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John Thorpe and Aston Hall
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Aston Hall (Fig. 1) stands on a ridge some two miles to the north of Birmingham city centre. Today the house overlooks an urban motorway, giving the motorist a glimpse of the turrets, gables and chimney stacks of the only major Jacobean mansion in the old county of Warwickshire. When it was newly built Sir William Dugdale described the house as ‘a noble fabric . . . which for beauty and state much excedeth any in these parts’. By the late eighteenth century it was being visited regularly by antiquarians; Torrington was much impressed, calling it ‘this grand old mansion — one of the grandest I have seen’ though adding ‘but not a Hardwick’, which is a fair summary for Aston Hall is not a prodigy house. As C. R. Cockerell commented, ‘by uniting and incorporating the offices with the whole design [it] forms a striking and extensive effect without however being over large’, and it can be regarded as a good example of an early seventeeth-century country house of the second rank.
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1989
References
Notes
1 Dugdale, W. The Antiquities of Warwickshire, (1656), p. 639 Google Scholar.
2 The Torrington Diaries: containing the tours through England and Wales of the Hon John Byng (later 5th Viscount Torrington), ed. Andrews, C. B. (1936), in, pp. 220-22Google Scholar for a good description of his visit on 18 July 1793.
3 Harris, J., ‘C. R.|Cockerell’s “Ichnographica Domestica”’, Architectural History, 14 (1971), p. 10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He continues ‘there is considerable magnificence of accommodation and one discovers some of the great principles of good ichnography in the vistas well perceived and good and handsome access to most of the rooms. Nothing could be more pleasing than the loggia porticoes on either side of the chapel . . .’.
4 Fairclough, O., The Grand Old Mansion: The Holtes and their successors at Aston Hall 1618–1864 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984 Google Scholar) is a general account of the house and its occupants between the above dates.
5 Oswald, A., ‘Excavations at Aston Hall 1950’ Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society, 68 (1952), pp. 107-10Google Scholar.
6 Fairclough The Grand Old Mansion . . . , pp. 43-54, 107-21. The last of these was James Watt (1769-1848), the son of the engineer.
7 ‘The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe in Sir John Soane’s Museum’, ed. SirSummerson, J., Walpole Society, XL, (1966), pl. 92 Google Scholar.
8 Large Aston Hall scrapbook, Watt family archive.
9 For a genealogical account see Davidson, A., A History of the Holtes of Aston, Baronets, with a description of the family mansion, Aston Hall, Warwickshire (Birmingham 1854 Google Scholar).
10 Collins, A., The Baronetage of England . . . (1720), 1, p. 432 Google Scholar, quoting Sir Charles Holte, 3rd Bt. His father’s half-sister had married into the Knollys family, and Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, was his cousin. In the 1620s he seems to have regarded the 1st Lord Coventry, the Lord Keeper, as his patron. In addition to placing his heir at Court, there is a tradition that he was offered, but declined, an ambassadorship.
11 In 1546 Duddeston was a house of twelve chambers, with a hall, great chamber, gallery, chapel and kitchen with the usual service rooms and out buildings. Inventory, see Davidson, , A History of the Holtes . . . pp. 15-16Google Scholar.
12 For example, drawings by Barber, J. V. (1788-1838) and watercolours by Wright, J. (fl. late C18), Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (hereafter BMAG) P 20 ‘78, P 11 ‘78, P 10 ‘46, P 11 ‘46Google Scholar; reproduced Fairclough, , The Grand Old Mansion, pls 4, 5, 6, 71Google Scholar.
13 Summerson, , Walpole Society, XL, p. 29 Google Scholar.
14 Roberts, D. L., ‘John Thorpe’s Drawings for Thornton College, the house of Sir Vincent Skinner’, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, 19 (1984), pp. 57-63Google Scholar.
15 Arbury Hall (late 1570s), Keele Hall (1587), Wroxall Abbey (1590s), Chastleton (begun> 1603), Barton House (late 1620s), Trentham Hall (1630-38) and probably Weston House (1588). The best representation of the last, a drawing of 1787 shortly before demolition, suggests that the entrance front combined a three-sided porch and bay with projecting wings as at Aston, see Warriner, M., A Prospect of Weston in Warwickshire, 1978, pl. 3 Google Scholar. The builder, Ralph Sheldon, was Holte’s father’s first cousin.
16 Birmingham Reference Library (hereafter BRL) Archives, Digby A 65.
17 Pevsner, N. and Wedgwood, A., The Buildings of England: Warwickshire, 1966, p. 29 Google Scholar.
18 BMAG, P281 ’70. See Harris, J., The Artist and the Country House, 1979, p. 23 pl. 15Google Scholar, where it is dated to c 1750. However, it apparently predates the Buck engraving of 1744 and may be of c 1710–30. It was hanging in the hall by 1771.
19 Oswald, ‘Excavations . . .’, 1952, p. 109.
20 Early seventeenth-century statues of David and Solomon had been placed in later niches in the west front by 1800. Only fragments now survive in store.
21 Parry, G., The Golden Age Restor’d: The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603-42, 1981, pp. 31-32, 230-31Google Scholar.
