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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2016
Horace Walpole had to put his oar in. ‘How the designs of that house [Holkham], which I have seen an hundred times in Kent’s original drawings, came to be published under another name, and without the slightest mention of the real architect, is beyond my comprehension’. Indeed, The Plans, Elevations, and Sections, ofHolkham in Norfolk, The Seat of the Late Earl of Leicester had been published by Matthew Brettingham senior (1699–1769) ten years earlier (1761) without any mention of William Kent (c. 1685–1748). But Walpole’s well-publicised remark completely turned the scales, establishing Kent as the creator and architect of this intriguing work (built 1734-64), which is seen by many as the beau idéal of Anglo-Palladian architecture (Fig. 1).
An alternative view of Holkham’s genesis has seen the patron, Thomas Coke, later Earl of Leicester, as the driving force in the creation of the house and its setting — a view confirmed by a great number of drawings and letters discovered since the 1980s. But a ‘reassessment’, recently published in this journal, has now cast doubt on such a conclusion and has attempted to re-establish Kent as Holkham’s architect.
1 Walpole, Horace, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 4 vols (Twickenham, 1762–71), IV, p. 115.Google Scholar
2 Salmon, Frank, ‘“Our Great Master Kent” and the Design of Holkham Hall: A Reassessment’, Architectural History, 56 (2013), pp. 63–96.Google Scholar
3 Wittkower, Rudolf, ‘Lord Burlington and William Kent’, Archaeological Journal, cII (1945), pp. 151–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Schmidt, Leo, ‘Holkham Hall, Norfolk — I’,Country Life(24 January 1980), pp. 214–17.Google Scholar
5 Strangways, Giles, Earl of Ilchester, Lord Hervey and His Friends, 1726-38 (London, 1950), p. 73.Google Scholar
6 Colvin, Howard, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 (ed. New Haven and London, 2008), pp. 615–16.Google Scholar
7 British Library, Maps, K Top 31.42.b-h; illustrated in Schmidt, , ‘Holkham Hall’, p. 215 Google Scholar, figs 3–5.
8 Holkham Hall, Archives, Holkham Country Accounts, 2, 1726, f. 53.Google Scholar
9 Colvin, , Biographical Dictionary, p. 154.Google Scholar
10 Lees-Milne, James, Earls of Creation (Harmondsworth, 1962).Google Scholar
11 Note also the phrasing in Lord Leicester’s will in which he provides an annual sum of £2,000 ‘towards finishing and completing of my said Capital House at Holkham […] until the same are fully and completely finished according to the Plan and Design which I have made […]’; quoted after Boyington, Amy, ‘The Countess of Leicester and her Contribution to Holkham Hall’, The Georgian Group Journal, xxII (2014), p. 53.Google Scholar
12 To be discussed in detail below.
13 Harris, John, ‘The Case against Coke’, Country Life(7 August 1980), pp. 481–82.Google Scholar
14 Hiskey, Christine, ‘The Building of Holkham Hall: Newly Discovered Letters’, Architectural History, 40 (1997), pp. 144–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Holkham, eds Schmidt, Leo, Feversham, Polly and Keller, Christian (Munich, Berlin, London, New York, 2005).Google Scholar
16 Salmon, ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’.
17 Letter to Sir Mann, Horace, at www.fullbooks.com/Letters-of-Horace-Walpolei.html (accessed 31 July 2014).Google Scholar
18 On the scandal, see Lees-Milne, , Earls, pp. 237–39.Google Scholar
19 Walpole, Horace, Correspondence, ed. Lewis, Wilmarth Sheldon (New Haven and London, 1937), p.43.Google Scholar
20 Brettingham, Matthew, The Plans, Elevations and Sections of Holkham in Norfolk (London, 1773), p. iii.Google Scholar
21 Ibid.:‘by your command […]’.
22 Ibid.: ‘a tribute, which your Munificence alone enables me to pay […]’.
23 Holkham, eds Schmidt, et al., pp. 39, 45 and 126 Google Scholar; James, Charles Warburton, Chief Justice Coke and his Family at Holkham (London, 1929), pp. 281–84, 290–98.Google Scholar
24 Brettingham, , Plans, p.iii Google Scholar: ‘your Ladyship, by adding the finishing touches to the Great Work of Holkham […]’. See also the detailed information on pp. v–vi.
25 See, e.g., James, , Chief Justice Coke, pp. 288–89 Google Scholar, but also Salmon, himself: ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 69.Google Scholar
26 Brettingham, , Plans, pp. viii–ix.Google Scholar
27 Ibid., p. v.
28 A letter by Matthew Brettingham junior quoted in a much later publication: T. W. F, ‘Matthew Brettingham, The Architect of Holkham’, The East Anglian, 2 (1864), pp. 131–34Google Scholar. Brettingham is also quoted as saying his father had not denied ‘to Mr. Kent the honour of furnishing the first designs’. As the original letter has not been traced, it is difficult to assess the value of this information: we know nothing whatever about T. W. F. and his possible agenda; nor do we have any way of knowing whether he was quoting faithfully or whether, in the worst case, he made it all up. However, even if the quote is accurate, it proves nothing because Brettingham junior was no contemporary witness and had only second-hand knowledge of the genesis of the designs for Holkham.
