Steven Paris sien

Steven Parissien

ADAM
STYLE

In Great Britain at the height of the

Georgian period, a fresh, Neo-Classical
style for architecture and interior design
came to epitomize the age. From the
mid-1750s until the mid-1780s a style
developed that came to be associated
forever afterward with the name of the
leading architect, Robert Adam, whose
career was then at its peak. But Adam
was not alone in developing the style that
now bears his name - this is also the age
of Chippendale, Wedgwood, and Hepple-
white, who all excelled at interpreting
classical and Renaissance forms mixed
with delicate ornamentation, whether in
a house, a chair, or a teapot. In the United
States the Federal Style embodied many
of the characteristics of the Adam Style,
especially the use of ornament. In fact,
architectural ornamentation of this period
often is referred to as “Adamesque”.
Best known from the great houses
of the day, the style also permeated the
homes of the middle classes in the cities
and towns of England and the United
States. This beautifully illustrated book
examines the typical Adam style house
from its outer shell through to the plaster-
work and fittings, the colors, the furnish¬
ings, the textiles and carpets, giving
details of the workings of the average
home during the period. The elegance,
grace, and lightness of the architecture
and interior decoration designed by
Robert Adam in the mid-eighteenth
century have made this one the most
popular and easily recognizable styles
for houses in Great Britain today.
For those interested in design
and interior decoration, this book is a
valuable resource as well as a beautiful
book. With its numerous color photo¬
graphs and illustrations, Adam Style,
will be a welcome addition to anyone’s
library.

ISBN 0-891J3-197-2 $60.00

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The Preservation Press

National Trust for Historic Preservation
 Contents

Preface 7

Introduction The Age of Adam 9

Chapter One Adam Style 30
Chapter Two The Architectural Shell 58
Chapter Three Fixtures and Fittings 91
Chapter Four Services 127
Chapter Five Colours and Coverings 152
Chapter Six Furniture 183
Chapter Seven Revivals 212

Directory of Designers 224

Glossary" 227
Contacts and Sources 230
Further Reading 234
Index 238
 FOR VAL

The Preservation Press

National Trust for Historic Preservation
1785 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20056

The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States is the only national
private nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to encourage public participation in the
preservation of sites, buildings and objects significant in American history and culture. Support is
provided by membership dues, endowment funds, contributions and grants from federal
agencies, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, under provisions of the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966. The opinions expressed in this publication
do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Interior Department.
For information about membership, write to the Trust at the above address.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Parissien, Steven.
Adam style/Steven Parissien.
P. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89133-197-2
1. Architecture, Domestic - Great Britain. 2. Neoclassicism
(Architecture) - Great Britain. 3. Architecture, Modern -
17th-18th centuries - Great Britain. 4. Decoration and
ornament - Great Britain - Neoclassicism. 5. Adam, Robert,
1728-1792 - Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
NA7328.P23 1992 92-7346
720’.92 - dc20 CIP

Originally published in Great Britain by Phaidon Press Limited

Copyright © 1992 Phaidon Press Limited
Text © 1992 Steven Parissien

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted, in photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of Phaidon Press

Printed and bound in Singapore 1992

Designed by Pocknell and Green

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to the following for their help and advice:

Patrick Baty, Tony Herbert, Timothy Mowl, Chris Salmond
Annabel Westman and Adam White

Especial thanks go to Kit Wedd

for her dedicated proofreading, inspirational advice and continual support

20, St James’s Square was a sumptuous townhouse, built by Robert Adam and his
brothers for Sir Watkin Williams Wynne between 1771 and 1774. The pictures on pages one and
three (frontispiece) show views of the recently restored interior, featuring some of the most
characteristic elements of the Neo-Classical period: bright colours, delicate ironwork, anthemia
and swags. The picture on page five show's a ceiling detail from the house; even in his
grandest houses, Adam’s use of gilding was rare

The endpapers show fragile motifs and delicate colouring in a wallpaper design of 1775
 Preface 7

Soon after Robert Adam died, on 3 March 1792, the house from the mid-1750s to the mid-1780s, the
highly respected and widely read Gentleman’s period which corresponds to the highly productive
Magazine published a hagiographical portrait of the career of Robert Adam.
architect and designer which concluded that Adam Like its companion volume, Regency Style, it
‘had produced a total change in the architecture of does not deal with familiar themes such as the great
the country’. For once, the obituarist’s eulogies were houses and great architects of the time. There are
wholly justified. Robert Adam, the outstanding countless studies of the marvellous mansions and
artistic figure of the day, had transformed the castles erected by Adam and his contemporaries, but
architectural and decorative worlds of Britain and precious few which look at how the vast mass of the
America, bringing a new grace, lightness and population built and disposed their homes. Adam
humour to exteriors and interiors alike. So Style seeks to correct this dramatic imbalance,
successful was he that to many observers of the providing a colourful picture of how the house of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries the style of Adam period was designed, how it was built, how it
Robert Adam and his contemporaries - the thirty or was decorated and furnished, and how it was used.
so years after 1755 - is synonymous with the whole The result is, I hope, an informative and accessible
of the 120-year-long Georgian period. For many of guide, as relevant to the refurbisher or redecorator
us, still, ‘Adam Style’ represents all that is most as to those who are simply interested in this most
attractive and typical of Georgian decoration. fascinating and lively of periods. It can be dipped into
What we now know as ‘Adam Style’ is not, or read right through, as you wish. And in case it has
of course, simply the creation of one man, unusually encouraged you to learn more about the subject,
gifted though Robert Adam undoubtedly was. Other included at the end of the book are sections detailing
great architects and craftsmen helped to define this Further Reading as well as expert bodies whom you
radically new style - among them two figures whose can consult.
genius for design and for marketing were fully equal Adam Style does not seek to persuade you to
to Adam’s own: Thomas Chippendale and Josiah turn the clock back to 1760. Nor does it provide
Wedgwood. Thus in examining the origins and instant remedies to historical problems which are
development of what can be termed ‘Adam Style’, actually far more complex than most populist ‘style’
other individuals and other influences, as well as the guides would dare to admit. Instead, it outlines the
direct inspiration provided by the Adam family, must way in which the British and colonial middle classes
be identified and explored. As a result, this is by no of the period built and disposed their homes, and
means a biography of Robert Adam (much as we provides the design parameters within which any
need a good, full, modern study of the great man would-be decorators or restorers can make their
himself), but a general overview of the architectural own, personal choices. For those who are captivated
and decorative style which so often takes his name. by the buildings and the society of Adam’s day, I
Adam Style has been written specifically to hope that this book will open doors to further
fill the wide gap between the ubiquitous, glossy yet exploration of the Georgian era.
terribly thin home decoration picture-books and the
more inaccessible, scholarly works of historians and
architects. It tells the story of the average English Steven Parissien
 Introduction The Age of Adam

‘Blest age, when all men may procure

The title of a connoisseur;
When noble and ignoble herd
Are governed by a single word’ (Robert

Opposite: Robert Adam, by Elevation of Lansdowne The house was begun c.1762
George Willison, c.1773. House in London’s Rerkeley for the Adams ’ great patron
Dressed as a conservative Square, from Robert and and George Ill’s great
gentleman and holding the James Adam’s Works in friend, the Third Earl of
portfolio of his drawings of Architecture, which Rute. Much of it was rebuilt
the ruins of the Emperor’s appeared after 1773. after 1929; the original
Palace at Spalatro, Adam in drawing room, however,
this portrait hardly looks still survives intact in the
like the man who declared Museum of Aids in
himself to have brought Philadelphia.
about a revolution in taste.

& A '
m
10 Introduction

The ‘Age of Adam’, as James Lees-Milne aptly erected their stunningly novel and graceful iron
termed it in 1947, is the colourful and eventful era bridge over the river at Coalbrookdale in
which approximately corresponds to the career of Shropshire. The political world, too, was greatly
the great architect and designer Robert Adam - shaken by the accession in 1760 of the young George
roughly, the period from 1755 to 1785. (By 1770 III - a monarch determined to break the comfortable
Robert Adam was possibly the most celebrated oligarchy of the Whig grandees once and for all. The
architect in the world; by 1785, though, he was being new king sought to achieve this by dispensing with
eclipsed by younger and more versatile rivals, and the traditional Whig politicians (now ably headed by
had retreated to his native Scotland.) These thirty William Pitt, Earl of Chatham) and instead using his
years witnessed the flowering of what is often (highly inexperienced) former tutor, the 3rd Earl of
regarded as the quintessential ‘Georgian’ decorative Bute, to create a government independent of any
style. They were also, though, years of immense party loyalty. The young monarch’s new dogma -
political and social change. which, worryingly enough for parliament, appeared
This fascinating period’s borders are neatly to be aiming at absolutist, monarchical rule - was
defined by two great wars. The Seven Years War of made crystal clear in a letter he wrote to Bute in
1756-63 was a worldwide struggle which effectively November 1760, soon after his accession:
created the British Empire: the British won notable ‘I am happy to think that I have at present
gains in the East and West Indies, while managing the real love of my subjects, and lay it down for
to consolidate and extend their North American certain that if I do not show them that I will not
possessions. (In Voltaire’s opinion, however, Britain permit ministers to trample on me, that my subjects
and France were merely ‘fighting over a few acres will in time come to esteem me unworthy of the
of snow on the borders of Canada’, spending ‘more Crown I wear.’
money on this glorious war than the whole of Bute’s government was, in the event, a
Canada is worth’.) The American Revolution of dismal failure. The Scottish earl - both ‘insolent and
1775-83, however, seemed to many observers to cowardly’ and ‘rash and timid’, according to the Earl
represent the death-knell of Britain’s nascent of Shelburne - was clearly incapable of running an
imperial ambitions, as the youthful and audacious administration; by January 1763 he was in constant
American colonies successfully shook themselves fear of assassination by the mob, wailing that ‘The
free from increasingly suffocating imperial ties. angel Gabriel could not at present govern this
‘Well!’ exclaimed Horace Walpole presciently at the country.’ However, excepting figures such as Bute,
War’s start in 1775, ‘we had better have gone on the Age of Adam was a indeed an era of great men.
robbing the Indies; it was a more lucrative trade.’ Not only did William Pitt the Elder grace the
The era of Robert Adam was also a time of parliamentary stage, but also his talented and
revolution in other areas of human endeavour. The precocious son - Prime Minister in 1784 at the
Industrial Revolution was, if not born, then at least tender age of twenty-four. It was a time of military
christened in 1779, when Pritchard and Darby heroes: of General James Wolfe, posthumous victor

The world’s first cast-iron

bridge and the wonder of
the age: Abraham Darby’s
famous bridge at
Coalbrookdale, Shropshire,
of 1779, as depicted in a
print published by Boydell
in 1788.
’■ ' ■
 1 I '

fp.*;
The Age of Adam 13

Opposite: George III in (the Seven Years War),

suitably kingly pose, in an opposed by rival firemen
official portrait by Mather from the Temple Coffee
Brown. In private, the king House (signifying Pitt’s
preferred to adopt the role of brother-in-law Earl
the simple country squire - a Temple). Pitt himself is
predilection which won him represented as the notorious
the nickname ‘Farmer and overbearing figure of
George’. Henry Till, fanning the fire
with bellows.
Below: a plate from
Hogarth’s satirical series John Stuart, Third Earl of
The Times, of 1762 - Bute, in an engraving by
expressly designed by the W. T. Mote. Brought into
conservative artist to prop government by a devoted
up the unpopular George III in 1761, he was
government of the Earl of out of office by 1763. At the
Bute in the face of the end of the decade, however,
attacks of William Pitt the he was still widely (though
Elder. A fireman from the erroneously) regarded by
Union Office (the Union of the Whigs as the eminence
England and Scotland) is grise behind the King’s anti¬
trying to put out the fire in party policies.
Britain’s part of the globe
14 Introduction

of Quebec; of George Washington, the Father of the martialled for cowardice after the Battle of Minden
new United States; of dashing naval figures from in 1759 - being declared ‘unfit to serve His Majesty
Admiral Rodney, scourge of the French, to John in any capacity whatsoever’ - only to re-emerge
Paul Jones, the swashbuckling antagonist of the (now in the guise of Lord George Germain) as
complacent British. It was a time, too, of great Secretary for the Colonies in 1775, in which capacity
inventors and entrepreneurs: of the amazing he was directly responsible for the ill-fated
polymath Benjamin Franklin in America, and the operations in America. (Sackville’s elder brother,
energetic manufacturer Matthew Boulton in meanwhile, had cut down all the trees at his vast,
Britain. The arts prospered in the hands of skilled ancestral estate of Rnole in Kent, and had been
practitioners such as the mercurial playwright- declared mentally incompetent by his family.) Even
politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the composer after his removal from government the unappealing
Thomas Arne (the author of‘Rule Britannia’), and pathetic Earl of Bute was persistently - and
internationally-renowned artists Joseph Reynolds unaccountably - regarded by the Whig leaders as the
and Thomas Gainsborough, and legendary actors real ruler of Britain, the ‘Minister Behind the
such as David Garrick. Curtain’ who was, they alleged, in truth the eminence
Three men in particular dominated their grise behind George Ill’s ambition of ridding himself
respective professions during this time: the architect of parliamentary democracy.
Robert Adam, the ceramicist Josiah Wedgwood and
Opposite: James Stuart’s
the cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale - all three
adaptation of the legendary
of whom are now popularly regarded as the most Athenian ‘Tower of the
famous past exponents of their crafts. It was a time Winds’, built in the grounds
of Shugborough,
of great women, too: Angelica Kaufmann, Eleanor
Staffordshire in 1764.
Coade and Hester Bateman excelled in the visual
arts; Sarah Siddons and Mrs Jordan triumphed on A chastely Neo-Classical ;*r~
sugar temple, re-created for
the stage; while radical writer Catherine Macaulay
Fairfax House in York.
and radical aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Delightful culinary conceits
Devonshire, shocked the male establishment with of this type were all the rage
on the fashionable tables of
their unconventional behaviour - Macaulay
mid-Georgian Britain.
marrying a man half her age, the Duchess buying
votes for the radical Whig Charles James Fox with
publicly proffered kisses.
The politics of the period were nothing if not
colourful. The expiring Earl of Chatham was
melodramatically carried in a litter into Parliament
in order to denounce Britain’s conduct of the
American War. Lord George Sackville was court-
16 Introduction

The anti-Catholic Gordon

Riots of 1780 in full flow, as
depicted in a graphic,
contemporary cartoon
showing the burning of the
notorious Newgate Prison.

\
 The Age of Adam 17

When King George did finally find to his of England spawned more laws to protect particular
liking a Prime Minister who could fill Bute’s place in kinds of property’. Two-thirds of those who, between
his affections, his choice was an astonishingly inept 1760 and 1788, were found guilty of forgery - the
one. Lord North, Prime Minister between 1770 and greatest insult to private property and to unfettered
1782, was not only disastrously indecisive, and capitalism - were executed.
increasingly blind, but retained such a low opinion Although there is evidence to suggest that,
of his own (admittedly meagre) abilities that he was as the number of capital crimes mounted, so local
for twelve long years continually attempting to judges were increasingly reluctant to sentence
resign. In January 1782, faced with the imminent transgressors to death, the severity of the judicial
loss of America, he wrote in typical vein to the king: system helped maintain Georgian society’s natural
T am ensensible how unfit I have always inclination towards violence and brutality. To take
been, and how much more unlit I am now to decide just one example, on 5 March 1762 James
in matters of nicety and difficulty, and if I had not Woodforde recorded in his diary that:
repeatedly laid before Your Majesty my incapacity, ‘... Judge Willmott condemned one Shadrach
and humbly advised Your Majesty more than once a Smith, a gypsy, for robbing a girl of 2 shillings and
year during the past ten years to place your affairs in beating her, in a very cruel manner; this man’s son
other hands.’ was the most principal Witness against his Father,
Having been sharply attacked by Fox in the and he was that had him hanged, or condemned to
Commons in 1778, North could only moan that ‘My be hanged, he insisted upon his son’s witnessing
mind, always weak, is now ten times weaker than it against, though the Judge was much against it.’
was’ and ask ‘Let me die disgraced, for that I can not It was a time of politically-inspired violence,
now avoid.’ This was the man who - aided by a too. The national ‘Wilkes and Liberty’ riots of the
disgraced army officer (Lord Germain) and a 1760s, sparked by the highly controversial figure of
notorious rake (the Earl of Sandwich) - was charged radical MP John Wilkes, not only rocked the political
with saving the American colonies for Britain. establishment, but founded a strong radical tradition
The Age of Elegance was also a period of in Britain which in turn provided a useful incidence
increasing social repression. An act of 1755, brought of extra-parliamentary pressure for the frustrated
in on behalf of the ‘Merchants, Traders and Insurers colonists. Across the Atlantic, the comedy of the
of the City of London’, prescribed hanging for the Boston Tea Party of 1773 led inexorably to the
crime of stealing shipwrecked goods; ‘The existing bloody tragedy of the American Bevolution of 1775.
laws’, as Douglas Hay notes, ‘were declared to be too And at the height of the ensuing war, in 1780,
gentle.’ In 1764 the death penalty was, at the request London was paralysed by the ‘No Popery’ mobs
of the English Linen Company, additionally applied rampaging through the streets at the behest of the
to those who stole linen; in 1769 it was extended to fanatic anti-Catholic and ‘class traitor’ Lord George
food rioters, too. In Dr Hay’s words, ‘As the decades Gordon - although social historian Dorothy George
passed, the maturing trade, commerce and industry has concluded that ‘the excesses of the Gordon Biots’
18 Introduction

The American Revolution in

full spate, and seen in
engravings of the time.
Above: General Howe’s
Redcoats riding
triumphantly through
Manhattan in 1776. Below:
a taste of things to come -
Rritish forces facing defeat
at the Rattle of Bunker Hill
of 1775.

BOSTON

■V
The Age of Adam 19

A cartoon from The

Broadside of 1770, berating
the British government’s
brusque and unyielding
policy towards the American
colonies (represented by the
sacrifical bird) at the time of
the so-called ‘Boston
Massacre’.
20 Introduction

deaths. General James Wolfe’s dramatic expiry on

the Heights of Abraham was seen as a fittingly
romantic climax to the ‘annus mirabilis’ of 1759,
during which Britain’s armies and navies crushed
the forces of France at Fort Niagara, Ticonderoga,
Guadeloupe, Lagos, Madras and, of course, Quebec.
(‘No nation’, exclaimed the Sussex shopkeeper
Thomas Turner in 1759, ‘had ever greater occasion
to adore the Almighty Disposer of all events than
Albion, whose forces meet with success in all
quarters of the world.’) The execution of Admiral
Byng in 1757, for failing to hold the island of
Minorca, was especially celebrated. The threat of
popular violence had, it seemed, helped to bring a
were to be explained more by ‘the effects of drink noted admiral to the scaffold. (Horace Walpole told
and a swamping of the forces of order by the his friend Horace Mann that ‘papers were fixed on
inhabitants of the dangerous districts in London who the Exchange, with these words, “Shoot Byng, or
were always ready for pillage’ rather than pure anti- take care of your King”.’) The French satirist
Catholic passion. Voltaire, though, pretended to see the execution as
Violence was endemic in mid-Georgian a distinctly beneficial act - famously quipping in his
society. In 1769 Benjmain Franklin reported from Candide of 1759 that ‘it pays to shoot an Admiral
England that ‘I have seen, within a year, riots in the from time to time, to encourage the others.’
country, about corn; riots about elections; riots about Defenders of the British Constitution were
workhouses; riots of colliers, riots of weavers, riots quick to use Byng’s death to advertise the
of coal-heavers; riots of sawyres; riots of Wilkesites; impartiality of British law. Equally helpful for the
riots of government chairmen’ and even ‘riots of legal establishment (though, in reality, equally
smugglers’. Drury Lane Theatre, the West End unrepresentative) was the case of Lord Ferrers,
home of Garrick’s and Sheridan’s greatest triumphs, executed at Tyburn in 1760 for killing his steward.
was repeatedly wrecked by rioting theatre-goers in However, Ferrers’s execution was, in the event, no
1755, 1763, 1770 and 1776. In 1770 even the august ordinary death: the homicidal peer was hanged ‘in
halls of Winchester School echoed to the cries of a his silver brocade wedding suit, on a scaffold
violent insurrection by the pupils, which caused the equipped with black silk cushions for the
local militia to read the Riot Act to the rebellious mourners’, while his hanging was attended by
schoolchildren. thousands of excited day-trippers. Horace Walpole
The thirty years which followed 1755 were was one of these. Confiding to George Montagu that
also, however, a time of noble deeds - and famous Ferrers ‘was soon out of pain, and quite dead in four
 The Age of Adam 21

minutes’, he observed the mob tearing off his

clothes for relics, and the body being - as was the
custom for murderers - ‘conveyed back with the said
pomp to Surgeons’ hall, to be dissected’.
Lord Ferrers’s death notwithstanding, the
peerage of Britain stood a far better chance of living
to a ripe old age than the vast majority of the
population. The average death rate in London at
the beginning of our period was one in twenty - a
statistic that had actually worsened since 1700,
when the figure for the capital stood at one in
twenty-five. Life was cheap, and the cure for social
ills or for rampant disease was often worse than the
original problem. Of 2,379 children sent to London Opposite: another scene, of Above left: Earl Ferrers’s
workhouses between 1750 and 1755, only 168 were 1762 or 63, from Hogarth ’$ celebrated execution of 1760
pro-government series The inevitably attracted much
alive at the start of 1756. Modern medicine was still
Times. Here Hogarth depicts attention from the
in its infancy: frogs were still tied around the neck to the ‘garden of good cartoonists of the day, some
cure nose bleeds - which were also, in the case of government’ being watered of whom attempted to
by ‘the pump of royal portray the event as a
males, to be cured by ‘soaking or washing the
patronage’, operated by shining example of the
Testicles in the sharpest vinegar’ - while tooth decay Bute (at bottom left). impartiality of British
was invariably dealt with by quixotic folk remedies Parliament is shown to the justice. However, whilst
left: the Lords are Ferrers was sent to the
such as smearing the rotting area with honey (!),
slumbering and indifferent scaffold, most miscreant
introducing a magnet into the mouth or, most whilst in the Commons Pitt peers of the time were never
and his followers fire at the even prosecuted for equally
Dove of Peace (representing heinous crimes.
the negotiations to end the
Seven Years War). On the Above: Penzel’s gruesome
right two notorious figures - engraving Setting a Limb,
the political radical John 1784, epitomizes the medical
Wilkes, and the hoaxer Mrs standards of the day.
Fanny - are in the pillory.
22 Introduction

bizarrely, placing roast turnip parings behind the prevent hair growing on the forehead; these ranged
ear. During the 1770s the Manchester Infirmary from the odd - rubbing walnut oil into the skin - to
discovered that the traditional fishermen’s remedy the decidedly unenticing, such as the application of
for rickets or rheumatism, cod liver oil (with its bandages ‘dipped in vinegar in which cat’s dung has
large amounts of what we now call vitamin D), been steeped’. Meanwhile, during the 1770s the
actually had considerable medical worth; at the fashion for women was to wear their wigs higher
same time, however, Cornishmen were still passing and higher. From the mid-1760s onwards, daring
their children through holes in the middle of men - the widely-satirized ‘macaronis’ - began to
prehistoric stones in order to cure rickets. w ear their own hair, dressed in the fashion of a wig;
While Georgian medicines could kill, by 1775 Fag, in Sheridan’s play The Rivals, was
equally eccentric and harmful concoctions were exclaiming that ‘None of the London whips of any
prescribed as beauty aids. A 1784 recipe, designed to degree of ton wear wigs now.’ Women, however,
banish the freckles that betokened a common, persisted in ever-more ludicrous sculptural
outdoor existence, and requiring a solution of ashes compositions, based on foundations of wire or
boiled in water, was actually quite benign by the cotton and topped with enormous feathers and, on
standards of the day. In practice, the pursuit of occasion, wooden or glass ornaments. Inevitably, the
beauty necessitated considerable sacrifices of health increasing amounts of rice-based wig powder
and longevity. Sometimes these sacrifices were needed to lend these bizarre creations the correct
terminal: in 1760 Maria Gunning, the Countess of degree of whiteness - in order to properly emphasize
Coventry and the most famous beauty of the day - the eyes - attracted numerous vermin to the heads of
who attracted cartloads of onlookers wherever she the fashion-conscious. Fortunately and unsurprisingly,
travelled - died, aged only twenty-seven, as a result by the very end of the period a reaction had set in.
of excessive use of white lead as a cosmetic to In 1785 Betsy Sheridan (the playwright’s sister) was
whiten her precious skin. Lead poisoning also noting that ‘all who have fine hair go without
accounted for another celebrated victim seven years [powder], and if you have not quite enough ’tis but
later when Kitty Fisher, the hugely successful buying a few curls’.
courtesan and latterly the ‘companion’ of the 3rd Not all fashions were as impractical as the
Earl of Bristol, died from the effects of lead-based towering hairstyles of the 1770s. The ever-
cosmetics. enterprising Josiah Wedgwood began to
Such tragedies did not, however, prompt any manufacture porcelain false teeth at his Stoke-on-
dramatic re-assessment of the requirements of Trent works - a technological breakthrough sorely
fashion or the accepted ideals of beauty. Indeed, needed by those whose natural beauty was not
vanity remained endemic among the upper and enhanced by two rows of blackened stumps. As was
middle classes of Adam’s day. Since high foreheads often said at the time, now it was possible not only to
and high hairstyles were fashionable, for example, eat oifWedgwood china, but with it, too. And
numerous practices were recommended in order to another felicitous invention was helping to offset the
The Age of Adam 23

The Macaroni Bricklayer

and the Macaroni Dressing
Room: cartoons of 1772
depicting the lengths to
which the young arbiters of
fashion would go. The word
‘macaroni’ was used to
denote anything fashionably
- if not eccentrically - new.
24 Introduction

rancid odours emanating from the barely-washed of from royal patronage or encouragement, but from
Europe and America. One of the most helpful by¬ the individual geniuses of men such as Robert Adam
products of the Seven Years War was the invention and Thomas Chippendale.
and manufacture of ‘Aqua Admirabilis’, a scent Outside George Ill’s ascetic court, however,
originally devised by the Farina brothers of Koln, in conspicuous excess was by no means unknown. Dr
the German Rhineland, to enable soldiers to mask Johnson was not alone in regularly downing three
the whiff of battle. By 1780 this perfume, now whole bottles of port after dinner; even the rural
popularly known as ‘Eau de Cologne’ after its Somerset clergyman James Woodforde - whose
originators, was being extensively used by both men diaries reveal much about the unabashed gluttony
and women in fashionable society. of the period - was a hearty and enthusiastic
The generous application of Eau de Cologne trencherman. Woodforde’s record of a ‘very genteel
and the proliferation of ludicrous hairstyles were Dinner’ for nine people for 10th June 1784, for
two of the many fashions whose cue was - in example, listed the following dishes:
contrast to much of the architecture of the period - ‘Soals and Lobster Sauce, Spring Chicken
taken by Britain and her American colonies from boiled and a Tongue, a Piece of rost Beef, Soup, a
recent developments in France. Sadly, though, while Fillet of Veal rosted with Morells and Trufles, and
the opulent Versailles courts of Louis XV and the ill- Pigeon Pye for the first course - sweetbreads, a
fated Louis XVI provided glittering models for green Goose and Peas, Apricot Pye, Cheesecakes,
culture and fashion the world over, London’s Court Stewed Mushrooms and Trifle.’
of St James’s languished far behind in terms of Such culinary extravagance also often
cultural inspiration. George III - in dramatic proved remarkably unhealthy (see Chapter Five,
contrast to his eldest son (later Prince Regent and
subequently George IV) - was no arbiter of taste. He
loathed Shakespeare (although, amusingly enough,
he managed to read King Lear when he himself
went ‘mad’), was singularly uninterested in music
(unless it was of the jingoistic and martial ‘Rule
Britannia’ variety), and collected almost nothing. He
preferred instead to be regarded by the nation as a
frugal squire, ‘Farmer George’, who differed little
in his tastes and requirements from most of his
subjects. Under his influence, the dress of the
British court remained far behind not only that of
Versailles, but also that of the fashionable society of
London, Bath or Philadelphia. Artistic and
architectural innovation, too, tended to spring not

The suitably dramatic - provided a marvellous

Parliamentary collapse of subject for contemporary
William Pitt, Earl of artists. This romanticized
Chatham - a result of his representation is by the
deathbed denunciation of American artist J. S. Copley
the North government’s and dates from 1779.
conduct of the American War
 The Age of Adam 25

below), and must, inevitably, have accounted for a Chatham, now close to death, rose in the House of
good proportion of the untimely deaths of the Lords to declare that England had engaged in a
Georgian upper and middle classes. ‘ruinous’ war ‘through the means of false hope, false
Extravagance was also displayed to an pride and promised advantages of the most romantic
increasing degree in the middle-class home, as the and improbable nature’. ‘Oh God, it is all over!’ cried
newly prosperous ‘middling sorts’ found themselves Lord North presciently when news of Cornwallis’s
able - through a combination of increased personal surrender at Yorktown - when the revolutionaries’
wealth and the introduction of labour-saving band allegedly played ‘The World Turned Upside
industrial processes - to own items which had Town’ - reached him on 25th November 1781.
previously been regarded as luxuries only destined As historian Paul Kennedy has recently said
for the rich. The very latest furniture, carpets and of the .American War: ‘It had hardly been a glorious
wallpapers were snapped up as soon as they conflict for the British, who had lost their largest
appeared; whereas, for example, in 1713 only colony and seen their national debt rise to about 220
197,000 yards of taxed wallpaper were sold in million.’ However, in dramatic contrast to the
Britain, by 1785 2.1 million yards were being economic chaos experienced by the French - who
purchased annually. And while there was were actually on the winning side - sound financial
considerable interest in the recently discovered measures quickly restored a large measure of health
remains of the Ancient world, no-one wanted to the British economy. In general, the American
antiques. Far more popular were the new, Neo- War did surprisingly little, at least until the early
Classical designs of men such as Adam and 1780s, to hamper the economic growth of Britain
Wedgwood, both of whom excelled at manipulating during this period; in particular, it caused only a
public taste and, additionally, at marketing their temporary abatement of the phenomenal growth of
own considerable talents. building work being undertaken in the country.
The .American War - and in particular the The massive development of London during
intervention of France, Spain and the United the Age of Adam caused much contemporary
Provinces on the colonists’ side in 1778 - prompted a comment. In 1779 Dr Richard Price noted that ‘The
temporary halt to much of this ostentatious display increase of buildings in London has for several years
of wealth. Wise heads had already counselled been the subject of general observation’ and that ‘It
against the folly of Britain’s originally coercive yet deserves particular notice that it is derived from the
latterly half-hearted campaigns. As early as 1774 increase of luxury’ - ‘an evil’, he continued, ‘which,
Florace Walpole daringly suggested that ‘we could while it flatters, never fails to destroy.’ In 1756 work
even afford to lose America.’ ‘You cannot, I venture began on the New Road linking Paddington in
to say it, you CANNOT conquer America,’ Chatham the west to Islington in the north; as the road
had thundered after the dismal news of the progressed, so the speculator-builders erected large,
surrender at Saratoga reached the mother country new housing estates about its path. By 1780 the
in November 1777. A few weeks later the ailing foreign visitor von Archenholtz was contrasting the
26 Introduction

Sir Lawrence Dundas and one of the most accurate the dado; simple horsechair-
his Grandson, Johan contemporary depictions of covered chairs and tables
Zoffany, 1769-70. Set in the a mid-eighteenth century arranged against the walls;
library of his town house, interior. It features a chocolate-coloured skirting;
19 Arlington Street, Mayfair, ‘Turkey’ carpet (with typical a typical crowded picture
which had been newly red and blue decoration); hang; and blue damask
decorated by Robert Adam, fashionable blue wallpaper curtains hung in the new
this portrait provides with a golden fillet above ‘French’ (side-drawn) style.
 The Age of Adam 27

dilapidated East End of London (‘the streets there bow windows, and announced the immediate
are narrow, dark and ill-paved’) with the impressive replacement of cobbles with stout, durable Purbeck
new West End that was being erected to the south of stone. The effect of the Act on the West End streets
the New Road: was considerable: in 1787 the paving in Westminster
The houses here are mostly new and was described by one admiring observer as ‘an
elegant; the squares are superb, the streets straight undertaking which has introduced a degree of
and open ... If all London were as well built, there elegance and symmetry into the streets of the
would be nothing in the world to compare with it.’ metropolis, that is the admiration of all Europe’.
Not all of this new building work, however, was Other cities rapidly followed Westminster’s
being expertly executed. In 1764 the London lead. Manchester (whose population, like
Chronicle warned ‘those who are to inhabit the Liverpool’s, was to treble between 1760 and 1800)
many piles of new buildings that are daily rising in passed a similar Cleaning and Lighting Act in 1765.
this metropolis’ of the dangers of cheap brick Such legislation helped to make the quality of the
construction, resulting from the practice of making environment better in a very tangible way. As one
bricks (which were fired in temporary kilns on site) schoolteacher remarked in 1781:
from any local materials that came to hand: ‘The streets are ... better and more regularly
•When we consider the practice among cleansed; and by the addition of several new works,
some of the bricklayers about this time ... we must water is become much more plentiful than it was
shudder at the evil... The demand for bricks had heretofore; and this has been a great means of
raised the price of brick earth so greatly that the contribution ... to greater cleanliness in our houses.’
makers are tempted to mix the slop of the street, The provision of better street-lighting - at
ashes, scavengers’ dirt and everything that will least in the centres of London and the other great
make the brick earth or clay go as far as possible.’ cities of both Britain and America - was an
The long-awaited and much-needed improvement which met with especially widespread
repaving of the nation’s streets began in 1762 with applause. The tourist von Archeriholtz, who was
the Westminster Paving Act. Before this measure the Prussian, was particularly impressed with London’s
maintenance of the street and pavement in street lamps when he visited the country in 1780,
Westminster - as in other towns and cities in Britain declaring that ‘nothing can be more superb’:
and America - had rested with the individual ‘The lamps, which have two or four
householder, responsible for the immediate area branches, are enclosed in crystal globes and fixed on
outside his or her front door. The 1762 Act posts at a little distance from each other. They are
introduced paving commissioners, provided for lighted at sunset in winter as well as in summer
gutters at the side of roads (instead of the insanitary whether the moon shines or not. In Oxford Road
central channels) and the regular scavenging of [now Oxford Street] alone there are more lamps
streets for rubbish, authorized the removal of illegal than in all the city of Paris.’
traders and illegally-projecting balconies and The countryside also witnessed considerable
28 Introduction

change during this period. Industrial advances help Josiah Tucker was remarking of Birmingham that
substantially improve crop yields; thus during the ‘almost every Master and Manufacturer hath a new
forty years after 1760 corn production in Britain invention of his own, and is daily improving on those
increased by a massive fifty per cent. At the same of others’.
time the pressure for development meant that many Innovation was particularly marked in the
fields or areas of common land were being enclosed area of textile production and other mill-related
for new housing. As the historian T. S. Ashton manufactures. John Kay’s flying shuttle had been
wrote in 1948: invented in 1733; it was not until the 1760s,
‘Areas that for centuries had been cultivated however, that it came into widespread use, after
as open fields, or had lain untended as common which it was augmented by a breathtakingly
pasture, were hedged or fenced; hamlets grew into ingenious series of industrial improvements.
populous towns; and chimneystacks rose to dwarf Hargreaves’s spinning jenny of 1766 allowed a
the ancient spires.’ number of threads to be spun at once, and by 1785
The implementation of enclosures was at its there were 20,000 such machines at work.
height during the 1770s, not only laying the way for Arkwright’s water-frame of 1769 allowed the use, for
ambitious new building development, but also the first time, of a strong warp thread as well as a
throwing a mass of dispossessed rural poor onto the tough weft, while his carding patent of 1775 brought
riot-torn streets of nearby towns or cities. And with mechanized efficiency closer to hand in textile
new houses came new communications. Whereas in production. Watt’s steam-engine patent, also of 1775,
1750 some 143 turnpike trusts governed 3,400 miles was of paramount importance in providing the
of British road, by 1170 there were 500 such trusts, power needed for Industrial Britain. Already in 1781
administering more than 15,000 miles of road. And the great Birmingham entrepreneur Matthew
in 1759 the first industrial canal, linking Manchester Boulton was enthusiastically commenting that ‘The
with the Worsley coalpits, was built by James people in London, Manchester and Birmingham are
Brindley for the Duke of Bridgwater, inaugurating all steam mill mad.’
the great age of canals. The effects of the Industrial Bevolution were
Such industrial progress was not to not only to be seen in the mills of Adam’s day.
everyone’s taste. Doctor Johnson - angered, in this Houses, too - even the most modest terrace
instance, by the abolition of public executions at development or rural cottage - reflected the pace of
Tyburn Hill - moaned with some justification in 1783 technological change in the materials with which
that ‘The age is running mad after innovation.’ they were constructed and the methods with which
However, despite the qualms of conservatives such they were built. How this was expressed, and how,
as the admirable Dr Johnson, the Age of Adam was in turn, industrial advances changed the way
also the age of the great industrial inventions - and architects approached the aesthetics of design, will
the great industrial entrepreneurs. As early as 1757 be seen in the following chapters.

An idyllic, Arcadian
landscape by Claude of
1650. Such Utopian
views did much to inspire
the Neo-Classicists of the
1750s and 60s.
Chapter One Adam Style

‘God damn my blood, my Lord, is this your

Grecian arch? What villainy! What absurdity?
If this be Grecian, give me Chinese, give me
Gothick! Anything is better than this! For
shame, my Lord, pull
it down and burn it’
(Lord de la l-f'arr on James Right: the frontispiece of
Stuart’s Greek arch at Stuart and Revett’s
Nuneham Park, Oxon, enormously influential
built for Earl Harcourt in Antiquities of Athens of1762.
1764)
Opposite: Edinburgh’s
sedate and elegant Charlotte
Square, designed by Robert
Adam late in his career and
begun in 1791.
32 Adam Style

The choice of 1755 as a starting date for this book, project was satirized in a public print (The Five
while it is not meant to signify that that particular Orders of PERRIWIGS) by the aging William
year had any immense architectural or social Hogarth. Stuart and Revett’s avowed aim was to
significance, is not a wholly random one. In that provide an invaluable reference work for scholars
year James Stuart, the son of a Scots sailor, and his and architects, which described for the English-
companion Nicholas Revett, the scion of proud speaking world the as yet largely undiscovered
Suffolk gentry, returned from many years’ study of architectural treasures of ancient Greece (‘Greece’,
the ancient ruins of Italy and Greece Their they avowed, ‘appears principally to merit our
experiences had not been solely academic ones: Attention’) in meticulous and accurate detail. They
having eschewed a predecessor’s example of hiring aimed to correct the imprecision of past works,
a troop of Turkish cavalry to guard them (Greece whose ‘Descriptions are so confused, and their
had long been a dangerous outpost of the Ottoman Measures so inaccurate’ that they had proved of
Empire), Revett was subsequently attacked by little use to architects or builders. In the Preface the
pirates, and both students had tc flee Athens authors declared that:
following yet another palace coup. ‘if accurate Representations of these
Stuart and Revett were a strangely-assorted Originals were published, the World would be
couple. Revett was a calm, studious dilettante whose enabled to form, not only more extensive, but juster
private means allowed him the luxury of never Ideas than have hitherto been obtained, concerning
having to run an architectural practice. Stuart, on Architecture, and the state in which it existed during
the other hand, was an extrovert and notoriously the best ages of antiquity.’
slothful genius, who took as his second wife the Even renowned interpretations of antiquity
sixteen-year-old Greek daughter of his first wife. such as those penned by Palladio and Desgodetz, it
(Following his second marriage his child-bride was was alleged, ‘cannot be said to afford a sufficient
immediately dispatched to school to become variety of Examples for restoring even the three
literate.) Stuart, according to Professor Crook, Orders of Columns’. What was wanted, believed
‘ended his days playing skittles in the afternoon, and Stuart and Revett, was a finely-crafted record of
drinking in public houses in the evening.’ Yet the some of the most astonishing monuments of Ancient
fruit of Revett and Stuart’s long sojourn abroad was Greece - ‘the Place where the most beautiful
to effect a fundamental change in architecture and Edifices were erected, and where the purest and
design, the drama of which was being re-enacted most elegant Examples of ancient Architecture are
anew in Rritain and America a century later. to be disovered’.
For seven years after their return Stuart and However, although their record did exercise
Revett worked on the magisterial record of their enormous influence on the literary and architectural
labours, The Antiquities of Athens. This volume was worlds of Britain and the colonies, in practice it
so widely anticipated by professionals and public proved too esoteric for the average builder to use.
alike that, even before its publication in 1762, the More determinedly populist works, such as Stephen
Adam Style 55

Hogarth’s The Five Orders

of Perriwigs of November
1761 was a satire on The
Antiquities of Athens which
appeared even before the
publication of Stuart and
Revett’s much-anticipated
work. In place of the
customary five classical
orders (Doric, Tuscan, Ionic,
Corinthian and Composite)
Hogarth has suggested
‘Episcopal’, ‘Old Peerian’ or
‘Aldermanic’, ‘Lexonic’,
‘Queerinthian’ and ‘Half
Natural’ wigs. The head of
‘Athenian’ Stuart himself is
pictured on the left, his nose
broken off to give him a
genuinely antique look.
34 Adam Style
Adam Style 35

Opposite: one of the

coloured engravings
published by Stuart and
Revett in their Antiquities of
Athens 1162. This one shows
Hadrian’s Arch.

