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Wren's Preliminary Design for the Sheldonian Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Anthony Geraghty
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Extract

According to Sir Christopher Wren's son, writing many years after the events described, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (Figs 1-2) was to have

been executed in a greater and better Style, with a View to the ancient Roman Grandeur discernible in the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome; but… [Wren] was obliged to put a Stop to the bolder Strokes of his Pencil, and confine the Expence within the Limits of a private Purse.

That purse belonged to Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury and former warden of All Souls College, Oxford, whose willingness to finance the Theatre necessitated the scaling back of the project. Although Wren's initial scheme is currently presumed lost, an unidentified project for a theatre (Fig. 3), today amongst the Wren drawings at All Souls, can be associated with the original design. The drawing, together with newly discovered documents, sheds new and unexpected light on the early history of Wren's first major building.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 45 , 2002 , pp. 275 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2002

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References

Notes

1 Wren, Christopher, Parentalia: or, Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens (London, 1750), p. 335 Google Scholar.

2 A drawing of Hawksmoor's St George, Bloomsbury, has been erroneously associated with Wren's preliminary design ( The Wren Society, ed. Bolton, A. T. and Hendry, H. D. (Oxford, 1924–43), III in, pl. 16 Google Scholar; The Victoria History of the County of Oxford, III (Oxford, 1954), p. 50, n. 5).Google Scholar

3 Wood, Anthony, The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. Gutch, John, 2 vols (Oxford, 1796), II, p. 795 Google Scholar.

4 Newman, John, ‘The Architectural Setting’, in The History of the University of Oxford, IV, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke, Nicholas (Oxford, 1997), pp. 135–77 (pp. 161,173–75).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 British Library, Add. MS 14269 (Clarendon's cancellarial letters to Oxford University), fols 30–31.

6 The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God William Laud, ed. Scott, W. and Bliss, J., 7 vols (Oxford, 1847–60), III, p. 254.Google Scholar

7 There is tacit evidence, however, that Sheldon was already involved behind the scenes. In April 1663 Clarendon informed Blandford that he knew ‘where £1000 is to be had’ (BL, Add. MS 14296, fol. 33), which was precisely the amount Sheldon gifted to the university in c. June 1664 ( The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, II, ed. Clark, Andrew, Oxford Historical Society, 21 (1892), p. 14 Google Scholar).

8 According to Robert Plot, Wren designed the sundial at All Souls College, erected in 1659 (see Colvin, Howard and Simmons, J. S. G., All Souls, an Oxford College and its buildings (Oxford, 1989), p. 70).Google Scholar

9 See Wren, , Parentalia, pp. 53, 260.Google Scholar

10 The vice-chancellor's accounts for 1662–63 record that William Byrd, an Oxford mason, received £10 ‘for the modell of the new Theatre to be erected, estimated by Dr. Wren': ( Wood's Life and Times, IV, Oxford Historical Society, 30 (1895), p. 71 Google Scholar). The model was probably made from wood, although this is impossible to know for certain. For Byrd, see Cole, J. C., ‘William Byrd, Stonecutter and Mason’, Oxoniensia, 14 (1949), pp. 63–74.Google Scholar

11 The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. A. R., and Hall, M. B., 13 vols (Madison and London, 1965–86), 11, pp. 44–45.Google Scholar Clarendon, writing to Blandford on 30 April, reported that ‘Dr Wren hath been with me And I have his Modell… I have since sent it to the King, who exceedingly commends it’ (BL, Add. MS 14269, fol. 32V).

12 Birch, Thomas, The History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols (London, 1756), 1, p. 230.Google Scholar

13 James Dallaway states that a ‘plan’ of the Theatre was given to the Museum of the Royal Society ( Observations on English Architecture (London, 1806), p. 139 Google ScholarPubMed), although this may be a misreading of Birch, History of the Royal Society, I, p.230.Google Scholar There is no mention of the Theatre in Grew, Nehemiah, Musaeum Regalis Societatis; or, A Catalogue & description of the Rarities belonging to the Royal Society (London, 1681).Google Scholar

14 Colvin, Howard, Unbuilt Oxford (New Haven and London, 1983), pp. 13–20.Google Scholar

15 Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, II, pp. 44–45.Google Scholar Oldenburg probably penned the minutes of the Royal Society's meeting of 29 April: ‘Dr Wren shewed the Company his Modell of the Theatre to be built at Oxford, for the University Acts, and upon Occasion, for Playes.’ (Birch, History of the Royal Society, I, p. 230.)Google Scholar

16 Familiar letters which passed between Abraham Hill … and several eminent and ingenious persons, ed. Astle, F. (London, 1767), p. 110.Google Scholar

17 Wren Society, XII, p. 19 Google Scholar & pi. 22 (where the similarity with the Sheldonian is noted); Wren Society, XX, p. 25.Google Scholar

18 Batten, M. I., ‘The Architecture of Dr. Robert Hooke, F.R.S.’, Walpole Society, 25 (1936–37), pp. 83–113 (pp. 89–90).Google Scholar Prior to Batten's article, the design of the College of Physicians was erroneously attributed to Wren.

