Conservation of the garden monuments at Peter Inskip ...€¦ · Conservation of the garden monuments at Stowe: the Temple of Concord and Victory P. Inskip Peter Inskip & Peter Jenkins

Conservation of the garden monuments at

Stowe: the Temple of Concord and Victory

P. Inskip

Peter Inskip & Peter Jenkins Architects Ltd,

London, UK

It is extremely important to recognise that the development of the Gardensat Stowe was parallel and integral to the evolution of Stowe House and as suchone cannot be separated from the other; both result from processes ofcontinual change throughout the eighteenth century. Whilst Stowe House wasconstantly being added to and remodelled, parallel developments in theGardens entailed the redistribution of statues as well as the wholesaledemolition and rebuilding of temples as new landscapes were formed to suitthe tastes and ambitions of three generations of the Temple and Grenvillefamilies.

Stowe House, built by Sir Richard Temple between 1677 and 1683, wasremodelled for Lord Cobham by Sir John Vanbrugh after 1717 andsubsequently extended by a succession of architects with the result that by themiddle of the eighteenth century the South Front appeared as an incoherentsum of separate pavilions. It was no wonder, therefore, that Lord Templeshould have remodelled the house in 1770s first replacing Kent's screen wallson the North Front with Pitt's colonnades and then extending and recasting thesouth elevation following the general schema of the proposals for whichRobert Adam was paid 100 guineas in 1771. *

Parallel developments were carried out in the Gardens. The simpleenclosures supporting the original house continued as references in theGardens developed under Vanbrugh and Bridgeman until the creation of thegreat South Vista towards Buckingham necessitated the final removal of LordCobham's Parterre as well as several garden monuments which sheltered inthe enclosures either side. Whilst it is evident that the architects working onthe garden buildings at any one time are those employed on the House, thebuilding accounts for Stowe show that the work on the fifty or so gardenbuildings was carried out by deploying workmen from the house as and whenlabour was available and that the building materials used in the gardens

Transactions on the Built Environment vol 4, © 1993 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3509

562 Structural Repair and Maintenance of Historical Buildings


Structural Repair and Maintenance of Historical Buildings 563

followed those being chosen for works on the mansion at any particular time.

The dispersal of the Stowe Estate after the Great War resulted in theacquisition of the house and gardens for Stowe School in 1923; in 1990 theGardens with some thirty five surviving monuments were given by the schoolto the National Trust. We are architects for the repair of both Stowe Housefor the Governors of Stowe School and the garden buildings for the Trust. Theproject for their repair is particularly remarkable, not only because of thequality of the buildings by the very best eighteenth century architects,Vanbrugh, Kent, Gibbs, Borra, Pitt, Adam, Valdre, and Soane, but also fromthe very comprehensive documentation that exists.

Historical research at Stowe is primarily centred on the Building Accountsand family papers in the Huntington Library in California, the British Library,the Public Records Office, and Stowe School. The records of the first half ofthe eighteenth century are sporadic, but those from 1749 onwards remainvirtually intact. Normally, we experience architectural history through theworks of the architects. At Stowe, because of the building accounts we alsoread history through the materials, the tradesmen and, significantly, therepairs. References to architects are rare, and this implies their limitedinvolvement in the implementation of the garden structures. The records fromthe various archives are being collected and indexed systematically into acentralised computer system.

Physical evidence is obtained by thorough architectural observation,investigation and recording. In parallel with drawn and photographic surveys,scientific analyses have been developed for records of building materials.Archaeology is one of the basic tools of investigation but it is kept to aminimum as it does represent a form of loss of historic fabric. Parameters ofinvestigation are established in the Analysis of Building Fabric which identifiesareas requiring clarification resulting from the research and survey work.

In parallel with the Analysis of the Building Fabric, colleagues from theNational Trust and the Stowe Advisory Committee are researching the socialhistory and the development of the landscape. George Clarke has identified thetremendous political importance of Stowe in the eighteenth century and howthe iconographic programmes for much of the House and areas of the gardenare related to the concept of Liberty, and Michael Calnan, the Trust's GardenAdviser, is developing a Management Plan for the Landscape based on thesame archives on which we are working.