Above and left: two

engaging classical fantasies.
Above: Piranesi’s view of
two Roman roads flanked
by colossal funerary
monuments, in an etching of
c.1756, and, below, the
frontispiece for Joshua
Kirby’s The Perspective of
Architecture of 1761,
engraved by William
Woollet after Hogarth.
36 Adam Style

At the same time, the books hurried out by Wood’s

imitators - notably Le Roy’s Ruines des Plus Beaux
Monuments de la Grece of 1758 and Robert Sayer’s
Ruins of Athens of 1759 - were rushed, scrappy and
inaccurate. Far more important to the history of
Neo-Classicism than either of these works was
Winckelmann’s Reflections on the Imitation of
Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture of 1755. ‘The
only way for us to become great’, Winckelmann had
portentously announced, ‘lies in the imitation of the
Greeks.’ Yet Winckelmann’s book was not translated
into English until 1765 - three years after The
Antiquities of Athens had taken the English-
speaking world by storm - and the rancorous
German scholar remained a lifelong enemy of the
archaelogical precision of Stuart and Revett.
The Antiquities of Athens enthralled and
inspired a generation of architects, designers and
collectors. Its appearance, for example, encouraged
the great diplomat-collector Sir William Hamilton
(now, unfortunately, better known as the cuckolded
spouse of Nelson’s celebrated mistress) to launch
the so-called ‘Etruscan’ style with the publication of
Riou’s The Grecian Orders of 1768, were his Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman
subsequently needed to re-interpret the new, Neo- Antiques in 1766-7. (Sir William’s own collection
Classical message in simpler terms for the building was bought by the British Museum, which in 1772
and decorating trades. became the first public gallery in the world to
Stuart and Revett were by no means the first exhibit Greek ceramics.) The distinct black and red-
who sought to depict the architectural wonders of coloured Etruscan scenes and motifs which featured
ancient civilizations. Robert Wood’s Ruins of prominently in Hamilton’s book were in turn made
Palmyra of 1753 - lauded by Horace Walpole as ‘a popular by Robert Adam, who used them copiously
noble book’ - and its companion volume on Baalbec at Osterley Park and other large-scale commissions
of 1757 caused a great stir in Britain (and, of the 1770s.
incidentally, encouraged Robert Adam to publish The earliest truly Neo-Classical building,
his similarly-organized study of Spalatro in 1764). however, was erected some time before Adam’s
However, the scope of Wood’s volumes was limited. Osterley. James Stuart, no longer.in partnership

The Etruscan Room at

Home House, Portman
Square, London. Etruscan
decoration, concentrating
on the use of the terracotta
and black colours which
adorned ancient Etruscan
pottery, was all the rage in
the grander homes by the
mid-1760s.
 Adam Style 37

with Revett, built a Greek temple at Hagley Park in recent work of celebrated English landscape artists
Worcestershire, of 1758-9, that was the first building such as Richard Wilson.
in the world to use the Greek order since the days of Even Stuart and Revett, however, baulked at
Ancient Greece. The fact that such obviously utilizing some of the more dramatically primitive
Mediterranean-inspired edifices were not wholly forms being discovered in Greece; as a result
suitable for the English climate had already been buildings executed in the true, austere ‘Greek
widely remarked upon. Two years before the Hagley Revival’ style did not begin to appear until the mid-
temple was begun, the poet James Cawthorn 1780s. In the meantime, the two preceding
bemoaned the irrelevance of much contemporary decades were dominated by one man’s personal
design: interpretation of the startling new finds of the
‘Is there a portal, colonnade, or dome antique world, an interpretation which - being
The pride of Naples, or the boast of Rome? somewhat more palatable to contemporary tastes
We raise it here in storms of wind and hail, than the imdiluted Grecian forms of the more
On the bleak bosom of a sunless vale; academic practitioners - inspired generations of
Careless alike of climate, soil and place, designers, craftsmen and house-owners.
The cast of Nature and the smiles of Grace. Robert Adam was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on
Hence all our stucco’d walls, Mosaic floors, 3 July 1728. The second of four brothers, and the son
Palladian windows and Venetian doors.’ of the well-established Scots architect William
James Stuart’s sumptuous interiors of 1759-
65 at Spencer House in London’s St James’s,
however, saw the new Neo-Classical ideology being
adapted for a more practical and domestic context.
The end result was splendid, and shocking. Too
shocking for some: even Robert Adam observed of
Stuart’s ceilings that they were ‘Greek to the teeth ...
but by God they are not handsome.’
Stuart’s former partner, Revett, built a few
exquisite monuments in the new Grecian style that
were perhaps rather less offensive to conservative
contemporaries than Stuart’s early efforts. His
lakeside temple at West Wycombe Park,
Buckinghamshire, of 1778-80, neatly combined the
taste for Greek with the well-established English
landscape tradition, creating a sublime Arcadian
vision which not only recalled the paintings of
Poussin and Lorrain but also echoed the more
Revett’s austere yet
poetically Neo-Classical
Island Temple, built in the
late 1770s by the lake at
West Wycombe Park,
Buckinghamshire, and
appearing in an evocative
archive photo.
 Adam Style 59

Above and left: the first true

crescent: John Wood, the
Younger’s Royal Crescent in
Bath, begun in 176 7. As
historian Stefan Muthesius
has observed, ‘one not only
has a full view of the lawn
in front and the valley
beyond; the terrace itself can
be seen in its full curve and
grandeur from many angles
and many distances. ’
Wood’s use of the giant
order of columns to link first
and second floors, in a
manner which suggests a
massive and continuous
colonnade, was particularly
striking and novel.

Opposite: Camden Crescent 1788. Note the differing

in Bath. Part of an levels of the windows, and
uncompleted, larger scheme, the odd number of columns
this powerful, sweeping (five, instead of the usual
crescent was designed by four) in the central
John Eveleigh and begun in pediment.
 ■
. ■' _;vV:-T
 Adam Style 41

Adam, lie went to school with the future economist brother James succeeded him in this Works post.
Adam Smith. In 1754 Robert and his brother James The success of the Adams’ gold-digging is testified to
travelled to Italy and beyond, meeting, architectural by the fact that, at his funeral in 1792, Robert Adam’s
luminaries such as Piranesi and measuring the coffin was borne by pall-bearers who were almost to
Roman palace of Split in Dalmatia (now Croatia). a man former clients, and who were all members of
The results of their labours were lavishly published the aristocracy.
in the form of the book Ruins of the Emperor Occasionally, however, the Adam brothers’
Diocletian at Spalatro in 1764. Unlike Stuart and overweening ambition came seriously unstuck. In
Revett, however, the Adam brothers never actually 1768 the family took a 99-year lease on a portion of
got to Greece. In 1756 Robert suggested to James land on the north side of the River Thames in the
that they journey there merely in order to rush out a heart of the City of Westminster. Their avowed aim
book which would knock The Antiquities of Athens was to reclaim this marshy terrain in order ‘to raise
off its lofty and academically-precise pedestal. ‘We palaces upon an inoffensive heap of mud’, as a
would furnish a very tolerable Work to Rival Stuart contemporary put it. More precisely, they sought to
and Rivets in three months time and return home build twenty-four First Rate houses, all of which
laden with Laurel’, Robert optimistically declared. wrere to be treated in daringly novel fashion as a
Yet in the event they never went. Instead, they single, unified architectural composition: the
returned in 1758 to England where, if they did not ‘Adelphi’.
immediately eclipse Stuart and Revett, they were The result was certainly a visual success; as
soon being widely acclaimed. the Adams boasted later, the houses wrere indeed
The principal reason for this rapid success
lay partly in astute marketing. The Adams - not only
Robert and James, but also their eldest brother, John
- often collaborated on architectural projects. Yet it
was generally Robert’s name that was pushed to the
fore, a practice which branded what may have
actually been a group effort in a personal, easily-
recognizable form. At the same time the Adams
wrere assiduous in cultivating valuable patrons. Thus Opposite and this page: the
in 1761 their fellow-Scot the Earl of Bute, by now Circus in Bath, begun by
John Wood the Elder in 1754.
effectively in charge of government patronage,
The frieze motifs are a jumble
persuaded his former pupil George III to appoint of masonic, Druidic and
Robert Adam as one of the two new Architects of the Judaic symbols. Wood was
a highly eccentric character
Ring’s Works. And when Robert was, thanks to
who based the proportions
invaluable political influence, elected MP for Bute’s of his Circus on Stonehenge
Scottish pocket borough of Kinross in 1769, his and legendary Druid temples.
42 Adam Style

A contemporary engraving
of the grand, Thames-side
elevation ofAdelphi Terrace,
the centrepiece of the Adam
brothers’ ill-fated Adelphi
scheme. The heroic scale and
palatial proportions of their
ambitious composition - the
first to be actually termed a
‘terrace’ - are very evident in
this view.

\
Adam Style 43
44 Adam Style

‘remarkably strong and substantial, and finished in much in the vein of Stuart and Revett’s masterpiece
the most elegant and complete measure, much (Greece and Rome, the brothers averred, should
beyond the common style of London houses’. ‘serve as models which we should imitate, and as
However, the financing soon proved decidedly standards by which we ought to judge’), but whose
shaky. The Adams had anticipated that the illustrations were startlingly novel. Their boastful
government would hire the enormous vaults they claim that ‘We have not trod in the paths of others,
had constructed underneath the terrace; but their nor derived aid from their labours’ was, for once,
stock with the government - no longer managed by quite justified.
the pliable Bute - was not as high as they presumed. The importance of the Works in Architecture
The Treasury failed to take the carrot, and the for the design of the average house of the time lies
development crashed ignominiously. 3,000 not so much in the actual buildings featured - which
workmen were summarily dismissed, while critics, largely comprised the grandest of the Adams’ recent
long envious of the Adams’ seemingly unstoppable commissions - as in its definition of the essence of
rise, queued to gloat over the ruins. Even closer ‘Adam Style’. Pausing to note that ‘Architecture has
acquaintances shook their heads. The Scots already become more elegant and more interesting,’
philosopher David Hume wrote to the Adams’ the text outlined what was to become one of Robert
former schoolmate, Adam Smith, that ‘To me the Adam’s guiding principles in design: the concept of
scheme of the Adelphi always appeared so ‘movement’. To the Adams, and to Robert in
imprudent, that my wonder is how they could have particular, ‘movement’ was ‘an agreeable and
gone on so long.’ diversified contour, that groups and contrasts like a
Feverish attempts were made to salvage picture, and creates a variety of light and shade,
something from the wreck. Celebrated friends of the which gives great spirit, beauty and affect to the
Adam family were persuaded to support the scheme composition’. In the wrong hands, they were careful
in a very public fashion; thus David Garrick took a to warn, it could cause havoc. As James Adam
house in the Adelphi, as did Robert Adam himself, had written in 1762:
while Josiah Wedgwood even installed a showroom ‘At the same time as I mention this
for his vastly popular ceramics in the terrace. movement as absolutely necessary for attaining to
Finally, a public lottery was devised in 1774 as the great elegance in the Elevation, yet I must not omit a
only way in which the Adams could save their caution not to give into excess of this kind, not to
personal fortunes. The lottery did indeed avert torment the eye with too frequent decorations
bankruptcy, but the project remained a financial which, like the abuse or too great profusion of all
disaster. beauty, will undoubtedly tire the spectator’.
The Adams did not dwell on the setback of Robert Adam’s great achievement was to
the Adelphi for long. In 1773 Robert and James provide a synthesis of fashions, new and old, which
published their Works in Architecture - in fact a could be applied to all manner of buildings and
blatant self-advertisement whose text was very everyday objects. His decorative style, as outlined in

Adam’s Eating Room at attributed to Adam’s great

Osterley Park, Middlesex, rival William Chambers.
and (left) an Adam design The pink and green colour
for an urn. The design of the scheme is Adam’s own, of
marvellous plaster ceiling of 1162; the inset medallions
the Eating Room - based on are painted by Antonio
Racchic emblems - has been Zucchi.

■V
 V .

'

1
46 Adam Style

Opposite: Zoffany’s painting

of Charles Towneley and
colleagues, of c. 1781, shows
connoisseurs admiring a
jumbled collection of
recently-imported classical
statuary at his home of
14 Queen Anne’s Gate,
London. Note the splendid
carpet.

A perspective of1775 by
Thomas Malton, showing
how proportion governed
the standard Georgian
interior. All the elements of
the house are, in terms of
size, directly related to each
other and to the scale of the
human figure seen
ascending the stairs.
48 Adam Style

Above: The grand entrance Opposite: the drawing room

hall at Somerset House, on from the Mojfatt Ladd
London’s Strand. Erected to House, Portsmouth, New
the design of William Hampshire. Note the
Chambers after 1776, Chippendale-style chairs, the
Somerset House has been re-created wallpaper, with
hailed as Chambers’s its Neo-Classical swags and
masterpiece. Now the home medallions, and the delicate
of the Courtauld Institute’s proportions (and tiled inset)
galleries, it is, ironically, of the chimneypiece.
almost adjacent to the site of
the Adam brothers’ largely-
demolished Adelphi.
 Adam Style 49

direct from the ruins of Rome or Herculaneum, were

applied in the most light and delicate manner
possible, in sites often far removed in spirit and
function from their original contexts. To this
stimulating and intriguing cocktail Adam added
Renaissance details, borrowed from the Italian
master-architects of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The result wa-s, in Sir John Summerson’s
words, ‘a personal revision and reconstruction of the
antique into which many threads from a variety of
sources were drawn and interwoven’. Equally
importantly, it was a particularly British style, which
followed decades of Italian-derived, Dutch-
the Works and seen in his vast output of buildings influenced and French-inspired architectural
and artefacts, was undeniably daring and fashion.
revolutionary, ffe made great use of the recent, The effect that this exciting new
well-publicized Greek and Roman archaeological combination of themes and cultures had on the
discoveries, not in a slavish, academic way, as many decorative taste of Europe and especially America
of his successors were to do, but in a highly personal cannot be overstated. For once, the immodest prose
and at times distinctly light-hearted fashion, in order of an architect’s self-promoting pattern-book
to effect a sea-change in decorative taste. Everything actually does justice to the drama and significance
he touched he remoulded in his own image. The of his work. As Adam wrote in Works in
heavy Palladian motifs of the previous forty years Architecture:
were tamed, reduced in scale and given movement ‘The massive entablature, the ponderous
and vivacity. At the same time, the recent fripperies compartment ceiling, the tabernacle frame almost
of the Rococo style - a fashion borrowed from France the only species of ornament formerly known in the
which had appealed to many of the most fashionable country are now universally exploded and in their
patrons of the 1740s and 50s - were banished from place we have adopted a beautiful variety of light
the interior, their place taken by simpler and more mouldings, gracefully formed, delicately enriched
overtly architectural forms. and arranged with propriety and skill.’
Other French innovations, such as a liking Robert Adam was the first to devise an
for sequences of differently shaped rooms (a device overall, integrated ‘look’ for interiors, anticipating by
first exploited by Sir Robert Taylor), were adapted by thirty years the Regency decorating manuals which
Adam to fit even the most cramped and modest preached this doctrine. As the eminent architectural
townhouse. Archaeological themes, whether from historian Howard Colvin has written:
the pages of Winckelmann or Stuart and Revett, or ‘... ingenious and imaginative planning
50 Adam Style

Buildings in the typically

reticent and well-
proportioned mid-Georgian
streetscape of Bath. Adam
Fergusson noted of the city
in the 1950s that ‘it had a
harmony of style and grace
unmatched on such a scale
anywhere else. ’ Despite the
depredations of the 1960s
and 70s, Bath remains a
uniquely Georgian city, built
almost entirely out of the
local, honey-coloured
limestone. Its special status
has recently been officially
recognized in the
declaration of Bath as a
World Heritage Site.
 Adam Style 51

ensured a progression of varied and interesting Chambers’s career ran exactly parallel to
shapes in place of the simple rectangular rooms of that of Robert Adam. Like Adam a Scot (although one
earlier Georgian architecture, and walls, ceilings, who was actually born in Sweden), he returned from
chimneypieces, carpets and furniture - down even to study in Italy in 1758, quickly built up a large
details like doorknobs and candlesticks - were practice, was created Surveyor-General of the
designed as part of an elegant, varied and highly reformed Office of Works in 1782, and died in 1796,
sophisticated decorative scheme.’ only four years after Adam. Despite his undoubted
In Adam’s interiors, as well as those directly success, however, he was never truly able to cope
or indirectly inspired by Adam, major architectural with the easy popularity of Adam’s new designs.
features were less pronounced than formerly, and ‘Was there ever such a brace of self-puffing Scotch
were subordinated to the overall scheme. Gone was coxcombs?’, he blustered after the appearance of the
the intrusive, heavy7 and at times overly academic The Works in Architecture of Robert and James
style of the Palladians; in its stead appeared Adam in 1773. His own Treatise on Civil
decorative schemes of low relief in which the Architecture, published fourteen years before, had
chimneypiece was often the only element which been a far more restrained and philosophical work,
truly projected into the room. Even large pieces of which rejected excessive ornament and undue
furniture were included in this overall treatment, movement and stood by the tried and trusted
becoming as much a part of the architecture of the Palladian principles of the past three decades.
wall as did the doors and windows. ‘Variety in ornaments must not be carried to excess’,
The Adam brothers were not, of course, the warned Chambers sternly, since ‘In architecture
only major architects working in Britain during the they are only acessories, and therefore they should
1760s and 70s. Robert Adam did, however, remain by not be too striking, not capable of long detaining the
far the most influential and popular architect of the attention from the main object.’
day, a fact bitterly resented by his rivals. No-one had Robert Adam’s other principal rival wras the
more reason to envy Robert Adam’s success than his young, mercurial and prodigiously talented yet
great rival William Chambers. The dour son of a notoriously lazy and careless architect James Wyatt.
Scottish merchant, Chambers developed into an Wyatt, too, wras overshadowed by the Adams, at least
architect who, in the words of James Lees-Milne, until the 1780s; unlike the haughty Chambers,
‘stood for officialdom and those comfortable however, he was content at first to borrow from the
prejudices enshrined in the bosom of his royal Adam Style when it suited him. Joseph Farington’s
master’, George III. To the conservative Chambers, Diary records that in 1804, long after Adam’s death,
Robert Adam’s daring innovations were little more Wyatt - typically economical with the truth - told
than ‘filigrane toy work’. He staunchly believed that George III ‘that when he came from Italy he found
his own style of orthodox Palladianism with a veneer the public taste corrupted by the Adams and he was
of dull, academic Neo-Classicism was in reality obliged to comply with it’. Wyatt could build in
closer to ‘the true style ... of the Ancients’. Greek, Roman or Gothic. His Pantheon, opened to
52 Adam Style

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Adam Style 53

Opposite and this page:

designs for the decoration of
interiors from the Adams’
Works in Architecture of
1773-78 with (left)
‘Designs of coloured,
ornaments for Pannels The
delicacy of line, tempered by
an adherence to strongly
architectural forms and
combined with the frequent
use of Neo-Classical motifs
such as the urn, the vase
and the drop, epitomizes the
Adam Style.
54 Adam Style

This page and opposite: the

Harrison Gray Otis House in
Boston, built after 1795 by
Charles Bulfinch - the
outstanding American
architect of the early Federal
period, and the leading
exponent of the Adam Style
in the United States. Whilst
the exterior is conservatively
Palladian (aside from the
large fanlight over the front
door), the interior betrays
elements characteristic of the
delicate style of Adam and
his contemporaries. The
bold colouring is evocatively
Neo-Classical.
 4^ls®4w4epj

{.T «■ - ' '

■
 Adam Style 57

great acclaim in London’s Oxford Street in 1772 (but The Antiquities of Athens and the third
sadly burnt down in 1792), caused an immediate edition of Chippendale’s Director proved very
sensation, temporarily eclipsing the Adams’ fame. popular in America; soon after its publication in
Many people began to discover that they preferred 1773 the Adam brothers’ Works in Architecture had
the cooler, more obviously showy ‘Grecian’ style of become an important element of any self-respecting
Wyatt and his contemporaries. The Pantheon colonial arts library. Already in 1775 George
prompted Lady Mary Coke to declare that ‘[Wyatt’s] Washington was incorporating Adamesque elements
designs I prefer to those of Mr Adams’, while in 1782 into the new dining room at his home of Mount
Horace Walpole wrote admiringly of James Stuart’s Vernon in Virginia.
grand house for Elizabeth Montagu in Portman By 1790 the ‘Adam Style’ - or, as it was known
Square that ‘It is grand, not tawdry, or larded and in the United States, the ‘Federal Style’ - was all
embroidered and pomponned with shreds and the rage along the east coast of America. One of the
remnants, and clinquant like all the harlequinades first wholly Adam-influenced American houses was
of Adam, which never let the eye repose a moment.’ The Woodlands in Philadelphia, built in 1787-9 to
Whatever invective Walpole may have used, the design of its owner, William Hamilton. The most
however, it did not detract from the profound celebrated exponent in America of the Adam Style,
influence Robert Adam’s style exercised on the however, was the architect Charles Bulfinch. Having
designs of his own time, and indeed on those of the undertaken the Grand Tour in accustomed fashion
two centuries which have elapsed since his death in between 1875 and 1787, during the 1790s Bulfinch
1792. His immediate influence in America, for brought Adam Style to a large number of New
example, was pronounced. Before the termination of England homes - perhaps the most famous survivor
the War of Independence in 1783 America was of which is Boston’s Harrison Gray Otis House of
almost wholly reliant on English designs. As textile 1795. It is indeed ironic that what was in origin a
historian Florence Montgomery has observed: very English stylistic synthesis remained popular in
‘Being for the most part Englishmen, the America long after the States had won their political
colonists had a natural preference for English independence. Even twenty years after Adam’s
fashions which they saw in the rich furniture, death - when the Adam Style was deemed to be
curtains, and bed hangings brought to the colonies entirely out of fashion in Britain - homes were still
by royal governors and imported by wealthy being built in America in this most lively and
merchants'.’ gracious of styles.

This page and opposite: north of London, for the

Robert Adam’s Kenwood, First Earl of Mansfield. Its
built in the 1760s on a ridge stuccoed principal elevation
high on Hampstead Heath, was daringly revolutionary.
Chapter Two The Architectural Shell

‘My son, observe . .. those mouldering walls,

and humid floor’
(Oliver Goldsmith, The
Vicar of Wakefield, 1766)

The entrance to 20 St
James’s Square, London
(built in 1771-4 for Sir
Watkin Williams Wynn), as
envisaged by Adam (right)
and as it is today (opposite).
The vast, intricate fanlight
and the sinuously Neo-
Classical ironwork are
typical of Robert Adam’s
personal style.
60 Adam Style

As Britain and her colonies prospered, so there was differing room shapes, a novelty later seized upon by
a corresponding rush to translate sudden wealth Robert Adam for his great houses. Not surprisingly,
into bricks and mortar. After 1755, for example, Harleyford was an immediate success, and Taylor’s
many of the nouveaux riches began to commission villa practice rapidly took off. Similar villas were
architects such as Sir Robert Taylor to build small, soon built at Coptfold in Essex (1755-6, now
highly compact villas in the country; these demolished), Barlaston in Staffordshire (1755-6, for
comparatively modest, medium-sized buildings the Leek lawyer Thomas Mills) and, perfecting the
were soon all the rage for successful businessmen or style of the compact country villa, Danson in Rent
professionals. Taylor - who, Hardwick famously (1762-7) and Asgill House in Richmond (1761-4),
recorded, ‘nearly divided the practice of the built for the banker Sir Charles Asgill. However,
profession’ between himself and James Paine ‘till Mr Taylor remained a Palladian at heart: by the time it
Robert Adam entered the lists’ - provided, in the was finished, in 1767, buildings such as Danson had
shape of his Harleyford Manor in Buckinghamshire, begun to look very conservative when compared to
the ideal social centre for the aspiring middle the new designs of Robert Adam. Taylor’s use of
classes. The exterior appeared reasonably plain: traditional English Palladian devices, such as large
every elevation was faced in humble brickwork, areas of blank wallspace punctuated by small
rather than expensive stone, and the external walls windows, now appeared distinctly old-fashioned
were designed to be wholly astylar, without columns when set beside the latest Neo-Classical
or pilasters of any kind. Harleyford was, compositions. Even the modest Kentish Traveller’s
nevertheless, grand enough to impress visitors, Companion complained that the fenestration at
while remaining small enough to be run cheaply, yet Danson was mean - a feature which, it declared,
compact enough to allow entertainments to be suggested that ‘the architect did not imagine that
conducted on a suitably lavish scale. sleeping in airy chambers might contribute to the
Taylor’s Harleyford revolutionized the health of the family.’
concept of the villa, and brought this hitherto
The imposing side elevation
prohibitively expensive luxury within reach of the
of the Nathaniel Russell
aspiring middle classes. Its principal rooms were on House, Charleston, South
the ground floor, not the first floor, and the whole Carolina. Note the
exaggerated keystones and
room plan was built around the central staircase.
lengthened windows.
Each room was accordingly reaphed without having
to trespass through another, an arrangement which Opposite: an aquatint of the
completed Adelphi Terrace
perfectly suited the typical Georgian ball or rout,
from the River Thames, by
with its wide variety of entertainments. To Thomas Malton.
emphasize the varying functions of the rooms, as
well as to help accommodate them within the tight
room plan, Taylor also employed a number of

A
 The Architectural Shell 61

Edinburgh New Town, a complex of grand, stone-

built streets laid out from c.1762 to a design by
James Craig. The fashionable watering-hole of Bath
was not to be outshone by Edinburgh, though. Bath’s
vision proved even more ambitious: John Wood
junior, son of the architect of Queen Square, was
commissioned not only to complete his father’s
monumental Circus (begun in 1754), but also to add
a large development of his own - what became the
magnificent Royal Crescent of 1767-75. This
marvellous sweeping terrace, given added emphasis
by the verticality and monumentality of the grand
Ionic order, was unrivalled anywhere in the world,
For those whose new-found wealth did not and became the model for grandiose housing
quite amount to the riches of a Mills or an Asgill, projects for the next sixty years.
there were a variety of grandly-appointed terraced Bivalling the new, stone-clad terraces of
housing developments springing up all over Britain Edinburgh and Bath was London’s brick-and-stucco
and the east coast of America. After the Treaty of Bedford Square. As in Edinburgh’s George Street or
Paris had ended the Seven Years War in 1763 there Bath’s Royal Crescent, the basic proportions of the
was a great building boom that did not abate until Palladian era were retained in Bedford Square, all of
the intensification of the American War in the late the elevations being built so that each fagade
1770s. The Adam brothers’ Adelphi scheme of 1768- approximated to a square-and-a-half, even though it
74 set a high standard for these new terrace was created by a number of hands. It was also the
developments. Although, as we have seen, the first London square to realize the old Palladian
scheme proved a financial flop, the Adelphi was the dream of a palace front applied to a domestically-
first development in which the houses had been scaled building. James Ralph’s Critical Review of
conceived as an architectural composition, on the 1783 called the completed composition ‘proof of the
scale of an Italian palace, rather than merely as a improvement of our taste’; in his view ‘the regularity
succession of identical houses. It was also the first and symmetry of the pavements, and the neatness of
time the Thames had been bordered with the iron rails’ made it far superior ‘to any square in
architecture specially devised to exploit the scenic Europe’.
properties of the waterfront - which until then had Of course, not all mid-Georgian terraces
been covered with ramshackle warehousing and were constructed to the high standard of Bedford
nondescript docks. Square. Yet however sloppy the work, the basic
Surpassing the Adelphi in scale, however, principles of design remained the same in every
was a vast new development in the Scottish capital: elevation: the Palladian proportions, the importance
62 Adam Style

of the fenestration, the use of the latest materials, who took on the ground rents, built the carcass, and
the pursuit of grandeur in even the most modest then sold on the leasehold or (less usually) the
fagade, and inclusion of the orders where it was felt freehold, leaving the new owner to decide on the
necessary to give a particular emphasis. The end finishing of the interiors. The social commentator
result was peculiarly British. As Sir John Pierre-Jean Grosley remarked in 1765 that ‘All the
Summerson wrote in 1945: houses in London excepting a few in the heart of the
‘The insistent verticality of the [Georgian] city belong to undertakers, who build upon ground
London house is idiomatic. The French learnt at an of which a lease is taken for 40, 60 or 99 years’.
early date to live horizontally and most, if not all, By 1785, a wealth of pattern books was
continental capitals followed the French lead.’ available to help the more untutored builder or
The designer of mid-Georgian urban- craftsman to execute the latest fashions. The Neo-
development squares and terraces was rarely an Classical gospel preached by Stuart and Revett and
architect of the calibre of Robert Adam, William the Adam brothers was repeated in a more everyday
Chambers or John Wood. Most terrace idiom in more basic publications by authors such as
developments were erected by speculator-builders, William Pain, whose Practical Builder of 1774 was

Panorama (left) and detail extravagantly praised: a

(opposite) of John Wood the critic of 1773 complained
Younger’s Royal Crescent in that ‘The wretched attempt
Bath of 1767-75. Justly to make a centre to the
termed by Charles Crescent where none was
Robertson ‘one of the great necessary is absurd and
set pieces of European preposterous, in a high
architecture’, it has not degree. ’
always been so
■■ ■ .. ■

■■
64 Adam Style

quick to pay tribute to the Adams in observing the Dance, it was aimed at solving the very problems
‘very great revolution’ which had recently occurred enunciated by Gwynn and others. In an attempt to
in ‘the ornamental Department’. end jerry-building it laid down four types or ‘rates’
Despite the existence of tough building of house which could be built in future. Each rate
regulations which dated from the years following had its own, well-defined limits. The First Rate
the Great Fire of London of 1666, there was still a house was worth over £850 a year in ground rent,
significant need to regulate unscrupulous occupying more than 900 square feet of space. At the
speculators and dishonest builders. In 1766 Gwynn’s other end of the scale, the Fourth Rate was a house
London and Westminster Improv’d bemoaned the worth less than £150 a year, which occupied less
fact that, while ‘the rage of building has been than 350 square feet. Within each category was a list
carried to so great a height for several years past, as of building requirements.
to have increased this metropolis in an atonishing The 1774 Act certainly helped to raise
manner’, there was yet a ‘want of... publick building standards, although it by no means
direction’ of the building work - the reason ‘why so eradicated the poor-quality building of the period.
wretched an use has been made of so valuable and Yet it also led, inevitably, to a degree of design
desirable an opportunity of displaying taste and standardization which, as expressed in some of the
elegance’ in Westminster. This ‘public direction’ was terraces of London or Dublin, could prove
finally supplied in the form of the 1774 Building Act. increasingly dull. In less than gifted hands building
Drafted by architects Robert Taylor and George regulations could, in Summerson’s memorable
words, promote the ‘inexpressible monotony of the
typical London street’, more graphically condemned
as ‘one damn Georgian building after another’.
The basic plan of the Georgian home was
much the same for First Rate as for Fourth Rate
houses. In 1772 Grosley observed that ‘a
subterraneous storey, occupied by kitchen and
offices’, was a common feature in most terrace
houses. This basement did not need to function as a
store for coal: since the 1720s coal had - at least in
the larger towns and cities - been stored fn specially-
built vaults which ran under the street itself. In 1756
Isaac Ware noted that ‘the basement is naturally the
kitchen’, although it could additionally serve as
accommodation for the servants if the garrets
proved too small, in which case ‘a bed for a man or 2
maid servants is contrived to be let down in the
‘First Rate’, ‘Second Rate’
and ‘Fourth Rate’ house
types, as classified by the
1774 Building Act (taken
from a builders ’ manual
of 1825).
The Architectural Shell 65

London’s Bedford Square.

Built between 1775 and
1783, this was the first real
example of a uniform
London square. The
centrepiece of each of the
sides was pedimented and
stuccoed to give the
composition added
emphasis and symmetry.
66 Adam Style

Details of individual
Bedford Square elevations,
showing the elegant
proportions of the scheme.
The square’s centrepieces
were originally faced in
Liardet’s ill-fated stucco,
and included the classical
solecism of a five-pilaster
portico.

%
 The Architectural Shell 67

kitchen.’ Ware was not very happy about the

practice of installing basements below ground level.
However, he accepted its inevitability in tightly knit
urban communities such as the capital:
The lower story in these common houses in
London is sunk entirely under ground, for which
reason it is damp, unwholesome, and
uncomfortable; but the excuse has weight: ground-
rent is so dear in London that every method is to be
used to make the most of the ground plan.’
Up on the ground floor, Ware’s Complete
Body of Architecture of 1756 observed that ‘In
common houses the fore parlour is the best room.’
Old-fashioned Palladian rules dictated that most
rooms of importance should, in true Italian practice,
be sited on the first floor; however, even Ware
acknowledged that there were ‘sound functional
reasons for making the ground floor the major
floor’. Many of the smaller Georgian homes simply
could not afford the luxury of having the principal
rooms on the first, floor; there simply was not
sufficient space. Thus drawing rooms (or more
humble parlours) were often placed on the ground
floor, in order to be near the main entrance, while
dining rooms were removed down a floor, to be
nearer the kitchen and to create an easy progression
for guests who were being entertained in the
drawing room prior to eating. Ware, however,
remained suspicious of this un-Palladian trend: ‘A
James Whitehead’s modern
fore parlour is a room of very little use or value in a axonometric drawing of
small house,’ he stoutly declared; ‘it is too near the 32 Bedford Square shows
street, and too much in the way of disturbance exactly how a house of this
type was constructed. Note
from the entry.’ the M-shaped roof with its
At the rear of the ground floor even the most vulnerable central gutter,
the ascent of the stair, and
urban of developments often had a small garden.
the patterns of the floor
From the little evidence we have concerning joists.
 68 Adam Style

The gardens of homes placed on the plainer and meaner second floor,
belonging to officers at
Chatham Dockyard, Kent,
while the attic was reserved for servants, whose
as depicted in an extremely beds were often let down from the attic walls.
rare model of the 1770s. The The problem of where to put the servants
gardens (which still survive
today in some form) are was a perennial one. Nearly every mid-Georgian
placed on a higher level household of any pretension employed them. Ware
than the houses themselves. stated that a family of two or three would have three
The importance accorded to
the broad, gravel walks is or four servants, yet many homes possessed far
immediately obvious; as more - perhaps as many as fifteen for a large
historian Neil Burton has townhouse. If outbuildings existed, these would
pointed out: ‘Grass played a
very small part in such have been used to house the servants; otherwise,
gardens they would sleep in the attic, or under a table in the
basement kitchen.
gardens of this time, they appear to have been ‘Adam Style’ depended as much on the
largely symmetrical, with formal flower beds and materials available to the architect and builder as on
small grassed areas arranged about wide gravel pure Neo-Classical theory. Indeed, the change in the
paths. The flowers planted there were often aspect of the average home - whether part of a grand
perfumed, their scents permeating the rearward terrace in Bath or a humble stone or brick cottage in
rooms of the house during spring and summer. the provinces - was due largely to the effect of the
Honeysuckle was a particular favourite, as were Industrial Revolution, which introduced new, more
roses, sweet peas and stocks. These could be
efficient materials and methods, while consigning
blended with traditional, unpcrfumed varieties such many traditional, vernacular materials (among them
as asters, marigolds, lupins, carnations and pansies. clay, clunch and cob) to obsolescence.
The flower beds and gravel walks in turn led to a
The effect of the Industrial Revolution was
somewhat less fragrant feature: the ‘bog-house’, to especially apparent in the production of one of the
which the drains led, generally sited at the far end
most basic of building materials, brick. Increasingly,
of the garden.
brick kilns were fired not with traditional fuels such
The first floor of many grander homes still as wood, charcoal or bracken, but with coal. This
contained the drawing and dining rooms; in more
allowed kilns to attain higher temperatures than
modest dwellings, it housed the principal bedrooms,
before, enabling a greater range of brick colours to
too. Ware and, later, La Rochfoucauld testified to the
be produced, the colour being determined not only
inclusion of bedrooms at this level, the Frenchman
by the colour of the clay but also by the temperature
noting that, in sharp contrast to modern practice,
of the firing. In 1756 Isaac Ware was to make the
they were generally placed at the front, not the rear,
observation that ‘The degree of burning makes a
of the house. Other, less important bedrooms - the
considerable difference in the condition of the
children’s, perhaps, or the lodger’s - would be
bricks, but their principal distinction is from the
The Architectural Shell 69

Contrasting examples of late

eighteenth-century brick
terraces from different parts
of London.
70 Adam Style

A new brick kiln from Isaac

Ware’s A Complete Body of
Architecture of 1756; and,
far right, a carefully-
rendered exercise in the
construction of brick and
stone arches from
T. Carter’s The Builders
Magazine of1774.

\
 The Architectural Shell 71

nature of the materials with which they are made’. associated with last year’s fashion. The cream brick
No longer had architects and builders to rely came of age when Henry Holland used this material,
wholly on the ubiquitous ‘hot’ red brick which and not stone, to face the imposing front elevation of
characterized the brick buildings of the late Brooks’s Club, built in 1776-8 in the heart of
seventeenth-century and the first half of the London’s fashionable St James’s district.
eighteenth century. Bricks could now be made that The bricks that Holland used to face
were brown, yellow-, grey or (particularly in the Brooks’s were by this time usually known as ‘stocks’.
eastern counties) white or cream in colour. It was The ‘stock board’ was in origin the wooden base on
also easier to produce the blue-grey ‘vitrified’ bricks. which hand-made bricks had been moulded, but by
These were produced by placing unburnt bricks Adam’s time a ‘stock’ had come to denote any well¬
close to the fire-holes in the clamp or kiln, the shaped, good-quality facing brick. The 1776 contract
intense heat reacting with the clay during firing to for erecting Bedford Square, for example, called for
produce a silvery, glazed effect. Not only were the use of ‘hard place bricks with good grey stocks
vitrified headers (the end faces of the brick) often in uniform colour’ - ‘place’ bricks being the inferior
used in combination with red stretchers (the long, products used behind the more impressive outer
side faces) to produce the delightful chequered wall skin of good brick or stucco. By the mid-eighteenth
pattern so common in southern England; now whole century stocks were twice as expensive as place
walls could be cheaply constructed from vitrified bricks. Even more costly - four times more
headers and stretchers, with red brickwork being expensive - were what, were called ‘cutting bricks’.
used only as a dressing. This category comprised softer, finely crafted
Such technological advances married well products, which could be shaped as required and
with changing aesthetic tastes. The middle classes used to create brick arches and surrounds. Also
who sought to buy a house in town wanted a known as ‘rubbed’ or ‘gauged’ bricks, they were so
reflection of their recent wealth which was as well-made that it only required a very thin line of
opulent arid up-to-date as possible. To them, red white mortar to point their joints. Such wrork was
brickwork was far too redolent of old-fashioned costly, however. By the mid-eighteenth century a
values and of the humble dwellings of past decades. practice had become common by which such fine
Since the grandest homes wrere built in - or at least brickwork was deliberately mimicked using poorer-
faced with - stone, they wanted the next-best thing: quality bricks: ‘tuck-pointing’. This involved
brick, coloured or finished to resemble expensive surrounding badly cut or worn bricks with a base
stone. As with so many Georgian building ‘shams’, mortar the same colour as the bricks themselves,
the idea was not to deceive or to mimic, but merely then inserting a white ‘tucking’ mortar in a straight
to suggest the superior material. Hence the sudden line between the bricks to simulate the visual effect
popularity of cream, yellow or grey bricks - all of of neat joints. Tuck pointing can still be found today,
which could, at a distance, be imagined to be stone, particularly in larger housing developments, and is
and none of which carried the stigma of being certainly worth reproducing if it exists; if properly
 72 Adam Slyle

Terrace details from Bath’s

Paragon, begun in 1768.
The warm limestone
contributes much to the
city’s enduring architectural
character, proving far more
durable than brick
construction elsewhere. As
Adam Fergusson has
written, ‘Eighteenth-century
Bath had virtually no decay
in it;’ even ‘the terraced
cottages of the grooms, the
ostlers, the stonemasons, the
buhl cutters, the roadmakers
and the Sedan chair carriers
- and of the pimps, the
pickpockets and the whores -
were of brand new Bath
stone. ’ Sadly, many of these
terraces, having survived
two centuries of atmospheric
assault, were demolished by
Bath City Council after
1945; however, most of those
that remain today appear to
be safe from future
development.
 The Architectural Shell 73

executed, the wall should look from the street as if it mathematical tiles and practices such as tuck¬
is simply made of high-quality, well-pointed bricks. pointing were devised as honest shams, whose real
Some builders, however, have in their enthusiasm character could be discerned on any close
resorted to an ugly pastiche of this technique, in inspection of the front wall. Behind the immediate
which white mortar lines are ruled directly across fagade, however, many builders perpetrated the
the faces of the actual bricks. This is not a very most blatant acts of professional dishonesty, which
happy solution: it not only looks ridiculous, but the often threatened the structural integrity of the whole
white mortar rapidly falls off if improperly bedded. house. Much speculative housing was designed to
Another Georgian alternative to purchasing endure only as long as the first lease, so there was
expensive facing bricks was to employ mathematical often little behind the outer four-inch skin of facing
tiles: ceramic tiles, laid in courses on top of wooden bricks and badly sited, ill-seasoned timbers. Even on
laths, which when laid resembled bricks. These tiles the ground floor, the outer skin of bricks was all-too-
were particularly popular by the mid-eighteenth frequently poorly anchored to the inner skin of
century. When the new stucco began to crumble inferior place bricks. The common result was that
away from the external walls of David Garrick’s front fagades simply fell off. This was not helped by
houses in Hampton and Chevening, his widow the fact that in the larger towns even facing bricks
immediately replaced the render with mathematical could be of very disappointing quality. Grosley
tiles, exclaiming that ‘the new tiling now made use remarked of one such typical terrace in 1765:
of to cover houses would be the only durable ‘It is true the outside appears to be of brick,
material that my house will or would admit.’ In fact, but the wall consists only of a single row of bricks,
mathematical tiles were not as new as Mrs Garrick these being made of the first earth that comes to
believed. They were a late seventeenth century hand, and only just warmed at the fire ... In the near
invention, but it took the industrial improvements of quarters of London, brick is often made upon the
the mid-eighteenth century to encourage their spot where the buildings themselves are erected and
production - in as many colours as the clay and the the workmen make use of the earth which they find
firing temperature would permit - on a large scale, in digging the foundations. With this earth they mix
especially in the southeastern counties of Kent and the ashes gathered in London by the dustmen.’
Sussex. The production of both mathematical tiles Within the walls, Grosley observed, ‘small
and bricks was undoubtedly affected by the brick tax pieces of deal supply the place of beams’ in many
of 1784, a measure designed to help pay for the speculative developments, while inside the rooms
recent, costly American War only finally concluded ‘all the wainscoting is of deal and the thinnest that
the previous year. However, the tax - two shillings can be found.’ ft is thus quite astonishing that so
and sixpence per 1000 bricks and three shillings per many of these Georgian houses have survived into
1000 mathematical tiles - did little to reduce the the late twentieth century - an accident which
popularity of these ever-popular ceramics. perhaps says more about the generally high level
As already noted, products such as of craft skills available to Georgian building
74 Adam Style

Right: a doorway from the

Circus in Bath, the top two
panels of the door having
been substituted by an
intriguing oval pane.
Opposite: ovals punctuate
the parapet above, which is
topped by Wood’s bizarre,
oversized acorn finials. As
Mowl and Earnshaw’s
splendid biography of the
architect notes, Wood’s
obsessions ‘seem to have
trapped him in a pattern of
provincial intellectualism
which drew him further and
further apart from standard
thinking on classical
architecture and world
history... That self-
confidence which drove him
to reshape Bath in a short
lifetime made him an
outrageously bad historian.
He was spiteful, ungenerous
and adapted all information
to suit previously fixed
notions. ’
 The Architectural Shell 75

‘The rage of building has laid hold on such a

number of adventurers, that one sees new houses
staring up in every out-let and every corner of Bath;
contrived without judgement, executed without
solidity, built so slight, with the soft crumbling stone
found in this neighbourhood, that I should never
sleep quietly in one of them.’
If stone proved too expensive, or was
unavailable locally, a new alternative presented
itself in the 1770s: stucco, a cheap substitute which
could be incised and painted so as to suggest
courses of line ashlar. ‘Stucco’ was originally an
Italian term to denote a mix of lime and marble, but
by 1770 it was widely used in Britain to mean any
internal or external lime-based or gypsum-based
plasterwork. It was only later in the nineteenth
century that ‘stucco’ came to specifically signify the
external lime render applied in three, four or five
thin coats to the exterior of the house. It is, however,
contractors than about the quality of the materials probably less confusing to stick with this modern
they were using. definition.
Stone construction was generally more The composition of stucco as we now know
reliable than brick, but it was also, even in areas of it was largely unknown in Britain and America
plentiful local stone, a good deal more expensive. before Adam’s day. In 1765 the Reverend David
High-class developments such as Edinburgh New Wark patented the first true modern stucco. Within a
Town were able to display work by the very best few years the Adam brothers, displaying once again
stonemasons; in the New Town itself the sandstone their abundance of marketing acumen, quickly
fapades were treated in a variety of ways in the same seized on this new opportunity, acquiring Wark’s
elevation: arranged in random rubble courses, as patent in 1768. Six years later they replaced
rock-faced ashlar, as rusticated ashlar or as smooth Wark’s stucco with an allegedly more reliable
ashlar. However, not all stone houses were product in the form of Liardet’s stucco, patented in
necessarily built to these exacting standards. Even 1773. Both \¥ark’s and Liardet’s stuccoes were oil-
in exclusive Bath, the stunning new terraces of based, not water-based, as is commonly the practice
golden limestone were not always as solid as they today. The use of boiled linseed oil in the recipe
appeared to be. In 1771 the novelist Tobias Smollett would, it was widely believed, help protect the
wrote of the city’s recently built streets: brickwork beneath. Unfortunately for Liardet - and
76 Adam Style

Details of Coade Stone work

in London: a doorway
keystone and a vermiculated
quoin ft'om Bedford Square
(top), and (bottom) an
anthemion capital from
Chandos House, and a Neo-
Classical frieze and
pediment medallion from,
Portland Place.