29 Salmon, , ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 65.Google Scholar
30 James, , Chief Justice Coke, p. 286.Google Scholar
31 Brettingham, , Plans, p. viii.Google Scholar
32 Palladio, Andrea, I quattro libri dell’architettura (Venice, 1570), II, p. 60.Google Scholar
33 Parissien, Steven, Palladian Style (London, 1994), p. 103.Google Scholar
34 Brettingham, , Plans, p. vi.Google Scholar
35 The only known print of the engraving is inserted in the copy of Francis Blomefield, , An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk (London, 1739–1805), vol.9 Google Scholar, held by the library of the Queen’s College, Oxford: shelf mark 52.D.17.
36 T. W. F., letter, as above n. 28 and as quoted in Salmon, , ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 65.Google Scholar
37 Mowl, Timothy, William Kent: Architect, Designer, Opportunist (London, 2006), p. 217.Google Scholar
38 Palladio, , Quattro libri, II, p. 78.Google Scholar
39 Hiskey, , ‘Building’, pp. 147–48.Google Scholar
40 The term ‘Hall’ is used synonymously for the ground floor entrance area, as is shown by Brettingham’s use of it in a design for a villa amongst the drawings from Lowther Hall (Carlisle, Cumbria Archives, DLONS L II/4/24. The drawing is not catalogued in Colvin, Howard, Mordaunt Crook, J. and Friedman, Terry, Architectural Drawings From Lowther Castle, Westmorland; Architectural Monographs II (London 1980).Google Scholar
41 Brettingham, , Plans, p. 5 Google Scholar, which calls the southern octagon the ‘Vestibule’ and the northern one the ‘Tribune of the Gallery’.
42 Heawood, Edward, Watermarks: Mainly of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Hilversum, 1950).Google Scholar
43 Salmon, , ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 68 Google Scholar
44 For examples of such drawings among the Lowther collection in the Cumbria Archives in Carlisle, see the large elevation of the north faҫade of Holkham (DLONS, LII/2/19) or the elevation of Holkham with half a plan (DLONS, L II/4/11); cf. Colvin, et al., Lowther, p.28 Google Scholar, cat.43 and 44.
45 Salmon, , ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 74.Google Scholar
46 Summerson describes Holkham as ‘the earliest and most important derivative of Houghton’ see Summerson, John: ‘The Classical Country House in 18th-century England’ (1959), republished in idem, The Unromantic Castle and Other Essays (London, 1990), pp. 79–120 (p. 100).Google Scholar
47 Salmon, , ‘“Our Great Master Kent”’, p. 91 Google Scholar, n. 42: ‘It should be noted that the British Library set “idealizes” the Holkham plan, in that the piano nobile […] does not incorporate the changes to the dining room that Leicester and Brettingham made in 1753, nor those they made to the Marble Hall in 1757 — where Kent’s original scheme which had remained current since the mid–1730S […] is preferred.’
48 As specified in the Catalogue of Maps, Prints, Drawings Attached to the Library of His Late Majesty King George the Third, 2 vols (London 1829), I, p. 323.Google Scholar
49 Cf. Colvin et al., Lowther. I am grateful to Jim Lowther for permission to study these drawings.
50 Carlisle, Cumbria Archives, DLONS, L II/4/13; Colvin, et al, Lowther, p. 29 Google Scholar, cat. 46.
51 Ibid., L II/4/14; Colvin, et al., Lowther, p.29 Google Scholar, cat.47.
52 The mezzanine storey (ibid., L II/4/15; Colvin, et al., Lowther, p. 29 Google Scholar, cat. 48) is practically identical to the one in the Holkham I drawings, although incorporating a few improvements particularly in respect to access.
53 For visualisation of these various stages, see Holkham, eds Schmidt et al., pp. 116–17.
54 Colvin, , Biographical Dictionary, p. 156.Google Scholar
55 Judging by his reference to a watermark he believes to date from about 1760–70.
56 Quoted from Avray Tipping, H., English Homes, period V, vol. I: Early Georgian, 1714–1760 (London, 1921), pp. 301–22.Google Scholar
57 Desgodetz, Antoine, Les Edifices antiques de Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement (Paris, 1682)Google Scholar was one of the main sources used in the decoration of the rooms.
58 The bricklayer, John Elliott received payment for ‘digging out foundation and carrying up a wall for the Dining Room Beaufet’; see Holkham Hall, Archive, Holkham Country Accounts, 6.
59 Evidence illustrating a similarly empirical approach can be seen in the void over the Sculpture Gallery, where the height of the entablature and the sizes of various features of the room are marked on the naked brick walls in charcoal.
60 See above n. 8.
61 The figure of a draped male was joined with the head of a bearded god by an Italian ‘restorer’ and offered as Jupiter; the sculpture as a whole measures 2.23 m in height. For the figure and the head, see Angelicoussis, Elizabeth, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures (Mainz, 2001), pp. 115–16Google Scholar, cat. 21 and pp. 140–41, cat. 42.
62 Mowl, , William Kent, p. 223.Google Scholar
63 The Works of Alexander Pope, ed. Roscoe, William, 9 vols (London, 1824), v, p. 403.Google Scholar
64 Mowl, , William Kent, p. 217 Google Scholar; Mowl also pronounced (p. 222) that the building was ‘impossible not to admire but difficult to like’.
65 Ibid., p. xx.