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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
The seventeenth century witnessed the building of a group of houses, which, almost without warning, created a new style or type. The Queen’s House at Greenwich is one, Coleshill was another. Chatsworth might be considered in this context but it was foreshadowed by Thoresby in Nottinghamshire, a house designed by William Talman and possessing equally significant features.
From 1680 until 1700 Talman was the country house architect par excellence, specialising entirely in this field. Excepting the possibility of a visit to Holland he never travelled abroad and was very much a text book architect using an array of French, Italian and Dutch pattern books. His dominence in building can be estimated by comparing his output over this period with that of his contemporaries. To Robert Hooke may be apportioned three houses; to Wren only one; and to William Winde, Talman’s nearest competitor, six, of which one was really a town house and another a commission, perhaps taken over from Talman. The dominence of the Vanbrugh-Hawksmoor partnership began in 1699 when Talman had already built or altered at least fourteen houses, a number exceeding the combined total of these contemporaries.
1. Such a visit cannot be precluded for a temple in Kensington Palace is related to the collonades at Drayton and the Collonade at Barnstable (attributed) and finds its source in an unpublished faҫade in Amsterdam.
2. Colyton (1677–1690), Ragley (1679–1683), Shenfield Place (1689).
3. Only Winslow Hall (c. 1699) can be fairly attributed to Wren during this period. Tring Park was much earlier.
4. Hampstead Marshall (1677–1688, completed by Winde), Cliefden (168 - ), Combe Abbey (1680–91), Castle Bromwich (1685–90), Powis House (1684–89, really a town house). Designs for Buckingham House seem to have been prepared by Talman, c. 1699, but the house was not built by Winde until six years later.
5. Attributed: Abbotstone and Hackwood (1680s); Stanstead (doubtful), Uppark (169 ); Shobden (169 - ); Burghley and Castle Ashby (1680s); documented : Thoresby, Chatsworth, Milton (stables), Swallowfield, Keiton; Dyrham, Hampton Court (Hereford), Knebworth, Dorchester House (Surrey).
6. It is difficult to date Abbotstone in Hampshire built for the 6th Marquis of Winchester just earlier than his other hunting seat at Hackwood. Both houses were related stylistically and John Talman made designs for rebuilding the former in the eighteenth century. Hackwood is encased in the present house by Lewis Wyatt and with a quadrant and psuedo-secondary court plan was extremely advanced for its date.
7. Vitruvius Britannicus, I, 1715, 90–91 Google Scholar.
8. Jnl Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 18, 1955, p. 125 Google Scholar, which was the first fair assessment of Talman’s significance. William the 4th Earl succeeded in 1682 and married in 1684. Had the house been built in 1671, as Campbell suggests, the patron would have been Henry the 2nd Earl.
9. In Nottingham University Library.
10. Lowther Castle ought perhaps to be considered in relation to Thoresby. It seems derived from Nottingham Castle in plan as well as a general conception of the elevation ( Cf. Vitruvius Britannicus, II, 1717, 78–80 Google Scholar). The centre cross wing had thirteen bays, a basement and two main storeys terminated by a straight parapet. Thomas Fort produced a model in 1685 and work was com plete by 1686, a surprisingly short time for a house with a frontage of over 173 feet. It may only have been a coincidence that plans and elevations for a house by Talman were found among the Lowther designs by James Gibbs (R.I.B.A. Purchased at Sotheby’s, 21 Dec, 1959).
11. This comparison is tentative for a search has failed to find a satisfactory prototype.
12. Cf. Rubens, P.P. Valazzi di Genova, 1622, (fig. 68). Two main floors, attic and parapet. The Genoese example has broken segmental pediments to the ground floor windows and to the tall central doorway.
13. For details. Marsh at Nottingham Castle undoubtedly draws heavily upon Rubens’ publication but as Sir John Summerson had pointed out verbally the source for Nottingham’s silhouette is from a seventeenth-century engraving of Michaelangelo’s Capitoline Palace. If Campbell was right in his early dating for Thoresby it would pre-date Nottingham.
14. In England, busts in pediments has occurred at Sherborne Lodge (167 - ), and Lamport Hall (1654–57).
15. Oud Gebouwen Te Leiden, 1907, 97; Whinney, op. cit., 126, illustrates a slightly less partinent example from Vingboons.
16. Country Life, April 22, 1916, p. 502. Yet no one seems to have seen Rudhall’s designs.
17. The garden front at Hanbury is identical to the garden front that existed at Swallowfield designed by Talman from 1689. Hanbury’s plan with four pavilions around a central block is unusually well organised and sophisticated. It has a low painted hall breaking up into a high painted staircase identical to that remaining at Fetcham Park designed by Talman c. 1705.
18. Vitruvius Britannicus, III, 1725, 39–40 Google Scholar.
19. Henry E. Huntingdon Library, California, by whose permission this sketch is reproduced. It has been attributed to the “youthful” hand of the Duchess Cassandra (Chandos).
20. Walpole Society, Vertue Notebooks, VI, 24 and 73Google Scholar.
21. Webb, G. F., Letters and Drawings of N. Hawksmoor, Walpole Society, XIX, 1931, 126 Google Scholar.
22. Wren Society, XVII, 83 Google Scholar. The heads may have been for the pediments and the sphinxes for the gardens where they still remain.
23. Vertue, op. cit.
24. SirSummerson, John, Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830, 1955, 142 Google Scholar.
25. Painting at Thoresby and drawing in British Museum, Kings Maps, 33, f. 39.
26. The dating of Melton is problematic but must be in the very early 1680s. It has been attributed to William Samwell and his model is in the house.
27. Burghley can also be considered in this context, but there the staterooms were contained within the old fabric. Talman was adept at remodelling earlier building and Is known to have treated six in this way (Chatsworth, Hampton Court [Hereford], Knebworth, Castle Ashby, Witham Park, Burghley).
28. Vitruvius Britannicus, II, 61–62 Google Scholar. Particularly that part on the north front with the great apsed vestibule.
29. At Cassiobury there was an oval vestibule, a form of portico in antis, and a ceiling painted by Verrio. The plan may have influenced Talman’s “Trianon” designs of c. 1699.
30. At Burghley the intention seems to have been for a high staircase space leading off from low vestibules. Chatsworth and Fetcham remain as witness of this idea of an interlocking vestibule and staircase space.
31. Presumed north on the basis of the orientation of the chapel.
32. Unless Campbell was correct in his dating. This cannot be precluded.
33. Talman was at Burghley in August of 1688 (Fitzwilliam Papers, Northamptonshire Record Office) where work was in progress for the 5th Earl of Exeter whose wife was the sister of the Earl of Devonshire at Chatsworth.