*
 The Architectural Shell 77

for the enthusiastic Adams - this was not the case; in used by Victorian designers) would have proved
reality, the oil-based render effectively served to cheaper - thus had a rather pressing vested interest
trap moisture in the brickwork behind, which not in the Adams’ use of stucco, and in their continued
only helped to cause decay within the bricks but control of stucco production.
quickly forced the stucco off the wall. In the longer term this legal victory did the
In the early 1770s, however, these Adams little good. By the 1780s, as the architectural
disadvantages were not yet apparent, and stucco historian and stucco expert Frank Kelsall has noted,
was soon all the rage. By 1779 Sheridan’s Critic was the outlook for Liardet’s stucco suddenly looked
being asked to concoct a pamphlet posing as ‘a rather grim:
Detester of Visible Brickwork, in favour of the new ‘Oil-based stuccoes began to fall off
invented Stucco ... in the style of Junius’. Liardet’s buildings with increasing regularity, to the great
product was first used by the Adams at 11 St James’s financial embarrassment of the Adam brothers who,
Square, and subsequently on all manner of Adam for instance, had £1,500 damages awarded them...
fagades. The relationship between Liardet and the for the failed stucco at Chevening.’
Adams was always a dificult one. Liardet - ‘a Oil-based stucco had proved a failure, and
troublesome, jealous body’ wrote William Adam in the Adams had, as at the Adelphi, been made to look
1781 - was lent large sums of money by the Adam fools. (Indeed, it may have been this professional
family after 1774, in the anticipation that he would and financial disaster which prompted Bobert Adam
make his fortune from his stucco; this did not to retire to Scotland in the early 1780s.) The
prevent him from attempting to sue the Adams in disillusioned Adams accordingly paid no attention to
1782, in a protracted case that ran on for five Bryan Higgins’s new water-based stucco, patented in
whole years. 1779. This, although an inferior and unreliable
Nor was Liardet the only obstacle to the product, was the direct ancestor of modern stuccoes;
Adams’ monopoly on the use of this exciting new yet it was not until four years after Robert Adam’s
invention. In 1778 Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, death, in 1796, that the first commercially-successful
presiding over a case of stucco patent rights being water-based stucco appeared. This product,
contested by the Adams and their former clerk of ‘Parker’s Cement’, was patented by yet another
works, John Johnson, found in favour of the Adams. bored and stuccophile cleric, the Reverend David
This was not, it must be admitted, an entirely Parker. (This close link between the late Georgian
impartial judgement: Mansfield was currently clergy and external plasters is something still to be
employing the Adams to build him a house at fully investigated.)
Kenwood on Hampstead Heath, a vast mansion The stuccoes of Liardet and his rivals could,
which was then being comprehensively, and most it was claimed, be cast from moulds. However, a far
expensively, covered in stucco. Mansfield - who did more reliable product existed for those who sought
originally demur at the cost of the stucco, suggesting to adorn their homes with fashionable cast
that parian marble (the durable, pale ceramic much ornaments. ‘Coade Stone’ was a very hard and
 WWW?

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The Architectural Shell 79

Left: delicate Neo-Classical

ironwork of the 1770s and
80s in London and Bath -
including an anthemion
boot-scraper.

Opposite: the brick-and-

stucco facade of 7 Adam
Street, virtually the last
survivor of the Adams’
Adelphi scheme. The Neo-
Classically-patterned stucco
pilasters represented a
radical new approach to the
external decoration of
middle-class housing.
 80 Adam Style

highly durable ceramic marketed after 1769 from the Adams’ native Scotland. Carron’s, together with
her factory in Lambeth, south London, by the their great rivals the Coalbrookdale Company, based
remarkable Eleanor Coade. Coade’s personal in the new industrial heartland of Shropshire,
ambition was undoubted; she hired the celebrated dominated the domestic cast-iron market during the
sculptor John Bacon to design the grander pieces second half of the eighteenth century.
and, unlike Josiah Wedgwood and his unsuccessful Iron was not used only for decorating the
ceramic plaques, won commissions from every outside of new homes. Architects also began to used
leading architect of the day. By 1774 most external it for expressly structural purposes, an innovation,
cast ornamentation being applied to houses in dating from Adam’s day, which was later fully
London’s new West End was being made not in exploited by Begency and Victorian designers. The
stone or in stucco but in Coade Stone. up-to-the-minute homes erected in London’s
While Coade Stone was occasionally used Bedford Square, for example, were equipped with
for structural work - with rather unfortunate long¬ ‘Hartley’s fire-plates’: overlapping sheets of iron,
term effects on the stability of the masonry - its use nailed to joists. This invention, patented in 1773, was
was generally limited to cast statuary or applied designed to limit the spread of fire. To prove his
decoration. Cast iron, on the other hand, could point Hartley, ever the showman, invited George III,
actually alter the shape of structures in which it was Queen Caroline and the Prince of Wales to the
used. Improved casting techniques allowed iron ‘fireproof house’ in Putney to which he had had
railings and balusters, often provided with fitted his fireplates. While the royal family were
additional ornamentation made from cast lead, to be being sumptuously entertained on the first floor,
manufactured in an increasing variety of delicate Hartley lit a fire on the ground floor which was soon
and suitably Neo-Classical patterns as demanded by blazing merrily, without at all inconveniencing the
the leading designers of the day. Bobert Adam’s own royal party upstairs. Hartley was clearly not without
‘Heart and Honeysuckle’ anthemion-based design,
first used at 7 Adam Street in the Adelphi in 1774, A splendid ironwork
baluster ending in a
profoundly influenced the design of iron balconies flourish, from Adam’s
over the next sixty years. And iron railings with 20 St James’s Square.
prominent Greek motifs such as urn finials and
anthemia were increasingly found in the more
fashionable streets of Britain and America.
While Bobert Adam was responsible for
some of the latest cast-iron designs, much new
ironwork owed its manufacture to another of the
Adam brothers. Bobert’s brother John Adam was
actually a partner in the most famous of the new
iron foundries, Carron and Company of Falkirk, in
The Architectural Shell 81

This portrait of the artist

Paul Sandby by Francis
Cotes tells us much about
the manner in which the
window area was treated,
as well as what the
fashionable artist of the
period was wearing. Clearly
evident is a brass shutter
handle and grained (not
white) window joinery.
Above is a detail of the
shutter box of a rather
grander window - one of
those lighting the Long
Gallery at Adam’s Syon
House, London. The gilded,
Neo-Classical detailing (of
c.1763) is exquisite.
82 Adam Style

a considerable talent in the field of public relations, fine texture, by which it resists the endurance of
even if his iron plates had the unfortunate habit of wet.’ By 1785 British slates - fixed by nailing into
corroding and warping with age. battens - could be had in four basic varieties: blue-
Cast iron and stucco were not the only new grey slates from the Lake District; grey slates from
materials being applied to the homes of this period. mid-Wales; blue or rarer plum red slates from
The provision of roofing slates also had a sizable northwest Wales; and grey-green ‘Delabole’ slates
effect on both the design and the appearance of the from Cornwall. In certain rural areas such as the
mid-Georgian house. In 1765 Lord Penrhyn began to Lake District, slates were laid in diminishing
develop the export of slate from his Welsh quarries courses, the size of the slates in each row decreasing
to London, with the consequence that slate for roofs as the tiling approached the apex of the roof. This
became suddenly much cheaper. visually appealing arrangement transferred much of
Until the 1760s the principal roofing the weight of the roof covering to the strong outer
material in urban and rural areas had been the clay walls, rather than to the fragile roof apex, and also
tile, either in the form of a ‘plain’, rectangular tile or provided a greater uninterrupted surface area at the
an S-shaped ‘pantile’. Plain tiles were punctured by eaves, from which the rainwater could run off into
two nail holes, used for fixing the tile to the wooden the gutter or onto the ground. This technique was
roof battens. Others were provided with ‘nibs’, right- also used when laying stone ‘slates’, found in areas
angled projections from which the tile hung on the with good local stone and little or no slate or clay tile
batten, which were originally formed by pushing the manufacture. The Welsh slates which, after 1765,
clay forward with the thumb. (Most eighteenth- were appearing so regularly on the roofs of
century roofing tiles carried no maker’s name, being London were, on the other hand, nearly always of
produced locally, and anonymously, by individuals uniform size.
or by small workshops; thus thumb and finger prints Roofs and walls were by no means the only
are often the only clue to the identity of the maker.) beneficiaries of improved technology in the house
The pantile was an early eighteenth-century of Adam’s day. Windows became larger as the
development, very common by the 1750s: an S- manufacture of ‘Crown glass’ (largely concentrated
shaped, nibbed product which could be interlinked in Newcastle) became more sophisticated. Crown
with its fellows without the aid of wooden pegs or glass, the most superior type of Georgian glass, was
iron nails. made by spinning out a globe of molten glass to
By the 1780s, however, Welsh blue slates form a large circle, which was then cut up into
were replacing clay tiles on roofs not only in London panes; inferior ‘cylinder’, ‘broad’ or ‘muff glass was
but in other large towns and cities too. As early as made by swinging the molten glass over a pit to
1756 Isaac Ware had declared a preference for slates lengthen it, then opening out the resulting cylinder.
as opposed to clay tiles. ‘The great value of slate’, he With larger, stronger panes, there was now less
advised in his Complete Body of Architecture, need for bulky glazing bars to give hefty structural
‘consists in its foundness in thin peices, and in its support to the glass in the multi-pane sash windows

A
The Architectural Shell 85

Above: detail of Georgian

windows seen through a
modem glass which seeks to
replicate the effect of genuine
Georgian examples.
Encouragingly, Crown glass
is now being made in
Britain again, for the first
time since the 1930s.
 84 Adam Style

The most typical of mid-

Georgian sash configurations
was the six-panes-over-six
arrangement. In some
instances the dimensions of
each pane were supposed to
derive fi'om the proportions
of the golden section.
However, in practice there
were no set rules for pane
sizes; in smaller towns some
sash panes were constructed
to be broader than they
were tall.
 The Architectural Shell 85

that still remained by far the most common form of reducing the circulation of air and the admission of
fenestration in Britain and America. Thus glazing- light in the house, since many windows were now
bar profiles on the outer surface of the windows bricked up. The long-term result was an inevitable
grew increasingly thin and shapely, matching the increase in gloom, damp and disease.
trend towards refined elegance inside the home. A more constructive piece of legislation wras
Windows could also be larger, since the the already-mentioned 1774 Building Act, whose
larger panes of glass were now strong enough to be measures, designed to regulate the size and
introduced into the sash window format without any configuration of windows aimed to reduce the risk
need for a complex grid of wooden supports. By the of fire entering the house via the external
1770s, it was the height of fashion to lower the tills woodwork. Window joinery had already, in
of first-floor windows and to fit larger sashes in the accordance with the Building Act of 1709, to be
enlarged spaces. The 1776 building contract for recessed four inches from the wall’s outer face; now"
Bedford Square, for example, included the provision it was to be largely concealed behind the brick,
that ‘liberty [was] to be given to cut down any of the stone or stuccoed face, with only a small amount
windows so low as the floors of the rooms.’ visible to the street. The act also wisely limited the
Window panes were never of one, standard extent of the newly fashionable bow-fronted shop
size during the Georgian era. Sometimes they were windows, preventing them from protruding more
even broader than they were tall. Nor was the than ten inches into the street. This saved many
common six-over-six pane pattern always adhered pedestrians - now able to walk on the narrow
to. In 1759 William Chambers alleged that the most, pavement, and not forced out into the road - from a
frequently found arrangement of panes was ‘three in grisly death under the wheels of a passing carriage.
the breadth and four in the height, whatever the By the time of the 1774 Act, traditional
dimensions of the window"’, although modern wooden sash pulleys wrere being replaced by more
observation does not appear to bear this claim out. durable iron or brass examples. Even the colours of
(Chambers’s Treatise also observed that ‘The Sashes the windows were changing. Window joinery,
of the Windows are generally made of Oak,’ a claim particularly when set into light-coloured brick, stone
which testifies more to the fact that Chambers’s or stucco, was now often painted not the ‘broken’
practice was confined to the great and good than it off-white so common earlier in the century, but
does to the widespread use of oak, and not pine or darker greys, browns or even greens. Sometimes,
fir, for window" joinery.) too, the window"s w"ere grained, inside and out, to
Unfortunately, the size of the window wras mimic seasoned oak or Jamaican mahogany -
still limited by constraints other than the necessity of finishes specifically designed to set off the light
making stronger glass. The hated window tax was colour of the surrounding masonry. The ubiquitous
actually extended in 1766, to cover all houses with w"hite-painted sash wras more an innovation, or
seven windows or more. This unhelpful measure - perhaps a revival, of the late nineteenth century.
not finally repealed until 1851 - had the effect of And the bright, bleached whites so often
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The Architectural Shell 87

Left: typical doorways of the

period, (from top left)
Dublin, Bath, Boston,
Massachusetts and London’s
Bedford Square.

Opposite: the doorway at

the Adams’ 7 Adam Street:
delicate, assured, well-
proportioned and enticing.
88 Adam Style

inappropriately used for old windows today are arranged in the typically Palladian ‘temple front’ or
more a postwar enthusiasm, having no historical ‘aedicular’ manner: two pilasters or columns
foundation whatsoever. supporting an entablature, possibly topped by a
Mid-Georgian front doors were generally segmental or triangular pediment. As the 1760s
found painted in a variety of dark colours, especially progressed, however, the doorway became
browns and greens. Despite what is often believed increasingly dominated not by the doorcase
(and, alas, practised) today, Georgian front or entablature - which if anything tended to project less
internal doors were never stripped. Unless the wood obviously into the street - but by an ever-larger
was of a particularly expensive and handsome kind, fanlight. The fanlight had only first appeared over
the Georgians had far more sense than to seek to front doors during the 1720s, and as interpreted
expose the knotty, irregular surfaces of inferior pine by the Palladian architects of the period was
or fir. The six-panelled door was the most common subservient to the general composition of the
arrangement for front entrances; however, like the doorcase, in which every element was nicely, if
six-over-six pane sash, this configuration was by no predictably, balanced. In the hands of Robert Adam
means the only form used during this time. Eight-, and his contemporaries, however, the fanlight was
five- or three-panel doors were commonly found in liberated from this supporting role, and was
the 1760s, 70s and 80s, the bottom two panels often encouraged to blossom as never before. Fanlights of
fused and raised to stile level in order to prevent feet the Adam period were large, elaborate confections of
from inadvertently kicking through the wood. iron and lead (some with applied brass
By the end of our period the numbering of ornamentation), which not only dominated the
front doors had begun, at least in the capital. doorcase - often extending the whole width of the
Reminiscing about the mid-1760s some forty years composition - but became the most striking feature
later, James Malcolm recalled that in London ‘the of the whole fagade. They appeared with increasing
nobility introduced brass plates or doorplates with frequency in the fashionable squares of London,
their names engraved on them’, and that ‘the Bath, Edinburgh, Dublin and the other popular
numbering of the houses’ was becoming watering-holes of mid-Georgian Britain; until 1776
fashionable. However, for most households of they were also shipped directly to America, to adorn
Adam’s time the only furniture that was applied to the middle-class homes of New York, Philadelphia,
the front door was a simple, black-painted and Georgetown or Charleston. In many ways the Adam
centrally-placed iron doorknob. Doors of this period fanlight neatly summarizes the style and approach
were rarely over-filled with iron or brass ornament; of the whole period in architecture and the
if any door furniture was added, it would always decorative arts: breaking out from rigid,
have been - in contrast to the elaborate fanlight architectural confines, its exuberance and Neo-
above - deliberately modest. Classical delicacy brought wit and grace back into
By 1755 the doorcase was still generally house design.

A
 The Architectural Shell 89

Graceful Adam Style

fanlight tracery from
Dublin’s Merrion Square,
begun in 1762. Dan
Cruickshank has called this
handsome square ‘the most
imposing of Dublin’s urban
spaces
niiiimi
 Chapter Three Fixtures and Fittings

‘Hopetoun was pleased with the chimney

I sent him, which shows how much any
trifle from Italy will impose,
even on a sensible man’
(John Adam, 1755)

Opposite: the first floor

room from 20 St James’s
Square. This page: delicate
designs for brass door
furniture from the Adam
brothers’ Works.
 92 Adam Style

Adam’s sumptuously-
coloured library ceiling at
Kenwood, London, of
1767-9. Such extravagant
use of ceiling colour was
largely limited to the newest
great houses - where its
initial effect must have been
shocking.

\
 Fixtures and Fittings 93

By the middle of the eighteenth century the practice its name suggests; it could even be used to form
of simply painting panelling was becoming rather whole areas of wall or ceiling. In 1759, for example,
unfashionable in the wealthier homes of Britain, Horace Walpole fitted out the ‘Holbein chamber’ in
although it stayed in widespread use in America for his delightfully eccentric home Strawberry Hill in
the rest of the century. The trend was now to leave Middlesex; the ceiling he installed - based on a
the wall above the dado wholly flat, and to cover this medieval interior at Windsor Castle, no less - looked
with wallpaper, with raised plasterwork or even initially as if it was of plaster, but was actually made
with built-up papier mache. Of these alternatives, entirely of papier mache. Immediately it was
the former was very much in vogue. In 1756 Ware finished, the poet Thomas Gray observed admiringly
noted sadly that Taper has, in a great measure, of the chamber that ‘The ceiling is coved and fretted
taken the place of sculpture [i.e. wood or plaster in star and quatrefoil compartments, all in papier-
mouldings] and the hand of art is banished from a mache.’
part of the house in which it used to display itself Virtually all mouldings were painted,
very happily.’ Ware was clearly not much of a fan of creating a light and refined, low-relief effect often
the new fad of wallpapering. ruined by the modern fashion for indiscriminately
Decorative plaster, if rarely employed to stripping old woodwork. Whether it was of plaster or
cover whole walls or ceilings, had long been used to of papier mache, the decorative work was generally
embellish the surface of individual mouldings. The painted the same colour as the flat ground, or
plaster used for this internal work was generally perhaps painted white. Neither mouldings nor
gypsum plaster: simple plaster of Paris, mixed with a decorative relief-work, however, were ever picked
binder of animal hair or straw, and applied in three out in another colour save white or gilt. Even the
or more coats over fir laths. In most houses pre¬ heavy gilding which had so characterized the rich
moulded ornaments were fixed on site; only in the Palladian interiors of the 1730s and 40s was, by
grandest houses were workmen employed to 1760, shunned by most of the up-to-date
execute this complex decoration in place. The homeowners of Britain and America.
modern practice of buying off-the-peg, prefabricated The relation of the decoration to the wall
mouldings to install where none now exist thus has areas, and of the walls to the rest of the room, is of
a perfectly good historical precedent. Take care, central importance to anyone seeking a true
though, that the mouldings you buy are appropriate understanding of the mid-Georgian room.
for the house’s period and the room’s character and Knowledge of proportion, and of the correct use of
function; many firms offer a disappointingly small mouldings and motifs, was considered essential to
range of‘Georgian’ mouldings, which are often any Georgian designer worth his salt. As Stephen
radically different from the historic forms they are Riou pointed out in his manual The Grecian Orders of
supposed to imitate. Alternatively, papier mache Architecture of 1768: ‘Since mouldings do, as it were,
could be used in place of plaster for elaborate compose the alphabet of architecture’, one needed ‘a
decorative work. Papier mache was stronger than perfect knowledge of their several attributions and
94 Adam Style

Opposite: typical plaster

mouldings of the 1760s and
70s, from houses in London
and Bath. Gone is the
freedom and licence of the
Rococo; in its place is
architectural precision and
elegant restraint.

Far right: a Neo-Classically-

influenced ceiling design for
Kedleston, Derbyshire, of
c.1760, and, below,
plasterwork details from a
ceiling at 20 St James’s
Square. Right: more
plasterwork details from
Bristol (top) Wells (centre)
and Bath (below).

*
Fixtures and Fittings 95
96 Adam Style

combinations, ... their uses and shapes.’ on the ground or first floors may have included
In the early years of the eighteenth century elaborate cornices and rich doorcases, the rooms at
mouldings were often employed simply to cover a the top of the house may have possessed only simple
structural joint or an unsightly transition between box cornices, a rudimentary dado and perhaps no
different planes - allowing the parts beneath to settle skirting mouldings at all. The decoration was
and move, as well as providing a more visually proportional to the pretension of the room; the
cohesive display of light and shadow. The type of humbler the function (and indeed the fewer the
applied mouldings in common use during the Early visitors), the more modest the mouldings. If re¬
Georgian era were the box cornice and ‘bolection’ introducing period mouldings of plaster or w ood
moulding, linking two adjoining planes; both of into a house which has lost all trace of the original
these types were common by 1700, and by 1750 pattern, it is very important to keep this context
they had been joined by a variety of other, firmly in mind. Wooden mouldings and panelling
classically derived forms. bought wholesale from architectural salvage outlets,
In most cases skirting, dado and cornice for example, are often re-used in unsuitable and
mouldings were carefully placed about the wall to incongruous settings. Over-sized and over¬
correspond to the vertical intervals of the classical elaborate mouldings set in a small, modest room
column. Thus the skirting corresponded to the base inevitably look cramped and ridiculous. Remember
of the ancient orders, the dado to the pedestal, and that what looks splendid in a grand country house -
the cornice to their entablature. This firm Palladian or a cavernous warehouse - may be highly
rule was reiterated by Isaac Ware in 1756: inappropriate for your own home.
decorating the wall ‘to make it correspond with the Proportion remained the key to the whole
orders’ was, in his opinion, ‘the origin of the inside house, no matter how modest or humble the home.
finishing of apartments; and to this it is necessary Many of the pattern-book authors of the time
the architecture adhere.’ devised elaborate guides to the ideal dimensions of
This architectural allegory held true the walls and rooms of the average home, and laid
throughout the Georgian era and beyond. However, down rules to be followed by builders and
as the eighteenth century progressed architects decorators. The miracle formulae proffered by some
were increasingly concerned to conceal all of the of these manuals could, though, become ludicrously
real structural elements of a building; accordingly, over-complex. In 1766, Crunden and Milton
mouldings became flatter and less pronounced, and declared that a room that was ten feet square in size
surface decoration took the place of depth - a typical should be provided with a chimneypiece that was
characteristic of much of the work of Adam’s day. precisely two feet five inches wide and two feet
The complexity of mouldings and their eleven-and-a-half inches high, and a cornice that
decoration corresponded directly to the dimensions was four inches high; furthermore, ‘the architraves
and the relative social significance of the rooms in to chimneypieces should be about one sixth or one
which they were used. Thus, while drawing rooms seventh of the width of the opening.’ Nine years

A
 Fixtures and Fittings 97

Panel designs for the

drawing room frieze at
Fisherwick Park,
Staffordshii'e, by Joseph
Bonomi. Rome-born
Bonomi’s elegant, Neo-
Classical restraint is clearly
evident here. As Howard
Colvin has noted, in his
interiors Bonomi preferred
a chaste simplicity to the
elaborate decorative
schemes of Robert Adam’.
98 Adam Style

*
Fixtures and Fittings 99

Opposite: Typical domestic

entablature mouldings for
windows, doors and
cornices, from Chambers’s
A Treatise on Civil
Architecture of 115 9.

Sumptuous wall treatments:

designs by Joseph Bonomi
for the window wall of an
unidentified Great Room
(top) and for the Saloon at
Burley on the Hill,
Leicestershire (below).
 pas

n , , . , M , i , l I I I III i I I m : i h m , , ! ! i I I : I I i , n m ! :
 Fixtures and Fittings 101

earlier Abraham Swan suggested that if the room

was ten feet high, the dado should be two feet five
inches from the ground (and three-quarters of an
inch higher for every foot increase in the room
height), and the cornice should be one-eighteenth
the height of the room. These and other manuals
proffered simple solutions to amateurs (or
professionals) puzzled by the basic tenets of
Palladian proportion. However, the builder or
houseowner who consulted more than one of these
guides would have been easily confused by the
contradictory advice they gave, each authority
offering a magic solution which did not necessarily
correspond to that of its rivals.
By 1770 the pattern-book authors were
beginning to argue in print over the respective
merits of the new, subtler and more
archaeologically-correct Neo-Classical mouldings
being introduced by Robert Adam, James Stuart and
their fellow-Grecians. These were designed to
supplement and even to replace the traditional
Palladian forms which had been meat and drink to
the architectural pattern-book writers of the 1730s,
40s and 50s. Whereas the Roman-derived mouldings
of this Early Palladian era had been distinctly robust,
projecting boldly into the room, the new ‘Greek’
forms were of lower relief and more modest profile.
Thus while the Palladian ovolo moulding
represented an exact quarter-circle in cross-section,
the profile of its Greek equivalent was flatter and
segmental, being only a part of this quarter-circle.
The battle between Greek and Roman
mouldings was first joined in the pages of the Adam
brothers’ Works in Architecture of 1773. ‘The
mouldings in the remaining structures of ancient
Rome’, they declared, ‘are considerably less

Opposite: multicoloured Top: detail of a ceiling at 20,

Adam ceiling design from 20 St James’s Square with inset
St James’s Square. Note the painted medallion by
subtle interplay of the Antonio Zucchi. Bottom:
vaulting and the reiterated Zucchi’s ceiling painting of
ellipses and semicircles. Cupid and Psyche from the
tapestry room at Nostell
Priory, Yorkshire.
102 Adam Style
 Fixtures and Fittings 103

*> *i f *\‘

Stunning, virtuoso Adam

ceiling designs from
 104 Adam Style

curvilinear than those of the ancient monuments of

Greece.’ Furthermore, they announced, ‘We have
always given a preference for the latter, and have
even thought it advisable to bend them still more in
many cases, particularly in interior finishings,
where the objects are near, and ought to be softened
to the eye.’ Clearly the Adams, while espousing the
new cause of the Greek style, were also prepared to
improve upon the antique forms if they deemed it
necessary. Such a bold move was regarded with
horror by the more traditional designers, schooled
in the forms of Ancient Rome and Renaissance Italy.
The interior feature on which Adam himself
effected the most dramatic change was the grand
ceiling. This was an instance where Adam chose to
adapt, rather than to reproduce, the ideas of the
Greek masters. In his designs for the great houses of
the 1760s and 70s, the ceiling became the dominant
feature of each the room. Profusely patterned and
richly coloured - not just with the pastel shades we
so readily associate with ‘Adam Style’ today, but with
vivid greens, blues, lilacs and pinks - the startling
effect was heightened by the now famous device of
weaving the carpet to a design that mirrored the
format of the ceiling. The overall impression was
stunning: a shocking revolution in taste for those
used to the wdiite-and-gilt ceilings of the preceding
sixty years. If wished, the ceiling could be further
adorned with plaster or ceramic plaques or, for the
wealthier cognoscenti, embellished with painted
panels or medallions painted by the great decorative
artists of the time: Angelica Kauffmann and her one¬
time husband, Antonio Zucchi. Angelica
Kauffmann’s panel paintings were by 1770 all the
rage in the country houses of Britain. And not only
was Kauffmann a hugely gifted artist; she was also
Ceiling details from Syon
House, Middlesex: Neo-
Classical geometry at its
most precise and
pleasing. The house was
extensively remodelled by
Robert Adam for the First
Duke of Northumberland in
1762-5.
 Fixtures and Fittings 105

famously beautiful, and proceeded to charm and wider than is common today. Nor were the boards
enrapture the great European artistic figures of the always of consistent size within a single floor;
day. Goethe - one of her most ardent admirers - machines able to plane timber uniformly were only
observed that she was not only ‘very sensitive introduced in the 1790s, and it was not until the
towards all that is beautiful, true and tender’ but 1830s that identical floorboards could be produced
also ‘incredibly modest’. by steam-powered, mechanical saws.
Devised as it was to enrich the rooms of a Parquet floors - floors created by a
great house, Adam’s ceiling decoration was not a decorative arrangement of tessellated wooden
luxury that could easily be transplanted to the boards - were still being installed in grander homes.
average home of the period. Few could afford the Ware attested to the continuation of this fashion in
talents of an Adam or a Kauffmann, let alone spend his Complete Body of Architecture of 1756: ‘boarded
large amounts of money on paints that often proved floors in some rooms’, he remarked, ‘are inlaid with
very expensive. William Chambers himself wainscot |i.e. oak], and other handsome woods in
remarked in his 1759 Treatise that ‘Painted Ceilings, various forms.’ However, parquet flooring was
which comprise one of the great embellishments of prohibitively expensive and, with the spread of fitted
Italian and French structures, are not at all in use carpets, becoming both irrelevant and distinctly old-
among us’. Most ceilings, aside from those installed fashioned. In 1756 Ware noted of the wealthier
within the great mansions of the wealthy and British homes that:
powerful, remained much as they had been during ‘The use of carpeting at this time has set
the preceding decades: plastered flat, and painted in aside the ornamenting of floors in a great measure;
white distemper. (Never, incidentaily, did the it is the custom almost universally to cover a room
cornice mouldings ever intrude upon the ceiling entirely; so that there is no necessity of any beauty
during Adam’s day. The frieze and cornice remained or workmanship beneath.’
part of the wall both physically and in terms of Seven years earlier the architect John Wood
decorative treatment; it was only in the 1840s that had also attested to this fact, declaring that in recent
mouldings began to appear on the plane of the years ‘Carpets were introduced to cover the Floors
ceiling itself.) though laid with the finest clean Deals, or Dutch oak
Floors of the period, too, followed much the boards.’ Parquetry could still, though, be used for
same patterns as those of the first half of the the narrow border between carpet and skirting. Any
eighteenth century. Although oak was the preferred such exposed wooden floors were waxed and
material for good, wide timber floorboards, in polished, and occasionally stained brown to imitate
practice most households had to make do with deal: finer woods or, more commonly, limewashed to give
squared boards of pine or fir, imported from the an attractive, silvery sheen reminiscent of aged oak.
Baltic or from North America. There were no The boards were cleaned using fresh flowers and
particular rules as to the dimensions of floorboards, herbs, or rubbed with dry or wet sand or fuller’s
although any exposed boards were generally far earth.
 Fixtures and Fittings 107

Left and below: the splendid Opposite: the strongly

scagliola floor in the ante¬ geometric black-and-white
room at Syon Park. One of marble floor in the hall at
Adam’s most powerful and Syon Park. Adam’s bold
lively compositions, it Greek key pattern, running
proved as fragile as its more diagonally across the
humble plaster cousins; surface, transforms a
constant wear and tear traditional tessellated
meant that it had to be marble floor into a powerful
completely relaid by William Neo-Classical statement.
Croggan in 1832.
 108 Adam Style

If oak proved too expensive, a deal floor was Opposite: the superb inlaid
installed. This was never left bare or varnished. In wooden floor at The Winds,
Mountstewart, Co. Down,
sharp contrast to the modern fervour for stripping designed by James Stuart. A
any internal woodwork, regardless of its quality, the wide variety of motifs vye
Georgians took care to hide the awkward and for attention on the chimney
surround behind.
unsightly knots and blemishes inherent in common
pine or fir. If carpets were too costly, then the boards
might be painted, either in imitation of black-and-
white marble flooring, or in a single (preferably
dark) colour which was then decorated with
stencilled patterns, executed in distemper or even,
in more rural homes, in soot. In humbler house¬
holds, floorboards were often painted dark terracotta-
red to recall the old clay floors of former centuries.
If even deal floorboards were too expensive, or were
locally unobtainable, simple clay or composition
floors had to suffice for the ground floor and
basement. In 1759 Chambers recorded that:
‘The common floors used in mean buildings
are made of loam [a type of clay-based composition]
well beaten and tempered with smith’s dust, and
with or without an addition of lime. Some also make
them of pure clay ... and a moderate proportion of ox
blood.’
An alternative to the clay floor, much used
for the ground floors of rural cottages, was the
tessellated brick floor. In 1756 Ware acknowledged
that ‘In country buildings floors are frequently made
also of bricks and tiles’. Often these materials would
be further reddened with a natural madder, ochre or
an oxblood-based pigment, to make the floor look as
bright red as when it was first laid.
For the aspiring middle classes, however,
the solid marble or stone floor still represented the
acme of taste, a status symbol to be treasured and
displayed as publicly as possible. The tessellated

James Stuart’s drawing of the Adams’ floors, ceilings

the Temple of the Winds at and walls came from the
Athens, reproduced as a antique buildings sketched
plate in The Antiquities of by Stuart, Revett and their
Athens. Most of the fellow-Grecians.
decorative motifs found in
 -

■■■■• ■■ -
110 Adam Style

marble floor, comprising black-and-white marble be completely relaid by an indulgent owner in

squares or, perhaps, light-coloured squares interset 1831-2.
with small dark diamond shapes, was still the most A more lasting revolution was being effected
sought-after floor treatment, much as it had been in in the area of staircase design. By the 1750s, turned
the seventeenth century. Yet for those with even stick balusters were out of fashion, replaced at first
more money to spend, there was now a new and by the (still astonishingly modern-looking) ‘Chinese’
excitingly different option: the multicoloured fretwork patterns popularized by Thomas
scagliola floor. Scagliola had long been used to Chippendale, and then by graceful iron balusters.
create columns, pilasters and panels that looked In 1745, W. and J. Welldon’s The Smith’s
suspiciously like real marble. It was in reality a far Bight Hand had provided the first collection of
cheaper material than marble, being made from a British designs for wrought ironwork. Twenty years
moulded and polished compound of basic plaster later, however, the elaborate Rococo scrollwork
mixed with marble chips, appropriate pigments and which featured so prominently in the Welldons’
other aggregates. However, at first or even second
sight a scagliola floor looked just like the real thing -
a vast (and hugely expensive) floor comprising a
multitude of rare marbles.
Robert Adam fitted perhaps the most famous
scagliola floor of all in the rather mis-named Ante
Room at Syon House in Middlesex. This house was
built in the years after 1761 for the 1st Duke of
Northumberland, a crony of George Ill’s whom
Adam sycophantically termed ‘a person of extensive
knowledge and correct taste’ (by which he
presumably meant the ability to afford ambitious
flights of fancy such as the new Ante Room floor).
However, in the same way that Adam’s espousal of
the early stuccoes turned to disaster, so his brave
championing of the scagliola floor proved fruitless.
Just like its humble cousins of clay or composition,
the delicate scagliola floor responded poorly to
everyday wear and tear. By the end of the century
scagliola floors were being taken up all over the
country, and being replaced with more durable
materials such as marble or stone. The Syon House
example is thus a very rare survival; even this had to

The staircase from a house Opposite: the double

in Rivers Street, Bath of staircase at 3 7 Dover Street,
c.1770. The wooden balusters London. The twisted wooden
and tread-ends are simple balusters are a traditional
and old-fashioned, but element in what is otherwise
nonetheless highly elegant. an Adamesque interior.
Mmm
112 Adam Style

Adam period staircases from

20 St James’s Square
(above), Somerset House
(above right and far right)
and Barton End Hall
(opposite); and a detail
from a balustrade by
Maurice Tobin at Fairfax
House, Yorkshire.
114 Adam Style

manual had given way to a more architectural, yet inside and outside the house. By the 1750s, however,
still very elegant, Neo-Classical style. Iron allowed a cheaper - but nevertheless still expensive -
for a grace and a lightness in baluster construction alternative had been introduced: Prussian blue, a
that was simply not structurally possible in wood. vibrantly powerful pigment first invented in 1704
Designers could now link the thin uprights with and originating from animal blood. In 1765 an oil
delicately-wrought, typically Greek motifs such as paint using Prussian blue was applied to the
the anthemion or the palmette, or indeed dispense external lamps and railings at London’s Mansion
with the vertical uprights altogether, supporting the House. The use of Prussian blue on the graceful iron
handrail with a series of graceful balusters in the stairs at great houses such as Osterley Park and
form of lyres or other popular Neo-Classical motifs. Somerset House during the 1770s made the paint
The handrail itself often remained the only element doubly fashionable; by 1770 blue-painted ironwork
of the balustrade still made of wood. Accordingly, was probably fairly common in the grander houses
the wood chosen would have been an impressive of Britain and .America. However, since Prussian
one - usually oak or a West Indian mahogany. In blue-derived oil paints were still three times the
1774 Mrs Kenyon, examining her new London home price of ordinary common colours, more modest
for the first time, observed that ‘The front staircase homes used cheaper lead-greys - made from
is a very good one, with a neat mahogany rail to the combining indigo with white lead - to protect and
top of the house.’ decorate their ironwork.
Iron balusters were, at least in the grandest While the iron-balustered staircase was a
homes, painted a bright mid-blue. The intention major influence on the appearance and plan of the
may have been to emphasize the blueness of the house of Adam’s day, perhaps the most important
iron; more probably, however, the colour was not, element within each individual room was the
only demonstrably bright - contrasting emphatically fireplace. In Britain’s clammy and chilly climate the
with many of the subdued, ‘common’ colours of the fireplace quickly became the natural focus of
time - but was also recognizable by all as being attention in any well-used room, providing the axis
vastly expensive. Ironwork, like so many other about which the occupants and events of the house
elements of the Georgian house, afforded a welcome revolved. As Ware acknowledged in 1756: ‘With us
opportunity for the blatant public display of wealth no article in a well-finished room is so essential.
as well as taste. The eye is immediately cast upon it on entering, and
Early in the eighteenth century one of the the place of sitting down is naturally near it.’
blue colourings occasionally used for internal The basic disposition of the Adam-period
ironwork was ‘smalt’, a bright, lustrous and chimneypiece was still much as it had been in the
extremely costly finish of ground blue cobalt glass mid-seventeenth century: a projecting lintel-
dusted on top of a base coat of white lead, producing entablature supported by columns, pilasters or
an attractive, glittering visual effect. The lead paint consoles which carried a large overmantel. Until the
acted as a vital preservative for ironwork, both early eighteenth century chimneypieces had

-V
 Fixtures and Fittings 115

htm k mibt & ii MuiFfi lit t n t m w t * ftiifthiiusmt *«*- kg

Adam chimney pieces. Left,

top and bottom: decorative
details from the Adam
brothers’ Works in
Architecture of the 1770s.
Above and top:
chimneypiece details from
20 St James’s Square.
 116 Adam Style

Below: Rococo chimneypiece

and grate from Thomas
Johnson’s Collection of
Designs of 1758. This
somewhat over-the-top,
indisciplined composition
demonstrates the type of
approach to which the Neo-
Classicists of the 1760s were
reacting. Right: highly
architectural chimneypiece
and overmantel designs
(with the inevitably
prominent anthemia) by the
Adams, made for the first
and second drawing rooms
at Derby House. Far right:
strongly architectural Adam
chimneypiece designs for
Coventry House, Piccadilly,
of 1765.
Fixtures and Fittings 117

Left and far left: delicate but

sumptuous fireplace designs
by the Adams for Derby
House in London’s
Grosvenor Square (built
1773-4). Note the large area
of highly expensive mirror
glass above the mantelpieces.
Below: section of the ante¬
room at Derby House,
showing an anthemion
frieze, semicircular niches
decorated with classical
medallions, three-armed
sconces and a fairly
restrained chimneypiece
under a large, plain
rectangular mirror and
fanlight’ spandrel.
Compare these compositions
with the Rococo fireplace,
opposite.
118 Adam Style

remained very plain and were rarely decorated; it other unfragile substances’), Chambers insisted that
was only with the new Palladian designers of the in decorating them ‘regard must be had to the
1720s that profuse decoration became the norm for nature of the place where they are to be employed.’
chimneypieces in important rooms. In the early Chambers’s advice was both practical and aesthetic.
1760s, however, designers such as Robert Adam He recommended that fireplaces should not be
began to react against the ponderous swags, scrolls, placed on an outside wall, since the unsupported
shells and robust mouldings of the Palladian stacks above would be more liable to collapse. More
chimneypieces of previous years - and indeed unusually, he was quick to warn his readers of the
against the lighter, more indisciplined Rococo moral dilemmas presented by the licentious
designs which had begun to appear in fashionable, classical ornamentation of the day:
French-influenced interiors of the 1740s and 50s. ‘All nudities and indecent representations
Adam’s chimneypieces were comparatively must be avoided, both in chimneypieces; and
restrained, relying on architectural form, colour (in indeed, in every other Ornament of Apartments, to
the form of different marbles)and a judicious use of which Children, Ladies, and other modest and grave
modest Neo-Ciassical ornament in place of the lush persons, have constant recourse; together with all
decoration which so characterized the vocabulary of representations capable of exciting Horrour, Grief,
the Palladian and Rococo styles. Large-scale high- Disgust, &c.’
relief Palladian decoration was replaced by the type As Chambers also noted, chimneypieces
of low-relief, small-scale motifs popularized by could be constructed from a broad range of
Stuart and Revett and the Adam brothers. Urns, materials. White, grey or black marble, often with
delicate swags and figures from cfassical mythlogy an inlaid relief of exotic coloured marbles, was the
were especiaf favourites. After the 1760s even most sought after - and, of course, the most
Adam’s own chimney surrounds became expensive - material. A cheaper and lighter
increasingly plain, as he ceased to use ostentatious alternative to genuine marble was coloured
elements such as caryatids to support the scagliola. Even ceramic chimneypieces were made.
mantelpiece. Both Wedgwood and Coade made complete
Shortly after Robert and James surrounds in addition to their ranges of mantelpiece
Adam’s return to Britain, William Chambers’s ornaments, and by 1784 the Coade factory at
Treatise on Civil Architecture of 1759 laid down what Lambeth, south London, could boast a broad range
he considered to be the basic rules for the proportion of highly affordable chimneypiece designs ranging
of chimneypieces. ‘The size of the chimney’, he in price from 25 shillings to 14 guineas.
sensibly declared, ‘must depend on the dimensions Companies such as those run by Coade,
of the room wherein it is placed.’ Similarly, while Wedgwood and Chippendale - who were not only
chimneypieces could be constructed from a wide the leading manufacturers of the day, but also the
variety of materials (‘stone, marble, or ... a mixture keenest marketing brains - remained ever alert to
of these, with wood, scagliola, or-moulu or some the changing whims of fireplace fashion. In 1781

A
Fixtures and Fittings 119

Left: the chimneypiece from

The Princess’s Dressing
Room at Harewood House,
Yorkshire. Above: two
ornate bracket designs for
marble slabs, from
Chippendale’s Gentleman
and Cabinet-Maker’s
Director, originally
published in 1754.
 120 Adam Style

Above: T. Carter’s designs

for entablatures from The
Builder’s Magazine of 1774,
and, right: chimneypiece
panels from P. Columbani’s
A New Book of Ornaments
published in 1775. Here the
Neo-Classical decoration,
whilst still featuring the
obligatory anthemia and
classical figures, is rather
more free, recalling some of
the Rococo licence of the
1750s. More severely
classical is the marble and
scagliola fireplace
(opposite) from Syori House,
designed by Adam and
executed by Domenico
Bartoli in the 1760s.
 Fixtures and Fittings 121

fi/ni mt«. ■ •••mrorm > nn.v>vw.a

: l' * J
i*S*»*-*y,*,

- -
 122 Adam Style

Chippendale, Haig and Company charged Sir Gilbert the mid-Georgian chimneypiece. Chimneyboards,
Heathcote five shillings and sixpence for ‘men’s time used to cover the grate area during summer, were
taking off the large gilt ornaments of the 2 Chymney very common by 1760. They were especially
Pieces, and £10 18s. for Finish the pilasters - and prevalent in America, where they rapidly became a
mouldings with additional new ornaments - and popular type of folk art, decorated, often by itinerant
making very neat carved antique ornaments to the artisans, with painted or stencilled patterns or, more
frizes’. Heathcote obviously did not want to install a commonly, with ambitious landscapes and
wholly new surround, but it was still out with the seascapes. In Britain chimneyboards were usually
old, heavy gilt work and in with the new, Neo- painted a single colour, covered in plain paper or
Classical motifs. The small scale and the ease of with black-and-white prints, or painted with a
replication of the latter allowed many householders realistic scene. A vase of flowers, depicted in the
to do the same at comparatively little expense. manner of s e vente enth - century Dutch interiors, was
By 1700 tiles for fireplace surrounds were perhaps the favourite subject for the boards. Trompe
beginning to be imported from the United Provinces. I’oeil scenes were also very popular; the Society of
The characteristic Dutch tin-glazed ‘Delft’ tile - often Sign Painters’ public exhibition of 1762 included a
termed ‘maiolica’ after the island of Majorca, a chimneyboard which depicted ‘a large, blazing fire
trading centre for tin-glazed pottery - was white, painted in watercolours’. Occasionally, hand-painted
with painted surface decoration in blue or,
.

occasionally, brown. By 1750 a number of English

9
factories were producing large numbers of
‘Delftware’ imitations, and were becoming
increasingly independent of the Dutch
manufacturers. New colours were added to the
traditional restricted Dutch palette of blues, browns
and purples: green, yellow, red, and the typically
Bristolian ‘bianco sopra bianco’, white-on-white. In
1756 John Sadler and Guy Green began producing
copperplate-printed tiles at their Liverpool factory.
Although they could print remarkably detailed
patterns from the copper plates onto the Delftware
blanks, the fact that the tiles were then fired at a
comparatively low temperature meant that the
patterns were not as durable as they might have
been. Today, unfortunately, few copperplate tiles
<§
-

survive with their printed patterns intact.

