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Ripon’s Forum Populi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Richard Hewlings
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Extract

The oldest free-standing monumental obelisk in these islands still to survive is in the Market Place of Ripon (Pl. 26a). That it has not been recognized as such by historians either of Ripon or of art is due to its inscription, which runs:

        MDCCLXXXI
        ERECTED AT THE EXPENSE OF
        WILLIAM AISLABIE ESQUIRE,
        WHO REPRESENTED THIS BOROUGH
        IN PARLIAMENT SIXTY YEARS.
        THE MAYOR, ALDERMAN AND ASSISTANTS
        OF RIPON ORDERED THIS INSCRIPTION,
        MDCCLXXXV.
        THE HONORABLE FREDERICK ROBINSON,
        MAYOR

    Despite the 1781 date four illustrations exist showing it before then, S. and N. Buck’s town prospect of c. 1745, Thomas Parker’s town prospect (Pl. 26c), and Thomas Gent’s elevation, the two last illustrating Gent’s History of Ripon of 1733, and Samuel Buck’s drawing of c. 1720 (Pl. 27a). There are, in addition, two written descriptions of it earlier than 1781, the earliest being Daniel Defoe’s, published in 1724, but based on a visit made probably in 1719. He wrote:

    . . . the market place is the finest and most beautiful square that is to be seen of its kind in England. In the middle of it stands a curious column of stone, imitating the obelisks of the antients, tho’ not so high, but rather like the pillar in the middle of Covent Garden; or that in Lincoln’s Inn, with dials also upon it.

    Type
    Research Article
    Information
    Architectural History , Volume 24 , 1981 , pp. 39 - 52
    Copyright
    Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1981

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    References

    Notes

    1 Gent, Thomas, History of Ripon (1733), frontispiece and p. 158 Google Scholar.

    2 British Museum, Lansdowne MSS 914, f. 61v. This collection of drawings has recently (1979) been published as Samuel Buck’s Yorkshire Sketchbook, with an introduction by Dr Ivan Hall. A further explanatory article (anonymous) is in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xv (1898-1900), 76-83. An article by W. B. Crump attributing the drawings to Samuel Buck is in ibid., xxv (1940), 61-64.

    3 Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26), Everyman Edition (1962), vol. 11, 213 Google Scholar.

    4 Ripon Corporation Archives 10 (Corporation Minute Book: 1666-1742/3, p. 285). Ripon Corporation Archives 95 contains a nineteenth-century transcript, with slight differences.

    5 Leeds City Archives. Vyner MSS: 5742 (245/3). Hereafter referred to as ‘the bundle’ since the items in it are not individually numbered.

    6 Two obelisks of this type, not even free-standing, form part of the elaborately moulded architrave to the door of the so-called Manor House in Wareham, Dorset, illustrated in The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, County of Dorset, vol. 2, South-East (Part 2) (1970).

    7 Typical examples are at Nos 12/14 Savile Row (c.1733–35), Nos 9/10 St James’s Square (1734), No. 1 Greek Street (c. 1740), and in a slightly different context at St George’s Church, Hanover Square (1720-25). These dates are taken from the Survey of London, vol. 32 (1963), and Colvin, H., Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 (1978), pp. 453-54Google Scholar.

    8 Pevsner, N., Studies in Art, Architecture and Design, vol. 1 (1968)Google Scholar, Chapter 13 (‘The Egyptian Revival’).

    9 Strong, R., The renaissance Garden in England (1979), pp. 63–69 Google Scholar.

    10 Dent, J., The Quest for Nonsuch (1962), pp. 68–69 Google Scholar, for Speed’s engraving, and Appendix 11, p. 290, for the 1650 inventory.

    11 Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 852. The attribution is traditional and based partly on the assumption that Vanbrugh was the designer of everything at Castle Howard until his death, and partly on Hawksmoor’s implicit criticism of this obelisk in the letter accompanying his own obelisk design of 1724: see Downes, K., Hawksmoor (1959), p. 207 Google Scholar. However, Mr W. T. C. Walker has recently found confirmation of both the date and the architect in a letter from Lady Robinson of Newby Park to her son. It is dated only ‘York Jan ye 2nd’, but must have been written in 1714, as it reads: ‘Our Whig Ladies are frightened talks of nothing but ye Pretenders coming, and this 2 posts has been alarm’d with ye Queens illness who has had 2 fits of an ague.’ The letter continues, ‘Mr Vanbrook is at Castle Howard, my Lord is about erecting a noble piller in memory of ye Duke of Marlborough’. (Vyner MSS 13151: VR Correspondence file.)