22 Oswald, ‘Excavations . . .’, 1952, pp. 108-09.
23 Colvin, H., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 1978, p. 827 Google Scholar.
24 BRL Archives 660624, William Dugdale to William Booth, 20 June 1653. ‘I . . . had very free and courteous entertainment, and a full view of his evidences . . . But a greater confusion could they not be than I found them, having bin so shamefully abused by the soldiers.’
25 PRO SP 16/448, pp. 183-86.
26 BRL Archives Digby A 65.
27 PRO SP 16/448, pp. 183-86.
28 BRL Archives 347952.
29 Holte had to pay marriage portions totalling £3000 each to three of his daughters while he was building Aston Hall, two in 1634-35. He may simply have been building beyond his resources, for if Warwick and Kenilworth Castles are excluded, Aston was the largest house in Warwickshire, on the evidence of the 1671 Hearth Tax, after Stoneleigh and Combe Abbey, paying tax on forty hearths.
30 Tyack, G., ‘The Making of the Warwickshire Country House 1506-1650’, Warwickshire Local History Society, Occasional Paper 4 (1982), pp. 65–69 Google Scholar.
31 Holte had earned the King’s displeasure by attempting to disinherit his eldest son Edward, one of the Grooms of the Bed-Chamber. ‘By His Ma[jes]ties especial command . . . and ... his own Inconformity and Refractery-ness . . . together with some sinister and indirect practices’ he spent much of 1640 in London while his case was investigated by the Privy Council. See PRO SP 16/448, pp. 183-86 and Privy Council Registers, X, pp. 561-65.
32 A Perfect Diurnal of some passages in Parliament, 24, 1-8 January 1644, and PRO SP 28/253B.
33 ‘AH his goods, catell and furniture of 2 of his houses were taken away by the Parliament[ar]y forces ... to the value of above £6000’ (PRO SP 23/222 p. 663). His fine, £4491 25. 4d., was calculated at the usual rate of VÓ of his real and personal estate. It was paid in full by 20 February 1652. PRO SP 23/15 pp. 235, 402, SP 23/222 pp. 625-63.
34 BRL Archives, 347952 is a summary probate inventory compiled on 20 November 1654 which values, without itemizing, the contents of the house and all its outbuildings, the farm stock, corn, and cut timber, together with the deceased’s clothes, books and cash. Attached to BRL Archives Holte 17, an indenture of lease made between Dame Anne Holte, widow, and Sir Robert Holte, is an inventory of ‘household stuff, household furniture and other goods’ at Aston Hall dated 24 November 1654.
35 This is mentioned by Torrington, Diaries . . . , p. 220 in 1793, and subsequent visitors. The earliest known view of the great hall was made shortly before 1817 by the Hon. Heneage Legge. It was engraved, together with views of the east front, the great dining room and the long gallery, in the 1840s. The furniture and pictures shown are listed in an inventory of 1771 (Warwickshire County Record Office CR613/1) and were mostly introduced by Sir Lister Holte, 5th baronet from с 1750. The hall’s animal frieze is not in this view and was added by James Watt who tenanted Aston Hall in 1819-48.
36 Peake, R., Sertio, Book 4, p. 60 Google Scholar.
37 Davidson, A., A History of the Holtes of Aston . . . (Birmingham, 1854), pp. 61–62 Google Scholar. This scheme was still to be seen above the first floor in 1854, and in 1983 an area of trompe l’oeil painting was found under later paintwork on the second half-landing, extending below the existing skirting. Similar decorative painting survives at Harvington Hall, near Kidderminster.
38 Schroeder, H., Der Topos der Nine Worthies in Literatur und bildender Kunst (Gottingen, 1971), esp. pp. 110–12 Google Scholar.
39 Stanley-Miller, C. and Newman, J., ‘Blicking Hall: The Building of ajacobean Mansion’, Architectural History, 29 (1986), p. 10 Google Scholar.
40 Schroeder, H., ‘The Mural Paintings of the Nine Worthies at Amersham; Archaeological Journal, 138 (1981), pp. 241-47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 Nevinson, J. L., ‘The Embroidery Patterns of Thomas Trevelyan’ Walpole Society, XLI (1968) and ‘A Show of the Nine Worthies’ Shakespeare Quarterly, 15 (1964)Google Scholar.
42 There is no evidence to suggest that the figures were painted in whole or in part in the seventeenth century.
43 In order to hang here a painting of landscape and ruins in gilt frame (see Warwickshire CRO CR613/1).
44 Coope, R., ‘The Long Gallery’: Its origins, development, use and decoration’ Architectural History 29 (1986), p. 51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
45 The block plan appears in various maps, especially a MSS estate map of Aston manor, 1758. (BRL Archives 317055).
46 See his 1637 will above. In 1699 a visitor noted ‘ . . . the gardens which are but just begun, when finished will be very fine’ (HMC Egremont, 11, 1909, p. 191).
47 The refacing of the hall front is certainly early, and possibly even shortly before 1650. It may be contemporary with the Aston Almshouses built by the second baronet 1655–6. The remodelling of the wings is later, though probably before 1720. Two dated rain water heads are recent introductions from elsewhere.
48 Gotch, J. A., Architecture of the Renaissance in England . . ., 11 (1893-94), PP. 22–23Google Scholar.