Tiles were not the only decoration applied to

Opposite, top and bottom

left: door architrave details
from Robert and James
Adams’ Works of the 1770s;
top and bottom right:
architraves from 20 St James’s
Square. Above: tin-glazed
tiles printed with classical
medallions of 1775-85.
Fixtures and Fittings 123
124 Adam Style

genuine Georgian examples, being crudely

decorated and with their pine surfaces left wholly
unpainted. At the same time many ‘salvaged’ Adam
chimneypieces and grates have actually been stolen
from houses in Britain or Ireland. If you do use a
salvaged chimneypiece, establish from the salesman
exactly where it has come from. Without precise
records of provenance, a salvaged item could well
be stolen - and in purchasing it, you are helping to
promote the theft of such splendid pieces. It is
equally important to make sure that the
chimneypiece is appropriate for your own home.
Oversized and over-elaborate Adam-style
chimneypieces can look ridiculous in a small space.
Remember, too, that the position of the fireplace was
governed largely by the function, not the
Chinese papers were imitated: as early as 1754 Dr appearance, of a room. Thus, as William Chambers
Richard Pococke discovered that at Longford Castle was keen to point out, the less important the room,
in Wiltshire there were ‘chimney boards throughout’ the smaller and plainer the fireplace should be.
which were decorated with ‘Chinese pictures’. Even Unfortunately this basic common sense is often
Robert Adam and Thomas Chippendale did not forgotten today.
consider that the decoration of chimneyboards was If you do buy a reproduction, ensure that the
beneath them. And for those who could afford it, the style as well as the size is applicable to your own
great decorative artists of the day would be home. Many modern ‘period’ products are sad,
employed to paint scenes upon these most visible of clumsy pastiches based on genuine historical
ornaments. In 1769 the renowned painter Biagio precedents. Many, too, are in bare pine - in stark
Rebecca made a particularly splendid set of contrast to Georgian (and Victorian) practice.
chimneyboards, painted with trompe I’oeil antique Georgian wood or plaster chimneypieces were
vases and intended for the principal rooms at always painted; stripping historic paint layers away
Audley End in Essex. to reveal the basic structure exposes inferior timber
The Adam-style chimneypiece remains the that was never intended to be seen. Robert Adam
most popular reproduction or salvaged Georgian would shudder to see many of the chimney
item in both Britain and America. However, many surrounds and grates that are sold today using his
modern reproductions bear little resemblance to august name.

Above left: a Neo-Classical Opposite: the stark Neo-

urn incorporated into the Classicism of the Adams’
design for a chimneyboard, best domestic work can be
painted by Biagio Rebecca in seen in this view of a
1769for Audley End in doorway and fireplace at
Essex. 20 St James’s Square.
 Chapter Four Services

‘I went to the duke of Kingston’s private

Bath, and there I was almost suffocated for
want of free air; the place was so small,
and the steam so stifling’
(Tobias Smollett Opposite: the Adam fireplace
Humphry Clinker, 1771) in the third drawing room
at Derby House, Grosvenor
Square - demolished in 1862.
Left: candelabra and tripod
stand from Adam’s Works in
Architecture.
 128 Adam Style

In contrast to the image regularly presented in base. Grander sconce compositions were called
period dramas on television, Georgian interiors girandoles.
were generally very poorly lit, both at night-time The simplest form of candle was the rush
and during the day. The Georgians, it is important light: a dried rush dipped in animal fat, held in a
to realize, were particularly sensitive to the simple clip mounted on a stand. More expensive
detrimental effect of direct light on their important were tallow candles, made from rendered animal
furnishings, and went to great lengths to minimize fat. Unsurprisingly, these burnt badly, and were as
its effect during the day. Muslin sub-curtains helped smelly as rush lights. Dearer still, but more effective,
to filter the harmful light entering via the window; were beeswax candles. These cost on average three
shutters or blinds, too, were often pulled during the times as much as tallow candles. (At the beginning
day in order to preserve the furniture and fabrics. It of the eighteenth century beeswax candles were
must also be remembered that even relatively taxed at 4d a pound, tallow at only 14d a pound.)
modest, middle-class households retained servants They also smelt less, smoked less and had a higher
who would be directed to turn furniture out of the melting point than tallow ones. They were,
sun, to apply furniture covers when necessary, and nevertheless, only available to the rich. Even in the
to safeguard carpets with druggets or floorcloths. grandest houses guests could still judge their
The absence of such hired help in the twentieth relative social importance according to whether
century has inevitably caused many Georgian their hosts brought out wax or tallow candles. Good-
fittings to deteriorate rapidly. quality beeswax was imported in Britain and
At night interiors were even more gloomy - America; hence candlemakers were often situated
though hardly, this time, by choice. Few households in ports.
could afford the glittering chandeliers we so readily Expensive candles required grand holders.
associate with Georgian entertainments; until the And the silver candlestick, which perhaps best
1780s most homes were lit at night solely by candles. encapsulates the artistic goals and technological
And even this most basic form of lighting had to be triumphs of the Adam era, became one of the most
used sparingly. As architectural historian Dan sought-after status symbols of the fashionable
Cruickshank has pointed out in Life in the Georgian interior. The Adam brothers themselves helped to
City, ‘prodigality with candles was not the Georgian initiate the stylistic revolution in silver candlestick
rule and the average room was very underlit by the design. Gone were the sinuous lines and
standards of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.’ untrammelled foliage of the Rococo. In their stead
The light sources were usually near or on the walls: were flat, unadorned surfaces, Neo-Classical motifs
either candlesticks or candelabra, placed on side such as the swag and the urn (a form adapted to
tables, or wall-mounted sconces. The latter were serve for much of the silver hollow-ware of the
often fixed in front of mirrors, in order to reflect period), straight lines and, above all, an elegant
more light about the room, and generally comprised simplicity based on the primacy of proportion.
two sweeping arms projecting from a decorated The technology of silver production changed

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More designs .from Adam’s

Works: a candlestick, a two¬
armed candelabra and a
tripod lampstand.

Opposite: tripod candelabra

by Robert Adam, designed in
the mid-1760s for Syon
House.
 130 Adam Style

Elaborate girandoles
designed by the Adams for
Derby House’s ‘Etruscan
room

\
 Services 131

as fundamentally as did the design of silverware. ‘seven or eight hundred persons employ’d in
One of the principal effects of the industrial almost all these Arts that are applicable to the
advances of the 1760s and 70s was that more manufacturing’ of silver and other precious metals.
everyday items were being made of silver than ever Boulton’s stylistic ambitions mirrored those of the
before. The great silversmithing centres of Sheffield Adam brothers: ‘I would’, he declared in 1776, ‘have
and Birmingham were soon turning out all manner Elegant simplicity the leading principle.’ However,
of silver products - not just candlesticks and he remained content to follow the artistic lead
candelabra, but tea-urns, teapots, sconces, and provided by the Adams and their rivals. As he told
innumerable other household pieces of this sort. his friend Mrs Montagu in 1772:
Sheffield continued to specialize in candlesticks - ‘since the present age distinguishes itself by
some designed by the celebrated sculptor John adopting the most Elegant ornaments of the most
Flaxman - and popularized the simple composition refined Grecian arists, I am satisfy’d in conforming
in which clustered columns were combined with thereto, & humbly copying their style, & making
palm-leaf capitals. The newly introduced technique new combinations ... without presuming to invent
of die-stamping now allowed the constituent parts of new ones.’
the candlestick to be assembled far more simply and
Elegant silver candlesticks
cheaply than before. Sheffield also pioneered the by Henry Hallsworth
introduction in the 1770s of‘Sheffield Plate’: copper (below) and Thomas
IJeming (centre), with
fused to a silver veneer. This innovation opened up
candelabra (right) by John
an even larger domestic market to the silversmiths: Wakelin and William
the consequent lowering of prices meant that Taylor.
silverware was now available to middle-class
families the length and breadth of Britain and
America. Soon the new fly-punch was able to punch
out complex, perforated patterns onto Sheffield Plate
with such precision that the copper still remained
hidden below; at the same time stamped motifs such
as Neo-Classical ribbons and urns were now far
more easily fabricated and applied.
The impetus behind many of the
technological breakthroughs in silversmithing came
from the tireless industrialist Matthew Boulton, the
world’s first industrial entrepreneur. His
manufactory at Soho, in Birmingham, was by the
end of the 1760s producing a wide variety of silver
goods. By 1770 Boulton was writing that he had
132 Adam Style

An unusual black basalt Silver was not appropriate for all forms of
Wedgwood oil lamp
candleholder. The natural sparkle of glass, and its
supported by slave figures,
dated c. 1780, from Saltram ability to reflect light, made this, not silver or brass,
House in Devon. the preferred material for chandeliers, although
wood and brass examples were both cheaper and
Below: highly fanciful
designs for wrought-iron easier to maintain. For those who could afford them,
lampirons from The elaborate chandeliers could by 1755 be had in a
Builder’s Magazine, 1775.
wide variety of shapes and sizes. They were,
however, generally far simpler in design than the
elaborate, cut-glass examples that dominated the
grand rooms of the Regency period. The simple
sweep of their brass, wooden or ormolu arms made
for a most elegant composition which, when not in
use, was often wrapped in fabric as a protection
against dust and summer flies.
While historic glass chandeliers are now
prohibitively expensive, good reproductions of many
Adam-period brass models can still be bought at a
fairly reasonable price. It is important to remember,
though, that whereas the rich could afford to install
chandeliers, the rest of mid-Georgian society had to
make do with flickering candlepower. It was only in
the mid-1780s that a viable alternative became
available, when colza-oil lamps began to appear. In
1783 the Swiss chemist Ami Argand patented this
new form of lamp - known in Britain as a ‘colza-oil
lamp’ after the thick, greenish-yellow rape-seed oil
it burned - constructed around a revolutionary new
circular cotton wick with an internal air channel.
Although initially rejected in France, Argand’s
invention was enthusiastically taken up across the
Channel by Matthew Boulton, who readily agreed to
manufacture Argand’s lamps. Boulton’s initiative
was soon, however, overtaken by the pace of
progress (and Argand’s lethargy): following the
accidental lapse of Argand’s temporary patent in

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A view of the fireplace from

the saloon at Saltrarn
House, attributed to Thomas
Carter the younger. Notice
the bright, steel-and-brass
grate and the symmetrically-
arranged firescreens.
 134 Adam Style

Pre-Adam grates: two of

1765 (right) and (far right)
four Chippendale Rococo
and Gothic grates of1760-
62. Bottom right: Neo-
Classical influences are
rather more to the fore in
this eccentric grate design
from The Builder’s
Magazine.

*
 Services 135

1786, imitations began to flood onto the market, and efficient grate did not appear until the very end of
by the end of the century ‘Argand’ lamps could be the century.
found in large numbers of British and American Most of the grates of the period originated in
homes. one of two of the new foundries of the period:
As the equipment required to light the home Carron and Company, of Falkirk in Scotland (one of
became more refined during the years of Adam’s wiiose partners wras Robert Adam’s brother, John),
career, so did the paraphernalia needed to heat it. or the Coalbrookdale Company, based in the very
By 1755 the ‘stove grate’ - a freestanding, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in Shropshire.
rectangular basket with three fire bars placed The products of these two manufactories have
between two andirons and a grid for falling ash at proved perenially popular. Even after the intro¬
the bottom - was very common in middle-class duction of smaller, more efficient grates in the early
homes, being cast not only in orthodox Palladian nineteenth century, Carron and Coalbrookdale
forms but also in more exotic Chinese and Bococo Adam-style grates continued to be sold in large
styles. As the period progressed, however, the stove quantities; today they still remain the best-selling
grate was replaced by the hob grate. This form first type of reproduction grate.
appeared in the 1720s, and comprised a basket To the great entrepreneur-inventors of the
flanked by flat-topped hobs, designed to keep kettles day, however, even the classic Adam grate could be
and pots warm. By 1780 this type had become hugely improved upon. In 1742 that amazing polymath
popular; original or reproduction examples of these Benjamin Franklin had patented a double-skin
can still be widely found. The hob grate was not, like metal stove fitted with an integral grate. This not
earlier versions, freestanding, but set into the only heated the immediate area around the
fireplace. It was available in three basic patterns: fireplace, but also warmed the far corners of the
‘Bath’, ‘Pantheon’ and ‘Forest’, each distinguished by room, carrying the air heated in the skin of the stove
the form of the central plate linking the two hobs. A through a system of pipes and vents. In Britain these
further improvement was the provision of movable were called ‘Philadelphia Stoves’, after their city of
iron plates to regulate the size of the chimney origin; by the mid-1760s, they were actually being
opening and thus the efficacy of the updraught - produced in British foundries for export back to
creating what became known as a ‘register grate’. America.
Isaac Ware’s Complete Body of Architecture of 1756 Mid-Georgian fire-grates were not intended
found much to praise in this arrangement. ‘The to be purely utilitarian machines, but stylish pieces
placing of a moveable vane at the top of the chimney of room furniture, too. Many of them were provided
is’, he declared, ‘often succesful; this keeps the with applied ornament made of brass, steel or
opening of the funnel screened against the efforts of ‘paktong’ - an expensive, silvery alloy of copper, zinc
the wind.’ Begister grates did much to solve the and nickel, first introduced from China into Britain
problem of smoke coming into the room while heat and her colonies by Robert Adam. Paktong was easy
disappeared up the chimney flue; however, a wholly to cast, highly lustrous, simply engraved, and did not
136 Adam Style

Left: brightly-polished heating. Indeed, many servants would habitually

Adam firegrate in the
i*.__ sleep overnight under the kitchen table, warming
Marble Hall at Kedleston,
Derbyshire. themselves from the dying hearth or stove. By 1750
V \|||/ a^ cooking in most up-to-date homes was no longer
conducted on the floor of an open fire in the kitchen,
but over a more sophisticated wrought-iron basket -
the grate. In many humble houses and cottages, on
tarnish. It was, at least by the early 1760s, being the other hand, cooking was still taking place over
widely employed to decorate the fender, an an open hearth as late as the middle of the twentieth
innovation of the 1740s which was provided with century. However sophisticated the home, though,
pierced decoration designed to match the style of the the kitchen fire always remained one of the foeal
accompanying surround and grate. (Prior to this the points of the house. In Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar
fender was generally executed in brass; in 1749 John of Wakefield of 1766, for example, this most cosy and
Wood remarked that ‘the Furniture for every welcoming of environments was where the great
Chimney was composed of a Brass Fender with issues of the day were invariably debated. ‘We sate
Tongs, Poker and Shovel agreeable to it.’) Other beside his kitchen fire, which was the best room in
elements of the Adam fireplace were also expressly the house, and chatted on politics and the news of
designed to harmonize with the grate in order to the country.’
give the whole ensemble an overall ‘look’. In Robert
Adam’s own unified fireplace schemes the fire irons,
tongs and shovels were all made of the same
material as the grate and fender, upon which they
wou Id be formally arranged.
When the fire was unused for long periods,
the fender and fireplace furniture would be bodily
removed and a decorated chimneyboard installed in
their place. When the fire was in use, seat furniture
nearby would be protected from the heat by wooden,
cane or fabric fire screens. These were either
freestanding, supported on a stand or pole, or were
made to fit directly onto chair backs. In 1779 the
family firm of Gillows submitted a bill for ‘six neat
fire screens to drop upon the backs of chairs’ in the
Dining Room at Heaton Hall, north of Manchester.
The kitchen was the one room in the house
where the occupants rarely needed additional

Right: pole firescreens of the

mid-1780s, by the enigmatic
furniture designer George
Hepplewhite.

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Left: Adam-designed
chimneyboard of 177S from
the State Bedroom at
Osterley. Covered with
‘Etruscan’ ornamentation, it
is removed by means of a
brass knob situated at the
top of the frame. Top: the
Adam chimneypiece from the
tapestry room at Nostell
Priory, probably executed by
John Derail. Above: Thomas
Carter’s glittering, ormolu-
mounted chimneypiece of
1763 in the drawing room at
Syon surrounds a splendid
brass inset and fender. The
ormolu decoration on the
surround was probably
made to Adam’s design by
Diederich Anderson, who
also executed the gilding on
the room’s fine doorcases
and window-shutters.
138 Adam Style

As the century progressed, the workings kitchen technology: an ‘Iron Crane’, iron racks, ‘5
of the kitchen grate or range became ever more Spiffs’, ‘2 Dripping panns’, four brass kettles, brass
complex and heat-efficient. The ancestor of the pots, ‘2 Rell rnetall Skillets’, and a bewildering
range - the ‘perpetual oven’ combining oven and variety of other brass, iron and pewter kitchenware.
grate - first appeared in the 1750s, and by the 1780s Ry 1760 yet more complex items, such as plate
the iron boiler was being combined with the grate warmers and coal-filled warming pans, had been
and the oven in a cast-iron, wood- or coal-fired added to this impressive list.
kitchen range. In 1780 Thomas Robinson took out a Running water was a great rarity in most
patent for a range that combined an open fire with kitchens and bathrooms of the mid-eighteenth
an oven and draught-operated mechanical spits, century. Houses in urban centres may have been
while Joseph Langmead’s patent range of 1783, an lucky enough to have water piped to the ground
improvement on the Robinson format, effectively floor through lead-lined wooden pipes, which were
provided the basic pattern for ranges for the next gradually replaced by cast-iron piping as the
two centuries. Industrial Revolution gained pace. Otherwise, lead
To complement the range were other cisterns, to hold the water needed for kitchen use,
freestanding kitchen aids such as the metal Dutch were placed immediately inside (not outside) the
oven, made of tin to reflect the heat in as efficient a kitchen. Increasingly, cisterns were supplemented
manner as possible. Dutch ovens were much in use
by the end of the eighteenth-century for that staple
of the Rritish diet, the Roast Beef of Old England,
whose accompanying batter pudding was cooked in
a tray underneath the joint.
Although the early Georgian kitchen grate
was fairly crude by modern standards, around it
were installed a wide variety of surprisingly
sophisticated technological aids. Spits were rested
on hooks joined to the two front legs of the grate,
and were turned by use of an ingenious mechanical
device powered by clockwork or simply by a
‘smokejack’, which used the force of the updraught
up the kitchen chimney. Pan supports (‘trivets’), also
attached to the grate, could swing out over the fire;
later this arrangement metamorphosed into the
kitchen hob grate. The 1710 Inventory of the
Great and Little Kitchens at Dyrham Park,
Gloucestershire, included a daunting array of

Above: traditional brass and includes a smoke-jack spit,

copper kitchen implements, chimney crane, ratchet
and, opposite, the re-created hooks, boiling pot, kettle
kitchen at Fairfax House, and an original, water-
York (a house remodelled by- filled warm ing pan.
John Carr in 1762), which
140 Adam Style

by sinks, which were usually placed behind a become far more widespread, featuring in the most
partition to create a scullery area quite separate modest as well as the grandest homes. Simple pine,
from the space in which the food was prepared. elm or oak dressers - always painted if not of good,
These sinks were generally made of stone or wood, seasoned oak - took pride of place in the kitchen,
and lined with lead, although, as Neil Burton has and provided an invaluable storage area and an
pointed out, some were actually hewn from a single additional work surface. Their widespread provision
piece of stone. during this period can be seen from the details of a
The lead cistern of the Adam era looked lease of 1760 for a typical London townhouse:
much as it had earlier in the century. It was large, 36 Dover Street, in London’s new Mayfair district.
rectangular and handsomely-decorated with The laundry here possessed ‘two large dressers’;
strapwork, an odd survival of a common sixteenth- the butler’s pantry (which was ‘wainscotted about
century decorative practice; it was also often 8 feet high’) one dresser; the two larders two
inscribed with the initials of the house owner and dressers each; and even the washhouse had one. The
(most helpfully for any historian) the date of its kitchen itself contained ‘one large elm dresser and
original installation. Cisterns were not always made two turned feet and three drawers’ and ‘one deal
by hammering, cutting and stamping lead sheets; dresser, two turned feet and potboard’. Equally
some were cast in huge sand beds impressed with illuminating is Mrs Kenyon’s detailed description,
carved moulds. The kitchen cistern was filled from a contained in a lengthy letter to her mother, of her
street pump or fed by a rainwater pipe, and was new Lincoln’s Inn Fields home in 1774. The kitchen
connected to the rest of the kitchen and, if of this medium-sized townhouse was, as she
necessary, the other rooms on the ground floor, depicted it, equipped with ‘a butler’s pantry, with a
by a series of lead pipes. Hot water was obtained by dresser that has two drawers and a cupboard under
transferring the contents of the cistern into a boiler; it, shelves over it for glasses etc, a lead cistern, and a
from the boiler servants carried it around the pipe with water’.
house in jugs. Although this book is primarily concerned
Aside from the cistern, sink and hearth, the with the construction and decoration of the mid-
other principal element in the mid-Georgian kitchen Georgian house, it is certainly worth having a brief
was the wooden dresser. Interestingly enough, in glimpse at the types of food that were prepared in
sharp contrast to many of the other kitchen fixtures the kitchens of the time. Main dishes were primarily
and fittings to be found at the time, the wooden roasted, boiled or stewed, or baked in the nearby
dresser remains an integral feature of today’s oven or stove. For the higher echelons of Georgian
traditional kitchen, still widely available and still society, the principal emphasis for main meals was
wholly compatible with the technology of the on meat dishes and, to a lesser extent, on fish. The
modern household. Unlike the range, the dresser wealthier classes, disdaining vegetables except to
was not a Georgian invention; yet it is certainly true garnish the meats or to make the soups - which, as
that by the end of the eighteenth century it had today, preceded the main courses - actually ate far

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Above, from left: a

sophisticated ‘Bidet Shaving
Table’ and night table of the
mid-1780s by Hepplewhite,
and a basin stand and
shaving table from the third
edition of Chippendale’s
Gentleman and Cabinet-
Maker’s Director, published
in 1762. Left: a fascinating
plan showing the vast
network of sewers necessary
to drain a new, modestly-
sized country house.
 142 Adam Style

less healthily than the lower classes. The latter had by John Carr in 1762) has been carefully devised
to make do with vegetables from the brassica around a dinner actually taken in this house at 4pm
(cabbage) family, pulses, beans, root vegetables, on the 15th of April 1763. The menu for that
oatmeal, barley, bread and the odd piece of bacon. meal typifies the type of dinner prepared for
Many of the meats now came from farms rather than comparatively wealthy middle-class Georgians of
the wild, while pickles and bottled sauces, including the period. The first course consisted of boiled
commercial products such as Harvey’s Sauce (the meats, fish and soups arranged formally around an
ancestor of many modern ‘brown’ sauces and impressive table centrepiece; the second course
ketchups), became increasingly popular as concentrated on roasted meats, ragouts and other
garnishes for meal. In fact, much Georgian food savoury dishes. (As Peter Brown has pointed out,
was remarkably unhealthy by modern standards. If ‘The English as a whole disapproved of the French
vegetables were eaten in the more pretentious developments in Nouvelle Cuisine that had taken
households, they were generally smothered in place in the eighteenth century.’) The first course
butter sauce. By the mid-eighteenth century heavy included anatomical delicacies such as boiled calf s
puddings, which replaced the cereal porages so head and florentine of rabbit - for which the rabbits
common in former centuries, had become were boned, and their heads served whole. Peacock
ubiquitous, most often in boiled, suet form. Sweet Pie took pride of place on the table for the second
puddings which did not use suet were often course; this luxurious dish, however, probably did
provided with a puff pastry crust. It was only by the not contain actual peacock meat, which was very
end of the eighteenth century that raw fruit was unappetising: the peacock was included entirely for
widely accepted as being safe enough to eat. display. A mock boar’s head, executed in sponge and
Breakfast was very much a Georgian chocolate and decorated with a coat of arms,
invention. By 1750 it was being taken at 9 or 10 in preceded the dessert of fruit, nuts, liquorice, calves-
the morning, encouraging middle-class housewives foot jelly, meringues and macaroons.
to postpone dinner from noon to 2 or even 3 o’clock. Many of the implements which the
By the last years of the eighteenth century the most Georgians used for eating and drinking on such
fashionable homes had their dinner at 4 or 5, to be grand occasions underwent a substantial
followed by a supper of cold collations at about metamorphosis during this period. Most
10pm. The increasing gap between breakfast and importantly, tableware which, until the mid¬
dinner was, by the 1780s, in turn filled for the upper eighteenth century, was largely associated with the
and middle classes by another new meal: luncheon. upper classes, now, through the agency of the
This was an informal meal, often designed only for Industrial Revolution, became available to all. At the
women - the men being out hunting, drinking or same time the great inventors of the day devised yet
whatever else men did during the day. more sophisticated, efficient and attractive means of
The re-created kitchen at Fairfax House in dispensing food and drink. The 1760s, for example,
York (the decoration of which was completed saw the introduction of the tea-urn. This everyday
Opposite: the dining room
at Fairfax House, as set out
for a fully-documented meal
taken in the house on
15 th April 1763. Vying for
prominence are the delicate
epergne and the ostentatious
peacock pie.

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144 Adam Style

extent supplanted intoxicating liquors in all ranks, to

the great advantage of society.’ (‘The modern use of
tea’, he concluded in a somewhat more
controversial fashion, ‘has probably contributed to
the extended longevity of the inhabitants of the
country.’)
To fill the growing demand for tea, silver
urns and tea-sets, newly liberated from the shackles
of exclusivity by the Industrial Revolution, were
produced with increasing efficiency by the factories
of Birmingham and Sheffield. When designed by the
piece, generally in the form of a classical vase (and great silversmiths of the day such as Hester
sometimes called, most confusingly, a ‘kitchen’), Bateman, tea-urns and their related apparatus could
quickly superseded the old tea-kettle; by 1770 tea- become objects of great artistic worth. For those
urns were very popular on both sides of the Atlantic. who could not afford silver or even Sheffield Plate,
Tea-drinking was now a highly fashionable, though, a new and comparatively cheap form of
if still none too cheap, recreation in both Britain and everyday ware had become available by 1770: the
America (although the Boston Tea Party and revolutionary ceramic products produced in great
subsequent events in the colonies did little to quantities by Wedgwood and his rivals in the region
encourage tea consumption there). The habit of of Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire. Such wares were
ladies ‘withdrawing’ after dinner actually began as a not only comparatively inexpensive; they were also
way of allowing the mistress of the house sufficient more practical for hot liquids than silver and pewter,
time and space in which to brew the after-dinner tea which conducted heat too well, and glass, which
properly. Nor was tea-drinking restricted to the could crack.
grander homes (which in former times had locked Josiah Wedgwood is one of the most
their tea-caddies for fear this precious commodity impressive figures of the eighteenth century. It was
would be stolen). In 1773 (ironically, the year of the he who fused the increasing demand for ceramic
notorious Tea Party) Dr Richard Price noted with drinking wares with the new fashion for Neo-
patrician pessimism that ‘the circumstances of the Classicism. It was Wedgwood, too, who devised most
lower ranks of the people are altered in every
respect for the worse, while tea, wheaten bread and
other delicacies are necessaries which were
formerly unknown to them’. Subsequently Dr Gilbert
Blane was moved to remark, in a rather more
celebratory vein, that ‘Tea is an article universally
grateful to the British population and has to a certain

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Opposite: left, a set of

delicately-decorated silver
tea-caddies of 1777, with
their original satinwood
and yew-wood case;
and right, Neo-Classical tea-
caddies from Hepplewhite’s
The Cabinet Maker and
Upholsterer’s Guide of
1788.

Far left: a two-handed, vase¬

shaped tea urn of 1768. Its
design looks both back to
the Rococo and forward to
Neo-Classicism.

Classical lines and minimal

decoration are evident in
these four teapots and tea
caddy, ranging in date from
the 1760s to the early 1780s.
146 Adam Style

Wedgwood tea-service
creamware of 1774.
Wedgwood can be credited
with popularizing this
highly successful ware,
which by this date was
being sold to the Empress of
Russia as well as to the
middle classes of Britain
and America. The modernity
of Wedgwood’s clean, sharp
lines is particularly striking.
 Services 147

of the new ceramic products of the period. He was responsible for the export of Wedgwood’s products
constantly experimenting with new bodies and to America. In design historian Adrian Forty’s words,
glazes: inventing the green glaze which helped to Bentley was ‘the first to see that pottery and Neo-
realize the fruit and vegetable tableware so popular Classicism, hitherto unassociated, might be suited to
during the 1760s, by 1765 he had perfected a one another ... His espousal of neoclassicism
consistent creamware, and by 1776 had invented transformed Wedgwood from an ordinary, though
jasper, a ceramic of (in his own words) ‘exquisite successful, potter into a leader of avant-garde taste.’
beauty and delicacy proper for cameos, portraits and For the first time ceramics, in the form of
bas-reliefs’, and the product by which he is best cameos, tablets and urns, could be used as a type of
known today. Yet Wedgwood’s most profound interior decoration, their style and tone exactly
achievement was to make what were formerly matching the fashionable Adam-style room. Yet
regarded as unattainable luxuries freely available to Wedgwood’s Neo-Classicism, like Adam’s, was not
the ‘Middling Class’. (In 1772 he asserted that ‘The grounded in a slavish adherence to the precise
Great People have had these vases in their Palaces forms of the ancients. ‘I have endeavoured’, wrote
long enough for them to be seen and admired by the Wedgwood, ‘to preserve the stile and spirit or if you
Middling Class of People’, who ‘would probably buy please the elegant simplicity of the antique forms ...
quantities of them at a reduced price’.) This goal but not with absolute servility.’ He was careful,
was achieved not only by the mass-production of though, not to depart too far from the Neo-Classical
high-quality products, but also through a large norm as established by Adam and his rivals. ‘They
measure of skilful marketing. After, for example, certainly are not Antique’, he wrote of one of his less
Queen Charlotte had bought some of his successful range of pots, ‘and that is fault enough to
creamware, Wedgwood rapidly changed the Damn them with most of our customers.’ His
range’s name to ‘Queensware’ and began to style jasperware was designed to be particularly
himself ‘Potter to the Queen’. Such actions helped appropriate for the latest Neo-Classical interiors, the
bring him popular success as well as critical translucence of its unglazed, white form closely
acclaim. By 1778 Wedgwood was claiming of his resembling marble. (Coloured jasper, today the most
creamware that it was ‘no longer the choice thing it enduringly popular of all Wedgwood’s products, was
used to be, since every shop, house and cottage is rejected by the architects of the day for the very
full of it’. reason that it did not resemble antique marble.)
Wedgwood’s contribution in the area of form Even the name of his new factory, ‘Etruria’, was
and style was also most significant, since he was the meant to evoke the Ancient Etruscan landscape - in
first ceramicist to harness the simplicity and purity the extremely unlikely setting of Stoke-on-Trent.
of the Neo-Classical age to everyday ‘china’ wares. Wedgwood broadened the horizons of the
Much of this is directly attributable to the influence household ceramics industry immeasurably. He was
of his partner after 1769, Thomas Bentley, a the first to foster a close relationship with the great
Liverpool merchant and connoisseur who became artists of the day, inviting famous painters such as
148 Adam Style

George Stubbs and Joseph Wright, and celebrated expensive to build, took up a considerable amount of
sculptors such as John Flaxman, to design his more basement floor space, and were decidedly trying on
ambitious pieces - much in the way that Eleanor the constitution. (In 1715 a London lawyer reported
Coade employed the talents of the great sculptor that a cold bath was supposedly ‘extremely good
John Bacon. He also substantially raised the status against the headache, strengthens and enlivens the
of the trade as a whole. Not only did he make, as body, is good against the vapours and impotence,
Adrian Forty says, ‘modern methods of manufacture and that the pain is little’. ‘I have almost
fashionable’ - proving that technology and the determined’, he added spinelessly, ‘to go in myself.’)
antique arts were perfectly compatible; he was also The invention of the shower-bath had to wait until
the First potter to be elected a Fellow of the Royal the nineteenth century; however, by 1780 movable
Society. wooden or even ceramic bath-tubs, filled with jugs
For those of Wedgwood’s time who of water, had at least begun to replace the plunge-
preferred wine to tea, coffee or chocolate, a highly bath in more sophisticated homes. In Humphry
fashionable alternative to the humble ceramic cup Clinker of 1771, Smollett’s middle-class lawyer Mr
or the ostentatious silver goblet was becoming Micklewhimmen relates how ‘he always stayed
widely available. By the 1750s drinking-glasses an hour in the bath, which was a tub filled with
provided with an air-twist stem (often embellished Harrigate water, heated for the purpose’.
with one or two ‘knops’ or swellings) were
becoming increasingly common in fashionable An unusual Wedgwood
teapot. Its form and
homes. This delightful, delicate type of composition decoration could easily be
was achieved by drawing out tears of glass while credited to the 1920s rather
they were still hot, and twisting them to produce an
exceptionally attractive pattern of filaments just
below the surface of the glass. This ‘air twist’ stem
could be made yet more complex by interlacing two
twists, or by using white or coloured glass to
produce what was then called a ‘cotton twist’ stem.
The glasses which resulted from these fascinating
processes - all the rage by 1770, although old hat by
1790 - were breathtakingly delicate yet sturdily-
proportioned.
While the Georgians were particularly
enthusiastic about drinking and eating, they were,
however, far less keen on washing. Baths were
taken infrequently - but then the majority of baths
were still of the cold-plunge variety, which were

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Services 149

Below right: a jasperware Above: a group of

teapot from the Wedgwood Staffordshire, Yorkshire and
factory ofc.17 75. Derbyshire creamware with
Jasperware is not always delicate enamel decoration,
conceived as white dated 1770-80.
decoration on a blue
ground. This is a rare
example of green-on-white.

Left: a white salt-glazed

pierced dish of1760-70, with
contemporary red stoneware
coffee pot and punch pot
with sprigged decoration.
»W——-
 Services 151

The development of the modern water closet features as the invaluable and spacious slate-
was largely a Regency innovation - although Joseph shelved larder so often found in Georgian and
Bramah’s ball-cock WC (a superior version of Victorian homes. Instead of taking down internal
Alexander Cummings’s invention of 1775) was divisions, it may be preferable to introduce
patented in 1778, and had already proved very freestanding equipment into the kitchen, rather than
successful by the mid-1780s. The Britons of the mid¬ altering the room beyond recognition in order to
eighteenth century were not too fastidious in their accommodate fitted kitchen units.
personal hygiene: generations of French and Modern, freestanding lights are also often
American visitors testified to this unpleasant fact. the best idea for illuminating a mid eighteenth-
But at least they were improving. century room if you cannot obtain or afford - or
The relatively simple technological simply do not want - to buy reproductions of
requirements of the Georgian kitchen and bathroom Georgian lighting equipment. These can be removed
are obviously not compatible with today’s demands, when you wish, and do not effect any lasting visual
to say nothing of health, fire and safety standards. or structural damage to the walls. When choosing
The search for ‘authenticity’ in the context of light fittings for any old and characterful room, the
servicing is bound to involve a large element of most important factors to bear in mind are simplicity
compromise. So if you are modernizing a traditional and sympathy. Bright, over-shiny brass designs of an
kitchen or bathroom, the best policy is always to try alleged ‘Victorian’ or ‘Edwardian’ origin are liable to
and ensure that most of the changes you make are to clash hideously with the quiet restraint of the
a large extent reversible. While you may not wish to original Georgian features which remain. Although
retain many features of the last two centuries which it is now possible to find historicaffy accurate
have helped to create your home’s history and reproduction fittings that blend harmoniously with
character, later owners may wish to celebrate these historic interiors, if you are in any doubt,
elements, and will be able to indulge their understated modern examples are often the best
enthusiasms only if sufficient original fabric or choice. Simplicity, restraint and elegance should be
fittings are left. It is, for example, especially your guiding principles - as they were in Adam’s
important not to demolish internal partitions in an own day.
effort to ‘streamline’ the kitchen interior. These
partitions can be very useful, separating the sink A group of Staffordshire and
area or creating a cool, walk-in larder or pantry. Yorkshire creamware with
underglazed oxide colours,
Subsequent owners of the house may not thank you typical of the 1750s to 80s.
for demolishing all traces of such sought-after
Chapter Five Colours and Coverings

‘She has shewn me all her secrets, and

learned me to wash gaze, and refrash rusty
silks and bumbeseens, by boiling them with
winegar, chamberlyne and stale beer’
(Tobias Smollett Humphry
Clinker, 1771)

Right: Adam design for a

curtain cornice. Opposite:
Francis Wheatley’s family-
scene of c.17 70 shows fine,
damask-upholstered seat
furniture (with prominent
nailing) and a splendid
oriental carpet.
154 Adam Style

Above right: the famous

Reinagle picture o/Mrs
Congreve and her
daughters of1782 says
much about the typical
interior of the period. Note
the dark skirting, the Bath
hob grate, the Axminster
carpet, the vertically hung
curtains, and the formal,
symmetrical hang of the
paintings. Below right:
Hussey’s painting of an
interior of twenty Jive years
earlier shows a stunning,
blue-grey architectural
wallpaper design, of the type
common at this time.