    12 Downes, op. cit., p. 206.

    13 For Hawksmoor’s other obelisks, see below. ‘The Explanation of the Obelisk’ is printed in full in Downes, op. cit., p. 262, Appendix B.

    14 Downes, op. cit., pp. 196-97.

    15 Wood, John, A Description of Bath, 2nd edn (1765), pp. 433-36Google Scholar.

    16 For the Stowe Guglio, see Gibbon, Michael, ‘Stowe, Buckinghamshire: the house and garden buildings and their designers’, Architectural History, 20 (1977), 38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who dates it to June 1722. In the ‘History of Stowe — XI’, The Stoic, vol. XXIV, No. 2 (1970), the same author attributes it to Vanbrugh on the assumption that all the garden buildings before his death were designed by Vanbrugh. For Hall Barn, see Country Life, 20 and 27 March 1942: it is presumed to be designed by Colen Campbell. For Wrest, see below. For Chiswick, see J. Charlton, A History and Description ofChismck House and Gardens (1962). The obelisk stands in the part of the garden bought from the Earl of Falconbridge in 1727, and must have been complete by 16 November 1732, when Kent wrote his famous letter describing his melancholy thoughts lying at its foot in the moonlight ( Jourdain, M., The Work of William Kent (1948), pp. 35 and 66Google Scholar). He cannot have been lying beside the other (littler), obelisk, as this is set in a pond, and indeed a drawing of Kent’s at Chatsworth (illustrated in P. Faulkner, Catalogue to Exhibition of Drawings and Prints, Chiswick, 1958), depicts this very scene, the obelisk being identifiable by the fragment of the Arundel Marbles at its base. On stylistic grounds, it appears to have been designed by Kent. For Holkham, see L. Schmidt in Country Life (24 and 31 January, 7 and 14 February 1980), and a letter from John Harris in Country Life (7 August 1980) : it too was designed by Kent. For Shotover, see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 429-93 : it was also designed by Kent. For Queen Anne’s Monument at Wentworth Castle, see Pevsner, N., Yorkshire: The West Riding (1959), p. 548 Google Scholar : the date is inscribed on the obelisk, but the architect is unknown. For Garendon Park, see M. Girouard in Architectural History, 8 (1965): it was designed by Ambrose Phillips. For Prideaux Place, see Country Life, 1 and 8 February 1962: no designer known. For Mamhead, see Country Life, 26 May 1955 : apparently built ‘about 1742’, but no source is given for this date, nor is a designer known.

    This list does not include the smaller obelisks, such as those which still exist at Bramham, Chiswick or Wrest, and once existed at Holdenby and in the Wednesday Market, Beverley. It would become unmanageable. Dangan Castle, Co. Meath, for instance, is said to have had ‘at least’ twenty-five in 1739 ( Bence-Jones, M., Burke’s Guide to Country Houses, Vol. I, Ireland, 1978, p. 99 Google Scholar). The effect of such a garden may be visualized from the view of Heath House, illustrated in Samuel Buck’s Yorkshire Sketchbook, p. 142. It also excludes the obelisk at Shugborough, which may date from these years, but is regrettably undated. It is shown in a view of the park by Nicholas Dall. (National Trust, Guidebook, 1966, p. 24, catalogue no. 56.) Dall died in 1777. It blew down in the early nineteenth century.

    17 H. Colvin, ‘Georgian Architects at Badminton’, Country Life, 4 April 1968. They are convincingly attributed to Gibbs, and are likely to have been designed after the 3rd Duke came of age in 1728; but since they are shown in a view by Bridgeman, must have been designed before 1738, the date of Bridgeman’s death.

    18 First edition dated 1740, but a number of plates are dated 1739, so it was presumably some time in preparation. Plate 138 shows four obelisks. On Britwell Salome, see G. Jackson-Stops in Country Life, 5 October 1972: the house was built in 1728-29, and the other pillar in the garden in 1764, so the date range is wide.

