works on the Abbey published during Beckford’s lifetime: J. Britton, Graphical and Literary Illustrations of Fonthill (1823); J. Rutter, Delineations of Fonthill and its Abbey (1823); J. Storer, A Description of Fonthill (1812).

1 Alderman Beckford’s Palladian mansion was completed in 1768 after a fire in 1754 had destroyed the seventeenth-century house which in its turn had replaced an Elizabethan building. Although the architect of Splendens is unknown, Henry Flitcroft and James Paine are among the most likely candidates. Farington comments in his Diary (7 November 1797) that it was ‘finished, if not designed by Adam and must have cost £100,000’.

The chief rooms included a grand apartment, paved in Italian marble with a ceiling painted by Andrea Casali, and an Egyptian hall or Turkish chamber. Apart from work carried out by Wyatt, William Beckford employed Soane to insert a gallery in the house in 1789. As the Abbey became Beckford’s prime concern and the need for building material increased, demolition work began on the wings and colonnades of Splendens in 1801. The destruction of the main house followed in 1806, although a wing still remained when Colt Hoare illustrated it in his History of Modern Wiltshire (Vol. IV, pl. VI) in 1829.

2 Alexander, , England’s Wealthiest Son, pp. 153-56Google Scholar.

3 Brockman, pp. 36–39.

4 Alexander, op. cit., pp. 156–57.

5 Wyatt probably first met Beckford in the mid-1780s through the Courtenays of Powderham Castle where the architect carried out certain alterations. Farington dates Wyatt’s first visit to Fonthill to a month before the incident at Powderham in 1784 launched the notorious scandal. Apart from schemes for a tower on Stop’s Beacon and a ruined convent which preceded the Abbey, Wyatt carried out work for Splendens, including a design for the ceiling of the Egyptian Hall, an ante-room chimney-piece and a fishing seat near the lake.

6 Alexander, p. 157.

7 See Alexander, pp. 160–61. This sheet of sketches by Beckford containing ideas for a proposed house at Lisbon forms part of an early letter to his architect, James Wyatt. It constitutes a key document in revealing the extent of Beckford’s influence over the planning and interior decoration of Fonthill Abbey, begun some three years later. In the plan, as Mr Alexander has pointed out, each room corresponds to one on the main floor of the Abbey. Equally similar is the scenic progression devised from ’ante-room’ and ‘eating room’, via the ‘octagon’ and ‘Turkish room’, to the ‘Sanctuary’ with its representation of St Anthony, illuminated by candelabra and hanging lamps. Among the details drawn are a fountain, elevations for doorways and a chimney-piece with mirror, a detail of a frieze and various vaulting patterns. On the verso of the same sheet is an alternative plan, with interior elevations, for the Sanctuary.

8 Brockman, op. cit., p. 94.

9 Farington Diary, 11, p. 612 Google Scholar. The sketch is discussed and reproduced in Dale, p. 146.

10 Rutter, p. 109.

11 Alexander, p. 159.

12 Brockman, pp. 95–96.

13 Alexander, p. 159.

14 J. Wyatt, sketch elevation of Fonthill Abbey from the South, pencil and wash, 23 x 16.5 cm. See Dale, p. 153; 1966 Bath exhibition catalogue, no. 20; Alexander, ‘Fonthill, Wiltshire — II’, p. 1432; Wilton-Ely, pp. 199 ff; Linstrum, D., Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: The Wyatt Family (1974), p. 38 (8/1)Google Scholar.

J. M. W. Turner (attrib.), perspective view of Fonthill Abbey from the south-west, water colour, 49.3 X 75.8 cm. See Alexander, op. cit., p. 1432. According to Mr Alexander, who places this work later, c.1799, it was purchased by Bolton Art Gallery in 1948 from the Fine Art Society and had previously been in the collections of the Duke of Hamilton and Ralph Brocklebank.

15 Rutter, pp. 111–12.

16 This was first pointed out by Mr John Harris. See Alexander, op. cit., p. 1432.

17 Plans, elevations, sections and views of the Church of Batalha in the Province of Estramadura in Portugal, with the History and description by Fr. Luis se Sousa [translated with] an introductory discourse on the ‘Principles of Gothic Architecture’ by J. Murphy (London, 1795).

18 See Alexander, op. cit.

19 Farington Diary, III, p. 880 Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., p. 916.

21 Ibid., p. 918.

22 J. Wyatt, sketch elevation of Fonthill Abbey from the West, pencil and wash, 21.5 X 17 cm. See Dale; 1966 Bath exhibition catalogue, no. 20; Alexander; Wilton-Ely; Linstrum, op cit., (8/2).