19 All Souls I.3 ( Wren Society, XII, pl. 47 Google Scholar); All Souls II.73 ( Wren Society, VII, pl. 10 Google Scholar). For Wren's drawing technique in c. 1664, see Downes, Kerry, ‘Wren and Whitehall in 1664’, The Burlington Magazine, 113 (1971), pp. 89–92.Google Scholar

20 All Souls I.72 ( Wren Society, V, pl. 4 Google Scholar); All Souls I.100 ( Wren Society, V, pl. 12 Google Scholar); All Souls II. 3–7 ( Wren Society, I, pls 5–8 Google Scholar).

21 Oxford Council Acts 1626-1665, ed. Hobson, M. G. and Salter, H. E., Oxford Historical Society, 95 (1933), p. 308.Google Scholar Salter refers to ‘a contemporary plan (c. 12. 3) made to illustrate the lease of 1663’ in the City Archives collection ( Salter, H. E., Oxford City Properties, Oxford Historical Society, 83 (1926), p. 288 Google Scholar). This plan cannot be located today. I am grateful to Leilani Smith, Oxford City Archivist, for undertaking a search on my behalf.

22 See Wenceslaus Hollar's 1643 map of Oxford, reproduced in Old Plans of Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 38 (1899)Google Scholar.

23 Victoria History of the County of Oxford, III, p. 47 Google Scholar, n. 79, p. 50, n. 9; Wood's Life and Times, I, Oxford Historical Society, 19 (1891), p. 32.Google Scholar This wall is confused with the adjacent City wall in Salter, Oxford City Properties, pp. 273, 285–90.

24 Wood, , History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, 11, p. 795 Google Scholar; Wood's Life and Times, IV, p. 72.Google Scholar

25 The course of the City wall is plotted in the 1:500 1874 Ordinance Survey map of Oxford (see Fig. 4).

26 The executed building was originally surrounded by a more extensive set of walls, built to provide a setting for the Arundel Marbles presented to the university in 1667 (see Sturdy, David and Moorcroft, Neil, ‘Christopher Wren and Oxford's Garden of Antiquities’, Minerva, 10/1 (January/February 2001), pp. 25–28 Google Scholar). Accommodating this second collection of antiquities was not, therefore, part of Wren's brief in 1663.

27 Hurst, H., Oxford Topography (Oxford Historical Society, 39 (1899)), pp. 124–25.Google Scholar

28 Statutes of the University of Oxford codified in the year 1636, ed. Griffiths, J. (Oxford, 1888), pp. 67–75.Google Scholar A summary translation is given in The Flemings in Oxford, ed. Magrath, John R., I, Oxford Historical Society, 44 (1903), pp. 531–35.Google Scholar

29 The Diary ofJohn Evelyn, ed. de Beer, E. S., 5 vols (Oxford 1955), III, pp. 104–05, 531–34.Google Scholar

30 Statutes of the University … 1636, p. 73.

31 Oxford University Archives, NW 2012 (seating plans of Act auditorium erected in St Mary's church, 1605, at ground and upper levels). I am very grateful to David Sturdy for bringing this document to my attention. These plans are almost certainly from the same hand as the design for a theatre set up in Christ Church hall in 1605 (I am indebted to Dr Gordon Higgott for this observation). According to one contemporary source, both the Act auditorium and Christ Church theatre were constructed in 1605 by carpenters of the Office of the Works ( Orrell, John, The Theatres oflnigo Jones and John Webb (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 24–25 Google Scholar, where the Christ Church design is reproduced). It is unclear if the Act auditorium depicted in the 1605 drawing records the wooden structure built in the mid-sixteenth century ( Register of the University of Oxford, ed. Clarke, Andrew, II/i, Oxford Historical Society, 10 (1887), p. 320).Google Scholar