    19 For Farnborough, see the National Trust Guidebook (1980). The attribution to Miller is based on the friendship between him and William Holbech, the patron; on payments to Miller’s habitual craftsmen; and on Miller showing Farnborough to Richard Pocock along with his known work at Wroxton Abbey, implying that Farnborough too was his work. The date is inscribed on the plinth. For Stowe, see Michael Gibbon, op. cit., p. 44, who believes General Wolfe’s Obelisk to be Vanbrugh’s 1722 Guglio, altered and moved. On Miller and Pitt’s contributions, see respectively Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 550, and McCarthy, M., ‘The Rebuilding of Stowe House, 1770-7’ in Huntingdon Library Quarterly, XXXVI (1973)Google Scholar. For Alscot, see Country Life, 15, 22 and 29 May 1958, and Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 915. Woodward’s design is securely dated. For Hagley, see Country Life, 19 and 26 September 1957, and M. McCarthy, ‘The Building of Hagley Hall’, Burlington Maganne, April 1976. Although Chute, Prowse, Miller and Sanderson were involved, all as architects, at Hagley, it is not known which of them designed the obelisk. Walpole was also involved, but only as a critic. The house was rebuilt after Lord Lyttelton inherited in 1751, and most of the garden buildings followed, but some had been begun in 1743; no date is known for the obelisk. For Wentworth Castle, see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, pp. 109, 641, 707 and 879. The same situation obtains as at Stowe and Hagley; here the architects who contributed were Bentley, Strafford, John Platt and Charles Ross. Walpole, again was a critic. Bentley’s Menagerie was designed in 1756, and built in 1759, so this gives a possible date for other garden buildings. Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu died in 1761, but the monument could have been built in her life. For Boughton, see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 879. For the Miller circle in general see L. Dickins and M. Stanton, An Eighteenth-Century Correspondence (1910). So far as I know, it has not previously been suggested that Miller’s circle particularly favoured obelisks, but it can hardly be a coincidence that all the known obelisks of the 1750s were built by them or for them.

    20 R. Wittkower, ‘Pseudo-Palladian Elements in English Neo-classicism’, in Palladio and English Palladianism (1974).

    21 Ripon Corporation Archives, loc. cit.

    22 Gent, op. cit., p. 154.

    23 For Hull, see Hall, I. and Hall, E., Georgian Hull (1979), pp. 8 and 14Google Scholar. For Huddersfield, see N. Pevsner, op. cit., p. 274. For Wakefield and Beverley, see Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, p. 731. For Leeds, see Linstrum, D., West Yorkshire: Architects and Architecture (1978), p. 329-30Google Scholar. For Hedon, see the surviving date cartouche, now inside the garden building known as Albína’s Tomb, Ivy House, Market Hill, Hedon. For Tickhill, see Pevsner, op. cit., p. 521.

    24 Vyner MSS, loc. cit. It had a circular plan, 8 columns, and above them 3 plinths and the ‘segment’ of a dome, which can only suggest a stepped dome.

    25 Downes, op. cit., pp. 281 (nos 348-56), 279 (nos 291-301), and 283 (nos 479-90).

    26 One subscription list, presumably the final one, is in the Ripon Corporation Archives, loc. cit. Others, some of which may be draft lists, are in the Vyner MSS, loc. cit.

    27 Ripon Corporation Archives, loc. cit.

    28 See note 2.

    29 For Aislabie’s career, see Darwin, K., Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 37 (1939), 262–324 Google Scholar. For the Parliamentary history of Ripon, see Gowland, T. S., ‘Manors and Liberties of Ripon’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 32 (1934)Google Scholar, which has to be supplemented by the lists of M.P.s (including some biographical material) in the Ripon Millenary Record (1886). For Yorkshire Parliamentary history in general, see Carroll, R., ‘Yorkshire Parliamentary Boroughs in the 17th century’, Northern History, 3 (1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Vyner MSS contain much unpublished information on Aislabie’s acquisition of burgage properties.

    30 Vyner MSS, loc. cit. In the pocket-book in this bundle is a list of subscribers, some of which have ‘Mr Jennings’ beside them in the margin.

    31 Vyner MSS, loc. cit.

    32 Daniel Defoe, A Hymn to the Pillory (1703), a fore-runner of his more famous Hymn to Tyburn.

    33 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn (1936), giving as an example a line from Cowley: ‘So that all fair species be Hieroglyphick marks of thee.’