Upon completion of the investigations, the analyses represent the initial stepin the preparation of the Conservation Plan. With our own work, the Analysisof Building Fabric seeks to coordinate and analyse all documentary andphysical evidence, it measures the extent of intactness of the fabric, past



development of 'place' and the context of changes. It incorporates proposalsand recommendations for clarification by further physical examination byother specialist practitioners. The Conservation Plan has the principal objectiveof setting out how the aim of retaining or recovering the cultural significanceof the building, including its maintenance and future, may best be achieved.

Work with historic buildings can be bounded within the parameters ofpreservation, conservation, consolidation, restoration, reconstruction,anastylosis, and re-creation. Each has specific meanings as defined by currentconservation terminology in documents such as The Venice Charter (Italy,1966) and The Burra Charter (Australia, 1977). At Stowe, we are finding thatour work is principally concerned with conservation and consolidation. Wehave not found a case for the re-creation of any of the lost monuments,although Vanbrugh's Pyramid is frequently proposed for such treatment, butrestoration is believed appropriate at times, usually to twentieth centuryalterations which have changed the intrinsic value of the building and detractedfrom their over-riding cultural significance.

The methodology which I have described briefly can be illustrated byconsidering the Temple of Concord and Victory, one of the most important,and, probably, the first, large scale, neo-classical building in Europe. TheAnalysis of Fabric is complete, the Conservation Plan well advanced, andrepairs should start next year.

The construction of the Grecian Building, as it was first known, wasstarted by Lord Cobham in 1747 and the shell was complete by 1751. Theidentification of its architect remains uncertain; It could have been LordCobham's nephew and heir, Earl Temple, or alternatively the design might bean adaptation by Lancelot Brown of a design of James Gibbs as had happenedwith the Cobham Pillar in 1747. 'Capability' Brown was Clerk of Works atStowe (1741 - 1751) and was responsible for the layout of the Grecian Valleyitself. The prostyle hexastyle building was certainly not Greek in itsinspiration; it owed much to the Maison Carree at NTmes, but is peripteral,not pseudo-peripteral. Documentary and pictorial references have revealed aseries of remodellings in the aesthetic development of the temple between1751-55. In an attempt to make the building as pure as possible, the east wallwas taken down and set back to allow the creation of the pronaos, thewindows were blocked up, and statues were placed on the pediments.

In 1762 it was reported that Earl Temple had dedicated 'a most/Md Mz/zce/zf /?%/'/<#/%# o/f/zc /wmc <Wc/-, O)/2cr)/W/ac ef y/cfon'ac ... 'as amonument to the glories of the war terminated by the peace of Fontainebleau.' *The dedication involved the embellishment of the building. At the EastPediment, a carved bas-relief was installed in the tympanum, and a statue of



Victory was substituted on the apex. Symbolic medallions were introduced intothe cella and pronaos in 1763, and the great doors were enriched with egg anddart mouldings around the panels a year later. Within the building, a nichebelow an inscription from Valerius Maximus was occupied by a statue ofLiberty.

After languishing in the 'cellar beneath the Chapel collonade', where theywere recorded stored as late as 1839, 'six oriental granite columns withoutcapital or base'* bought by the first Duke of Buckingham in Italy in 1828were set up as a screen on a raised dais at the west end of the cella in 1845.This necessitated the removal of the aedicule and niche housing the statue ofLiberty, thus destroying part of the iconography of the building. Domestic useof the building resulted in unimplemented proposals for the reintroduction ofwindows in the 1870s, but the panels in the doors had been glazed in 1845 inan attempt to light a building totally dependent for illumination on its dooropening. The great dispersal of Stowe in 1921 included the sale of the fourlead statues from the bases of the two pediments.

The new School occupied Stowe House in 1923. Four years later twoeminent architects reporting on the siting and the design of a new SchoolChapel recommended two acts of vandalism. The site for the Chapel identifiedby Sir Reginald Blomfield necessitated the destruction of Vanbrugh's Templeof Bacchus, and Sir Robert Lorimer's design for the building incorporatedsixteen of the Ionic columns removed from the peristyle of the Temple ofConcord and Victory. Within the temple the granite screen was removed togive more space as a fencing piste and the paving of the dais was replaced byconcrete.

ASSESSMENT & PROPOSALS

The Temple of Concord and Victory as developed from 1747 to 1763 is abuilding of European significance. As we see it today, the fletton brick wallsthat enclose the peristyle were not the result of an aesthetic decisionconcerning the Temple of Concord, but one of economy in the constructionof another building. The nineteenth century alterations have largely beenundone; the glazing in the doors was boarded over; the granite columns,though removed, are still at Stowe, but have now lain in store there for longerthan the period that they were ever installed in the building.