\
 Colours and Coverings 155

During the forty years, prior to our period, which hammer’, as the standard eighteenth-century guide
followed the Palladian revolution in taste, designers to paintmaking described it. The pigment - obtained
began to move away from the dark timber colours at the cost of countless instances of lead poisoning in
which had so characterized the seventeenth the workforce - was then mixed with linseed oil to
century, towards lighter and brighter tones. White make the final paint. To this was often added a small
became of central importance, either left plain, or quantity of turpentine, in order to give a flat, ‘dead’
relieved with gilding. This was not the brilliant, matt finish that would look more like real stone.
bleached white which we know today, but a colour Matt wall finishes were all the fashion in Britain by
which could be as pale as the slightly off-whites 1750; in America, however, gloss finishes were
known as ‘broken whites’ - so-called because the applied to interiors throughout the eighteenth
white lead was ‘broken’ with tiny amounts of black century.
or ochre - or as deep as the creamy ‘stone colours’. Apart from white, a variety of other cheap,
Even the whitest Georgian white lead would soon ‘common’ colours were widely available. These
turn yellow, as a result of the aging of the linseed oil included not only the various ‘stone colours’ (which
used to bind the pigment. The bright whites that we could be mixed to resemble any type of stone, from
use today are very much a modern innovation, and white Portland to golden Cotswold), but also grey
should never be used on the exteriors or interiors of (often called ‘lead colour’), drab, olive, the
Georgian buildings. traditional timber colours such as ‘oak colour’ (or
Plaster walls and ceilings in the eighteenth simply ‘wainscot’) and ‘walnut’, and chocolate - the
century were painted with cheap white distempers, usual colour for skirtings and internal doors. To
made from whiting or chalk and bound with glue. these ‘common’ colours could be added colours
But the white paint applied to internal woodwork which were a little more expensive to make, but
was an oil paint: white lead. This was far more hard- which were still within the reach of most middle-
wearing than distemper, which, being soluble in class households. Pea green (very commonly used
water, was not washable and tended to brush off by 1760), sky blue, ‘dutch pink’, lemon and ‘straw7
with friction. (Until the twentieth century, colour’ all fall within this category. Such paints
incidentally, the term ‘paint’ was applied solely to could in turn be supplemented by yet more costly oil
oil-based colours: ‘distemper’ was another animal colours, whose prices varied in accordance with the
altogether.) Making white lead, which served not difficulty and expense of obtaining the basic
only as a colour in its own right but as the basis for pigments. Robert Dossie’s Handmaid to the Arts of
numerous other oil paints, was a dangerous and 1758 listed the colours then available; among these
messy business. To obtain the highly toxic pigment, were some of the colours most commonly associated
vast lead sheets would be steeped in vinegar, with with the Georgian era, including verdigris, the ‘deep
the result that ‘the corrosive fumes of the vinegar fine green’ derived from corroding copper. Within
will reduce the superficies of the lead into a white the range of vivid and expensive blues were
calx which ... separate by knocking upon it with a ultramarine, the ‘extremely bright blue colour’
156 Adam Style

from natural plant pigments such as madder, or

from red-brown earth pigments. Yellows, too, were
often obtained from earth ochres. Some yellows,
though, could be surprisingly vivid. The highly toxic
‘King’s yellow’, frighteningly depicted by Dossie as
‘arsenic coloured with sulphur’, nevertheless
produced ‘an extreme bright colour’ when made up.
Even less enticing than the directions for King’s
yellow was Dossie’s recipe for ‘deep warm yellow’:
gall stones dissolved in water.
Roth the common colours and the more
expensive paints described above remained in
general use throughout the century. The rediscovery
which Robert Dossie noted was made from crushed of the ancient world, however, brought with it a new
and heated lapis lazuli, and smalt, the glittering and vibrant palette of colours discovered amid the
finish made of powdered blue glass. Smalt’s ruins of Rome and Greece: lilacs, bright blues
composition would not, Dossie remarked, ‘permit it and greens, bright pinks, blacks and, most
to be worked with either brush or pencil; but it is characteristically, terracotta red-browns, often used
used for some purposes by strewing it on any in combination with black to create an ‘Etruscan’
ground of oil-paint while wet; where it makes a colour scheme. The designers and decorators of
bright warm blue shining surface.’ For those who Adam’s day did not, it must be strongly emphasized,
could not afford ultramarine or smalt, the invention rely on the washed-out pastel hues so often
of Prussian blue proved a blessing. This very strong associated with ‘Adam Style’ today; instead they took
pigment was derived from animal blood (or, in full advantage of the rich and vivid tones now given
Dossie’s words, ‘the fixt sulphur of animal or academic sanction and, moreover, increasingly
vegetable coal’) burnt with alum. One blue never available to the general public through the
used for walls, however, was the tone now development of pigment technology.
commonly termed ‘Wedgwood blue’, after the Not everyone immediately took up the new
Wedgwood jasperware it adorns. The colours used Neo-Classical colours. Traditional Palladians, more
in the production of ceramics were, it must be used to the blander colour schemes of previous
emphasized, wholly different in composition and decades, adhered to the tried and trusted old
thus in appearance from those used to decorate common colours. In 1771 the conservative William
interiors. Painting walls to match the tea service was Chambers wrote to a client about the painting of a
not a practice indulged in by the Georgians. house in London’s Berners Street, stating that ‘My
Reds were, until the invention of chemical intention is to finish the whole in fine stone colour
dyes in the nineteenth century, largely obtained as usual excepting the Eating Parlour which I
 Colours and Coverings 157

Above: Adam was not afraid Opposite: an Adam design the walls are decorated in
to use colour on his walls, as for the astonishing Etruscan the manner of a print room,
seen in this intricate design Room at Osterley Park. and the design is punctuated
for the mirror room at Etruscan decoration, by tablets of nymphs and
Northumberland House, originating from Central sporting children and by
London. Note the Italy, was vigorously groups of maidens dancing
predominance of strong promoted during the 1760s around tripods. Most of the
pinks and greens - colours by the Adams and others as decoration was executed in
that Adam loved to use. the true begetter of all the black and terracotta
antique design. At Osterley tones of Etruscan pottery.
158 Adam Style

townhouse and rural cottage: firstly, the application

of delicate white decoration - often in relief - onto a
richly-coloured wall, an effect exploited with
considerable commercial success by Josiah
Wedgwood in his jasperware; and secondly, the
abandonment of much of the heavy gilding which
had been such a notable feature of the formal
Palladian interior of the 1720s, 50s and 40s.
The rich ceilings of Robert Adam’s own
interiors were complemented by specially-woven
carpets, specifically designed to match or mimic the
surrounding ornament. And this fashion spread
elsewhere. In 1778, for example, the firm of
Chippendale and Haig confirmed to Sir Edward
Knatchbull that he would be receiving ‘a design for
an Axminster Carpet to correspond with your
Ceiling’.
propose to finish pea green with white mouldings.’ Overall, the carpet was more spectacularly
The previous year he had recommended that stone and comprehensively transformed during this period
colour always be used for ‘Parlours if they are for than any other decorative item. At the beginning of
common use’; alternatively, he permitted combina¬ the eighteenth century carpets were still rare items,
tions of pea green, buff or ‘Paris gray’ with white. gracing only the homes of the very rich. Recause of
Such humdrum colour schemes contrasted their expense, they were more usually used to cover
sharply with the bright, Neo-Classical hues now tables than floors. With the expansion of Britain’s
being introduced into domestic interiors by Adam trading empire after the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713,
and his followers. Nowhere were these colours more however, this situation improved markedly: luxury
vivid and more daring than in the ceilings of Robert carpets became not only more widely available, but
Adam’s own great houses. Rich lilacs, pinks and increasingly less expensive.
greens vied for attention with grisaille panels, The first large-scale British carpet factory
plaster cameos or medallions painted with classical had been erected in 1735 in Kidderminster,
scenes by Kauffmann or Zucchi. These flights of Worcestershire; here both pile and flat carpets were
decorative fancy, it is true, could only be afforded by made. By the mid-1750s factories making Turkish-
the very richest patrons. In practice, most ceilings of style knotted carpets were established by Thomas
the Adam period were painted white. Yet two Moore at Moorfields in London, at Exeter (a brief
important decorative lessons learned from Adam’s venture which soon folded) and, in 1755, by Thomas
ceilings did permeate down to even the most basic Whitty at Axminster in Dorset. Between them these

A
Colours and Coverings 159

Opposite: an Adam ceiling This cross-section of a town

design for a music room mansion by John Yenn
from Works in Architecture, neatly demonstrates how
with characteristically individual rooms of the
vibrant greens and lilacs. period were treated. Here
the difference between the
decorative treatment
afforded the principal
entertainment floors
(ground and first) and that
applied to the more
utilitarian second and attic
floors is most marked. The
masonry colours ’ colour
coding refers to the different
materials used: pink for
brick, and yellow for timber.
160 Adam Style

more affordable were the woven carpets of Wilton

and Kidderminster. In 1740 a workshop was set up
in Wilton, Wiltshire, at the instigation of the
‘.Architect Earl’, the 9th Piarl of Pembroke, to
manufacture pile carpets in the manner of the
Kidderminster factory. These carpets were woven
on looms, the worsted warp being brought to the
surface to form a looped pile (the so-called ‘Brussels’
carpet), which was often subsequently cut to give a
velvet-like texture (creating the ‘Wilton’ carpet).
Brussels and Wiltons were not only cheaper than
knotted carpets; they were also more versatile.
Initially woven in strips up to three feet wide, they
were usually provided with small, frequently-
recurring patterns which allowed them to be cut to
cover all manner of room dimensions.
By the 1760s British-made fitted carpets
were more than popular. As early as 1753 William
three factories produced nearly all the knotted Parratt, complaining that his wife had ‘so disguised
carpets for Britain and the colonies. (The principal and altered’ their house ‘that I hardly knew it again’,
difference between Axminster and Moorfields observed that, although wooden floors had been
carpets was that the latter followed the French ‘new laid, and in the most expensive manner’, every
fashion of making every tenth warp thread a room in the house had been ‘completely covered
different colour, a practice which made the with Wilton carpet’. By this time the new fashion for
translation of the original painted designs to the fitted carpets (carpet strips cut to accommodate the
squares of carpet far easier.) English knotted carpets shape of the floor) had made fancy floor parquetry
were soon renowned for the quality of their designs, or surface decoration quite redundant. Fitted pile
which relied on both Turkish and Persian influences carpets could be cut to lit any shape of room, and
as well as the newly-fashionable Neo-Classical could be easily provided with a suitable border. By
motifs. In 1763 the Universal Director commented the mid-1750s even King George II was using them,
that Moore had ‘brought his Manufactory of English and business was prospering. In 1769 Lady
Carpets to such perfection, that it far excels the Shelburne noted that there were an astounding 150
Persians’. looms in operation at the Wilton factory, and ‘to
Knotted carpets were substantially cheaper each one of these looms are only one Man & a boy.’
than their Levantine models; nevertheless, they Carpet designs were originally committed to
were still beyond the reach of most households. Far ‘point paper’ - squared paper much like modern
 Colours and Coverings 161

?■

w'

Anonymous carpet designs

in the vein of Adam’s work
of the 1760s. The use of
coloured ornament on a
white ground was
particularly popular at the
time.

Opposite: top right, Adam

paint colours in the long
gallery at Syon House,
Middlesex. A visitor to the
house of 1768 noted the
recent application of ‘a very
faint Sea Green Stucco &
also a very faint Bloom
colour, which gives an
elegance & delicacy I cannot
describe’. More recently,
architectural historian
Gervase Jackson-Stops has
judged that ‘The present
muted pinks and blue- Adams ’ 20 St James’s
greens, although dirty, give Square, and a detail
a wonderfully soft tone that (bottom right) of a ceiling at
may not be so far away Somerset House designed by
from the original’. Top left William Chambers.
162 Adam Style

Right: the red drawing room

in Syon House, with a detail
of its carpet (above)
showing the prominent use
of the Greek key pattern.

Opposite: anAxminster
hand-knotted carpet of
c.1780, based on an Adam
design.

Below right: an Adam

design for the carpet in the
gallery at Syon House.

-V
 Colours and Coverings 163

graph paper. They were then transferred to to a quite different product: the flat, reversible and
equivalent carpet squares. The looms of the mid- hard-wearing ‘ingrain’ carpet. Made by intersecting
eighteenth century produced carpet strips that were two webs of cloth - using the same basic principle as
27 or 36 inches wide, and almost any length. In that used in the weaving of damask cloth - the back
1758 Benjamin Franklin sent carpet strips (with of the ingrain had exactly the same pattern as the
‘Bordering for the same’) from England to his wife front, but with the colours reversed. Popularly
in Philadelphia, advising her that they were to be regarded as coarse and cheap, ingrains served very
‘sow’d together’, with ‘care taken to make the well as utilitarian coverings for hallways, servants’
Figures meet exactly’. These early designs could rooms and stairs. By 1770 ingrain manufacture was
rarely, though, employ more than five colours. based at two principal centres: at Kidderminster and
Laying fitted carpets was a complicated and at Kilmarnock in Scotland, where a factory had been
labour-intensive process which could take a long established ten years before. After 1769 the London-
time. When, for example, Thomas Chippendale’s based American merchant John Norton was
workmen were fitting carpets at Harewood House regularly sending ‘Kilmarnock carpets’ to his clients
in Yorkshire, twelve hours were spent merely in the colonies.
‘straining a Carpet for the Dressing Boom’. And once Less prestigious even than the useful ingrain
installed, their maintenance was by no means carpet were the painted floorcloth and the woven
trouble-free. Hannah Glasse’s Servant’s Directory of
1760 recommended that, to clean carpets properly,
they should be turned over for two days to allow the
dirt to fall onto the floor; damp sand should then be
strewn over the floorboards, and the resulting mess
swept away. Bather more ingenious, and less time-
consuming, was the solution proposed in Susanna
Whatman’s Housekeeping Book of 1776: wet tea
leaves were to be sprinkled over the carpet surface,
then brushed away when dry.
By 1770 needlework carpets, traditionally
embroidered by the ladies of the house, were quite
out of fashion, probably because the new fad for
repetitious Neo-Classical motifs made their working
distinctly tedious. However, other types of flat carpet
were now being professionally manufactured to take
their place. The Kidderminster factory not only
produced knotted and pile carpets; the name
‘Kidderminster’ was also (most confusingly) applied
 Colours and Coverings 165

drugget - a green or brown covering of serge, baize variety of complex and symbolic patterns being
or frieze, designed to protect expensive carpets from executed in rich distemper colours. In Britain,
excessive wear and tear. Given their susceptibility to however, it remained a technique employed only in
the ravages of time, very few Georgian druggets or rural areas - at least until 1856, when wallpaper
floorcloths (and indeed few ingrains) survive today. suddenly became more plebian, and stencilling
The floorcloth or oilcloth was the direct ancestor of correspondingly more fashionable, following the
that ubiquitous invention of the 1860s, linoleum. It abolition of the wallpaper tax. Before this, in both
was made from canvas, which was stretched tight, countries, wallpapers were still being hand-coloured
coated with glue, painted, smoothed with pumice, by 1780. Indeed as the duties imposed on printed
and then painted again, with up to twelve coats. wallpapers accumulated, hand-colouring, which
Sometimes the top surface was patterned; in the avoided any such taxation, became increasingly
1770s Nathan Smith devised a method of block- attractive, especially for poorer households. In 1778
printing finished floorcloths in a similar manner to the Paper-Stainers Company was sufficiently
wallpaper, using pearwood blocks. All types of grand alarmed by the spread of hand-colouring of wralls
floor coverings could be imitated in the design. The that they petitioned Lord North’s government to
most popular was a painted pattern which extend the wallpaper tax to wall paintings. Such a
resembled black-and-white marble or stone blocks. measure wras, however, clearly unenforceable, and
The marbled floorcloth created for the chapel of was never enacted.
1768-72 at Audley End in Essex (and recently re¬ In the most fashionable urban homes of
created by English Heritage) was, according to the Britain and America, printed wallpapers had by 1760
bill of 28 November 1772, designed specifically to supplanted not only hand-painted decoration but
look like ‘Portland and Bremen stone’. also fabric hangings and applied stucco wall
Floorcloths took a long time to dry and to ornamentation. And only the great houses of
harden, not surprisingly, and for obvious reasons England retained fabric wall hangings. Already in
their manufacture was usually confined to the 1725 a French visitor to England noted that
sum mer months. Thus customers would rarely ‘hangings are little used in London on account of the
order one to be specially made - the waiting time coal smoke which would ruin them’, a situation
would be too long - but instead chose one from those which w as even more true of Britahi’s towns and
already in stock. British-made floorcloths were cities fifty years later. Middle-class households were
frequently exported to America, although there the tearing down watered silk or damask wall hangings
fashion for stencilled floorboards persisted and replacing them with wallpaper - which was not
throughout the whole of the eighteenth century. only cheaper, but also more easily hung in, and
Stencilling - now undergoing an enthusiastic more appropriate for, smaller rooms.
revival - was not only commonly used on the floors The father of British wallpaper was John
of American homes, but on the walls, too. Here it Baptist Jackson. Born in 1701, he visited Paris, Rome
enjoyed the status of an important decorative art, a and Venice, w-here he studied the methods of the
A fine oriental carpet and
traditional green walls
dominate this splendidly
lively Zoffany portrait of
John Pento, Fourteenth
Baron Willoughby and
Louisa, his wife, of c. 17 70.
166 Adam Style

The title page of J. B. *N g the least Effect’. Unfortunately, these claims proved
Jackson’s ground breaking E S S AY
Essay of 1754. , " far too optimistic: oil colours were always
Invention of Engraving and Printing
unreliable, and never caught on.
C H I A R O OSCURO,
By the time of Jackson’s death in 1777 most
By Albert Dure A* Hugo cl Carpi, Ike ,
D,
The Application of itto Uie Miking Jam* HASOJNcsef Tifte,
papers were being printed in distemper colours, a
By Mr. JACKSON, of Bximfia. technique long thought to have been borrowed from
lUtifeated *i«& Prints m purser .OU*.

France in the 1760s, but which the great French

wallpaper manufacturer Papillon declared in 1766

I.
qp “'i
0 JV o. «' JW
had been invented by the English. In 1753 Edward
Prfwrf fcr A- M«»»,> *= W( Dighton had devised a rolling mill to print engraved
2^‘aiioCtW™*
(Price Txo Shillings ind Sfcip»«.)
black-and-white papers; these copperplate papers
8 H were, however, still hand-coloured. In 1764 Thomas
Italian chiaroscuro engravers and produced Fryer, Thomas Greenhough and John Newberry
woodblock engravings of Old Masters. Returning to patented the first cylinder-printing machine, which
England in 1746, he adapted his new-found could print coloured fabrics as well as coloured
knowledge to the production of wallpaper, then in wallpapers. And in 1774 production of papers was
its infancy. In 1754 Jackson published the first book improved still further by the introduction by A. G.
in English to deal with wallpaper: An Essay on the Eckhardt of a device, based on woodblocks, to
Invention of Engraving and Printing in Chiaro transfer designs made on squared paper quickly and
Oscuro. This was, it is true, largely a thinly disguised easily to the wallpaper.
advertisement for the products of his own wallpaper By 1760 papers could be found printed with
factory, situated at Battersea: a wide variety of patterns. Sir William Robinson’s
‘It need not be mentioned to any Person of townhouse, fitted up in 1759 by Thomas
the least Taste, how much this Way of Finishing Chippendale, included ‘sprig stripe, cathedral
Paper exceeds every other hitherto known; ’tis true, gothic, green mock-flock, rose and sprig, and
however, that the gay glaring Colours in broad crimson embossed paper’. Many papers mimicked
Patches of red, green, yellow, blue etc. which are to stonework or stucco. Particularly popular, too, were
pass for flowers and other Objects that delight the the architectural papers which featured repeated
Eye that has no true Judgement belonging to it, are Neo-Classical niches or Gothic temples. At
not to be found in this as in Common Paper.’ Strawberry Hill in the 1750s Horace Walpole hung
Jackson’s designs were particularly well- rooms with papers imitating Gothic stonework and
drawn, and had a great influence on later papers. Delftware tiles, and even hung one paper which
Less successful was his pioneering of the use of oil attempted to mimic the walls of Prince Arthur’s
colours, rather than distemper, in the printing Chantry Chapel in Worcester Cathedral. ‘Imagine’,
process. Jackson asserted that his oil colours would Walpole asked his friend Horace Mann, ‘the walls
‘never fly off and that ‘no water or Damp can have covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper
 Colours and Coverings 167

PLMVCHE. V PbMUHf VII

w
'\ & / a;

' K
|WM

Li

Two cartoons showing the trades were carried out, Is

hanging of wallpaper from extremely rare; there is, for
Diderot and D’Alembert’s example, nothing
Encyclopaedia of 1751-7. comparable in the English
This type of documentation, language.
demonstrating exactly how
168 Adam Style

Top right: ‘Royal Crescent’

wallpaper design of 1775;
bottom right: a flowered
paper, with delicate border;
right: a modern copy of the
eighteenth-century stork
design found at Temple
Newsam, Leeds.

Opposite: Mid-Georgian
wallpapers. Top left and
bottom right: papers from
Doddington Hall,
Lincolnshire; top right, an
architectural design of
c.1770from a house in
Wallbridge, Gloucestershire.
Bottom left: an eclectic
architectural paper of 1769
from The Old Manor,
Bourton-on-the-fVater,
Gloucestershire.
Colours and Coverings 169
 170 Adam Style

Left: a fragment of Even more popular by 1760 than the

wallpaper from Norwood
House, Kent, with an
creation of the print room was the hanging of flock
architectural design, printed wallpaper, an enthusiasm not widely shared today.
from wood blocks, which is By 1755 flock papers - plain or coloured grounds
almost certainly based on
if u (i |yK|| James Gibbs’Radcliffe covered with glued patterns of powdered wool -
ton 4 ir.iiiiilvi

z’f'. *~.tI•*' at Camera in Oxford, were hung in the most important rooms of the
completed in 1748. house. Before the advent of flock, walfpaper had
often been regarded as the poor man’s wall hanging;
now flock papers were often hung in place of fabric
hangings. Superior, multicoloured flocks were
painted in perspective to represent) Gothic almost as expensive as the damask silk hangings
fretwork.’ they replaced. In 1749 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Printed architectural forms - columns, recorded that ‘I have heard the fame of paper
pediments, urns and swags - were also used to hangings and had some thoughts of sending for a
border and fill the newly popular print rooms, where suite, but was informed that they are as dear as
engraved views, arranged symmetrically on a damask, which put an end to my curiosity.’
strongly coloured ground, almost covered the wall English flock papers were exported not only
above the dado. As early as 1753 Horace Walpole to the colonies, but also (except during the period of
noted of his own home of Strawberry Hill that: the Seven Years War) to France. ‘Papiers
‘The room on the ground floor nearest to d’Angleterre’, as they were known, were soon the
you is a bedchamber, hung with yellow paper and height of fashion. No less an arbiter of taste than
prints, framed in a new manner by Lord Cardigan, Madame de Pompadour, the notorious mistress of
that is with black and white borders printed.’ On Louis XV, had English flocks hung on her waifs in
the floor above, Walpole continued, ‘Mr Chute’s the royal palace of Versailles. By 1780, however,
bedchamber’ had been ‘hung with red in the same when France was once again at war with Britain, the
manner.’ fashion for flock had waned on both sides of the
The fashion for print rooms became Channel, though not in America.
more widespread than ever following the A further refinement of the flocking process
introduction of Neo-Classicism. During the 1760s produced ‘lustre paper’, made by sprinkling powder-
Thomas Chippendale was called on to fit up large paints or powdered glass, rather than wool offcuts,
numbers of print rooms for the rich and fashionable; onto a glue pattern. Whereas only the most
yet even the most modest middle-class home could expensive flocks were printed in more than one
now indulge in this fad, and its occupants were to be colour (Thomas Bromwich of Ludgate Hill in
found cutting up popular engravings and pattern- London is known to have printed a number of
book borders to cover the walls of a small closet or double-colour flocks for Chippendale), lustre papers
chamber. could be printed using a variety of colours and

Opposite: chinoiserie paper

of the mid-eighteenth
century, one (left),from
Nostell Priory, the other
anonymous.

A
 Colours and Coverings 171

textures, and even combined with flocking. While Chinese wallpapers were imported
For those who wished for less exotic into England and America, and English papers
wallcoverings, papers could also be made with the exported to France, protective trade barriers
standard blue, green or grey grounds, and possibly ensured that fewr European papers entered Britain
printed with the popular sprig, striped or pin-ground and (at least before 1783) the colonies. In 1773 the
patterns. At Temple Newsam House in 1766 ‘Green official ban on foreign ‘painted’ papers, originally
Verditure Paper’, ‘Fine Pea Green Paper’ and ‘Green imposed during the reign of Richard III three
Mock Flock paper’ were used to redecorate the centuries before and still in force (although the
rooms. The ubiquitous use of greens, greys and government had long exempted the East India
blues prompted derision from the French Company’s Chinese trade), was finally repealed.
decorators, who were used to more gaudy patterns. However, a customs duty of eleven shillings and
They were not always popular at home, either: Lady twopence (raised to thirteen shillings and fourpence
Mary Coke complained of the new paper at the in 1777, to help pay for the American War) was
White Lodge in Richmond Park that the ‘dark blue immediately applied to all foreign papers, again
ground makes the room look dismal.’ excepting those imported by the East India
Although householders with quite modest Company. The duty stamp recording the payment of
means could now take their pick of the cheaper this tax can help to date foreign papers; from 1778
printed papers, those who could afford an each sheet of imported wallpaper was stamped
ostentatious display of wealth demanded exquisite, twice, once at either end, and from 1786 a ‘Dirty
hand-painted Chinese papers. These wallpapers, Charged Remnant’ stamp was added. America relied
imported in large quantities from China after c.1750 solely on imported English and Chinese papers until
by the East India Company, were (confusingly) often 1765, when John Rugar established a wallpaper
called ‘India Papers’ after their importer. Chinese factory in New York. By 1790 there were wallpaper
designs were non-repeating, and generally featured factories all along the east coast, while French
some exotic combination of birds, fishes, flowers or
landscape. All of these elements wrere delicately
arranged with little regard for western conventions
of perspective; in 1753 William Parratt noted that
‘what adds to the curiosity’ of his newly-fitted
Chinese paper ‘is that the fishes are seen flying in
the air, or perhaps perching upon trees.’ Chinese
papers were so highly prized that, like the tapestry
hangings popular in great houses earlier in the
century (or indeed like Turkish or Persian carpets
today), they wrere often bought by house-owners
rather than supplied by professional decorators.
172 Adam Style

Spectacular designs for

curtain cornices. Above
right: design from the
Adams’ Works of 1773-8;
centre: designs for Osterley;
below: design for a Venetian
window cornice from
Chippendale’s Director.

*
 Colours and Coverings 173

products - many of them scenic papers of the type of the material, over boxwood pulleys hidden behind
unique to France - had supplanted many of the a pelmet or board, and down - via lead plumbets to
British-made papers in the years following the help them hang properly - to be fastened near the
Declaration of Independence. dado rail.
As the use of wallpapers increased The basic principle of the festoon
dramatically during this period, so did the provision curtain was to let the maximum amount of light into
of elaborate curtain displays. Simple, straight- the room by gathering the curtain material into the
hanging curtains, little more than pieces of material awkward space between the window architrave and
tacked above the window-frame, were still in below the room’s cornice. Unfortunately, this simple
widespread use. More sophisticated versions of this idea is one that is often forgotten by professional and
type had valances hiding the tacked tops, and tie- amateur decorators today. Festoons are made not
backs to gather the curtain in during the daytime. As only of heavy, bulky materials, but are also allowed
the eighteenth century progressed, however, to obscure most of the window7, even when raised. At
households sought increasingly ostentatious ways of times the entire top half of a two-frame sash window
decorating their window frames and excluding the can remain unseen behind the folds of plush, frilled
light. Accordingly, curtains that drew up horizontally fabric. Such arrangements - variously described as
- in one piece (what we now call a ‘festoon’ curtain) ‘Austrian blinds’, ‘ruched blinds’ or, more
or in two (now often termed ‘drapery curtains’) - appropriately, ‘tart’s knickers’ - wmild have horrified
swiftly became popular, with their ruched swags and the designers of Adam’s day.
bunches impressing the visitor far more than a flat An alternative to the festoon was its near
piece of cloth. relation, the two-part drapery curtain. This operated
By 1760 festoon curtains, like flock on roughly the same principle as the festoon, the
wallpapers, represented the height of taste both in two pieces of material being drawn up vertically
Britain and America. In 1765 Benjamin Franklin towards the outer corners of the window, resulting
declared that ‘The Fashion is to make one Curtain in heavy swags at both sides. To neaten the effect,
only for each window,’ indicating that the festoon raised drapery curtains were often fastened at dado
had eclipsed both the two-part pull-up version and level by large metal cloak pins, which served to
draw curtains in popularity. Although festoons prevent the material dangling down towards the
probably originated in France, and were accordingly floor in an unsightly fashion, while the ends of the
termed ‘French curtains’ by some, across the operating cords generally culminated in decorative
Channel they were, confusingly, known as ‘rideaux tassels. Textile historian and curtain authority
d Vitalienne?. Since festoons were devised to be Annabel Westman has found few references to this
drawn up vertically in swags, they were accordingly type of curtain before the 1750s; but in 1758, she
made of light fabrics which could be raised with notes, Vile and Cobb were fitting up Croome Court
little effort. The lines which pulled the curtains ran in Worcestershire with a ‘Green Lutestrong festoone
through two vertical rows of brass rings on the back curtain, Slitt up the middle, Lin’d & fring’d
174 Adam Style

Complete’, and by 1767 leading cabinet-makers blinds, often known as ‘spring curtains’ and nearly
Thomas Chippendale and John Linnell were both always painted green, were widely available.
referring to this type of two-part form as ‘drapery Thomas Chippendale, for example, supplied houses
window curtains’. Johan Zoffany’s portrait of Sir with roller blinds: in 1776 his men worked ten days
Lawrence Dundas, executed in the 1770s, shows a repairing the blinds’ tin barrels in just one house.
pair of drapery curtains of blue damask. Few, however, survive today.
Even in mid-Georgian Britain, however, Venetian blinds, made from painted deal
fashions came and went with alarming frequency. laths held by cloth tapes, had reached Britain and
By 1780 enthusiasm for both the festoon and the America by 1760. The name may not have originated
drapery curtain was fading fast. The latest vogue from any Venetian provenance, but from the
was now for ‘French draw’ or ‘French rod’ window blind’s early use to mask the Venetian window, a
draperies. In this arrangement a pair of curtains characteristic three-light opening very popular with
drew not vertically but horizontally, the two pieces the Palladian designers of the first half of the
of material being attached to a rod above the century. Annabel Westman notes that in 1762 Vile
window architrave (which could itself be hidden by and Cobb invoiced Lord Coventry ‘For one Italian
a pelmet) by wooden or brass rings. This easily- Blind with a Circular Head to Do for the Venetian
operated arrangement is still, of course, very much Window in your Study, with Silk lines, and Tapes,
in use today. and a Man’s Time fixing’. An advertisement of c.1766
Behind the heavy, outer curtains many bravely extolled the virtues of the Venetian blind,
households installed a muslin ‘sub-curtain’. Its declaring that it ‘draws up as a Curtain, obstructs
primary function was to keep direct light out of the the troublesome Bays of the Sun in hot weather, and
room during the daytime, and thus to help protect greatly preserves the Furniture, prevents being
valuable furniture, fabrics and paintings from overlooked, & may be taken down or put up in a
fading. Originally only imported from India, muslins Minute.’ Yet its reliability was often disappointing:
were spun in Britain after 1779, following the while roller blinds were notoriously fragile, these
invention of the spinning mule. They were made early Venetian blinds proved to be equally faulty,
from very finely spun cotton, and could be of a the laths easily becoming dislodged from the tape
variety of consistencies, from cambric to dimity; that held them.
today, however, the term ‘muslin’ is reserved for In addition to spring and Venetian blinds,
what the Georgians would recognize as a plain, designed to protect the house’s furnishings, were
gauze-like white cambric. blinds or screens which covered only half or part of
Blinds - more controllable than shutters, the window area, and which were specifically
more effective than muslin - were also employed to intended to avert the gaze of passers-by rather than
keep the light out. The first patent for a painted to filter out the sun’s harmful rays. Such ‘snob
cloth blind had been granted long before, in 1692. screens’, as they were often called, were fixed at the
Already by 1700 spring-loaded canvas or cloth bottom of the window, and were, it seems, also

*
 Colours and Coverings 175

painted a green colour. When used in combination

with shutters, curtains and sub-curtains, such
devices easily succeeded in preventing the prying
eyes of the curious or envious from glimpsing the
interiors of the fashionable. In 1777 one example
was famously put to this use by Joseph Surface, in
Sheridan’s popular play School for Scandal:
‘Stay, stay; draw that screen before the
window - that will do. My opposite neighbour is a
maiden lady of so curious a temper.’
As already noted, curtain materials in the
Age of Adam tended to be light, to allow for easy
operation. Tabby curtains were especially popular.
Tabby was a striped silk, with alternate satin and
watered stripes, which was often dyed gold.
Alternatively, the new chintz cottons or more
traditional moreens could be used. Most of these
fabrics were lined either with a simple light cotton
or with tammy, a light but strong worsted material
which, like chintz, could be glazed to make it more
resilient and lustrous.
Curtain materials were not the only ones to
metamorphose during this period. The whole family
of furnishing fabrics was being revolutionized as a
direct result of Britain’s rapid industrial advance. It
was in 1770 that Hargreaves’s spinning jenny,
allowing eight spindles to be wound at the same
time, was patented: nine years later Samuel
Crompton’s ‘mule’ (named after the principal power
source of the early eighteenth century) combined
Hargreaves’s invention with Arkwright’s rollers in
one machine. And after 1781 James Watt’s steam
engines began to be harnessed to both the mule and
the spinning jenny, facilitating faster and less
labour-intensive production.
The saving of manual labour inevitably

Modern handwoven silk

damasks based on mid¬
eighteenth century designs
create an excellent contrast
between the exuberant
Rococo of ‘Romney’ (below),
and the more ordered and
dense Neo-Classical motifs of
‘Mayville’ (above).
176 Adam Style

caused great social unrest in those areas which British from Indian cloth, the former was now made
suffered immediate unemployment. The home of with three blue lines running through the warp, a
John Kay, the inventor of the flying shuttle, was device which makes detection and dating a great
wrecked by a mob, while James Hargreaves deal easier for today’s textile scholars.
encountered such hatred in his native Lancashire The immediate result of the 1774 act was
that he felt forced to move to Nottingham. Yet the that British cottons were in widespread use by 1785
industrial progress which prompted such bitter ill- as curtains, bed-hangings, seat upholstery and loose
feeling did effect lasting changes in the home. As covers. In 1778 Chippendale’s firm, furnishing Sir
textile historian Mary Schoeser has commented, Edward Knatchbull’s house in Kent, asked the
‘The industrialization of textile manufacture about owner if he was prepared to use a new cotton fabric:
this time precipitated a substantial change in the ‘The chairs can only at present be finished
furnishing of interiors.’ New, lighter cottons and in Linnen [but] We should be glad to know what
linens could be manufactured faster and more kind of Covers you would please to have for them.
cheaply, than ever before. Printed patterns were Serge is most commonly used but as the room is
now within the reach of everybody, not just the hung with India paper, perhaps you might Chuse
privileged few. Even previously expensive fabrics some sort of Cotton - Suppose a green Stripe Cotton
such as silks were no longer the preserve of the rich. which at this time is fashionable.’
In every type of house traditional fabrics such as Chintzes were especially popular. Their
velvet - a notoriously heavy dust-collector - were colourful large-scale flowered patterns, often
replaced by materials that were both lighter in derived from Chinese silks, could withstand
weight and easily washable, the latter being an repeated washings without fading. Home-made
important consideration in the dirty, newly- calicoes, too, with their small-scale patterns, were
industrialized cities of Britain and America. equally bright and resilient. By 1740 English
The greatest revolution came in the use of textile manufacturers had begun to print good
cotton cloths. Since 1722 no-one had been permitted multicoloured chintz and calico designs to rival
to wear printed or dyed calico cotton, or to use it for those being imported from India. Much of this
covering furniture, since its importation from India production was based in central Lancashire, an area
threatened to undermine the native British industry, soon to become wholly dependent on cotton goods.
which in turn relied increasingly heavily on exports A French visitor of 1750 remarked of English
to the American colonies. (This is not to say that cottons that:
Asian cottons were never used: the bed that ‘This type of fabric is made in the
Chippendale made for Garrick’s Thames-side villa, Manchester district, especially at a small town called
for example, was furnished with illegally-imported Blackburn. The output is so large that scarcely a
Indian chintz.) In 1774, however, this restriction was week goes by without a thousand rolls [bolts 30
removed for British cotton calicoes, although the yards long] being sold and sent to London
ban on Indian imports persisted. In order to tell unbleached.’

A
Colours and Coverings 177

Rare mid- and late

eighteenth-century fabric
designs, striking in the
elaborate use of naturalistic
motifs. Top right is a plate-
printed cotton with a design
based on a Gainsborough
painting ofl 783. Below it is
a copperplate fabric
designed in 1766 by William
Chambers, and featuring his
famous Kew Gardens
Pagoda of the previous
decade.
178 Adam Style

A somewhat comically however, made to establish a native textile industry

patriotic plate-printed
before the end of the war. Clearly the most
cotton dating from 1785
and entitled: Apotheosis determined of these pioneers was the textile printer
of Benjamin Franklin and John Hewson, who, as Florence Montgomery
George Washington.
relates, packed up his Philadelphia factory in 1777 in
the face of the advancing British, was captured, and,
escaping in 1779, set up a new calico printing works
despite the fact that ‘the savage foe of Britain’ had
‘made such a destruction of their works and
The Frenchman relished the irony of materials.’
English chintzes being subsequently and successfully One of the most striking and most famous of
sold in France as Indian chintz, ‘because of the the new printed cottons of Adam’s day - and one
special finish they are given and also because the which is still extremely popular today - was the
purchasers of this type of English goods have but single-colour printed fabric known as ‘Toiles de
slight knowledge of them’. Jouy’. Copperplate printing of fabrics was first
By 1778 block-printed cottons were attempted in 1752 in Drumcondra, Ireland. An
prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. In many advertisement of 3rd October 1752 in Faulkner’s
houses they were substituted for traditional silk or Journal featured ‘Drumcondra printed linens, done
worsted damasks as upholstery for seat furniture. In from metal plates (a method never before practised)
1759 George Washington showed he was very much with all the advantages of light and shade, in the
in tune with contemporary furnishing fashions by strongest and most lasting form’; two months later
ordering from London ‘a Tester Bedstead’, from the Irish diarist Mrs Delaney went to see the new
whose cornice was hung ‘Chintz Blew Plate Cotton cottons and thought them ‘excessively pretty.’
furniture’ designed to match the wallpaper sample Drumcondra closed in 1757, but by then
he had sent with the order. copperplate printing had been firmly established in
At the time Washington made this order, and Britain. By 1760 factories had been started south of
for the next twenty years, America remained entirely London at Merton, and in east London at Bromley
reliant on Britain for sophisticated textiles, as it was (by Talwin and Foster) and Old Ford (by Robert
to be for nearly every element which went to furnish Jones). In response to this, the French lifted their
the fashionable house. This dependency only began ban on the metal-plate printing of textiles, originally
to be broken after the conclusion of the War of imposed in 1686. Copperplate textiles - ‘toiles’ -
Independence in 1783; even then, the American were soon being printed all over France, but it was
writer Tench Coxe noted in 1794, ‘we manufactured the factory established in 1760 at Jouy en Josas,
less at that time than any other nation in the world,’ outside Paris, which became most famous. It is after
and necessarily remained ‘the first customer for this factory (run not by a Frenchman but by a Swiss,
British manufactures’. Some attempts were, Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf) that all single-
Colours and Coverings 179

Left: Two designs bylnce & attributed to Benjamin

Mayhew dating from, 1762, Randolph of Philadelphia,
showing the elaborate use of and probably dates from
drapery on a field bed (far 1760-75.
left) and a sofa bed.
Above left: a Massachussetts
Above: the Blackwell- bed covered with
Stamper Room at the copperplate fabric, printed
Winterthur Museum. The by Francis Nixon, featuring
window curtains and a design of arborescent
slipcover, of 1770-80, are stems with melon and
plate-printed in black. The flowers.
mahogany side chair is
180 Adam Style

colour printed cottons of the type, whether English, 1758 Benjamin Franklin, then resident in London,
American or French, have since been named. told his wife that he had bought ‘56 yards of cotton
Before the 1750s textile printing was done printed curiously from copper plate, a new
with pearwood or sycamore blocks, in the same invention, to make bed and window curtains’ and
manner as wallpapers were printed. Dots at the also 7 yards of the same pattern for ‘chair bottoms’.
comers of each block pattern served as registration ‘These were my fancy’, he explained, ‘but Mrs
marks for placing the next block by hand. The new Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of the
copper plates were far larger than these wood same colour’. A year later George Washington’s
blocks, being generally about a yard square. The copperplate bed-hangings were, in contrast,
toiles they printed were only of one colour; it was expressly designed to match the colour and pattern
not until the later 1780s that two- or three-colour of the wallpaper, the festoon curtains and the bed
printing became possible. The colour chosen was coverlet, in order to make the bedroom ‘uniformly
usually red (obtained from the dye produced by the handsome and genteel’. By 1765 Franklin had
madder plant), but could be black, blue, purple or learned his lesson and was ordering, through his
even yellow. In 1765 Richard Baucher of New York son, ‘three curtains of Yellow Silk and Worsted
advertised ‘red, blue and purple copperplate Damask’ to match chairs covered in yellow damask.
furniture, calicoes and chintz’, recently imported By the mid-1770s co-ordinated interiors could be
from London. The patterns printed in these colours seen in many of the fashionable urban centres of
were naturalistic scenes, often landscapes, much in Britain and America. In 1774, when Lloyd Kenyon
the vein of hand-painted Chinese wallpapers. And moved into his modest London townhouse in
following the introduction of printing by copper Lincoln’s Inn Fields, his wife described the planned
rollers by Thomas Bell in 1783, the way was open to interiors in great detail to her mother. And all was
yet more sophisticated scenes and, ultimately, to matching: the dining room was to be hung with
multicolour printing, a technique still much in ‘blue, small-patterned flock’, the back room with
vogue today. blue flock paper and ‘blue moreen curtains’, and the
Cottons were not the only fabrics to be white-painted bedroom was to be dominated by a
liberated by the industrial revolution. As expensive ‘blue moreen bed’. In the same year Mrs Delaney
tapestry and needlework hangings and coverings visited the grand mansion of Luton Hoo in
became less popular, strong and durable linens Bedfordshire, and observed that all the rooms were
were far more widely used than they had been in ‘hung with plain paper, suited to the colour of the
previous decades - for upholstery, curtains, sheets, beds’, while at the same time Thomas Chippendale
tablecloths and especially for loose covers. was providing for Paxton House ‘16 pieces of fine
By 1785 furnishing fabrics such as linens, Chintz paper for the Bedchamber and Closet, the
cottons and silks were increasingly being coord¬ pattern made on purpose to match the Cotton’. The
inated with the rest of the room, a novel doctrine modern age of harmonious interior decoration had
which took some time to gain wide acceptance. In truly begun.

A bold English design for

woven silk, with sprays of
flowers and leaves, dating
from 1765-75.

A
 4

v*\'o
V v*V ** *
,1J, >>*'f *'*
;*^>v .-W" 'i: mm {■:" :. % ^fJ ' :B*3|
Ijp .. • *; *•*{ - " * ' . ■HlI .*v ; im
 Chapter Six Furniture

\ .. quick, quick - fling Peregrine Pickle

under the toilet - throw Roderick Random
into the closet - put The Innocent Adultery
into The Whole Duty of Man - thrust Lord
Aimworth under the sofa - cram Ovid
behind the bolster ... and leave Fordyce’s
(FI. B. Sheridan,
Sermons open upon the table’ The Rivals, 1775)

Opposite: an array of Adam

Style furniture, including
shield-back chair, from a
drawing room in Baltimore,
Maryland. Right: a ‘Design
for a China Case’ from
Chippendale’s Director.
184 Adam Style

By the mid-eighteenth century English and Chippendale was still producing chairs with ‘Gothic
American furniture could be found in a bewildering window’ splats at the centre of their backs. As with
array of exotic styles. Gone were the heavy swags the fashion for Chinese, though, the academic
and high-relief carving of the Palladians; in their origins of ‘Gothic’ pieces were often spurious.
stead flowered Rococo and Chinese, Gothick and Rightly did Matthew Bramble in Smollett’s
Classical. Humphry Clinker (published in 1771) exclaim that
The indiscipline of the French-derived contemporary designers ‘who have adopted this
Rococo ultimately failed to win the hearts of the stile, don’t seem to have considered the propriety of
serious British - a race which historically had always their adoption’. Such strictures had not, however,
eschewed decorative exuberance in favour of linear deterred patrons such as the tireless Florace Walpole
and more obviously architectural forms. As from filling their small-scale domestic interiors with
Christopher Gilbert has noted, in Britain (and in the fittings derived from the nation’s greatest
colonies) the Rococo was ‘little more than a passing ecclesiastical monuments.
fashion which flourished within the orderly By the mid-1760s all this had changed.
framework of Palladian interiors’. Far more pleasing Rococo and Chinese - and to a large extent Gothick -
to eyes more accustomed to straight lines and were banished from fashionable, interiors, and
evident structural relevance was the fashion for replaced by expressions of the new, delicate Neo-
'‘Chinese’ furniture - a fad which was ignited by the Classical taste. Out went elaborate scrolls and rich
popular passion for imported Chinese ceramics, friezes, serpentine curves and over-bowed fronts;
textiles and wallpapers. By the mid-1750s ‘Chinese’ out went pagodas and fretwork. In their place came
chairs and tables with diagonal fretwork, and squared corners, right angles, low-relief carving,
‘Chinese’ beds with their pagoda-like testers, could regimented hierarchies and sedate, architecturally-
be found in many fashionable homes. Few of these derived forms and motifs.
pieces, however, bore much resemblance to real
A departure from the norm.
Chinese designs. In 1757 William Chambers’s Chippendale designs for
Designs of Chinese Buildings, which included Chinese chairs, from the
numerous plates depicting items of furniture, Director.
attempted to correct this imbalance by providing a
series of‘genuine’ oriental designs; however,
Chambers’s pieces were still little more than vague
approximations of the real thing. Nevertheless, what
Mary Wortley Montagu had in 1749 termed ‘the
barbarous gout of the Chinese’ outlived the taste for
Rococo, surviving well into the 1760s.
‘Gothick’ furniture also survived into the
Neo-Classical era; in the mid-1770s even
Furniture 185

These alternative designs

from Chippendale's Director
demonstrate how inventive
and graceful Chippendale
could be. Here he transforms
the established splat-back
into a variety of sinuous,
organic forms.
186 Adam Style

Opposite: oval forms

dominate this engaging
cartoon of “Frederick
elegantly furnishing a new
house’ ofc.1785. The oval-
backed chairs incorporate
the Prince of Wales’s
monogram of three feathers.