    34 Vyner MSS, loc. cit.

    35 Ibid.

    36 Ibid.

    37 Ibid. On Cornelius Barker, see below.

    38 In the present imperfect state of knowledge, the score is Wood 3 (in Bath), Kent 3 (Chiswick, Shotover and Holkham), Miller 3 (Farnborough, Hagley and Stowe), Vanbrugh 2 (Castle Howard and Stowe), Hawksmoor 1 (Ripon), Campbell 1 (Hall Barn), Ambrose Phillips 1 (Garendon), Lord Strafford perhaps 1 (Wentworth Castle), Woodward 1 (Alscot). The remainder seem to be anonymous.

    39 Downes, op. cit., p. 282 (nos 443-46).

    40 See note 12. For its dating, see Downes, op. cit., p. 207 (note 23).

    41 Downes, op. cit., p. 283 (no. 474).

    42 Bedfordshire County Record Office, Lucas MSS: L33/107. c.1725 seems the most likely date for the reason stated, but it must certainly be after 1712, when the Duke of Kent was elected a K.G., as it incorporates a Garter Star finial. It must also be before 1729, as stated. The inscription on the obelisk which was eventually built (now in Trent Park, Enfield) commemorates the second Earl of Harold, who died in 1732, but in view of this other evidence it may well have been added later.

    43 Lucas MSS: L30/8/39/2. Letter from the Duchess to the Duke, 7 October 1729.

    44 Quoted in Downes, op. cit., p. 207.

    45 Vyner MSS, loc. cit.

    46 Among Hawksmoor’s drawings at Blenheim are two of the Piazza Navona, although not apparently in his hand (Downes, op. cit., p. 282, nos 449-50). In his sale catalogue there was a view by him of the ‘Piazza Lavona’ ( Downes, K., ‘Hawksmoor’s Sale Catalogue’, Burlington Magazine, XCV (1953), 332–35Google Scholar). The Wrest obelisk design with its arched base is clearly derived from that in the Piazza Navona, and, according to the ‘Explanation’, so was another design for Blenheim, at almost exactly the same date.

    47 It is full of Michelangelesque detail, very useful for an architect who had not been abroad, before it was superseded on that score by Rossi’s Studio d’Architettura Civile in 1702. It illustrates working drawings of ingenious machinery similar to that used by William Thornton to raise the leaning transept terminal at Beverley, which Hawksmoor greatly admired. It also has an illustration of Fontana’s Acqua Felice, which may have appealed to Aislabie, in view of his later interest in water works at Studley Royal.

    48 Downes, op. cit., p. 207, argues that Hawksmoor’s desire to raise his obelisks on plinths in a Baroque rather than an antique manner was derived from Wren’s design for the Monument, i.e. not from other obelisks, but from a column. This illustration suggests the opposite, namely that his source was Fontana, not Wren, and another obelisk, not a column.

    49 British Museum, Kings Maps: K8/44.

    50 S. Lang, ‘Cambridge and Oxford Reformed’, Architectural Review, April 1948. As the Cambridge plan was not commissioned, and as Hawksmoor is not known to have had any work in Cambridge other than his King’s College schemes, she suggests that this is likely to have been made at the same time as these, i.e. 1712/13, as the model for King’s was finished in spring 1713.

    51 Walpole Society, XXII (1934), 77-78.

    52 Downes, op. cit., pp. 96 ff. and 120 ff.

    53 Ripon Corporation Archives, loc. cit., and Vyner MSS, loc. cit., give the names of the craftsmen. For Etty see Colvin, op. cit., p. 301.

    54 Ripon Corporation Archives, loc. cit., where his payment was ‘for measuring and supervising ye work’ and Vyner MSS, loc. cit., which includes bills from labourers for leading, countersigned by Barker. The former also contains a payment to him for making a pillory and the latter for carpenter’s work in the foundations. The latter also contains his bills for making picture frames and mending an oval table, a bill for surveying land at ‘Goughwhay’ (probably Galphay), and a bill for building a house, including mason’s work, perhaps the house Aislabie had built in Kirkgate in July 1702.

    55 See note 3. That at Lincoln’s Inn, illustrated in the Plan of 1803, was just a sundial in New Square. The Covent Garden dial was taller and had a hipped roofed market building built around its base. It is illustrated in the Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1749.

    56 Vyner MSS, loc. cit.

    57 Vyner MSS: 5619a (286: Bundle A): Studley Bills, 1726-38.

    58 Vyner MSS: 5741 (C45/A/7).

    59 Ripon Corporation Archives (Corporation Minute Book: 1777 to 1787, p. 472).

    60 Ibbetson came to live in the locality, at Masham, in 1804, and remained there until his death in 1817.