The Analysis of the Building Fabric has shown that what is still presentare details and evidence of the building at the end of the eighteenth centurywhen it remained in the form of its full development as a pure neo-classicalbuilding with its iconography complete and intact. Because of the culturalsignificance of the building in that state, and because of the minimalintervention required to realise it, the Conservation Plan is recommending that



a campaign of conservative repairs should include elements of restoration.

The most significant proposal is the restoration of the peristyle. As long as thebrick walls are removed and the columns reintroduced sequentially, this is nota structural problem. Obviously the original columns cannot be reinstated asthey now belong to a building listed as being of architectural interest in itsown right. The presence of the sixteen original fluted ionic columns in theSchool Chapel, however, does mean that the varying bed joints of the shaftsand the subtle differences between the fleurons on each capital do not have tobe left to conjecture.

The reinstatement of the statuary allowing the reestablishment of thebuilding's iconography as it existed after its dedication is also possible. Fromthe 1751-55 modifications, the pediment sculptures from the corners of thebuilding sold from Stowe in 1921 are now at Anglesey Abbey and casts canbe obtained. The figures representing the Muses and Liberal Arts are in leadand probably made for Stowe in about 1715 by Jan van Most. Baron'sengraving after Rigaud's view of 1733 or 1734 * illustrates them as part ofa much larger set on the South Parterre set in architectural topiary. They hadbeen removed with the Parterre as out of fashion by the middle of the centuryand were then gradually redistributed throughout the garden. Two years ago,a companion figure representing the Muse of Heroic Poetry was repaired atthe head of the Rostral Column in memory of Captain Grenville where it hadbeen erected in 1763. Traces of stone coloured lead paint found in the foldsof the clothes confirmed the building accounts of Thomas Spatcher for'painting ye figurs' at a time when lead statues were less in fashion, and theoriginal colour scheme was reinstated to unite the sculpture with its supportingcolumn. In June 1755 Thomas Spatcher was also responsible for 'scafilen andpaten thefiggers at thegrishon bildon' ? Six statues are recorded on the roofin 1756, suggesting that two more of van Nost's figures graced the apex of thepediments.

It is assumed that the figure of Victory holding palm fronds and carryinga laurel wreath was erected in connection with the 1763 rededication. It wastaken down from the apex of the east pediment some ten years ago for safetyand will be reinstated after detached elements are resecured. It is in Portlandstone and attributed to James Lovell who carved the medallions for thepronaos and supplied most of the architectural sculpture for Lord Temple'sworks at Stowe; stylistically it is very close to the figures on the southelevation of the House. The scale and robust quality contrast strongly with theearlier imported figures by van Nost. It is not known whether Lovell alsocarved a figure of Concord for the apex on the west pediment or whether avan Nost figure remained; a figure should not be replaced on a conjecturalbasis.



Research has shown that the resiting of complete monuments and the reuseof sculptures was extensive at Stowe under Earl Temple. In parallel withthe introduction of the statue of Victory, the dedication of the building wascelebrated by one of his most significant remodellings. The tympanumsculptures in the east pediment are a recasting of Peter Scheemaker'srectangular bas-relief of the Four Quarters of the World bringing their variousProducts to Britannia, that originally formed a screen on the east side of thePalladian Bridge erected about 1740. With the screen no longer required at theBridge, the building accounts for 1761-2 include those from MaximillianEmborley for "Raising scaffolding at the Palladian Bridge and Taking downthe Carved Work", William Stephenson "for carving at the stone pediment ofthe Gretian Temple - £15-15-00", and again Emborley for "unloading thestone for the Gretian Temple pediment" and "setting up the carved stonepediment at the Gretian Temple".' The local mason, Emborley, providing thebasic masonry work, while Stephenson acted as sculptor for the adaptation.The roof void allows the back of the tympanum to be studied and it is not toodifficult a task to deduce the form of the original rectangular composition asit is clear that its rear face was of plain dressed stone when it was in itsoriginal site, fragments of carving facing the roof void indicate areas of thesculpture that were reused in reverse and areas of undressed stone identify theintroductions when it was resited. Examination indicates some injudicious useof resins in the repair of the relief within the last twenty years.