J. Wyatt and J. M. W. Turner, perspective of Fonthill Abbey from the north-west, watercolour, 67 x 105 cm; see Dale; Wilton-Ely; catalogue of the exhibition, Country Houses in Great Britain, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven (1979), pp. 81–82. Mr Wilton, in attributing this work to Turner together with Wyatt in the Yale catalogue of 1979 confirms the hypothesis that this is the design exhibited at the Academy in 1798. He draws attention to the following inscription on the verso of this work North-West View of a building Erecting at Fonthill… in the style of a Gothic Abbey.

23 Brockman, p. m. The choir would have to be east since the gallery is given as 308 feet in total length.

24 J. Wyatt, sketch perspective of Fonthill Abbey from the north-west, pencil and wash, 24 X 18 cm. See Dale; 1966 Bath exhibition catalogue, no. 21; Alexander, p. 1432; J. Harris, Georgian Country Houses (1968); Wilton-Ely, op. cit.; J. Harris, British Architectural Drawings in American Collections (1975), Cat. 395; Linstrum, op. cit. (8/3).

25 This design was later worked into a watercolour perspective by Charles Wild (1781—1835): perspective of Fonthill Abbey from the north-west, 29.2 X 23.5 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum (Prints and Drawings, E84— 1918).

26 Farington Diary, III, p. 1091 Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., p. 1117.

28 Rogers, M. F., ‘Benjamin West and the Caliph: two paintings for Fonthill Abbey’, Apollo, LXXXIII (June, 1966), pp. 420-25Google Scholar.

29 J. M. W. Turner, Fonthill Abbey under construction from the south-west, pencil 33 X 47.5 cm. Against part of the unfinished tower are inscribed ‘Top’, ‘x Height of the tower’, and ‘x window’. See Finberg, A. J., Complete Inventory of the Drawings in the Turner Bequest, British Museum (1909), p. 120 ( Fonthill sketchbook), xlvii–5Google Scholar; Wilton-Ely, op. cit.

J. M. W. Turner, Fonthill Abbey under construction from the south, pencil, 33 x 47.5 cm. See Finberg, op. cit., p. 120 ( Fonthill Sketchbook), xlvii–i; Wilton-Ely, op. cit.

These two drawings show the beginnings of a central window on each face of the octagon tower at the highest point of construction, a feature which appears in the RIBA perspective (PL 32b). However, in Storer’s engravings of 1812 (PI. 34a) pairs of narrow lancets occur on the tower at a position identical to that of the central windows.

30 Brockman, pp. 102–03.

31 Ibid., pp. 103–04.

32 Alexander, , England’s Wealthiest Son, p. 165 Google Scholar.

33 Gentleman’sMagazine (1806), n.p. 1128.

34 Brockman, pp. 134–35.

35 For this model of papier-mâché (length 82.5, width 67.5, height 65 cm) see 1966 Bath exhibition catalogue, no. 19, and Wilton-Ely, op. cit. Like the pictorial relief of Fonthill made of similar material, which was also exhibited in the 1976 exhibition, this model was discovered in the remaining part of the Abbey and may possibly have been produced by the same specialist craftsman. There are a number of other instances of models being produced in cardboard, or even papier-mâché, during the early nineteenth century. The sole reference to the use of such an aid during the creation of Fonthill occurs in 1806 when Beckford refers to ‘the model of the entire Abbey’ in the letter to the Marquess of Douglas. Although the model largely represents the building as completed by 1818, there are certain discrepancies which suggest that parts of it may be earlier and, indeed, that it was an aggregate of earlier stages in design like the Abbey itself. Some of the more obvious differences between model and final building are to be found in the western hall, not only in terms of proportions but in its relationship with the western cloisters. Also of note is the crude indication of detailing in the model’s eastern transept as compared to the far higher degree of accuracy and finish elsewhere.

36 Alexander, , Life atFonthill, p. 80 Google Scholar.

37 Storer, p. 9.

38 Alexander, p. 91.

39 Ibid., p. 127.

40 Ibid., p. 132.

41 Ibid., p. 150.

42 Ibid., p. 225.

43 Ibid., p. 226.

44 Gentleman’s Magazine (1821), II, p. 495 Google Scholar.

45 Alexander, , England’s Wealthiest Son, p. 167 Google Scholar.

46 Judging by discrepancies in contemporary accounts and engravings, the actual height of the tower, like most dimensions of the Abbey, remains uncertain. According to Porden’s section in Rutter’s book, it scales 240 feet but this is likely to have been reduced for purposes of reproduction. While Beckford himself claimed that it was 273 feet high, other opinions range towards 300 feet. The Sublime by definition was immeasurable.