Plan of a room, from

Hepplewhite’s Cabinet-
Maker and Upholsterer’s
Guide of 1788, ‘showing the
proper distribution of the
Furniture’. Hepplewhite
himself had actually died in
1786, so this design
probably dates from the
early 1780s. The formal,
rigid symmetry of every wall
is a far cry from the
haphazard clutter of the
nineteenth century and the
studied informality of the
twentieth.
 Furniture 187

dropped. Yet throughout all this he remained a

superb furniture designer.
The cabinet-maker wdio coped best with the
arrival of Neo-Classicism was the incomparable
Thomas Chippendale. His Gentleman and Cabinet-
Maker’s Director of 1754 was the first English-
language pattern-book to deal with furniture alone,
the 161 plates portraying a vast range of everyday
household items. As befitted the time, the 1754
edition was permeated by the Rococo, Gothick and
Chinese tastes. When the third edition was
Some designers were, by the fact of their completed in 1762, however, many of the Rococo
youth and enthusiasm, well-placed to make the designs had been abandoned in favour of Neo-
transition from the florid exotica of the 1750s to the Classically-influenced pieces. The replacement
more disciplined classicism of the 1760s. Other, plates illustrated items of furniture that were lighter,
more conservative figures were not. One of the older more linear and, most importantly, simpler than
cabinet-makers who fell by the wayside was the their predecessors. In place of the Rococo’s foliate
renowned William Vile, who continued making the fripperies and serpentine extravagances,
carved mahogany furniture with which he had Chippendale substituted hard lines and graceful
made his name. Faced with the radical new Neo- modulations.
Classicism of Stuart and Revett’s plates and Adam’s Chippendale - since called ‘the Shakespeare
buildings, Vile decided to retire in 1764. His young of English furniture-makers’ - was born in Otley,
partner, John Cobb, however, responded very Yorkshire in 1718. Moving first to York, then to
differently. Cobb used imported woods such as London, in December 1753 he set up shop in the
tulipwood and kingwood, together with stained heart of London’s fashionable West End, in St
native fruitwoods, to create fabulous, distinctly Neo- Martin’s Lane, with his partner James Rannie. The
Classical marquetry tables and cabinets. Cobb was a following April disaster almost struck. A fire broke
larger-than-life figure. Contemporaries noted his out in the workshops which, reported the Public
‘singularly haughty character’ and called him ‘one of Advertiser, ‘in its beginning, the Wind being very
the proudest men in England’; in 1829 J. T. Smith high, and a great scarcity of Water, raged very
recollected how Cobb, ‘in full dress of the most furiously’, especially since ‘there was a great
superb kind, strutted through his workshops giving Quantity of Timber on the Premises’. These w ere
orders to his men’. In 1772 Cobb was implicated in violent times, and the fire attracted an unruly mob
the smuggling of furniture from France in the bent on looting the premises; however, help was at
diplomatic bags of the Venetian Resident and the hand: ‘by the timely Assistance of the Guards
Neapolitan Minister, although the charges were and the Peace Officers, the useless Part of the
188 Adam Style

Mob was beat off ... and the flames wrere subdued.’
Following the success of the first and second
editions of the Director, Chippendale wras elected to
the prestigious Society of Arts in 1760. Six years
later, on Rannie’s death, he entered into a
partnership with the accountant Thomas Haig and
later (in order to secure more reliable financial
backing) with Henry Ferguson. Despite his evident
success, however, Chippendale never enjoyed the
social status of other masters of the visual arts such
as Adam and Reynolds, and always regarded himself
as a tradesman. He wras, nevertheless, well aware of
his genius. Gilbert relates how he called one of his
own cabinets ‘not only the richest and most
magnificent in the whole, but perhaps all Europe’
and three of his chairs ‘the best I have ever seen (or
perhaps have ever been made)’.
Like Adam and Wedgwood, Chippendale
was greatly feted by his contemporaries as well as
by modern-day critics - a distinction enjoyed by few
great artists. His significance, like that of Adam and
Wedgwood, derived not only from his proficiency as
a craftsman but, perhaps more importantly, from his
enthusiasm and aptitude for self-promotion. To
attract passers-by to his London shop, for example,
he hung a chair from the shopfront. Following his
move to St Martin’s Lane and the publication in 1754
of the Director (which his biographer, furniture
Top: The Princess Royal’s
historian Christopher Gilbert, judged ‘a provocative Sitting Room at Harewood
publicity stunt’), Chippendale actually made no showing the large commode
furniture himself, relying on his team of up to fifty designed by Chippendale in
1773. Above: the intricate
specialist craftsmen; his achievement over the next marquetry is clearly seen in
thirty years was in the fields of design and this detail of the top of the
marketing. He was so successful that not long after commode, while the detail
opposite shows delicate
his death the label ‘Chippendale’ was being used to ivory inlay on a satinwood
denote any furniture copied or derived from the ground.

A
-
■Jriitiil i
Wvito 1:,
 Furniture 191

plates of the three editions of the Director - whether

they actually originated from Chippendale’s
workshops or not. Many cabinet-makers bought the
Director specifically in order to copy Chippendale’s
engravings. Today, the only way of demonstrating
the true provenance of a supposedly ‘Chippendale’
piece is to produce some corroborating document¬
ary evidence; style alone is not enough.
Chippendale’s influence on his
contemporaries, and on subsequent generations,
was enormous. Christopher Gilbert has declared
that ‘It would be difficult to exaggerate the
importance of Chippendale’s Director as a formative
influence on mid-eighteenth century furniture style’;
certainly its appearance triggered a whole rash of
rival furniture pattern-books. The Director’s third
edition, as well as gracing the libraries of the
American colonies, was also translated into French,
and bought by both Louis XVI and Catherine the
Great. Much of the so-called ‘Louis Seize’ furniture
popular in France in the 1770s and 80s was directly
derived from Chippendale’s plates.
Robert Adam - notoriously fussy and
particular about his creations - trusted Chippendale
to furnish some of his finest Neo-Classical interiors -
the cabinet-maker using his own designs and not,
as is often believed, those of Adam. Indeed the
collaboration between Thomas Chippendale and
Robert Adam was of particular importance in
establishing what is now known as ‘Adam Style’. In
Christopher Gilbert’s view it was Chippendale, and
not Adam, who retained the original vision of robust
Opposite: the metamorphic Above: a delightful Neo-Classicism into the 1770s. Adam, he believes,
library steps, designed by gentleman’s library, with a
Adam and executed by charming, glazed bookcase
became enraptured and sidetracked by ‘ever-
Chippendale, from from an engraving of the increasing refinement expressed as exaggerated
Harewood. 1780s. delicacy’ and was by 1780 producing what were
192 Adam Style

almost caricatures of his own, original style. Adam, employed at Harewood House during the 1770s, was
Gilbert judges, ‘was primarily a gifted decorator required to hang wallpapers, upholster seat
whose prim designs looked very effective on paper furniture, make up the beds, create furniture covers,
but insipid and fussy when translated on the work¬ and even make the floorcloths. Interestingly,
bench’. Chippendale’s furniture-making commissions were
While it is a myth that all ‘Chippendale’ less profitable than his upholstering business.
designs of the later eighteenth century were actually When involved in furniture-making,
made in Chippendale’s workshops, it is also untrue Chippendale or his rivals could be commissioned to
to say that those pieces which can be definitely create a wide variety of different pieces. Beds could
assigned to the St Martin’s Lane firm were entirely range from the elaborate ‘state’ tester beds, destined
made by Chippendale’s craftsmen. Chippendale for the bedrooms of the most opulent households, to
contracted out many specialized processes, such as the simple, pulley-operated servants’ beds which
gilding, brass work and even marquetry work, to descended from the attic wall. The former could be
other firms - although ensuring that the contracted as ostentatious as the client wished. In 1778 Horace
work was always done to his exact specifications. Walpole criticised (with some justification) Bobert
Today it is difficult, even impossible, to determine Adam’s lavish state bed at Osterley Park for being
which parts of a particular piece were contracted ‘too theatric and too like a modern head-dress’;
out, and which elements were made in-house. ‘What would Vitruvius think’, he added, ‘of a dome
It is also a mistake to imagine that a firm decorated by a milliner?’ At the other end of the
such as Chippendale’s was engaged only in social scale to the apartments at Osterley was the
furniture-making. As early as 1747 an upholsterer typical bedroom described in a survey of 1767 on
was described as a ‘Tradesman’s Genius’ who ‘must cheap rented lodgings in London:
be universal in every Branch of Furniture’. ‘a half-tester bedstead, with brown linsey
Chippendale, in the words of Geoffrey Beard and woolsey furniture, a bed and bolster, half flocks, half
Christopher Gilbert, could offer his clients not only feathers ... two old chairs with cane bottoms, a small
exquisite single pieces of furniture but also: looking glass six inches by four in a deal frame
‘a complete house furnishing service, painted red and black, a red linsey woolsey window
supplying everything from the most opulent beds, curtain ... [and] an iron candlestick mounted
mirrors and cabinets to cheap domestic wares for with brass’.
the staff quarters. The firm regularly provided Half-testers, such as the example described
curtains, carpets, wallpapers, chimney-pieces, loose above, could be pulled up against the wall during
covers and bell systems; undertook repairs, the day and hidden behind a curtain or a dummy
removals, hired out furniture, and were even bookcase. (Chippendale created a half-tester bed for
prepared to direct and furnish funerals for Sir Edward Knatchbull which fronted as a dummy
respected customers.’ japanned bookcase, complete with wire lattice and
William Beid, a craftsman of Chippendale’s dummy book spines.) In grander homes by the late

A
Furniture 193

Adam’s stunning design of

1776 for the State Bed at
Osterley.
Furniture 195

Opposite: this elegant four-

poster bed dominates the
east bedroom at Harewood.
Near left: an equally elegant
and ostentatious bed of 1775
from Garrick’s villa at
Hampton, and designs for
classical beds and bed
cornices of the mid-1780s by
Hepplewhite (far left and
above).
196 Adam Style

Far left and left: general

view and detail of this
splendid and typical Neo-
Classical cabinet of 1765,
Above: even more impressive
is the marvellous inlay work
visible in this detail of the
celebrated Chippendale
library writing table of
1770, originally made for
Harewood but now in the
Edwardian Library at
Temple Newsam, Leeds. This
is marquetry at its most
sophisticated and effective.
 Furniture 197

1770s, though, ‘French’ canopy beds, with the items of great sentimental value w'ere in turn
canopy and draperies suspended from the ceiling protected by a wrhite coverlet, often made of a rough
rather than being supported on corner posts, were linen and wool fabric called ‘darnix’.
becoming more popular than the traditional four- This multitude of bedding layers was
poster or its more recent tester derivatives. Unlike augmented by bed curtains, wdiose purpose was not,
the French, the British and Americans preferred as is often thought, to guarantee the sleeper’s
bold, architectural bed cornices, eschewing the privacy, but to retain heat and, more importantly, to
current French fashion for complex valances and protect valuable counterpanes from direct light from
elaborate bed drapery. the windows.
George Hepplewhite noted, in his Cabinet¬ As the period progressed bedclothes and
maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, published in 1788, bed hangings, in common with window curtains,
that beds could be ‘executed in almost every stuff became increasingly lighter, cottons and linens
which the loom produces’: ‘White dimity, plain and being preferred to the heavier traditional materials.
corded, is peculiarly applicable [and] produces an The Indian chintzes smuggled in to adorn the
elegance and neatness truly agreeable.’ In wealthier bedrooms of the wealthy and fashionable were
homes bedclothes were ‘frequently made of silk or particularly prized. In 1771 Mrs Lybbe Powys noted
satin, figured or plain, also of velvet and gold fringe’. enviously of her Shropshire neighbour that the latter
Blankets, cut from an original woven piece that had ‘more chintz counterpanes than in one house I
weighed up to 100 pounds, w ere generally plain, but ever saw, not one bed without very fine ones’.
often decorated in each of the four corners. The More important than the manufacture of
centre for blanket-making in England, then as now, beds to any self-respecting cabinet-maker was the
was Witney in Oxfordshire. Earlys was the leading production of chairs. Thomas Chippendale w?as
manufacturer in Witney, and their ‘rose’ blankets, especially renowmed for his seat furniture -
with corner decoration embroidered in rough, hand- principally chairs, couches and the odd settee (in
spun wool, w e re very popular in Britain and
America by the mid-eighteenth century. In 1768, for
example, the American merchant John Norton was
sending a valued colonial customer ‘5 pr best and
finest double mill’d rose large Bed Blankets’ from
Witney via London. Beds additionally carried up to
five quilts - the small bedroom fireplaces of the day
being of minimal use in heating the room. Often
made by the women of the house, some of these
quilts wrould be placed over the sleeper, some
underneath. On top of the quilts might be a richly
decorated, hand-made counterpane; such precious

Hepplewhite designs for

simple, how fronted chests of
drawers and a dressing
glass of the mid-1780s. This
type of basic yet elegant
classical furniture remained
popular throughout the
nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.
198 Adam Style

origin an extended, multi-seat chair). A typical pole firescreens. In 1771 Walpole bought a settee,
Chippendale chair design, much imitated by his four chairs and a matching firescreen, all covered
contemporaries and successors, was the live-piece with highly expensive Aubusson tapestries, for the
splat-back, with straight front legs, slightly curving typically extravagant outlay of £104 12s 6d.
back legs and a Neo-Classical swag linking the With the advent of Neo-Classical taste, the
central splat to the top rail. Robert Adam’s own seat ample, bulging upholstery of previous decades was
furniture was, predictably, even more architectural replaced by squared stuffing, to match the new
than Chippendale’s later designs. Adam was the first squared legs and squared backs. Chairs were
to use the lyre motif for chair backs - a fashion generally stuffed with down, or with cheaper
which spread like wildfire - and often painted his alternatives such as tow or horsehair, which was
chairs to match the painted decoration of the room. also increasingly used for the seat-covering fabric
(Painted furniture was particularly common during itself. To keep the stuffing properly squared English
this period; all too often today, alas, painted items upholsterers stitched the corners, and secured large
are stripped to satisfy the ahistorical demand for areas of stuffing with tufts that also pierced the cover
‘honest’, bare wooden furniture.) By 1780 heart-back at the front. Tufting was quickly adopted by the
and shield-back chairs were also much in vogue - as American colonists; surprisingly, though, the
were more unusual hybrids such as the ‘exercising innovative French only caught on to this practice in
chair’, whose sprung leather seat, operated rather the later 1770s. To help preserve the squared shape,
like a concertina, provided the sitter with what was and to provide additional emphasis for the seat’s
alleged to be a good substitute for horse-riding. straight, architectural lines, British and American
Most seat furniture was upholstered; caned upholsterers also used gilt or brass nails to help fix
chairs had been out of fashion in both Britain and and protect the upholstered corners, often arranging
America since the 1720s. Cottons and linens were the lines of nail heads in attractive geometric
being widely used for seat upholstery as well as for patterns.
hangings by 1770. As mentioned earlier, great care
was taken to match them with the fabric, wallpapers
and paints on the walls. In Strawberry Hill’s
Breakfast Room, for example, Horace Walpole
installed ‘plump chairs, couches and luxurious
settees, covered with linen of the same pattern’ as
the blue-and-white striped wallpaper. Those who
could afford it were by 1780 covering their chairs
with the same type of French tapestry as they were
using for wall hangings. These pieces were specially
woven to fit the size of the chair, and were used not
only for seat furniture but also to cover matching

A
Furniture 199

Multi-seat furniture of the

period. Opposite: a two-
ended ‘Duchesse’ sofa by
Hepplewhite, of the mid-
1780s. Top left and centre:
two Adam sofa designs;
bottom: a roughly
contemporary' John Linnell
design for a couch.
200 Adam Style

Hepplewhite designs for

chairs, published in his
Cabinet-Maker and
Upholsterer’s Guide of
1788. The shield-back chair
is particularly associated
with Hepplewhite, and has
remained exceedingly
popular. Bottom left can be
seen his designs for an easy
chair and a ‘gouty stool’.

■V
Furniture 201

A collection of chair designs:

Far left: an elegant, painted
beechwood chair designed
by Chippendale for
Harewood House, Yorkshire;
centre: a library chair by
Chippendale from Nostell
Priory; left: Adam-designed
painted armchair from the
Etruscan Room at Osterley;
below left: a comfortable,
curved-back bergere of
beechwood and leather,
dated c.l 765; below far left:
a lyre-splat armchair from
Osterley by John Linnell.
 ■

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 Furniture 203

The longer-established French armchair especially popular in America, where they were
had by the 1760s become a perennial favourite originally welcomed by the pragmatic colonists.
across the Channel. With their curving backs and After c. 1750 an American variant called the
arms, and well-upholstered backs - with added ‘Philadelphia Low-Back Windsor’ was much in
squab cushions providing even greater comfort - vogue in the colonies for about thirty years; this in
armchairs were by now of central importance in any turn provided the inspiration for the ‘Smoker’s Bow7’
fashionable library or drawing room. While the new Windsor chairs which dominated the smoking
squared chairs may have reflected the up-to-date rooms, gentlemen’s clubs and respectable bars from
taste of the owner, the armchair offered a haven of the middle of the nineteenth century until the
comfort and ease in which the master or mistress of Second World War - and which today are
the house could forget the cares of politics, society shamelessly plagiarized to create the sub-standard
or fashion. reproductions so often seen in refurbished pubs,
An equally popular form of seat furniture - bars and restaurants.
but one that needed no upholstery at all - was the The average table of Adam’s day was rarely
Windsor chair. These chairs w7ere entirely of wood as sophisticated as the corresponding seat furniture.
(beech for the legs, sticks, splats and stretchers, elm In his grand room schemes Adam introduced
for the seat), and were characterized by having their semicircular or segmental pier tables between the
back and legs fixed independently into the seat. large, architectural mirrors. These small tables were
Windsor chairs were made principally in and around very much subservient to the wall decoration, their
High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, using the local narrow profiles being reduced to little more than a
labour of the itinerant ‘chair bodgers’ of the Chiltern subtle extension of the frieze or dado. More
woods to fashion the sticks, spindles and legs prior
to assembly in the factories of Wycombe. They were Opposite: Adam Style chair
probably named after the nearby royal seat of and so/a in the Yellow
Drawing Room at
Windsor, rather than after Wycombe, either as a
Harewood. Left:
cunning marketing ploy, or because they were sent Chippendale designs for
down the Thames to the capital via Windsor. brass furniture handles.
Invented during the 1720s, these simple and highly
durable utilitarian chairs could be found in a variety
of forms: high, straight comb-backs; the more typical
bowed backs; simple scrolled backs; or with turned
spindles or a central splat, instead of the usual
straight sticks, to support the back. This eminently
practical piece of what is now (often erroneously)
termed ‘country furniture’ is as popular today as it
was in Adam’s time. Windsor chairs have proved
 204 Adam Style

substantial than these were the marquetry-top tables

which were all the rage in the homes of the wealthy
and ostentatiously fashion-conscious by 1770. Their
delicate but rigidly regulated, multicoloured
patterns epitomized the triumph of Neo-Classical
order over Rococo indiscipline. For those with more
modest incomes, the comparatively plain Pembroke
table, with its two side flaps, was still a popular and
practical alternative, being both versatile and space¬
saving.
Tables of this period were always required
to be returned to a position against the wall after
use; it was only during the Regency era that the new
trend to informality liberated both tables and seat
furniture from this formal requirement. During the
1760s, however, Adam invented what was to prove a
highly popular variant of the table, the sideboard,
which fitted snugly against the wall while at the
same time offering a wealth of functions. The
sideboard swiftly became an integral part of the
larger drawing or dining room, being adaptable to a
wide variety of uses and providing a large surface
from which to serve food or on which to display
family treasures.
Ry 1755 the French term ‘commode’ was
being used by English-speakers to denote a grand
chest of drawers. In Britain and America this usually
signified a serpentine- or bow-fronted piece,
generally equipped with two doors which concealed
the drawers, and which was, at least by 1770, often
japanned. ‘Commodes’ were for the principal rooms;
their humble ancestor, the chest of drawers, was
still used in the bedrooms and the servants’
quarters, where it was relegated to a variety of
mundane purposes. Such chests were often fitted
with a movable top, equipped with a mirror, or
Top: Four Hepplewhite
designs for pier table-tops;
bottom: an excellent,
Chippendale sycamore and
marquetry pier table-top,
orginally from Mersham-le-
Hatch in Kent. Such table-
tops formed an oval when
reflected in an
accompanying pier-glass.
Furniture 205

Robert Adam (top) and, the

other of c.1775, attributed to
Adam’s design and
Chippendale’s execution.
Left, top and bottom: Adam
side table designs from the
Works in Architecture of
1773-8.
206 Adam Style

provided with a folding easel. By 1780, too, another Georgian interior that is often forgotten today is that
French invention - the cylinder-front or roll-top every type of valuable furnishing was provided with
‘bureau’ writing-desk - was becoming common in its own cover, which stayed on for all but the most
Britain. Hepplewhite’s widely-read pattern-book of significant social occasions. Nowadays, of course,
1788 (actually devised in the years before before his the army of servants which applied and maintained
death in 1786) included plates illustrating both these loose covers no longer exists; the result has
forms of bureaux. been the rapid and irreversible fading of countless
The Age of Adam was an era of great historic woods and fabrics. Cottons were especially
innovation in furniture design. With his Director of popular as loose covers, since they were light and
1754 Chippendale established the fashion, persisting could he easily washed. In America checked cottons -
to this day, for octagonally- or gothic-glazed ginghams - were most often used for this purpose.
bookcases. And glass was increasingly introduced And on both sides of the Atlantic linens with
into fashionable interiors not only in glazed damasked or repeating patterns were increasingly
bookcases but also in the form of ever larger used to cover vulnerable table-tops - the origin of
mirrors. The mirrors of Adam’s day were no longer the modern linen tablecloth. Chairs, couches and
the sinuous, gilt Bococo confections of the 1750s; by settees even began to be provided with ‘scarves’ for
1770 they were not only of a greater size than
before, but were now strictly rectangular An inlaid Pembroke table of
compositions bordered by reticent, architectural c.1780. The oval top is a
sliding panel fitted with a
frames. Mirror glass was ground from the finest chess board on the reverse.
quality Crown glass, and the frames gilded,
decorated with ormolu, stained ‘mahogany’ colour
or japanned.
Japanned work was vastly popular by 1780.
Christopher Gilbert has determined that there was
‘little evidence of a demand in England for japanned
wares’ prior to the mid-1750s; yet by the time Robert
Adam returned to England in 1758 the technique of
applying lustrous coloured lacquers to woodwork or
metalwork had been comprehensively revived. In
that same year Robert Dossie’s pioneering
decorating manual, Handmaid to the Arts, observed
that ‘The knowledge of the methods of japanning is
at present more wanted than that of any other of the
mysterious arts whatever.’
One crucially important aspect of the

\
Furniture 207

Far left and left:

Hepplewhite designs for two
bookcases, and for glazed
bookcase doors. Bottom
right: a splendid bookcase,
with Gothic-glazed doors,
and a painted panel in the
manner of Angelica
Kauffmann, dated c.1790.
208 Adam Style

Opposite: designs for a a large oval mirror and

variety of furniture pieces, commode: top centre: an
from the second edition of Adam design for an oval
Thomas Malton’s A mirror with two-branched
Compleat Treatise on candleholders: top right: a
Perspective of 1778. Chippendale design for an
overmantel mirror of the
Mirrors played an late 1760s: above: a Linnell
important part in Adam design for a tall pier-glass
Style interiors. Top left: a and side table; and right: an
well-balanced design by Adam design of 1778 for a
John Linnell for two mirror and commode.
window-chests either side of
Furniture 209
210 Adam Style

their upholstered backs. These primitive furniture to be an integral part of the decorative
antimacassars, a form of cover that is usually scheme to be applied to the whole room.
associated with the Victorian era, were meant to Predictably, when the furniture designs of
protect the fabric from the detrimental effects not of Adam and Chippendale were enthusiastically revived
hair oil but of hair powder, and in particular the at the end of the nineteenth century, resuscitating
grease used to anchor the powder to the wig. (This the mid-Georgian obsession with order was
use of animal grease was the cause of most of the considered a little too purist. Gas and later electric
insects and vermin which infested the elaborate light had liberated the interior from the technological
wigs of the day.) limitations which had previously governed the
Another rule followed by every interior of disposition of furniture; for most households, to go
this period - but not, sadly, adhered to by many back and try to re-create the exact conditions of
museum-houses today - was that all furniture, even Adam’s day was rightly considered both naive and
if in regular use, was always formally arranged impractical.
along the side walls. Items were only brought out
when needed, and were returned to their original
location (by servants, if they were available) at the This Adam-style torchere of
end of the day. In 1759 the celebrated philosopher c.l 780 has a papier mache
tray top and is fitted with a
and economist Adam Smith testified to this practice, small frieze drawer. Both
and provided it with a typically reasoned apologia, in top and frieze are painted
his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments: with mythological motifs in
the style of the popular
‘When a person comes into his chamber and painter Angelica
finds the chairs all standing in the middle of the Kauffnann.
room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than
Opposite: the Du Pont
see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes Dining Room at the
the trouble himself to set them all in their places Winterthur Museum, of
with their backs to the wall. The whole propriety c. 1785, furnished in the
Adam-influenced Federal
of this new situation arises from its superior Style.
conveniency in leaving the floor free and
disengaged.’
This formal disposition of the room’s
furniture - which only began to be relaxed during
the last decade of the century - was the reason why
the top rail of so many chairs and tables matched the
patterning of the dado, against which they would
stand when not in use. It also explains why
designers such as Robert Adam considered the

\
uuiuuau.li
Chapter Seven Revivals

‘When a few years ago the beauty and

refinement of old cabinet-work came into
more general recognition, they caught up
the name of Chippendale, and have been
repeating it, they and their parrot-like
successors - with the persistency of Poe’s
Raven ever since’
(H. J. Jennings, Our Homes
and How to Beautify Them,
1902)

Opposite: an early
twentieth-century ‘Adam
Revival’ interior, taken from
the portfolio of R. Goulburn
Lovell. The fireplace is
perhaps the only truly
‘Adam’ element here. Right:
Victorian gilt-bronze
torcheres in the Adam Style
of c.1860 - a relatively early
date for revived Adam
designs.
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214 Adam Style

A reaction to ‘Adam Style’ from those who followed ‘deserves great praise for banishing from interior
in the wake of the great man was to some extent decorations the heavy architectural ornaments,
inevitable. Even before Robert Adam’s death jealous which prevailed in all our buildings before his time.’
rivals and less gifted successors had begun to queue However, he continued, ‘it will be admitted that he
up in order to denigrate his work and his approach. sometimes indulged in the extreme of fancy and
In 1779 the unusually spiteful young architect Robert lightness.’ King George III himself was inclined to
Smirke (later to design the Rritish Museum) wrote a agree with Soane, not as a result of any keen artistic
scathing pamphlet with William Porden entitled The insight, but simply because the deeply conservative
Exhibition, which dismissively declared that ‘Most of monarch abhorred all newfangled things and ideas -
the white walls with which Mr Adam has speckled especially in the arts, a branch of learning which he
this city, are no better than Models for the Twelfth- continued to regard with grave suspicion. ‘I am little
Night decoration of a Pastry Cook.’ Similarly of an architect,’ the king wisely declared in 1800,
vehement was James Peacock’s Nutshells of 1784, ‘and think that the old school is not enough attended
which railed against Adam’s ‘excess of puerile to.’ ‘The Adams’, he concluded, ‘have introduced too
ornaments ... modern refinement and modern much of neatness and prettiness.’
finery’ - sounding in the process rather too much History, however, has tended to exonerate
like a young fogey trying to turn back the waves of Adam (while doing little to enhance George Ill’s own
fashion. reputation). Indeed, since the mid-nineteenth
After Adam’s death in 1792 the taunts were century the style of Robert Adam and his
to grow more measured. C. H. Tatham, evangelist of contemporaries has proved perenially popular.
the new Graeco-Egyptian taste, wearily dismissed Thomas Chippendale’s Director designs were being
Adam’s approach as constituting ‘a style productive
of great fatigue to the designer ... and an infinite A giltwood and composition
expense to the purse of the employer’. James three-part overmantel
mirror, very much in
Elmes’s stern Metropolitan Improvements of 1828 Adam’s manner, of c.1880.
warned unwary designers against Robert Adam’s The design is based on one
‘confectionary’ and ‘impurity’, while in 1842 Joseph in the Adams’ Works in
Architecture for Derby
Gwilt’s celebrated Encyclopaedia of Architecture House (which, ironically,
expressed the amazement of an early Victorian at had itself been demolished
the light heartedness, and in particular the spurious some twenty years earlier).

academicism, of Adam’s designs: ‘It can scarcely be

believed that the ornaments of Diocletian’s Palace at
Spalatro should have loaded our dwellings ...’
Among Regency commentators on Adam’s
work, Sir John Soane predictably showed more
vision than the rest. ‘Mr Adam’, he declared,

\
Revivals 215

Two Adam Revival style

English interiors, both
typical of the early twentieth
century.
216 Adam Style

reprinted as early as 1834, and he was lauded by his

illustrious successors Thomas Sheraton and George
Smith. ‘Extensive and masterly’, Sheraton declared
of Chippendale’s works in 1793, while Smith
observed in 1826 that the Director had ‘changed the
whole feature of design’. In 1828 the noted critic
J. T. Smith was calling Chippendale ‘the most
famous upholsterer and cabinet-maker of his day’.
Even a commentator of 1862, writing at a time when
the general reputation of both Chippendale and his
Georgian contemporaries was at its nadir,
acknowledged that:
‘He was a designer in the best sense,
however perverted the style in which he clothes his
thoughts. His fantasies may now provoke laughter,
but it cannot be denied that they were inspired by
genius, and guided by method.’
The International Exhibition of 1862, held
Adam Style furniture has a satinwood side cabinet at London’s South Kensington, was of central
been extremely popular (above), a dining room urn importance in popularizing the style of Robert
from the late nineteenth and pedestal (below right),
century until the present and a satinwood and
Adam - and in particular the furniture of Thomas
day. Here are three good marquetry commode Chippendale - for a new, High Victorian generation.
Victorian examples of (below). The forty drawings of furniture designs by
well-made ‘Adam’pieces:
Chippendale and Lock exhibited as part of the show
prompted considerable public and professional
comment, and stimulated widespread interest in the
taste of Adam’s day. By the 1870s the Chippendale
revival was, as Christopher Gilbert has noted, ‘well
under way, and the era of romantic hero-worship
had opened’. Chippendale’s designs were celebrated
at the expense of equally skilled rivals such as Cobb
and Linnell, while ‘Chippendale’ reproductions were
to be found in drawing rooms, dining rooms and
libraries all over Britain and America. Some pieces
kept rather closer to the originals in spirit and detail
than others. As H. J. Jennings remarked in 1902, the

A
Revivals 217

Left: Adam Revival furniture

and decoration in a room
set devised by Maple & Co
and advertised in an issue of
The Studio of March 1912.

Above: Heal’s were in the

forefront of marketing the
Adam and ‘Colonial Adam’
styles of the early twentieth
century. Here is a good
example of colonial Adam,
advertised in The Studio
magazine of 15th January
1910.
218 Adam Style

An English dining room in

Adam Revival style, from
H. P. Shapland’s Style
Schemes in Antique
Furnishing of 1909.
Revivals 219

Above: The Portman, a

chastely Neo-Classical
Sandersons wallpaper of
1903. Left: Birds and
flowers dominate both the
actual block-printed chintz
of c.l 780 and the revival
machine-printed wallpaper
(above left) ofc.1910 based
on a design of 1785.
220 Adam Style

Channel, and was greatly helped by the fact that the

canny Adams - their eyes firmly set on the potential
market of rich French clients - had produced the
English originals with an additional, French text.
The Adam Revival quickly spread to
America, too, where genuine Adam designs were
fused with more rustic, pre-revolutionary forms to
create a style known popularly as ‘Colonial Adam’.
The stylistic compromise was typically American. As
Joanna Banham, Sally McDonald and Julia Porter
recently observed of Colonial Adam:
‘The classical strictness of the decorations
were modified with certain concessions to
quaintness, a more vigorous treatment, and a less
mathematically rigid attention to form’.
The aesthetic success and practical
public were soon enthusing over ‘any article, no robustness of this synthesis is proved by the fact that
matter how devoid of taste, that goes by his name’. countless middle-class American homes were still
While Chippendale’s designs were reaching being redecorated in this refined yet comfortable
an enthusiastic international audience, so were the style as recently as the Second World War.
decorative schemes of the Adam brothers. The The new popular enthusiasm of the late
famous furniture firm of Gillows exhibited ‘Robert nineteenth-century for the decoration and artefacts
Adam’ interiors in the great Paris and Manchester of Adam’s day was both stimulated by, and at the
exhibitions of 1878 and 1882 respectively. In 1881 same time helped to create, a new fashion for
the publishers Batsford produced the first volume of buying and trading in antiques. By 1870
Adam designs to be printed since the third and last householders were not only becoming interested
part of the Adam brothers’ Works in Architecture had in buying contemporary Arts and Crafts or
appeared (posthumously) in 1822. The same year reproduction furniture, but were, for the first time,
The Cabinet Maker and Art Furnisher noted ‘how also seeking to purchase genuine Georgian pieces -
admirably the Adams’ style lends itself to the chaste which, when compared with many of the fanciful
decoration of bedroom furniture.’ It was not until Gothic creations and the more extravagant
1902, however, that the first full reprint of all three reproductions of the later nineteenth-century, were
parts of the Adams’ Works (of 1773-8, 1779 and 1822) greatly admired for their strength and simplicity. By
appeared. Interestingly, the publisher was French - the 1880s the fad for antiques had gripped Britain
the firm of E. Thezard Fils. Thezard was responding and America, and antique shops were springing up
to the renewed interest in Adam Style across the in every town. In 1904 H. Treffry Dunn, reminiscing
Revivals 221

‘Reception Room in Adam

Style’, designed by Edward
Thorne in the early 1900s.

Opposite: A Drawing Room

with walls panelled in Silk’,
illustrated in Robson & Sons’
catalogue o/Interior
Woodwork, c.1910. The
Adam Style is deemed here
to be the acme of taste.
222 Adam Style

on Rossetti’s own delight in antique Georgian ‘Adam’ surrounds outsell all other reproduction
furniture, recalled that the great artist would stroll chimneypieces; at the same time genuine Adam
through London’s Leicester Square, where ‘many a fireplaces are admired as priceless works of art -
Chippendale chair or table could be met and bought and are, as a result, at the top of the list for
for next to nothing.’ (Alas, today Chippendale architectural thieves.
furniture cannot be had so cheaply - nor can you For many of us today, ‘Adam Style’ is
find any antique shops in what is now one of the synonymous with the term ‘Georgian’ - even though
capital’s most dismal and tawdry squares.) the thirty-odd years spanning Robert Adam’s career
Towards the end of the century, amateur amount to only a quarter of the whole Georgian
antique-hunters sprang from every type of social period. However, Robert Adam would probably turn
background, and sought out not only items from one in his grave if he was able to see some of the
particular era or style, but interesting pieces from products which now bear his name, or which are
all periods. Yet the most consistently popular passed off as deriving from the products of his
style remained that of Robert Adam and his contemporaries. ‘Adam’ (or, gratingly, ‘Adams’)
contemporaries - even though the Adam Style swags and urns are now all too frequently applied in
pieces they collected were then disposed in a very the most clumsy manner to coarse, flat and crudely
undisciplined and haphazard Victorian or proportioned chimneypieces, pediments, mouldings,
Edwardian manner about the room. And to match wallpaper and furniture in a desperate attempt to
the antique chairs, silverware and ceramics they convey historical pedigree to a badly designed item
had bought, fashionable householders began to which plainly has none. This bogus-Adam inevitably
demand ‘Adam Style’ decoration: wallpapers and devalues both the real thing and the well-crafted
fabrics either reproduced from genuine Georgian reproduction. So beware: not all that is termed
patterns or, more commonly, adapted with some ‘Adam’ has necessarily much to do with the work of
licence from eighteenth-century originals. Soon Robert Adam’s own day. A stuck-on swag or a white-
every leading department store had both an antiques painted pediment is no substitute for the decorative
section and a decorative department which dealt in inspiration of Adam Style.
‘Adam’ and other Georgian reproduction styles.
Adam Style survives today hi-tech Lloyd’s of London
Inevitably, many antique-hunters, with little formal even in the most bizarre of building, built to great
training in the decorative arts, were easily deceived contexts. This example acclaim in the heart of the
surely qualifies as the most City during the mid-1980s.
by some of the less scrupulous antique traders, and
unlikely setting in which to If Adam’s architectural and
some type of regulation was needed to protect the find an Adam-designed decorative language can
unwary enthusiast. Accordingly, in 1918 the British room: literally suspended in survive here, it can survive
the midst of Richard anywhere.
Antique Dealers’ Association was established.
Rogers’s determinedly
Today ‘Adam Style’ furniture, fittings and
decorative designs are still by far the most sought-
after items in the reproduction catalogues.
 *3 ^

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224 Directory of Designers

Adam, Robert (1728-92) Montagu told him in 1777: ‘You have rendered the Town of
Born in Kirkcaldy in Fife, the son of the architect William Birmingham important and honourable to this kingdom. Your
Adam, Robert - often in partnership with his brothers John manufactures are a great national object and have been of
(1721-92) and James (1732-94) - revolutionized interior infinite utility in rendering our Commerce flourishing during
decoration as well as the practice of architecture, introducing a our Contest with America.’ He collaborated with great
personal, delicate variation of the new Neo-Classical taste that inventors such as Ami Argand and James Watt, and found time
was to influence all aspects of design during the last forty years amid his tireless activity to marry two heiresses. Boulton’s
of the eighteenth century. Robert Adam’s furniture, often Birmingham home, built by James Wyatt, is currently being
produced in collaboration with the furniture-maker Thomas restored as a public museum by Birmingham City Council.
Chippendale, provided a marked contrast with the heavy
Palladian styles which had come before. Having travelled to Bulfinch, Charles (1763-1844)
Italy in the mid-1750s, on his return he established an America’s first native-born architect, Bulfinch was the product
architectural and design practice in London in 1758. The Adam of a long line of Bostonians with an interest in buildings.
office’s immense output was achieved only through the Having completed his studies in mathematics and perspective
participation of a large number of assistants; thus it is often at Harvard, Bulfinch embarked on a tour of Europe (following
difficult to ascertain exactly how much is owed to Robert an itinerary suggested in part by Thomas Jefferson), in the
Adam’s own genius, and how much should be credited to other course of which he was greatly impressed by the recent work
members of the family, to assistants, or to manufacturers such of Adam and Chambers. His designs for the Tontine Crescent
as Chippendale. During the 1780s Robert began to be eclipsed and the Massachusetts Slate House, executed soon after his
by younger, more fashionable architects such as James Wyatt, return to Boston, reflect his Americanized version of this
and by 1785 his practice was largely resticted to Scotland. ‘modern’ European Neo-Classicism. During the first two
decades of the nineteenth century, Bulfinch served as
Asher, Benjamin (1773-1845) chairman of Boston’s board of elected officers, designing
While Abraham Swan’s The British Architect, issued in scores of buildings, laying out streets, and transforming the
Philadelphia in 1775, was the first book on architecture printed city into the most up-to-date, efficient, and beautiful in
in America, it was actually a reissue of a thirty-year-old America. His efforts eventually attracted the notice of President
London publication. Credit for producing the first original James Monroe, who engaged him to complete the US Capitol.
American book on architecture, therefore, must go to Asher Bulfinch’s most lasting contribution to American architecture
Benjamin, a carpenter from Greenfield, Massachusetts. may be the formulaic approach to the design of capitol
Benjamin’s The Country Builder’s Assistant, published in 1797, buildings, which he demonstrated in Washington, Boston and
was the first of several handbooks that sought to expose local Augusta: symmetrical wings flanking a domed rotunda, the
carpenters and joiners to the latest architectural developments whole composition fronted with a columned portico.
in the urban centres of the eastern seaboard. Beginning with
Georgian and Adamesque designs, Benjamin’s books, which Chambers, Sir William (1723-96)
ran to some forty editions, eventually embraced the Greek The son of a Scottish merchant, Chambers was actually born in
Revival as well. In general, his designs cannot be called truly Gothenburg, Sweden. Having abandoned a career in the
innovative, but the grace and skillful composition that they Swedish East India Company, he began to study architecture in
exhibit were responsible for raising the standards of a 1749, setting out for Italy the following year. Returning to
generation of American builders. England in 1755, his practice rapidly became very successful.
His style, while relying much on current French and Italian
Bateman, Hester (17?-c.l795) thinking, could at times be dull; his great work Somerset
Hester Bateman was one of the leading silversmiths of Adam’s House, begun in 1776 and unfinished at his death, is perhaps
day - one of many women engaged in this trade at the time. the most famous example of this. He also remained a staunch
She began work at Bunhill Row in London in 1761; by 1780 she opponent of the Adam-inspired ‘Grecian taste’ as well as the
was known all over Britain and America for the production of less academic fashion for Gothick (although he did
well-finished and consistent pieces of everyday silverware. Her occasionally build in the ‘Chinese’ style). However, his Treatise
especial enthusiasm was for ‘bright-cut’ engraving: the on Civil Architecture of 1759 rapidly became, in Colvin’s words,
creation of numerous additional facets on the silver in order to ‘the standard English treatise on the use of the Orders’.
catch the light. She retired in 1790, hut her children Peter and Chambers was always more politically astute than the Adams:
Ann continued the family firm. appointed as one of the Office of Works’ architects in 1761 - the
other was Robert Adam - he became the first Surveyor-General
Boulton, Matthew (1728-1809) of the reformed royal works in 1782, when Adam was in
Boulton was, in Wedgwood’s expert opinion, ‘the first and most eclipse. Made a Knight of the Polar Star by Gustav III of
complete manufacturer in England in metal’, and also probably Sweden in 1770, he was later allowed by an admiring George
the world’s first true industrial entrepreneur. Having inherited III to assume the title of an English knight.
his father’s Birmingham toymaking business in 1759, he
expanded the Soho factory to take on the production of Chippendale the Elder, Thomas (1718-79)
precious metal objects (abandoning his early attempts to make Born in Yorkshire, Chippendale in his early career
ormolu and silver plate after finding that they did not pay). concentrated on work for William Kent, and publication of the
Soon the factory was the most advanced in the world. As Mrs first major British pattern-book solely devoted to furniture, The
 Directory of Designers 225

Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director of 1754. The latter Holland, Henry (1745 1806)
proved a great success and hugely influential; however, from One of the leading architects of the second half of the
the mid 1760s onwards his designs turned from the Palladian eighteenth century, Holland was primarily responsible for
and Rococo forms illustrated in his book of 1754 to the new, introducing French and Neo-Classical influences into the
lighter Neo-Classicism being espoused by Robert Adam. By the mainstream of British architecture during the 1780s, producing
time of his death Chippendale had become (in Smith’s words of a synthesis of these styles that was more chaste and refined
1828) ‘the most famous Upholsterer and Cabinet-maker of his than thaL of the Adam brothers. His reputation was secured by
day’. Excellent examples of his work can still be found in the commission to rebuild Carlton House in London for the
numerous houses in Britain and America, while copies of his Prince of Wales, a project which was begun in 1783.
designs have been found everywhere in the world since 1779.
Jackson, John Baptist (1701-C.1775)
Chippendale the Younger, Thomas (1749-1822) A pupil of the engraver Kirkhill, in 1726 Jackson emigrated to
The eldest son of the renowned Thomas (see above), Thomas France and then to Italy, where he became sufficiently
junior was brought up to run his father’s business, which he fascinated by the engravers of the Renaissance lo produce
took over (on Thomas senior’s death in 1779) in partnership engraved reproductions of old master paintings by artists such
with Thomas Haig. Ilaig died hugely in debt in 1803, as a resull as Titian and Tintoretto, In 1746 he returned to England, using
of which Chippendale was declared bankrupt in 1804. his experience with engraving to produce wallpapers. In 1754
However, he managed to survive this setback, largely since the he published the first hook dealing with wallpaper to appear in
demand for his furniture - produced to the same high England: An Essay on the Invention of Engraving and Printing
standards of design and craftsmanship as in his father’s day - in Chiaro Oscuro - partly an advertisement for his own
was even greater than when his father had been alive. Battersea factory. Though one of his main achievements was to
pioneer the very short-lived execution of oil-colour papers, his
Cobb, John (c.1715-78) workmanship greatly influenced subsequent distemper-colour
Not much is known of this furniture-maker until he went into manufacturers, and he can truly be called the Father of British
partnership with William Vile (c.1700-67) in 1751. While Vile Wallpaper.
was unable to respond to the new ideas and forms of Ihe
Adam-inspired Neo-Classical taste of the 1760s, and retired in Rauffmann, Angelica (1741-1807)
1764, Cobb was keen and eager to do so. In his later years Of Swiss parentage, Angelica Rauffmann dazzled
Cobb was especially respected for his fine marquetry furniture. contemporaries noL only by her skilled painting but also by her
He was also widely known for the high regard he retained for considerable charm and beauty. The cantankerous
his own abilities: a contemporary labelled him ‘one of the Winckelmann was the first great artist to fall in love with her;
proudest men in England’. following this episode she came to London in 1766, where she
took fashionable society by storm and became one of the
Gillow, Robert (c. 1745-95) and Richard (1734-1811) Gillow founders of the Royal Academy. Widely regarded at the time as
In 1729 Robert Gillow senior had founded the family furniture¬ having revived the ancient Greek art of painting on masonry
making firm at Lancaster; on his death in 1772 the concern (although her reputation has suffered somewhat in the
was taken over by his sons Robert in London and Richard in intervening two centuries), she became very wealthy as a
Lancaster. Gillows specialized in innovative furniture, and result of her numerous commissions lo paint classical scenes
invented such pieces as the telescopic dining table and the on the walls and ceilings of the rich and famous. In 1767 she
what-not. Much of their furniture can be identified by the married the bogus Swedish ‘Count’, Frederick de Horn; in 1781
special stamp they started using in the 1780s, although they she married again, this time to the decorative painter and close
also began lo employ specific brand names for certain pieces, rival Antonio Zucchi. Although Rauffmann and Zucchi worked
derived from the names of their aristocratic patrons. The firm together at a number of sites (including Adam’s 20 St James’s
also branched out into upholstery services and architectural Square and Syon House), the marriage was not a success, and
joinery, such as chimneypieces and balusters; thus by 1785 by the late 1780s she had retired to Rome - there to be courted
whole houses were regularly being entirely fitted and by Goethe.
furnished by Gillows. Their business prospered throughout the
nineteenth century, merging with the firm of Warings in the Linnell, John (1729-96)
1890s, and indeed still survives today. The son of the furniture maker William Linnell, John look over
his father’s business on his death in 1763, and rapidly made it
Hepplewhite, George (17?-1786) one of the most skilled firms in Britain. Together with
Ilepplewhite is said to have been apprenticed to the Gillow Chippendale he pioneered the production of marquetry
brothers (see above), but little is known of his life aside from furniture during Lhe 1760s, and executed many of Adam’s
the publication of the influential Cabinet-Maker and designs. (See Helena Hayward’s William and John Linnell,
Upholsterer’s Guide by his wife two years after his death, in 1980).
1788. Although not particularly innovative, Hepplewhite’s
designs - very much in Adam’s later style - were easily copied Mcintire, Samuel (1757-1811)
by furniture makers of varying proficiency, and accordingly The mansions that Samuel Mcintire and his followers designed
many ‘Hepplewhite’ designs survive both in Britain and in for the prosperous merchants of Salem, Massachusetts,
America. conslilule one of the richest groups of Adam-inspired houses in
226 Directory of Designers

the country. Mclntire himself was described by a contemporary Wedgwood, Josiah (1730-8 )
as the product of‘a family of carpenters who had no claim on One of the most famous figures of the period: Wedgwood was
public favor...[who] soon gained a superiority to all of his not only a craftsman and entrepreneur, but also the most
occupation.’ Although he designed a handsome courthouse in famous ceramicist the world has ever known. Apprenticed to
Salem and submitted an impressive entry in the 1792 his elder brother Thomas (who had inherited their father’s
competition for the US Capitol, Mclntire’s reputation rests Burslem, Staffordshire factory) at the age of fourteen, in 1754
entirely on his skill as a residential architect. Ilis houses he entered his first successful partnership, with Thomas
exhibit facades of a foursquare regularity, which can seem Whieldon. His green-glazed ware, and later his creamware,
almost stark; inside, however, his artistry finds expression in a proved a huge success. Following the sale of creamware lo
wealth of Adamesque ornamentation of great delicacy. Little Queen Charlotte in 1762 he began to style himself‘Potter to the
wonder that a visitor to one of these houses fell no hesitation in Queen’, and by 1770 was producing a dinner service for
writing of Mclntire, ‘in sculpture he had no rival in New Empress Catherine II of Russia. In 1769 Wedgwood established
England.’ his famous pottery works at Etruria, near Stoke - providing a
revolutionary model village for his workers and even local
Revett, Nicholas] 1720-1804) transport to gel them to and from work. Over the next twenty
The son of wealthy Suffolk parents, Revett left for Italy in 1742 years he revolutionized the pottery industry, providing not only
and in 1748 visited Naples with the architects James Stuart and startlingly new products hut also making whal had previously
Matthew Brettingham and the painter Gavin Hamilton. In 1750 been only luxury items into stylish accessories that could he
Stuart and Revett travelled to Venice, and thence to Dalmatia afforded by all.
and Athens. The fruit of their studies, The Antiquities, of Athens
of 1762, helped transform the worlds of architecture and design Wood the Younger, John (1728-81)
in Britain and America, providing an invaluable source of The son of the celebrated creator of Georgian Bath (for whom
Greek buildings and motifs for an eager new public. In contrast see Tim Mowl and Brian Earnshaw’s splendid biography of
to Stuart, Revett’s personal wealth enabled him to eschew 1988), John junior acted as his father’s assistant in Bath and,
practising formally as an architect aTler 1762 - the buildings he alter John senior’s death in 1754, as his successor. On the
designed are very few in number - and he chose instead lo visit completion of his father’s Circus, in 1767 he began work on his
the Greek monuments ofTurkey in 1764-9, the result of whicli own Royal Crescent; finished in 1775, Ibis provided the model
expedition was The Antiquities of Ionia of 1769-97. for countless similar developments in Britain and America.
Wood’s style essentially remained lhal of his father - traditional
Stuart, James (1715-88) English Palladianism - and not of innovators such as Robert
Revett’s companion in Athens was a largely self-taught sailor’s Adam; however, he continued to be fully employed in Bath
son, who began his professional life as an apprentice to a fan- until his death.
painter, Lewis Goupy. His journey to Rome in 1742 was
conducted largely on fool, but once there he quickly Wyatt, James (1746-1813)
established himself as a connoisseur of paintings, in which Little is known of Wyatt’s early life before his journey of 1762
capacity he met Hamilton, Brettingham and Revett (q.v.). After to Venice, where he became a pupil of the architect Visenlini.
the publication of The Antiquities of Athens, his natural Following his return to England in 1768 he worked closely with
indolence and love of life led him to pay insufficient attention his elder brother Samuel (1737-1807). Their Neo-Classical
to his architectural practice, and commissions became rare. In works owed much to the Adams, but were couched in a more
1764 he succeeded Hogarth as Sergeant Painter al the Office of refined and pure ‘Grecian’ style. Their Oxford Street Pantheon
Works - a post abolished as a result of the 1782 reforms. of 1772 brought James instant fame, and he was showered with
official appointments. His later life proved that he could be
Thornton, William (1759-1828) equally al home with Roman, Gothic, or Greek; in all his
Born on a Caribbean sugar plantation and educated in Europe, commissions, however, he displayed a superficiality in design
Thornton arrived in the United States in 1786. Three years and a personal indifference which severely marred both his
later, while practising medicine in Philadelphia, he won a executed buildings and his personal reputation.
competition for the design of Library Hall. His lack of formal
architectural training notwithstanding, Thornton entered the For a comprehensive guide to the architects of the period, see
1792 competition for the design of the US Capitol gaining the Howard Colvin’s Biographical Dictionary of British Architects
enthusiastic support of both Washington and Jefferson. 1600-1840 (1978). For a similarly comprehensive guide to the
Thornton was declared the winner, and he was named the first furniture-makers of Adam’s day, see Geoffrey Beard and
architect of the Capitol. Although much of his original design Christopher Gilbert (ed.), Dictionary of English Furniture
has been lost, the general concept and configuration of today’s Makers 1660-1840 (1986).
Capitol are his. During service as a member of the Board of
Commissioners of the Federal District (1794-1802) and as
superintendent of the Patent Office (1802-1828), Thornton
continued lo dabble in architecture, producing innovative
residential designs for such Washington landmarks as The
Octagon and Tudor Place.

*
 Glossary 227

Acanthus Attic Capital words, ‘is hollow at the top,

and swelling at the bottom,
Plant with thick leaves which Top storey of a building, Head of a column or pilaster;
so that its out-line has a
is used as a decorative motif generally above the principal often decorated, according to
waved appearance’.
on Antique Corinthian and external cornice. the type of order used (see
Composite (a hybrid mixture below).
Coade Stone
of Ionic and Corinthian) Baize
capitals, and which in Cartouche Durable ceramic, made in
Heavy woollen cloth, well
Georgian Britain was much Lambeth by Eleanor Coade
felted and often dyed green ‘An ornament representing a
used on all types of classical after 1769, which could
or brown. scroll of paper or parchment’
mouldings. mimic stone or plaster.
(Ware, 1756).
Bead
Acroterion Corduroy
Caryatid
Originally a plinth to carry an Small moulding dating from Durable cotton, with the weft
Column or pilaster in the
ornament placed at the the Norman era, with a raised in ribs.
shape of a female figure. The
summit or the corner of a semicircular profile;
male equivalents (which
pediment. In the eighteenth continuous, or resembling a Cornice
usually wore a more solemn
century acroteria were more string of beads. Often
if not tragic expression) were The upper part of the
usually quadrant-shaped recessed (e.g. when separating
called atlantes or entablature, or the
‘ears’ found at the corners elements of the door) and
TELAMONES. uppermost part of a wall.
of pediments or cabinet flush with adjacent surfaces.
Also applies to any projecting
tops.
Casement moulding at the top of
Bombazine
internal or external walls.
Anthemion Traditional medieval window
I leavy fabric of silk warp and
type; side- or lop-hung, and
Ornamental motif based on worsted weft, usually made Damask
opening inwards or
the honeysuckle flower and in Norwich. Generally used
outwards. Largely replaced Beversible patterned fabric,
leaves; much used after the Tor dressmaking, but also as
by the sash window during usually in one single colour;
mid-1770s for mouldings and a heavy-duty furnishing
the Georgian period. the pattern is produced by
ironwork. fabric.
the contrast between the
Cassimere warp and weft faces, the
Architrave Buckram
former producing the satin
Medium-weight, soft twilled
Moulded door or window A coarse hemp cloth, used to ground.
woollen cloth; a cheaper
surround. In strict classical stiffen upholstery or
version of cashmere.
terms, it forms the lowest valances. Darnix
part of the entablature
Chiffonier A rough fabric of linen warp
(above the capital and Calico
and wool weft, often used for
below the frieze). Commode or sideboard with
Strong cotton cloth, bed furnishings.
open shelves (although some
resembling linen; its name
Ashlar were provided with doors).
comes from one of its Deal
Smoothly-dressed stonework, original sources - ‘Calicut’, in
Chintz Planks of fir or pine; from the
with very narrow joints. Portuguese India. Made in
Low German ‘dele’, meaning
Britain from the 1770s. Printed or possibly even
plank. Generally imported
Astragal painted cotton, sometimes
from the Baltic or from North
Cambric glazed to be more washable
Small, semicircular-profiled America.
and hard-wearing. Originally
moulding; also section of Fine white linen cloth, often
from India, where ‘chiLla ‘
window glazing bar. In 1756 used for bedclothes. Dentil
meant ‘spotted cloth’.
Isaac Ware called the
Plain projecting moulding
astragal ‘A little round Canvas
Cima recta with a square profile.
moulding, which in the orders
Very coarse hemp or flax Repeated dentils often
surrounds the lop of the shaft A very commonly found
(linen) cloth; also known as featured in simple
or body of Lhe column’, and moulding which, in Ware’s
BOLTING. cornices.
noted that ‘It is also called
the talon, or tondino'.
228 Glossary

Die Frieze Mastic Ormolu

‘A term to express a squared Middle section of the Any oil-based render or Alloy of copper, zinc and tin,
naked piece’ (Ware), such entablature, below the plaster. gilded; much used for
as the body of a classical cornice, which was often mounts, frames and furniture
pedestal. decorated with motifs or Mathematical tile decoration. ‘English ormolu’
representational carvings. referred to the simple
Clay tile with a large nib, laid
Dimity Can also be used for the lacquering of brass or similar
on a vertical wall in
equivalent section of a wall, alloy to get the same lustrous
Any type of plain or patterned interlocking courses in order
i.e. the wide band below the effect.
fabric. White dimity was to give the appearance of
cornice of a room. In textile
often used as a furnishing brickwork.
terms, the term ‘frieze’ Order
fabric in humbler dwellings
signifies a stout, coarse
and cottages - particularly Metope Classical architectural
woollen cloth.
for curtains and bed- formula of column and
The square spaces between
hangings. entablature which formed
Gauze the characteristic triglyphs
the basis for all Greek and
(three vertical projections)
Drugget Thin, transparent fabric with Roman architecture. The five
on the Doric frieze.
a crossed-warp weave. Graeco-Roman orders
Thin cloth, often used to
comprised the Doric (the
cover floors or carpets, or Modillion
Gimp plainest), Tuscan, Ionic,
occasionally as a loose cover
Scroll-shaped bracket Corinthian and Composite
for furniture; it was usually A decorative, openwork band
appearing in the cornice or (the most elaborately
twilled, and half wool and of stiff thread, often used as a
supporting a structural or decorated).
half linen. border or edging for
projecting member.
furnishing fabrics.
Ovolo
Egg and anchor
Moire
Gingham ‘A moulding called a quarter
Extremely common, often
Ribbed or grained silk. round’ (Ware, 1756). Also
very heavily-projecting Striped or checked cotton,
called an echinus.
moulding used widely by the used for cheap bedroom
Moreen
Palladian designers before hangings or loose furniture
Paktong
Adam. Called egg and covers. Particularly popular Worsted cloth with a waved
anchor by Ware. in eighteenth-century or stamped finish. This Uustrous, durable and easily-
America. ‘watered’ look, much used for polished alloy of copper, zinc
Entablature curtains and wall-hangings and nickel, imported from
Guilioche by 1 760, gradually fell out of China. The term comes from
Upper part of the classical
favour as more easily the Chinese ‘pai-tung’,
orders, above the capital; Decorative moulding
washable fabrics became meaning white copper.
consists of architrave, frieze comprising interlaced S’s.
available.
and cornice.
Palmette
Japanning
Moulding
Festoon Fan-shaped leaf ornament
Term originally used for
Contour or pattern given to resembling a palm leaf; often
‘An ornament of carved work, coloured lacquering (usually
projecting surfaces in used in conjunction with the
representing a wreath, or black or red) on imported
architecture or furniture; anthemion (see above).
garland of flowers, or Japanese cabinets. Oriental
generally executed in plaster,
leaves... naturally thickest in lacquer was derived from
papier mache or wood. Patera
the middle, small at each plants, whereas English
end, and tied up there, black lacquer was Flat circular or oval
Muslin
whence a part commonly manufactured synthetically ornament, often decorated
hangs down beyond the knot’ from asphaltum or candle Fine cotton textile originating with a flower-pattern.
(Ware, 1756). More recently soot. By I 780 the term was in India. Used to make
this term has largely used for any effect obtained transparent sub-curtains Pediment
come to signify the style by built-up layers of which would filter the direct
of single, vertically-hung lacquering - whether on Classical architectural
light entering a room.
curtain typical of Adam’s day. wood, papier mache or termination, either triangular
metals. or segmental (i.e. with a
curved upper surface).
 Glossary 229

Pilaster Render eighteenth century this term, since their feathers could not
short for ‘stock brick’, force their way through its
Flat-faced column projecting Plaster covering of a wall. A
indicated an average- dense texture.
from a masonry or panelled general term which includes
strength brick of reasonable
surface. Not to be confused stucco and even interior
quality and finish. ‘London Torus
with an engaged column, (gypsum) plaster; now used
stocks’, grey or yellow facing
which refers to the effect by generally to indicate an A thick, projecting moulding
bricks (their colour deriving
which a normal, cylindrical exterior covering. which looks rather like a
from the local clays) were
column appears to have half cable. From the Greek
much used in the speculative
of (or part of) its shaft buried Satin meaning ‘thick rope’.
building of the period.
in the wall behind.
A twilled weave with a very
Tuck pointing
smooth texture which caught String Course
Pulvinated frieze
the light. Could be made of The process by which
Projecting masonry course
A ‘swelling or rounding of the silk, cotton or worsted. inferior or badly-cut bricks
(i.e. horizontal band) on the
frieze’ (Ware), commonly are set in a mortar of the
exterior of a wall.
used both by Adam and his Scotia same colour as the brick
rivals as well as by Adam’s itself; in order to give the
A hollow moulding, also Stuff
Rococo predecessors. From impression of expensive,
called a casement, which
the Latin ‘pulvinatus’, General term referring to thin-jointed brickwork, a
produces ‘an effect, just
meaning cushioned. worsted cloths. straight line of white
opposite to the quarter
‘tucking’ mortar is then
round’ (Ware).
Quirk T abby set into this original
mortar.
Sharp incision or Serge A heavy, plain silk, often
undercutting between watered or waved, which was
A twilled fabric with a Twill
mouldings or adjacent much used for curtains.
worsted warp and woollen
surfaces, designed to throw a A type of weave in which
weft.
shadow. Taffeta each weft row starts one
thread further on than the
Settee Plain woven silk, with thicker
Quoin last row, producing a
weft threads. Popular for
Multi-seated chair. Distinct diagonal line.
Stone or brick at the right- window or bed hangings.
from a sofa in being derived
angled corner of a building;
directly from the form, height Velvet
generally projecting from the Tammy
and pattern of adjacent
wall surface to emphasize the A cut-pile fabric, made from
chairs. A strong but light worsted
termination. cotton, wool or silk.
fabric, often glazed.
Shag Frequently used to line
Rail Vitruvian scroll
curtains.
Cheap worsted fabric with a Wave ornament, often used
Horizontal member of a door
heavy pile. Used in Adam’s to decorate friezes. Also
or window, or of a piece of Term
day for bed coverings and the called running dog. The
furniture. The meeting rails
upholstery of simple seat A pedestal topped with a name was originally
of a sash window are those
furniture. human or animal figure, derived from the celebrated
two rails which interlock
tapering towards the bottom. Roman architect Marcus
when the sash is shut, and
Stile Stone, plaster or Coade terms Vitruvius Pollio.
which carry the sash
Vertical structural members were often used as garden
fasteners.
of a door, window or piece of ornaments. Warp
furniture.
Reeding Strong threads arranged
Ticking
lengthwise in the loom to
Combination moulding Stock
Strong linen twill woven in a form the basis of any fabric.
formed from groups of beads
Originally the board on herringbone pattern and weft are the threads
or similar simple, convex
which a brick was hand¬ often sLriped. Much in vogue interlaced at right angles to
mouldings.
shaped; by the late for mattresses and pillows, these.
230 Contacts and sources of information

If you are seeking to renovate or redecorate your Adam-period easily the best guide to problems and solutions in the area of
home, or simply wisli to find out more about the houses of the repair and maintenance. Subjects covered are stone masonry
time, there are many sources of information. These can help (vol. l), terracotta, brick and earth (vol.2 ), mortars, plasters
with methods of repair, types of materials, with advising on and renders (vol.3), metals (vol.4), and wood, glass and resins
suitable local suppliers and craftsmen, and suggesting other (vol.5).
expert sources.
English Heritage’s Architectural Study Collection, also run
Remember, many directories oT suppliers and services which from Keysign House, is an excellent source of decorative
pose as authoritative and critical guides to the best experts in treatments and artefacts, from roller blinds to original
the subject are actually nothing of the sort. Neither are wallpaper. The experts who administer the Collection have a
salesmen the best sources of balanced information about their wide knowledge of structural and decorative solutions for all
own products. It is always important to get the advice of a types of building. Contact Treve Rosoman on 071 973 3637.
disinterested expert before you begin any type of repair or
redecoration. Local English Heritage historic buildings inspectors should be
able to help with methods of repair and types oT decoration as
Contacts and sources of information well as with reliable local suppliers. He or she may even be
in the United Kingdom able to visit your home to give on-the-spot advice. To find out
who your local inspector is, ring the general English Heritage
1 Conservation Officers number (071 973 3000).
The Conservation Officer of your local District or Borough
Council (usually associated with the council’s Planning 3 National Amenity Societies
Department) is there specifically to help house-owners on all The National Amenity Societies not only serve as legal
aspects of period house renovation. lie or she can advise on eonsultees on alterations to listed buildings involving
local joiners, plasterers, ironworkers and other good, reliable demolition, but also offer advisory services on all aspects oT
craftsmen in the area. They can also let you know about period homes, whether listed or not.
possible local authority grant aid for your repairs or
alterations. Some county councils have expert conservation The Georgian Group (37 Spital Square, London El 6DY, tel 071
groups who can be of similar help. 377 1722) produce a series of introductory guides on key
aspects of the Georgian house. The series currently comprises
Architectural salvage outlets can be very useful. They can also No. I Windows, No.2 Brickwork, No.3 Doors, No.4 Paint Colour,
be horribly mis-used, encouraging over-enthusiastic house¬ No. 5 Render, Plaster and Stucco, No.6 Wallpaper, No.7
owners to install over-sized or over-elaborate elements in Mouldings, No.8 Ironwork, No.9, Fireplaces, No. 10, Roofs,
inappropriate settings. While some salvage companies are No.11, Floors and Floor Coverings, No.12 Stonework, No.13
exemplary in their dealings with suppliers and public alike, Lighting and No. 14 Curtains and Blinds. The Group can also
others are not so scrupulous - at worst effectively acting as provide general booklists for those beginning or contemplating
fences for the hugely expanding trade in art and architectural repair or redecoration.
then. As with local craftsmen, do not just rely on consulting the
Yellow Pages or a magazine directory to get the names of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (37 Spital
random architectural salvage companies; talk to your local Square, London El 6D Y, tel 071 377 1644) publishes a series of
Conservation Officer before choosing one. Technical Pamphlets and Information Sheets on maintenance
and repair and advises on suitable surveyors and craftsmen. It
If your building is listed, your Conservation Officer should also also produces a quarterly Period Property Register of historic
be able to provide you with details of the listing, which should houses for sale, available to members.
tell you more about the history of your home.
4 Specialist Societies
2 English Heritage The British Brick Society
As the principal body regulating the conservation Woodside House
and maintenance of historic buildings in England, English Winkfield
Heritage (officially known as the Historic Buildings and Windsor
Monuments Commission), and its equivalents in Wales (Cadw) Berks SL4 2DX
and Scotland (Historic Scotland), are well equipped to help in a
variety of ways. The Furniture History Society
Flat I
The Conservation Service of English Heritage in London 78 Redcliffe Square
(Keysign House, 429 Oxford St, London W1R 2HD, tel 071 973 London SW10 9BN
3000) can advise on all matters of repair or redecoration. John
and Nicola Ashurst produced a five volume-series on Practical The Garden History Society
Building Conservation for the section in 1988; this series - 35 Picton Street, Montpelier
available from English Heritage, or from good bookshops - is Bristol BS6

*
 Contacts and sources of information 231

The Glass and Glazing Federation The Museum of English Rural Life
44 Borough High St, London SE1 1XB Whiteknights Park, Reading
Berkshire RG6 2AG
The Men of the Stones 0734 875123
The Rutlands
Tinwell, Stamford Pilkington Glass Museum
Lines PE9 3UD Prescot Road, SL Helens
Merseyside WA10 3TT
The Stone Federation 0744 28882
82 New Cavendish St
London W1M 8AD Temple Newsam House
Temple Newsam Park
The Tiles & Architectural Ceramics Society Leeds LSI5 0AE
Reabrook Lodge 0532 647321
8 Sutton Rd, Shrewsbury (As well as splendidly restored rooms and an unrivalled
Shropshire SY2 ODD archive, Temple Newsam has an expert staff available for
advice, and produces invaluable guides on key aspects of the
The Wallpaper History Society Georgian interior)
The Victoria and Albert Museum
South Kensington, London SW7 2RL The Department of Furniture and Interiors
The Victoria and Albert Museum
5 Museums South Kensington
Local and national museums often serve as a source of expert London SW7 2RL
knowledge on internal and external decoration. 071 938 8500
Here are some of the leading authorities:- (An excellent source of expert knowledge, of artefacts, of
pictures - and of original Georgian room sets)
Rirmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3DHA 6 Houses Open to the Public
021 235 2834 It is always useful to have a look at extant houses of the Adam
period which are open to the public and which have interiors
The Bowes Museum in a reasonably original state. While these may be very useful
Barnard Castle sources of reference, though, remember that the scale,
Co Durham DL12 BNP complexity and pretension of their interiors may be
0833 37139 inappropriate for the more modest dimensions and differing
(Houses a superb collection of historic textiles) character of your own home. Useful, domestically-scaled
interiors include:
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery No.l Royal Crescent, Bath, Avon
Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RL The Georgian House, Charlotte Street, Bristol
0272 299711 Pickford’s House, 41 Friar Gate, Derby
(Includes an excellent collection of furnishing fabrics) The Georgian House, 7 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh (run by
the National Trust for Scotland) and Soho House, Birmingham
The Brooking Collection - Matthew Boulton’s own home, altered after 1787 and now
Thames Polytechnic, Dartford, Kent being splendidly restored by Birmingham City Council.
(A vast collection of architectural artefacts, including doors,
windows, glazing bars, sash mechanisms, fanlights and Large country houses are not always the most appropriate
ironwork, due to open in 1992. View by appointment: models for modest domestic redecoration, nor do they
tel 0483 504555) represent a typical reflection of what life was like for most
people in the mid-Georgian era. However, houses such as
Heaton flail, Heaton Park those listed below still serve as splendid examples of what
Prestwich Adam and his contemporaries could achieve:
Manchester M25 5SW Claydon House, Buckinghamshire (National Trust)
061 998 2331 Culzean Castle, Ayrshire (National Trust)
(Manchester City Art Galleries also run the excellent Queen’s Harewood House, North Yorkshire
Park Conservation Studios in Harpurhey, tel 061 205 2645.) Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (National Trust)
Kenwood, Hampstead, London (English Heritage)
High Wycombe Chair Museum Newby Hall, Yorkshire (National Trust)
Priory Avenue Nostell Priory, Yorkshire (National Trust)
High Wycombe Osterley Park, Middlesex (National Trust)
Buckinghamshire Saltram, Devon (National Trust)
0494 421895 Syon Park, Middlesex.
 232 Contacts and sources of information

Contacts and sources of information in the variety of books and other materials; conducts conferences,
United States workshops and seminars on a range of preservation-related
topics; supports the work of local and statewide preservation
1 State Historic Preservation Offices organizations; administers a nationwide collection of historic
Each stale has a designated slate historic preservation officer museum properties; and, through its network of regional
(STIPO) whose responsibilities include carrying out statewide offices, offers advice and information to preservationists. For
inventories of cultural resources, nominating properties to the general membership information, contact:
National Register of Historic Places, administering grant and
loan programmes, operating historic properties, and providing National Trust for Historic Preservation
public education and information, on preservation techniques, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
the National Register nomination procedure, federal tax credits Washington, DC 20036
for rehabilitation, and a number of other subjects. A list of (202) 673-4000
SI IPOs can be found in Landmark Yellow Pages (see ‘Further
Reading’ section). For information on a particular subject, contact the appropriate
regional office:
2 Statewide and Local Preservation Organizations
Local preservation organizations exist in hundreds of Mid-Atlantic Regional Office
communities, conducting lours of historic homes and 6401 Germantown Avenue
neighbourhoods, offering advice on preservation techniques Philadelphia, PA 19144
and sources of assistance, and issuing newsletters and other (215) 438-2886
publications as well as linking local groups with one another, (DE, DC, MD, NJ, PA, VA, WV, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands)
lobbying for state and local legislation supportive of
preservation interests, administering funding programmes, Midwest Regional Office
and serving as information clearing-houses. Your National 53 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 1135
Trust regional office (see below) may be able to provide the Chicago, IL 60604
names of statewide and local organizations in your area. (312) 939-5547
(IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, OH, WI)
3 Local Historic District Commissions
If your house has been designated a local landmark or is Northeast Regional Office
situated in a locally designated historic district, you may be 7 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 5th Floor
required to obtain the approval of a review hoard before Boston, MA 02109
making certain alterations to the property. Titles of these (617) 523-0885
boards vary widely as do the provisions of the ordinances (CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT)
which they administer. Check with the city hall (the planning
and zoning commission is a good place to start) for information Southern Regional Office
on whether your house or neighbourhood is governed by local 456 King Street, Charleston, SC 29403
preservation regulations. (803) 722-8552
(AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN)
4 Historic American Buildings Survey
Founded in the 1930s, the Historic American Buildings Survey Mountains/Plains Regional Office
(HABS) is a valuable collection of photographs, measured 511 16lh Street, Suite 700
drawings and documentary research on hundreds of historic Denver, CO 80202
structures. To find out whether a particular properly may have (303) 623-1504
been documented by HABS, or to obtain copies of photos and (CO, KS, MT, NE, ND, OK, SI), WY)
drawings of documented structures, contact: Texas/New Mexico Field Office
Historic American Buildings Survey 500 Main Street, Suite 606
Division of Prints and Photographs Fort Worth, TX 76102
Library of Congress (817) 332-4398
Washington, DC 20540 (NM, TX)
(202) 707-6394
Western Regional Office
One Sutter Street, Suite 707
5 National Trust for Historic Preservation San Francisco, CA 94104
Chartered by Congress in 1949, the National Trust is a (415) 956-0610
nationwide nonprofit organization with more than 250,000 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, UT, WA, Guam, Micronesia)
members, which aims to foster an appreciation of the diverse
character and meaning of the American cultural heritage and to 6 Old-House Journal
preserve and revitalize the nation’s historic environments. The Published bimonthly, the Old-House Journal is an excellent
Trust publishes a monthly newspaper, Historic Preservation source of‘how-to’ advice for the handyman, as well as
News, a bimonthly magazine, Historic Preservation, and a wide information of interest to the old-house aficionado. In addition
 Contacts and sources of information 233

to the magazine itself, the magazine’s staff also publishes an Garrison -on-Hudson, NY 10524
annual catalogue which lists sources of traditional products.
For subscription information, conLact: Gardner-Pingree House
128 Essex Street
Old-House Journal Salem, MA 01970
PO Box 50214
Boulder, CO 80321 Flomewood
(800) 888-9070 3400 North.Charles Street
Baltimore, Ml) 21218
7 Other Organizations
American Association for State and Local History .Joseph Manigault House
172 2nd Avenue, North Suite 202 350 Meeting Street
Nashville, TN 37201 Charleston, SC 29403

Decorative Arts Society The Octagon

c/o Brooklyn Museum 1741 New York Avenue, N.W.
200 Eastern Parkway Washington, DC 20006
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Harrison Gray Otis House
Society of Architectural Historians 141 Cambridge Street
1232 Pine Street Boston, MA 02114
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Peirce-Nichols House
8 Museums 80 Federal Street
Cooper-Hewitl National Museum of Design Salem, MA 01970
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128 George Read II House
42 The Strand
Diplomatic Reception Rooms New Castle, DE 19720
US Department of State
2201 C Street, NW Nathaniel Russell House
Washington, DC 20520 51 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC 29401
Essex Institute
132 Essex Street Tudor Place
Salem, MA 01970 1644 31st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum
Route 52 Woodlawn Plantation
Winterthur, DE 19735 9000 Richmond Highway.
Mount Vernon, VA 22121
Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, NY 10028

Museum of Art
Rhode Island School of Design
224 Benefit Street
Providence, R1 02903

Museum of Fine Arts

465 Fluntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115

Philadelphia Museum of Art

26th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Philadelphia, PA 19130

9 Houses Open to the Public

Boscobel
Route 9D
 254 Further Reading

Introducton The Age of Adam Hussey, Christopher, English Country Houses: Mid-Georgian
(Country Life, 1955)
(a) Contemporary sources Irwin, David, English Neoclassical Art (Faber, 1966)
Lees-Milne, James, The Age of Adam (Balsford, 1947)
Boswell, James, The Life of Dr Johnson (1799 etc) LongstalTe-Gowan, Todd, The London Town Garden (Yale, 1992)
Goldsmith, Oliver, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) Mordaunt Crook, J., The Greek Revival (John Murray, 1972)
Betsy Sheridan’s Journal (ed. W. LeFanu, OUP, 1986) Rowan, Alastair, Robert Adam (V&A catalogue of drawings,
Smollett, Tobias, Humphry Clinker (1771) 1988)
Sterne, Laurence, Tristram Shandy (1759-67) Stillman, Damie, The Decorative Work of Robert Adam (Alec
Woodforde, James, The Diary of a Country Parson Tiranti, 1966)
(OUP, 1924-31) Stroud, Dorothy, Henry Holland, His Life and Architecture
(Country Life, 1966)
(b) Modern sources Summerson, John, Georgian London (Barrie & Jenkins, 1989)

Ed. Black, Jeremy, British Politics and Society.from Walpole to

Pitt 1742-89 (Macmillan, 1991) Chapter Two The Architectural Shell
Borsay, Peter, The English Urban Benaissance - Culture and and
Society in the Provincial Toum 1660-1770 (OUP, 1989) Chapter Three Fixtures and Fittings
Brooke, John, George III (Panther, 1972)
Bryant, Julius, Robert Adam (1728-92) Architect of Genius (a) Contemporary sources
(English HeriLage, 1992)
Butler, Marilyn, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries - English Chambers, William, A Treatise on Civil Architecture (1759)
Literature and its Background 1760-1830 (OUP, 1981) Crunden, John, and Milton, Thomas, The Chimney Piece
Denvir, Bernard, Art, Design and Society 1689-1789 Maker’s Daily Assistant (1766)
(Longman, 1988) Crunden, John, and Milton, Thomas, The Carpenter’s
George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the 18lh Century (1925; Companion (1770)
reprinted Peregrine 1966) Darly, Matthew, The Ornamental Architect (1771)
Hay, Douglas, etc, Albion’s Fatal Tree - Crime and Society in Pain, William, The Practical Builder (1774)
Eighteenth Century England (Allen Lane, 1975) Pain, William, The Carpenter’s and Joiner’s Repository (1778)
Mitchel, Leslie, Charles James Fox (Oxford University Press, Swan, Abraham,/! Collection of Designs in Architecture (1757)
1992) Swan, Abraham, Designs for Chimnies (1765)
Porter, Roy, English Society in the Eighteenth Century Ware, Isaac, A Complete Body of Architecture (1756)
(Penguin, 1982) Welldon, W. & J., The Smith’s Right Hand (1765 ed.)
See also Harris, Eileen, British Architectural Books and Writers
1556-1785 (Cambridge , 1990).
Chapter One Adam Style
(b) Modem sources
Adam, Robert and James, The Works in Architecture of Robert
and James Adam (1773, Academy Editions 1975) Amery, Colin, Period Houses and their Details (Butterworths
Banham, Joanna, McDonald, Sally, and Porter, Julia, Victorian 1978)
Interior Design (Cassell, 1991) Brunskill, R.W., Brick Building in Britain (Gollancz, 1990)
Binney, Marcus, Sir Robert Taylor (George Allen and Unwin, Byrne, Andrew, Bedford Square (Athlone, 1990)
1984) Cruickshank, Dan, and Burton, Neil, Life in the Georgian City
Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects (Viking Penguin, 1975)
1600-1840 (John Murray, 1978) Davey, Death, etc, The Care and Conservation of Georgian
Cruickshank, Dan, and Burton, Neil, Life in the Georgian City Houses (Edinburgh New Town Conservation Committee
(Viking Penguin, 1990) /Butterworths, 1986)
Fleming, John, Robert Adam and his Circle (John Murray, 1962) Gilbert, Christopher, and Wells-Cole, Anthony, The
Harris, John, Sir William Chambers (Thames & Hudson, 1970) Fashionable Fireplace (Leeds City Art Galleries, 1985)
Harvey, John, Restoring Period Gardens (Shire, 1988) Gilbert, Christopher, Lomax, James, and Wells-Cole, Anthony,
Country House Floors (Leeds City Art Galleries, 1987)
 Further Reading 235

Graham, Clare, Dummy Boards and Chimney-Boards (Shire, Moss, Roger W., Lighting for Historic Buildings (The
1988) Preservation Press, 1988)
Harris, John, The British Iron Industry 1700-1850 (Macmillan, Rowe, Robert, Adam Silver (Faber, 1965)
1988) Shore, David, Hester Bateman (W.H. Allen, 1959)
Kelly, Alison, Mrs Coade’s Slone (Self-Publishing Assoc, 1990)
Kelsall, Frank, ‘Stucco’ in ed. Hobhouse and Sanders,
Good and Proper Materials (London Topographical Chapter Five Colours and Coverings
Society, 1989) and ‘Liardet versus Adam’ in Architectural
History, vol.27 (Society of Architectural Historians, 1984) Ayres, James, ‘Oilcloths’ in Traditional Homes, July 1985
Kitchen, Judith L., Caring For Your Old House (The Bredif, Josette, Toiles deJouy (Thames & Hudson, 1989)
Preservation Press, 1991) Bristow, Ian, ‘Floorcloths’ in SPAB News, vol.l 1 no.2 (Society
Lloyd, Nathaniel,/! History of English Brickwork (1925; for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 1990)
reprinted Butterworths, 1983) Dossie, Robert, The Handmaid of the Arts (1758)
Sambrook, John, Fanlights (Chatto & Windus, 1989) Enlwisle, E.A., The Book of Wallpaper (Kingsmead Reprints,
Shivers, Natalie, Walls and Molding (The Preservation Press, 1970)
1990) Fowler, John, and Cornforth, John,English Decoration in the
18th Century (Barrie & Jenkins, 1978)
Jackson-Stops, Gervase ‘Syon Park, Middlesex’ in Country Life,
Chapter Four Services 16 April 1992
Ed. Jameson, Clare, A Pictorial Treasury of Curtain and
Bickerton, L.M., English Drinking Glasses 1625-1825 (Shire, Drapery Designs 1750-1950 (1987)
1984) Lynn, Catherine, Wallpapers in America (Kingsmead Reprints,
Brears, Peter, The Kitchen Catalogue (York Castle Museum, 1980)
1979) Montgomery, Florence, Printed Textiles: English and American
Brown, Peter, Pyramids of Pleasure (York Civic Trust, 1990) Cottons and Linens 1700-1850 (Thames & Hudson, 1970)
Butler, Joseph T., Candleholders in America 1650-1900 (Crown, Montgomery, Florence, Textiles in America (W. W. Norton, New
New York, 1967) York, 1984)
Ed. Cooke, Lawrence S., Lighting in America (Main Street Nylander, Jane C., Fabrics for Historic Buildings (The
Press, 1984) Preservation Press, 1990)
Cruickshank, Dan, and Burton, Neil, Life in the Georgian City Nylander, Richard C., Mall papers for Historic
(Viking Penguin, 1990) Buildings (NTHP, Washington DC, 1992)
Dickinson, H.W., Matthew Boulton (Cambridge, 1937) Nylander, Richard C., Wallpapers for Historic Buildings (The
Elville, E.M., A Collector’s Dictionary of Glass (Country Life, Preservation Press, 1983)
1961) Oman, Charles, and Hamilton, Jean, Wallpapers (Sothebys,
Eveleigh, David, Firegrates and Kitchen Ranges (Shire, 1983) 1982)
Forty, Adrian, Objects of Desire - Design and Society 1750-1980 Rosensliel, Helene Von, and Casey Winkler, Gail, Floor
(Thames & Hudson, 1986) Coverings for Historic Buildings (NTHP, Washington DC,
Gilbert, Christopher, and Wells-Cole, Anthony, The 1988)
Fashionable Fire-Place (Leeds City Art Galleries, 1985) Rosoman, Treve, ‘Portraits of the Past’ in Traditional Homes,
Gilbert, Christopher, etc, Lighting the Historic House (Leeds February 1990; ‘Swags and Festoons’ in Traditional
City Art Galleries, 1992) Interior Decoration, Autumn 1986; and ‘In the Shade’
Glossop, William, The Stove-Grate Maker’s Assistant (1771) (Blinds) in Traditional Homes, July 1985
Goodison, Nicholas, Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton Rothstein, Natalie, Silk Designs of the 18th Century (Thames &
(Phaidon, 1974) Hudson, 1990)
Hayward, Arthur H., Colonial Lighting (1927, reprinted Dover, Thornton, Peter, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior
1962) 1620-1920 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984)
Laing, Alastair, Lighting (V&A exhibition catalogue, 1982) Wells-Cole, Anthony, Historic Paper Hangings (Leeds City Art
Mankowitz, Wolf, Wedgwood (Batsford, 1953) Galleries, 1983)
Moss, Roger, Lighting for Historic Buildings (NTHP, Westman, Annabel, ‘English Window Curtains in the
Washington DC, 1988) Eighteenth Century’ in Antiques, June 1990
 236 Further Heading