The theme of Concord and Victory extended into the building where itwas coupled with Liberty - the concept underlying the iconography of theElysian Fields laid out by Kent in the 1730s, James Gibbs's Gothic Templeof the 1740s, and indeed the South Front of the House where a figure bearinga cap of Liberty is given the recognisable squint of John Wilkes in 1774.* Soimportant is this element that it should be reinstated if possible; Seeleyindicates that the statue of Liberty was placed in a niche at the west end of thetemple on a pedestal with a Latin inscription Placidam sub Libertate quietem(Tranquillity secured by Liberty)'*', the stone pedimented aedicule thatsurrounded the niche was taken down in 1845, but close inspection of the wallplaster reveals the imprint of the pediment, and records of sales of statuary arebeing traced. Fortunately, still in position are the plaster casts of Loveil'smedallions representing the engagements of the Seven Years War. Paintanalysis is being carried out, and much detail is obliterated by the crudemodern painting. The lead ribbons from which the medallions purport to besuspended are generally intact, but loose sections require securing.

CONSERVATIVE REPAIRS

This paper has dwelt on restoration in the true sense, by which one meansto preserve and reveal the aesthetic and historic value of the monument, basedupon respect of original materials and authentic documents. The repair of the



building fabric itself can be approached with a series of conservative repairsthat has now been developed on the thirteen garden monuments on which wehave worked on the past three years. Although they are constructed over aperiod of more than half a century and by a range of architects, they employa very limited range of materials and there is a continuity in the craftsmenwho built them. The result is that problems recur, and repair solutions can bemonitored and developed on the project as a whole.

Vaulted basements are found below areas of Stowe House, as well asseveral of the garden buildings. That at the Temple of Venus appears to haveformed a pumping chamber related to the fountains in the Lakes, but thatunder the Temple of Concord is more typical of Stowe and solely provides thepodium and forms the foundations for the building. As we found at theTemple of Ancient Virtue, the construction is poor. In both buildings, thereis a history of continuing repairs and the podium at Concord had to beextensively rebuilt in 1797. While the footings for the columns appear sound,the adjoining areas of walling to the plinth are collapsing with the ashlarfacing unbonded to the rubble core. In addition, although the steps wererebuilt in recent years, the appropriate foundations were not provided and anarbitrary decision to alter the going resulted in an egregious relationship to thewing walls.

Like most of the stonework constructed at Stowe, that at the Temple ofConcord and Victory is in a local oolitic limestone. Although it was seen inthe eighteenth century as being an excellent building stone, the Helmdon stonehas proved to be very marly and liable to disintegration. All too often atStowe, to achieve large scale coping stones, correct bedding was ignored and,to minimise the jointing in columns, stones were edge bedded, which hasresulted in loss through both erosion and delamination. At Concord, thisproblem is exaggerated by the fluting which increases the exposed surfacearea. The condition of the Portland stone statuary on the pediment contrastsmarkedly with the adjacent Helmdon work.

In repairing the stone a decision has been taken that as much of theoriginal fabric should be conserved as possible, and that replacement ofstonework should be kept to the minimum to maintain weatherings orstructural stability. The Helmdon quarries have been now long worked outand no exact geological match is available. Repairs this century have beencarried out in a range of oolitic limestones from the Bath region, but none ofthese have proved to be entirely satisfactory, and, following trials, DoultingStone has been adopted for the current repairs where replacements have to beconsidered. However, the reconstruction of fractured blocks of stone, bydrilling and inserting stainless steel pins, allows the maintenance of much ofthe Helmdon stone. Conservative repairs are also being carried out with anemphasis on lime mortar repairs set on stainless steel armatures following



treatment with lime water or silane consolidation. The lime mortars arematched to the colour and texture of the original clean, broken stone by useof different sands, charcoal and other aggregates, and the conservators workwith a palette of mortars matching to the individual location. In some areas,it is found that the stone needs to be completed with a lime shelter coat.

References in the accounts and archaeological fragments have revealed thatthe Temple of Concord was originally roofed in black glazed pantiles. Thiswas a material favoured by Lord Cobham on his later buildings and fragmentshave also been found at James Gibbs's Temple of Friendship (1739).However, the roof covering was changed to slating at the end of 1754 -presumably to be more sympathetic with the van Nost statues which wereerected on the pediments at the beginning of 1755. The later building accountsof Lord Temple show an emphasis on green slates from the Lake District forall primary roofs at Stowe, and the use at Concord anticipates the majorremodelling of the House in the 1770s.