32 The Laudian Code refers to a ‘suggesta in parte inferior Navis Ecclesiæ’ (Statutes of the University … 1636, p. 72).

33 The stalls are of a type common to seventeenth-century Oxford. Wren probably had the seating arrangements of the Convocation House in mind, where there is a similar distinction between individualized stalls and benches ( Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, City of Oxford (London, 1939), pls 47,56Google ScholarPubMed). For the original seating arrangements of the executed building, see Wood, , History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, II, pp. 796–97.Google Scholar

34 A collection of several tracts of the Right Honourable Edward, Earl of Clarendon (London, 1727), p. 343.Google Scholar

35 For the royal play, see Elliot, John R., ‘Drama’, in Tyacke, , History of the University, pp. 641–58 (pp. 644–54).Google Scholar

36 Frank, Robert G., ‘Medicine’, in Tyacke, , History of the University, pp. 505–58 (pp. 541–46).Google Scholar It may be significant that the Tomlins Reader in 1661–65 was James Hyde, Clarendon's first cousin.

37 Wren was concurrently preparing illustrations for Willis, Thomas, Cerebri anatome (London, 1664).Google Scholar See Bennett, J. A., The mathematical science of Christopher Wren (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 77–82.Google Scholar

38 Harris, John and Tait, A. A., Catalogue of the Drawings by Inigo Jones, John Webb and Isaac de Cans at Worcester College Oxford (Oxford, 1979), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar In a preliminary plan for the Barber Surgeons’ Theatre, not in Jones's own hand, the oval is entered through a rectangular space located parallel with the longer axis of the oval, as in the All Souls’ design (ibid., pl. 2).

39 See Carter, Harry, A History of the Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1975), p. 46.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., p. 45.

41 There is no indication that Wren intended to adorn the exterior of the auditorium with an order.

42 Wren, Parentalia, p. 335. The earliest draft of Parentalia, composed while the architect was still alive, makes no mention of the preliminary design (BL, Add. MS 25071, fols 49, 104).

43 See, for example, his contrived analysis of St Paul's Cathedral (Wren, Parentalia, pp. 287–93).

44 The building accounts extend from July 1664 to July 1669 (Bodleian Library, MS 898; selectively published in Wren Society, XIX, pp. 92–99 Google Scholar). The ceremonial laying of the foundation stone took place on 26 July 1664 ( Wood, , History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, II, p. 795 Google Scholar).

45 Wood's Life and Times, II, Oxford Historical Society, 21 (1892), p. 14.Google Scholar

46 Hobson, and Salter, (eds), Oxford Council Acts 1626-65, p. 322.Google Scholar

47 Sheldon's decision is first documented at the close of the vice-chancellor's accounts for 1664–65, which were opened on 19 September 1664, four months after building work began ( Wood's, Life and Times, IV, p. 125 Google Scholar). The building accounts, although silent on the nature of the work undertaken, imply an uninterrupted flow of work from July 1664 onwards (see n. 44 above). These first few months were no doubt spent digging foundations, during which period the design need not have been finalized. Evelyn was in Oxford in October 1664, when Wren showed him ‘the model, not disdaining my advise in some particulars', which perhaps implies that the design was then under discussion ( The Diary of John Evelyn, III, p. 385 Google Scholar).

48 This archaeological evidence was discovered by David Sturdy, who has since published a preliminary report: ‘Changes in Wren's early designs: Observations on the Sheldonian Theatre and Wadham College, Oxford’, The British Art Journal, I (2000), pp. 23–26 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Mr Sturdy for Fig. 7.

49 Colvin, H. M., The Sheldonian Theatre and the Divinity School (Oxford, 1981; reprinted 1996).Google Scholar

50 Sekler, Eduard, Wren and his Place in European Architecture (London, 1956), pp. 38–42 Google Scholar, where the executed plan is likened to Barbaro's reconstruction of the Vitruvian theatre.

51 Summerson, John, The Sheldonian Theatre in its Time (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar. See also Gombrich, E. H., Art History and the Social Sciences (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar, where the iconography of Robert Streeter's ceiling is similarly interpreted. This interpretation of the Sheldonian is challenged in Charles Saumarez, Smith, ‘Wren and Sheldon’, Oxford Art Journal, 6/1 (1983), pp. 45–50.Google Scholar

52 The intellectual boundaries of Restoration Oxford, however, were far from clearly drawn. See Feingold, Mordechai, ‘Mathematical Sciences and New Philosophies’, in Tyacke, , History of the University, pp. 359–448 (p. 392)Google Scholar, and Hunter, Michael, Science and Society in Restoration England (Aldershot, 1992 (Gregg Revivals)), pp. 136–61 (pp. 137–38).Google Scholar