Chapter Six Furniture Furniture: 1620 to the Present (New York: Richard
Marek, 1981)
(a) Contemporary sources Favretli, Rudy J., Favretti, Joy Putnam, Landscapes and
Gardens for Historic Buildings: A Handbook for
Chambers, William, Designs of Chinese Buildings (1757) Reproducing and Recreating Authentic Landscape
Chippendale, Thomas, The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Settings (Nashville, Tenn.: American Association for
Director (1st ed. 1754, 3rd ed. 1760-2; reprinted 1957 etc) Stale and Local History, 1978.)
Columbani, Placido,/! New Book of Ornaments (1775) Gowans, Alan, Images of American Living: Four Centuries of
Crunden, John, The Joyner and Cabinet-Maker’s Darling (1765) Architecture and Furniture as Cultural Expression
Ince, William, and Mayhew, John, The Universal System of (Reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1976)
Household Furniture (1762) Harris, Eileen, The Furniture of Robert Adam (New York: St
Manwaring, Robert, The Cabinet and Chair-Maker’s Beal Martin’s Press, 1973)
Friend and Companion (1765) Hayward, Arthur PL, Colonial and Early American Lighting
Pryke, Sebastian, ‘Revolution in Taste’ in Country Life, 16 April (Reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1962)
1992 Hiesinger, Kathryn Bloom, and others, Bulletin, Volume 82,
Numbers 551-52 (Summer 1986): Drawing Room from
Lansdowne House (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum
(b) Modern sources or Art, 1986)
Kimball, Fiske, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies
Ed. Beard, Geoffrey, and Gilbert, Christopher, Dictionary of and of the Early Republic (Repr. New York: Dover, 1966.)
English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 (Furniture History Kitchen, Judith L., Caring for Your Old House: A Guide for
Society, 1986) Owners and Residents (Washington, D.C.: The
Clabburn, Pamela, The National Trust Book of Furnishing Preservation Press, 1991)
Textiles (Viking Penguin, 1985) Lyle, Charles T., The George Read I! House: Notes on Its
Gilbert, Christopher, The Life and Work of Thomas History and Restoration (Wilmington: Historical Society
Chippendale (Artline Editions, 1978) of Delaware, 1986)
Hayward, Helena, and Kirkham, Peter, William and John Lynn, Catherine, Wallpaper in America, (New York:
Linnell (Christies, 1980) W. W. Norton and Co., 1980)
Walton, Karin, The Golden Age of English Furniture Upholstery McAlester, Virginia, and McAlester, Lee,/1 Field Guide to
(Leeds City Art Galleries, 1973) American Houses (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1984)
Ed. While, Elizabeth, Pictorial Dictionary of British 18th McCue, George, The Octagon (Washington, D.C.: The
Century Furniture Design (Antique Collectors’ Club, American Institute of Architects Foundation, 1976)
1990) Miller, Edgar G., Jr., American Antique Furniture (Reprint,
New York: Dover Publications, 1966)
Further Reading of particular importance for Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nineteenth-Century America:
the United States Furniture and Other Decorative Arts (New York:
New York Graphic Society, 1971)
Andrews, Wayne, Architecture, Ambition and Americans (New Montgomery, Florence N., Textiles in America, 1650-1920
York: Free Press, 1979) (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1984)
Aronson, Joseph, The Encyclopedia of Furniture (New York: Moss, Roger W., Lighting for Historic Buildings (Washington,
Crown Publishers, 1965) D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1988)
Belden, Louise Conway, The Festive Tradition: Table National Trust for Historic Preservation, Landmark Yellow
Decoration and Desserts in America 1650-1900 (New Pages: Where to Find All the Names, Addresses, Facts and
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1983) Figures You Need (Washington, D.C.: The Preservation
Bjerkoe, Ethel Hall, The Cabinetmakers of America (Rev. ed., Press, 1992)
Exton, Pa.: Sehiffer Publishing Ltd., 1978) Nylander, Jane C., Fabrics for Historic Buildings (Rev. ed.,
Butler, Jeanne F., Competition 1192: Designing a Nation’s Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1990)
Capitol (Washington, D.C.: United States Capitol Nylander, Richard C., Wallpapers for Historic Buildings (Rev.
Historical Society, 1976) ed., Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1992)
Fairbanks, Jonathan L., and Bates, Elizabeth Bidwell, American Peterson, Charles E., ed., Building Early America (Radnor, Pa.:
Chilton Book Co., 1976)
 Photographic Acknowledgements 237

Peterson, Harold L., Americans at Home (New York: Charles Hamilton Weston Wallpapers Ltd, Richmond, Surrey: 168 (top
Scribner’s Sons, 1971) right)
Pierson, William H., JrAmerican Buildings and Their Harewood House, Leeds, by Permission of the Earl of
Architects: The Colonial arid Neo-Classical Styles Harewood: 119, 188 (lop), 190, 194, 201 (top left), 202
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1970) fan Parry, Photographer: 39, 40, 41, 50, 72, 74, 75, 79, 81 (right),
Stillinger, Elizabeth, The Antiques Guide to Decorative Arts in 84 (bottom left), 87, 95, 104, 106, 107, 110, 137 (bottom
America 1600-1875 (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1972) right), 160 (top right), 162 (top left)
Thornton, Peter, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior Jonathan Horne Antiques, 66c Kensington Church St, London
1620-1920 (New York: Viking, 1984) W8: 122, 148
Von Rosenstiel, Helene, American Rugs and Carpets (New Martin Charles, Photographer: 1, 2, 4, 59, 84, 90, 94 (bottom
York: William Morrow and Co., 1978) right), 95 (centre right), 100, 101 (top left), 112 (top left),
Von Rosenstiel, Helene and Winkler, Gail Caskey, Floor- 115, 123,125,160 (top left, bottom left)
Coverings for Historic Buildings (Washington, D.C.: The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin: 154
Preservation Press, 1988) National Maritime Museum, Greenwich: 68
National Portrait Gallery, London: 8
National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington
Photographic Acknowledgements DC/Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
(photos: David Bold): 49, 54, 55
Public Affairs Department, Lloyd’s of London: 223
Angelo Hornak, Photographer: 31, 38, 45, 62, 63,112, 160 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England: 111
(bottom right), 188 (bottom), 189 Royal Academy of Arts, London: 159
Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd: 219 Royal Institute of British Architects, Drawings Collection,
Athlone Press, London. Illustrations taken, by kind permission, London (photos: Geremy Butler): 34, 97, 99
from Bedford Square, Andrew Ryrne (Athlone Press, The Stapleton Collection: 52, 53, 94 (top right), 102 (bottom),
1990): 66 (drawing by Rupert Round), 67 (drawing by 116 (far left), 127, 130, 158, 161, 168 (bottom right), 171
James Whitehead) (bottom), 172, 177, 179 (lop), 181, 183, 191, 199 (bottom),
Barrie & Jenkins, London. Illustrations taken, by kind 208,209,213,215,218, 220
permission, from Georgian London, John Summerson Tate Gallery: 81
(Barrie & Jenkins): 64 (drawing by Alison Shepherd, Temple Newsam (Leeds City Art Galleries): 168 (left)
A.R.I.B.A.) The Mansell Collection, London: 11, 13, 16, 18, (below), 21, 23,
Bridgeman Art Library, London: 12, 18 (British Museum), 19 24, 33
(Trinity College, Cambridge), 36, 47 (Townely Hah The National Trust PhoLographic Library, London: 15 (photo:
Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley), 92, 121, 153 Geoffrey Shakerley), 37 (photo: Sheila Orme), 80, 95 (top
(Christie’s London), 162 (top, phoLo: John Bethell), 164, right, photo: J. Whittaker), 101 (bottom left, photo: John
199 (top and centre: Sir John Soane’s Museum) Gibbons), 132 (photo: Angelo Hornak), 133 (photo: Rob
Chris Salmon, The London Crown Glass Company: 83 (right) Matheson), 136 (photo: Jenny Hunt), 137 (left, photo:
Christie’s Colour Library, London: 204, 205, 214; Christie’s John Bethell; top right, photo: John Gibbons), 138 (photo:
London:216 Rob Matheson), 171 (photo: J. Whittaker), 201 (top
Country Life (photo: Jonathan Gibson): 109 centre, photo: John Gibbons; top right and bottom left,
Courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London photos: John Bethell)
(photos: Geremy Butler): 61, 102 (top), 103, 116 (top and The Historic Charleston Foundation, Charleston, South
centre right), 129, 156, 157, 162 (bottom), 193 Carolina: 60 (photo: Louis Schwartz)
Dorothy BosomworLh, Warner Fabrics Archives, Milton Keynes: Tim Mowl: 94, 113
175 Victoria & Albert Museum, London: 169, 170, 181.
Edifice, London: 65 (right, top and bottom), 66 (bottom left and Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool/Lady Lever Gallery, Wirral: 149,
centre), 69, 76, 78, 79 (bottom left and right), 84 (top 163
left), 86, 87 (top left and right, bottom left), 89 Winterthur Museum, Delaware: 178, 179 (bottom), 182, 211
English Heritage, London: 57, 124
Fairfax House, York Civic Trust: 14, 112 (bottom, right), 139, Photography of Syon House by kind permission of the Duke of
143 Northumberland
Garry Atkins, 107 Kensington Church St, Loudon W8, photos:
Alfie Barnes: 149 (top, bottom left), 150
 238 Index

Page numbers in italics refer lo Bath continued Bide, John Sluarl, Third Earl Chippendale, Thomas 14, 24, Crook, Professor 32
illustration captions. Rivers Street 110 10, 14, 15, 17,2/ 118, 164, 166, 170, 174, 176, Croome Court,
Adam, James 41 Royal Crescent 39, 61, 62 engraving by W.T. Mote 15 180, 187-8, 191 Worcestershire 173-4
Architect of the King’s Works 41 Balli Slove 134 Lansdowne House 9 Adam, collaboration with Crown glass 82, 83, 206
Italy 41 bathrooms 138, 148, 151 patronage of Adam 9, 41 191,205 Cruickshank, Dan 89
Piranesi, meeting with 41 baths 148 Byng, Admiral 20 basin stand 141 Life in the Georgian City 128
quoted 44 Baucher, Richard 180 chimneyboards 124 Crunden and Milton 96
Spalatro 41 Beard, Geoffrey 192 china case 183 Cumming, Alexander
Harks in Architecture (with bedrooms 68 canals, construction of 28 Chinese Chippendale 110, 184 ball-cock WC 151
Robert Adam) 9, 44, 49, 51, beds 179, 180, 192, 193, 195, 197 candelabra 127, 129,131 commode 188 curtains 154, 173-5,179
55, 91, 101, 104, 115, 122, 127, textiles and bedding 179, 180, candles 128, 208 complete house furnishing cornice designs 153, 172
129, 159, 172, 205,214, 220 192, 197 beeswax 128 service 192 drapery 173-4
Adam, John 41,91 Bell, Thomas 180 tallow 128 Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s festoon (French) 173-4
Carron and Company 80, 135 Bentley, Thomas 147 candlesticks 128, 129, 131, 131 Director 56, /19,141, 172, French draw (French rod) 26,
Adam, Robert 188 bianco sopra bianco tiles 122 Cardigan, Lord 170 183, 184, 185, 187, 188,191, 174
Architect of the King’s Works 41 Blane, Dr Gilbert 144 Caroline, Queen 80 206, 214, 216 muslin 128, 174
birth and family 37, 41 blinds 128, 174 carpels 46, 105, 108, 153,154, grate designs 134 spring 174-
ceiling designs 103, 104-5,104 roller 174 158, 160, 161, 162, 164, 165 library writing table 196 Tabby 175
Chambers compared 51 Venetian 174 cleaning 164 Neo-Classicism 187 textiles used 174, 175
chimneyboard designs 124 bog-house 68 fitted 160, 164 nineteenth century popularity
Chippendale, collaboration bolection moulding 96 ingrain 164, 165 216,220
with 191, 191,205 Bonomi, Joseph 97, 99 needlework 164 overmantel mirror 208 dadoes 26, 96
death 77,214 bookcases 207 proleclion 128 pier table 204 Dance, George
decorative style 44, 49 dummy 192 Turkey 26 seal furniture 184,185, 197-8,201 Building Act (1774) 64
elected Member of glazed 206, 207 Carr, John upholstering business 192 Danson, Kent 60
Parliament 41 Boston, Massachusetts 87 Fairfax House kitchen 138, 142 window cornice design 1 72 Darby, Abraham 10, 10
funeral 41 Boston Massacre 19 Carron and Company 80, 135 cisterns 138, 140 Delaney, Mrs 178, 180
influence 51, 56 Boston Tea Parly 17, 144 Carter, Thomas. Claude Lorrain 28, 37 Delft and Delftware tiles 122
integrated interior design 49, 51 Boulton, Matthew 14, 28, 131 Builders Magazine 70, 120, Coade, Eleanor 14, 80 Devall, John 137
Italy 41 colza-oil lamp manufacture 132 132, 134 Coade Stone 76, 77, 80 Devonshire, Georgina, Duchess
manipulation of public taste 25 Bourton-on-the-Water 168 Carter, Thomas chimneypieees 118 of 14
marketing 41 bow window 85 chimneypiece, Syon House 137 Coalbrookdaie bridge 10, 10 Diderol and D’Alembert
metamorphic library steps 191 box cornice 96 Carter, Thomas, the Younger Coalbrookdaie Company 80,135 Encyclopaedia 83, 167
moulding designs 101 Boydell, John fireplace, Saltram House 133 Cobb, John 187,216 die-stamping 131
movement, concept of 44 print of Coalbrookdaie bridge 10 Cawthorn, James 37 cobbles, replacement of 27 diet and meals 140, 142, 144
Piranesi, meeting with 41 Bramah, Joseph ceilings 101, 103, 104-5, 104, 159 Coke, Lady Mary 56, 171 Dighton, Edward 166
popularity 51 ball-cock WC 151 colour 92, 104, 158,159, 161 colour 44, 155, 157, 161 dining rooms 68, 204-
portrait by Willison 9 breakfast 142 moulded decoration 105 blue 155-6, 171 dinner 142
quoted 49 bricks 68, <5P, 71 painled decoration 101, 104 bricks 68, 71 distemper 155
reaction againsl 214 brick arches 70 papier melt decoration 95 ceilings 92, 101, 104, 158, Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire 168
retirement lo Scotland 77 brick tax 73 plasterwork 93, 94, 96 159, 161 doors 87
seal furniture designs 198 chequered pattern 71 ceramics chimneypieees 118 architraves 122
side table designs 205 colour 68, 71 bianco sopra bianco 122 coordinated texliles and Circus, Balh 74
sideboard, invention of 204 culling bricks 71 Chinese 184 wall-coverings 180, 198 Coade Slone keystones 76
Spalatro 36, 41 facing bricks 73 creamware 146, 147, 149, 151 doors 88 doorcase 88
stale bed, Osterley Park 192,193 floors 108 Delfi and Delftware 122 Federal style 54 entablature mouldings 99
Sluarl’s Spencer House gauged bricks 71 jasperware 147, 149, 158 fireplace tiles 122, 122 fanlights 59, 88, 89
interiors criticised by 37 kilns 68, 70 red stoneware 149 floors 105, 107, 108, 110 furniture 88, 91
stucco patent rights 75, 77 place bricks 71 salt-glaze 149 green 155, 158, 165, 171 numbering front doors 88
Works in Architecture (with rubbed bricks 71 sprigged decoration 149 grey 171 paintwork 88
James Adam) 9, 44, 49, 51,55, stock bricks 71 lablewares 144, 146, 147-8, lead colour 155 Dossie, Robert
91, 101, 104, 115, 122, 127, tuck-pointing 71, 73 148, 149 mouldings and decorative Handmaid to the Arts 155-6, 206
129, 159, 172, 205,214, 220 vitrified 71 tiles 122, 122 relief work 93 drawing rooms 67, 68, 96, 204
Adam, William 37, 41 Bridgwater, Duke of 28 chairs and seat furniture 26, Prussian blue 114, 156 dressers 140
Adam Revival 210,2/7,2/7,216, Brindley, James 28 197-8, 199, 200, 201, 205,203 red 156 druggets 128, 165
216, 217, 218,219, 220,221, 222 Bristol 94 Chippendale 184, 185 scagliola 107, 110 Drumcondra printed textiles 178
agricultural production 28 Bristol, Third Earl 22 exercising chair 198 small 114, 156 Dublin 87, 88
Anderson, Diederich 137 British Museum French armchair 201, 203 staircases 114 design standardization 64
anthemion motif 79, 80, 114, 116, Hamilton collection 36 loose covers 206 stone colours 155, 156, 158 Merrion Square 89
117, 120 Bromwich, Thomas 170 shield-back 183 while 155, 158 Dundas, Sir Lawrence
Archenholtz, von 25, 27 Brown, Mather Windsor chair 203 windows 81, 85, 88 portrait by Zoffany 26, 174
architraves 122 portrait of George III 15 Chambers, W illiam 51, 108, yellow 156 Dunn, Treffry 220, 222
Argand, Ami Brown, Peter 142 124, 156, 158 Columbani, P. Dutch oven 138
colza-oil lamp 132, 135 Brussels carpel 160 chimneypieees 118 New Book of Ornaments 120 Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire 138
Arkwright, Sir Richard Building Act (1774) 64, 64, 85 Designs of Chinese Buildings 184 Colvin, Howard 49, 51, P7 Earlys 197
water-frame 28 building materials Italy 51 colza-oil lamp 132, 135 Eau de Cologne 24
Arne, Thomas 14 Bath stone 72 Osterley Park Eating Room commodes 188, 204, 208 Eckhardt, A.G. 166
Asgill House, Richmond 60 brick see bricks ceiling 44 coordinated texliles and wall¬ Edinburgh 88
Asgill, Sir Charles 60 cast lead 80 Somerset House 48, 161 coverings 180, 198 Charlotte Square 31
Ashton, T.S. 28 ceramics 118 Surveyor-General of Office Copley, J.S. George Street 61
attic storey 68 Coade Stone 76, 77, 80, 118 of Works 51 collapse of Earl of Chatham New Town 61, 75
Audley End, Essex 24, 124 Hartley’s fire-plates 80, 82 textile design 177 portrayed by 24 Elmes, James
Axminster carpet 158, 160, 162 ironwork 79, 80, 80, 82, 110, 114 Treatise on Civil Architecture Coptfold, Essex 60 Metropolitan Improvements 214
marble 118, 119 51, 85, 99, 105, 118 cornices 96, 99, 101, 105,153, 172 enclosures 28
mathematical liles 73 chandeliers 128, 132 Cornwallis, Charles, First entablature mouldings 99
Bacon, John parian marble 77 Charlotle, Queen 147 Marquess 25 Etruscan style 36, 36, 156, 157
Coade Stone designs 80, 148 Parker’s Cement 77 Chatham Dockyard, Kent Cotes, Francis Eveleigh, John
balusters 80. 110,110, 114 roofing slates 82 officer’s gardens 68 Paul Sandby 81 Camden Crescent, Balh 39
Barlaston, Staffordshire 60 scagliola 118, 120 Chatham, William Pitl, First Earl countryside, changes in 28
Bartoli, Domenico 120 stone 75 of see Pill, William, the Elder Coventry, Lord I 74
Barton End Hall 112 stucco 73, 75, 77, 79 chimneyboards 122,124,124,137 Coventry, Maria Gunning, Fairfax I louse, York 112, 138,
basement storey 64, 67 liles 82, 122, 122 chimneypieees 48, 114,115,116, Countess of 22 142, 142
Bateman, Hester 14, 144 building practices 73, 75 117, i 18,119,120,122, 124, Coxe, Tench 178 sugar temple 14
Bath 50, 87, 88, 94 building standards 64 124,137 Craig, James false teeth 22
Camden Crescent 39 Bul'finch, Charles ehinoiserie 170, 184, 184, 187 Edinburgh New Town 61 fanlights 59, 88, 89
Circus 41, 61, 74 Harrison Gray Otis House 54, 56 architectural designs 170 creamware 146, 147, 149, 151 Fanny, Mrs 21
ironwork 79 Bunker Hill, Battle of 18 “Chinese” fretwork 110 crescents 39
limestone 72, 75 Farina brothers 24
bureaux 206 Chippendale, Haig and Croggan. William 107
Paragon 72 Farington, Joseph
Burley on the Hill, Rutland 99 Company 122, 158, 188 Crompton, Samual Diary 51
Queen Square 61 Burton, Neil 68 Chippendale and Lock 216 spinning mule 175 fashion and clothing 22, 24
 Index 239

Federal style 54, 56, 210 George II 160 Hogarth, William Lighting continued Minden, Battle of 14
fenders 136 George III 10, 14,17, 24, 41, 80, 214 Five Orders of Perriwigs 32, 33 lampstands 129 mirrors 206, 208
fenestration see windows portrait by Mather Brown 15 frontispiece for Kirby’s rush lights 128 candle sconces 128, 208
Ferguson, Henry 188 George IV 24, 80 Perspective of Architecture 35 slreeL 27 chinmeypieces 117
Fergusson, Adam 50, 72 Gilbert, Christopher 184, 188, The Times 15, 21 torchres 210 glazed bookcases 206
Ferrers, Lord 20-1, 21 191-2,206,216 Holland, Henry wall-mounted Morfatt Ladd House, New
fireplaces 24, 114, 117, 118, 122, gilding 81, 93 Brooks’s Club 71 sconces 128 Hampshire 48
124,124,127, 133, 222 Gillows 136, 220 Howe, General 18 Linnell, John 174, 199, 201, 208, Montagu, Elizabeth 56
ceramic 118 girandoles 128, 130 Hume, David 44 216 Montagu, George 20
chimneyboards 122, 124, glass Hussey, Philip Liverpool Montagu, Lady Mary Worlley
124, 137 air-twist stems 148 Interior 154 population 27 170, 184
chimneypiec.es 48, 114, 115, chandeliers 132 Lloyd, Robert 9 Montagu, Mrs 131
116, 117, 118, 119,120, 122, cotton twist stems 148 London 56, 77, 88, 94 Montgomery, Florence 56, 178
124, 124, 137 Crown 82, 83, 206 Ince & Mayhew 179 7 Adam Street 79, 80, 87 Moore, Thomas 158, 160
colour 118 cylinder (broad; Muff) 82 Industrial Revolution 10, 68, Adelphi 41,42, 44, 48, 60, 61, Moorfields carpet 158, 160
fenders 136 glazed bookcases 206, 207 142, 175-6 79, 80, 87 Mote, W.T.
grates 133, 134, 135-6, 136, Glasse, Hannah and design aesthetic 28 19 Arlington Street 26 portrait engraving of Third
138,154 Servant's Directory 164 road and canal building 28 Bedford Square 61, 65, 66, 67, Earl of Bute 15
marble 118,119 glazing bars 82, 85 steam-engine 28,175 71, 76, 80, 85,87 mouldings and decorative relief
mirrors 117 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang textile production 28, 175-6 brick terraces 69 work 93, 94, 96
perpetual oven 138 von 105 International Exhibition (1862) Brooks’s Club 71 bolection mouldings 96
proportion 124 Goldsmith, Oliver 216 Chandos House 76 cornices 96, 99, 101, 105,153,
ranges 138 The Vicar of Wakefield 59, 136 ironwork 79, 80, 80, 82 Coade Slone 76 172
scagliola 120 Gordon, Lord George 17 balusters 80,110,114 Coventry House 103, 116 entablature mouldings 99
tiles 122,122 Gordon Riots 16, 17, 20 colour 114 Derby House 116,117, 127, Neo-Classicism 101, 104
firescreens 133, 136, 136 Gothick Revival 184, 187 fanlights 59 130,214 ovolo mouldings 101
first floor 67, 68,159 graLes 154 lampirons 132 design standardization 64 Mount Vernon, Virginia 56
Fisher, Kitty 22 Gray, Thomas 93 development 25, 27 movement, Adam’s concepl of 44
Fisherwiek Park, Staffordshire 97 Greek key pattern 107, 162 37 Dover Street 110 Muthesius, Stefan 39
Flaxman, John Greek Revival 37, 104 Jackson, John Baptist 165-6 Home House 36
candlestick designs 131 Grosley, Pierre-Jean 62, 64, 73 Essay on the Invention of ironwork 79
designs for Wedgwood 148 ground floor 67, 159 Engraving and Printing in Kenwood House 56, 77, 92 Nathaniel Russell House,
floors 105, 108, 110 Guadeloupe 20 Chiaro Oscuro 166, 166 Lansdowne House 9 Charleston, South Carolina 60
brick 108 Gwilt, Joseph Jackson-Stops, Gervase 161 New Road 25, 27 Neo-Classicism 184, 187, 198
carpets see carpets Encylopaedia of Architecture 214 jappaning 204, 206 Northumberland House 157 influences on 28
clay 108 Gwynn, .John jasperware 147, 149, 158 Oxford Road (Street) 27 Antiquities of Athens (Stuart
colour 105, 108 London and Westminster Jennings, H..J. 216, 220 Pantheon 51, 56 and Revett) J/, 32, 33, 35, 36,
composition 108 Improv’d 64 Our Homes and How to Portland Place 76 56, 108
druggets 128, 165 Beautify Them 213 14 Queen Anne’s Gate 46 Baalbec, volume on (Wood) 36
floorcloths 128, 164, 165 Johnson, Dr Samuel 24, 28 Somerset House 48,112, 114, Collection of Etruscan, Greek
marble 107, 108, 110 Hagley Park, Worcestershire 36-7 Johnson, John 77 161 and Roman Antiques
oilcloth 165 Haig, Thomas 188 Johnson, Thomas speculalor-builders 25, 27 (Hamilton) 36
parquet 105 Hallsworth, Henry Collection of Designs 116 Spencer House 37 Grecian Orders of Architecture
scagliola 107, 110 candlesticks 131 Jones, John Paul 14 squares 65, 67 (Riou) 32, 36, 93, 96
stencilling 165 Hamilton, Sir William Jones, Robert 178 11 St James’s Square 77 Reflections on the Imitation of
stone 108-9 Collection of Etruscan, Greek Jordan, Mrs 14 20 St James’s Square 24, 59, 80, Greek Works in Painting and
timber 105, 108,108 and Roman Antiques 36 Jouy en Josas 178, 180 91, 94, 101, 112, 115, 122, 161 Sculpture (Winckelmann) 36
fly-punch 131 Hamilton, William Kauffmann, Angelica street lighting 27 Ruines des Plus Beaux
flying shuttle 28, 176 Woodlands, Philadelphia 56 14, 104-5, 158, 207,210 Syon House 81 Monuments de la Grce
Fort Niagara 20 Harcourt, Earl 31 Kay, John Westminster Paving Act (Le Roy) 36
Forty, Adrian 147, 148 Hardwick,Thomas 60 (lying shuttle 28, 176 (1762) 27 Ruins of Athens (Sayer) 36
Fox, Charles James 14, 17 Harewood House, Kedleston, Derbyshire 94, 136 White Lodge, Richmond Park 171 Ruins of Palmyra (Wood) 36
Franklin, Benjamin 14,20, 164, Yorkshire 103, 119, 164, 188, Kelsall, Frank 77 Longford Castle, Wiltshire 124 Spalatro (Adam) 36
173, 180 191, 192, 195, 196,201 Kennedy, Paul 25 Louis Seize furniture 191 moulded decorations 101, 104
Philadelphia stove 135 Hargreaves, James spinning Kenyon, Lloyd 180 Louis XV 24 Nixon, Francis 179
furniture 26 jenny 28, 175, 176 Kenyon, Mrs 140 Louis XVI 24 North, Lord 17
Adam Revival 213, 215, 216, Ilarleyford Manor, Kidderminster carpel 158,160,164 Lovell, R. Goulburn 213 Northumberland, First Duke 104,110
216,217,218,221 Buckinghamshire 60 Kilmarnock carpet 164 luncheon 142 Norton, John 164
bedroom 197, 204, 206 Harrison Gray Otis House, Kingston, Duke of 127 Luton lloo, Bedfordshire 180 Norwood House, Kent 170
beds 179, 180, 192,193,195, 197 Boston 54, 56 Kinross lyre motif 114, 198 Nostell Priory, Yorkshire 101,
bookcases 192, 206, 207 Hartley’s fire-plates 80, 82 Robert Adam elected as MP 41 137, 170,201
bureaux 206 Hay, Douglas 17 Kirby, Joshua Nuneham Park, Oxfordshire 31
cabinets 183, 196 Meal’s 217 Perspective of Architecture 35 macaronis 22, 23
chairs and seat furniture 183, Heart and Honeysuckle design 80 kitchens 136, 138,138, 140, 151 Macaulay, Catherine 14
184, 185, 197-8, 199, 200, 201, Heathcote, Sir Gilbert 122 dressers 140 Madras 20 Oberkampf, Chrislophe-
203, 203, 206 heating 136 Dutch oven 138 Malcolm, James 88 Philippe 178
chinoiserie 184, 184 Bath Stove 134 ranges 138 Malton, Thomas oilcloth 165
commodes 188, 204, 208 fireplaces see fireplaces sinks 140 aquatint of Adelphi Terrace 60 ormolu 118, 137
exercising chairs 198 grates 138 water supply 138, 140 Compleal Treatise on Osterley Park, Middlesex 36,
formal arrangement 186, 210 Philadelphia stove 135 Knatchbull, Sir Edward 158, 176, Perspective 208 103, 114, 137, 172
Gothick Revival 184 register grate 135 192 perspective drawing 46 Eating Room 44
jappaned 204, 206 stove-grate 135 Manchester Etruscan Room 157, 201
loose covers 206 Heaton Hall, Manchester 136 canal 28 state bed 192, 193
Louis Seize 191 Heming, Thomas La Rochfoucauld 68 Cleaning and Lighting Act oval forms 186, 204, 206, 208
marquetry and inlay 188,196, candlesticks 131 Lagos 20 (1765) 27 ovolo moulding 101
204, 204, 206 llepplewhite, George Langmead, Joseph 138 Manchester Exhibition (1882)
metarnorphic library steps 191 bed designs 195 Le Roy 220
mirrors 206, 208 bedroom furniture designs 197 Ruines des Plus Beaux population 27 Pain, William
Neo-Classicism 184, 187, 198 bookcase designs 207 Monuments de la Grce 36 Mann, Horace 20, 166 Practiced Builder 62, 64
painted 198, 201 bureaux designs 206 Lees-Milne, James 10, 51 Mansfield, First Earl 56, 77 Paine, James 60
protection 128, 206, 210 Cabinet-Maker and Liardet stucco 66, 75, 77 Maple & Co 217 paintwork 155
sideboards 204 Upholsterer’s Guide 145,186, Liberty riots 17 marble doors 88
tables 196, 203-4, 204,205, 206 197, 200 libraries 191, 196 fireplaces 118,119 furniture 198, 201
upholstered 153, 198 firescreen designs 136 lighting 128,131-2, 135,151, 210 flooring 107, 108, 110 ironwork 114
seal furniture 199, 200 candelabra 127, 129,131 mathematical tiles 73 windows 81, 85, 88
table designs 141, 204 candles 128,129,131,131, 208 medical care 21-2 see also colour
Gainsborough, Thomas 14 tea-caddy designs 145 chandeliers 128, 132 Mersham-le-Halch, Kent 204 paklong 135-6
gardens 67-8, 68 Hewson, John 178 colza-oil lamp 132, 135 middle classes 25, 60, 61, 71, Palladian style 60, 61, 67, 88, 96,
Garrick, David 14, 44, 73,176,195 Higgins, Bryan girandoles 128, 130 142, 147 118, 156 '
George, Dorothy 17 water-based stucco 77 lampirons 132 Mills, Thomas 60 palmette motif 114
240 Index

pantiles 82 room shapes 60 Stuart, James 52, 49, 118 United Stales of America continued Whatman, Susanna continued
papier inch wall and ceiling Rossetli, Dante Gabriel 222 Antiquities of Athens (with Moffatl Ladd House, New Housekeeping Book 164
decorations 95 Rugar, John 171 Nicholas Revetl) 31, 52, 33, Hampshire 48 Wheatley, Francis
Papillon 166 35, 56, 56, 108 Mount Vernon, Virginia 56 Family Group 153
parian marble 77 Greek arch, Nuneham Park 51 Nathaniel Russell House, Whigs 14
Paris Exhibition (1878) 220 Sackville (Germain), Lord Greek temple, IJagley Park 56-7 Charleston 60 Wilkes, John 17,21
Paris, Treaty of'(1765) 61 George 14, 17 moulding designs 101 panelling 95 Williams Wynn, Sir Watkin 59
Parker, Reverend David Sadler, John and Green, Guy 122 Spencer House interiors 57 Revolution 10, 14, 17, 18, 19 Willison, George
Parker’s Cement 77 salt-glazed ware 149 Tower of the Winds, textiles 56, 178, 180 portrait of Robert Adam 9
parlours 67 Sallram House, Devon 132, 133 Shugborough 14 wallpaper 171 Willoughby, Fourteenth Baron
parc| uel 105 salvaged items 124 The Winds, Mounlslewarl 108 War of Independence 25, 56, portrait by Zoffany 165
Parrall, William 160, 171 Sandersons 219 Stubbs, George 148 61,75 Wilson, Richard 57
pattern books 101 Sandwich, Earl of 17 stucco 66, 75, 75, 77, 79 Winterthur Museum 179, 210 Wilton carpet 160
fireplaces and chimneypieces Saratoga 25 Kenwood 56 Woodlands, Philadelphia 56 Winchester School 20
116, 119, 120 sash window 82, 84, 85 Parker’s Cement 77 Universal Director 160 Winckelmann 49
ironwork 110 Sayer, Robert patent rights 75, 77 upholstery 153, 198 Reflections on the Imitation of
proportion, guides to 96 Ruins of Athens 56 Summerson, Sir John 49, 62 urns 24, 44, 118 Greek Works in Painting and
pavements 27 scagliola 107, 110, 118, 120 supper 142 Utrecht, Treaty of (1715) 158 Sculpture 56
paving commissioners 27 Schoeser, Mary 176 Swan, Abraham 101 windows 60, 62, 81
Paxton House, Berwickshire 180 second floor 68 Syon House, Middlesex 104, 107, blinds 128, 174
Peacock, James servants 128 ' 110, 120, 129, 137, 161, 162 Vile and Cobb 175, 174 bow 85
Nutshells 214 rooms used by 68 Vile, William 187 Building Act (1774) 85
Pembroke, Ninth Earl 160 Seven Years War 10,15, 21, 24, violence in Georgian society 20-1 Crown glass 82, 83
Penrhyn, Lord 82 61, 170 tables 26, 196, 205-4,204,205,206 Voltaire, Franois Marie Arouet de curtains see curtains
Penzel sewers 141 marquetry and inlay 204 10. 20 cylinder (broad; Muff) glass 82
Setting a Limb 21 Shapland, H.P. Pembroke 204, 206 entablature mouldings 99
perpetual oven 158 Style Schemes in Antique tablewares 142, 144, 145,146, fanlights 59, 88, 89
Philadelphia stove 155 Furnishing 218 147-8, 148, 149 Wakelin, John furniture 81, 85
picture hangs 26, 154 Sheffield Plate 151 Talwin and Foster 178 candelabra 131 glazing bars 82, 85
Piranesi Shelburne, Lady 160 Tatham, C.11. 214 Wallbridge 168 paintwork'81, 85, 88
meeting with Adam brothers 41 Sheraton, Thomas 216 Taylor, Sir Robert 49, 60 wallpaper 2<5, 48, 95, 165-6, 167, sash 82, 84, 85
Piranesi, Giambattista 35 Sheridan, Betsy 22 Asgill House 60 168, 170-1, 170, 175, 180 shutter boxes 81
Pitt, William 21 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley 14 Barlaslon 60 Adam Revival 219, 222 shutters 128
Pill, William, the Elder 10, 14, The Critic 75 Building Act (1774) 64 architectural designs 154, 166, skylights 46
15, 25 The Rivals 22, 185 Coplfold 60 168, 170 snob screens 174-5
portrayed by J.S. Copley 24 The School for Scandal 175 Danson 60 Chinese 171, 184 window size 85
Pitt, William, the Younger 10 Shugborough 14 Harleyford Manor 60 chinoiserie 170 window tax 85
plasterwork 94, 96 shutter boxes 81 Taylor, William flock 170 The Winds, Mountstewart 108
gypsum 95 shutters 128 candelabra 131 hand-coloured 166 Winterthur Museum
premoulded 95 Siddons, Sarah 14 tea-caddies 145 lustre 170 Blackwell-Stamper Room 179
walls 95 silver tea-drinking 144, 145 printed 166 l)u Pont Dining Room 210
plate warmers 158 candlesticks 128, 151, 131 tea-urns 142, 144,145 tax 165 Witney blankets 197
Pococke, Dr Richard 124 die-stamped 151 Temple, Earl 15 walls 99 Wolfe, General James 10, 14, 20
point paper 160, 164 fly-punched 151 Temple Newsam House, Leeds cornices 96, 101, 105 Wood, John 105, 136
Pompadour, Madame de 170 Sheffield Plate 151 168, 171, / 96 dadoes 26, 96 Wood, John, the Elder
population growth 27, 28 lea-ware 144, 145 terraced housing 42, 61-2, 69, 72 panelling 95 Circus, Bath 41, 61, 74
Poussin, Nicolas 57 sinks 140 textiles papier inch decoration 95 Queen Square, Bath 61
Powys, Mrs Lybbe 197 skirling 96, 154 Adam Revival 219, 222 picture hangs 26, 154 Wood, John, the Younger
Price, Dr Richard 25, 144 skylights 46 beds 179, 180, 192, 197 plasterwork 95, 94, 96 Circus, Bath 61
print rooms 170 slate 82 Chinese 184 print rooms 170 Royal Crescent, Bath 39, 61, 62
Pritchard 10 Smirke, Robert and Porden, William cotton 176,177, 178, 180, 197, skirting mouldings 96 Wood, Robert
proportion and interior design The Exhibition 214 206 stencilling 165 Ruins of Palmyra 56
46, 96, 101, 124 Smith, Adam 41, 44 curtains see curtains wallpaper see wallpaper volume on Baalbee 36
Theory of Moral Sentiments 210 industrialization of Walpole, Horace 10, 20-1,25, 56, Woodforde, James 17, 24
Smith, George 216 manufacture 28, 175-6 192, Strawberry Hill 95, 166, Woodlands, Philadelphia 56
Quebec 14, 20 Smith, J.T. 187,216 linen 180, 197, 206 170, 184, 198 on Wyatt’s Woollet, William 35
smokejack 158, 138 loose covers 206 Portman Square house 56 Wright, Joseph 148
Smollett, Tobias 75 printed 176,177, 178, 179, 180 Ware, Isaac 64, 67, 68, 96 Wyatt, James 51, 56
Ralph, James Humphry Clinker 127, 148, Toiles de Jouy 178, 180 Complete Rody of Architecture Pantheon 51,56
Critical Review 61 155, 184' United States 56 67, 70, 82, 105, 108, 114, 155 Portman Square house 56
Randolph, Benjamin 179 snob screens 174-5 upholstery 198 Wark, Reverend David
ranges 158 Soane, Sir John 214 woven silk 180 stucco 75
Rannie, James 187, 188 Spalatro 41 Thorne, Edward 221 warming pans 158,138 Yenn,John
Rates 64, 64 speculator-builders 25, 27, 62, Ticonderoga 20 Washington, George 178, 180 cross-section of town mansion
Rebecca, Biagio 24, 124 64, 75 tiles Mount Vernon 56 159
red stoneware 149 spinning jenny 28, 175 (ireplace surrounds 122, 122 water closet 151 Yorklown 25
register grate 155 spinning mule 174, 175 mathematical 75 water supply 158, 140
Reid, William 192 spits 158, 138 - roofing 82 water-frame 28
Reinagle, Philip Split 41 Tobin, Maurice 112 Walt, James Zoffany, Johan
Mrs Congreve and her squares 65 Towneley, Charles steam engine 28, 175 Charles Towneley 46
Daughters 154 staircases 112 portrait by Zoffany 46 Wedgwood, Josiah 14, 80, 188 John Pento, Fourteenth Baron
Revell, Nicholas 52, 49, 118 “Chinese” fretwork 110 transportation 28 black basalt oil lamp 132 Willoughby and Louisa, his
Antiquities of Athens (with colour 114 tripod stands 127, 129 chimneypieces 118 wfe 165
James Stuart) 31, 52, 33, 35, handrails 114 trivets 158 creamware 146, 147 Sir Lawrence Dundas and his
56, 56, 108 ironwork balusters 80,110,114 tuck-pointing 71, 75 designers used by 148 Grandson 26, 174
Island Temple, West wooden balusters 110,110 Tucker, Josiah 28 Etruria 147 Zucchi, Antonio 44, 101, 104-5,
Wycombe Park 57, 37 steam engine 28, 175 Turkey carpets 26 false teelh manufactured by 22 158
Reynolds, Joseph 14 stencilling 165 Turner, Thomas 20 jasperware 147, 149, 158
Riou, Stephen Stevenson, Mrs 180 turnpike trusts 28 manipulation of public taste 25
Grecian Orders of Architecture stove grate 155 showroom in the Adelphi 44
52, 56, 95, 96 Strawberry Hill, Middlesex 95, tablewares 144, 146, 147-8, 148,
road building 28 166, 170, 198 United States of America 149
Robertson, Charles 62 streets Adam Revival 220, 222 Welldon, W. and .).
Robinson, Thomas 158 cobbles, replacement of 27 Adam’s influence 56 The Smith’s Right Hand 110
Robinson, Sir William 166 gutters 27 Boston Massacre 19 Wells 94
Robson & Sons 221 lighting 27 Boston Tea Party 17, 144 West Wycombe Park,
Rococo style 49, 184, 187 repaving 27 fanlights 88 Buckinghamshire 57, 37
reaction against 116, 118 rubbish removal 27 Federal style 54, 56, 210 Weslman, Annabel 175, 174
Rodney, Admiral 14 Westminster Paving Act I larrison Gray Otis House, Westminster Paving Act (1762) 27
roofing materials 82 (1762) 27 Boston 54, 56 Whatman, Susanna
VERMONT DEPT. OF LIBRARIES

□474574 7
.

Steven Parissien is the Education

Secretary at The Georgian Group in
■ London, England. He has taught and
lectured on British art and architecture
in both England and the United States,
and has published widely in the field in
journals and magazines. His previous
book, Regency Style, was also published
by The Preservation Press.

THE PRESERVATION PRESS

NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION.

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