Vanbrugh had recast the brick house in render to unify the building withthe North Portico that he introduced about 1717, and the subsequentdevelopment of Stowe House and garden monuments showed lime rendersused as a material in its own right. In a letter to Lady Chatham in 1771, LordTemple recognised the quality of the renders on the North Front of the Houseand the constraints of convention that resulted in the use of stonework on theSouth:

"My Stucco columns gain immortal Fame, superior to my Stone, & yet/a/M/oo/ e/%uw /z fo A'c irwy ff;/;rc/W/cc & ff) u.s'c A'/Y;/zc /wisY //6cm//yon the South Side. " "'

At the Temple of Concord, render provided the facing to the rubble wallingof the cella. Generally the renders were left plain but evidence of ruling inimitation of ashlar exist at the Temple of Venus. Some traces of colour washhave been found on areas of render on the House as well as several of thegarden buildings, and it appears that at both the Temple of Ancient Virtue andthe Temple of Concord there was a conscious intention to unify render andstonework with an ochre limewash. No evidence has come to light that thiswas applied at the time of the construction of the buildings and, as there aremany references in the building accounts to cleaning and repairing the gardenbuildings, it is more likely a late eighteenth century or nineteenth introduction.At the Temple of Concord the renders to the walls of the cella are still in afair condition as the enclosure of the peristyles in 1927 has protected themfrom the elements for the past seventy years. These can be consolidated andconserved, and only limited areas will require reconstruction with rendermatched to disaggregated samples of the early work. What is remarkable, andrequiring careful conservation, are the hairline cracks in the finishing coat



which reveal the windows blocked up at the time of the creation of thepronaos in 1753.

Plasters were also of great importance especially in relation to the workcarried out in the middle of the eighteenth century. When the Grecian Templewas remodelled to provide a pronaos between the cella and peristyle, Borradesigned decorative plaster ceilings for both spaces. Both the Palladian Bridgeand the Lakeside Pavilions were similarly enriched with ceilings based onthose discovered at Palmyra when alterations in the buildings were carried out.The decorative detail was formed in cast plaster, and where it has fallen, theoriginal pencil setting out marks have been revealed.

In several cases, rendering was used in combination with stonework andfrequently involved the work of both masons and plasterers. Thus, JamesLovell, was responsible in 1752 for "Carven of a flower for the Graecantemp el for the plasterer" .^ As the interior was not fitted out at that date, itis likely that this is for one of the paterae in the coffers of the peristyle or forthose between the modillions of the external entablature. The whole of theentablature was run in lime plaster on a substructure formed with splitchestnut laths fixed over timber formers, and the decorative details are madeof cast plaster subsequently fixed back to timber blockings. The plasterentablature and the pediment cornices at Temple of Concord and Victoryprovided a forerunner for the large cornice with its elaborate plasterenrichments at the Corinthian Arch (1765-67) and that on the Mansion itselfin the remodelling of the 1770s. Much has fallen and been lost, but loosefragments have been secured with splints in emergency works and will beconsolidated. Recent repairs of the cornices on Stowe House have establishedthe method for repair; the temporary removal of the lead capping andconsolidation from within allowed retention of much of the original cornice,but for the replacement of lost sections, disaggregation of samples of theeighteenth century renders allowed copies of the mix for the new work forboth the cast detail and run mouldings. Any original applied decorative paterae("flowers") and modillions were salvaged where possible and set aside forrefixing. Disaggregation proved the render of 1770s, which is very similar tothat at Concord, close to that used thirty years earlier on the cella of theTemple of Ancient Virtue in the type of sands used as well as its lime content,but the amount of reinforcement with goat's hair and small twigs wasdetermined by the quality of the background.

The conservation of the fabric is strongly influenced by the micro-climatein which it is placed, and the removal of overgrown trees surrounding thebuilding has already played a significant role in arresting decay. Day to daymanagement of the landscape has frequently changed the buildings, and atConcord the adjacent ground now half obliterates the skirting around theplinth. But, on a larger scale, the setting of the building is also of paramount



importance in the understanding of the conservation of the building itself.Evidence of the developing landscape is currently being researched, and againshows that the setting developed in parallel with the building. If the GrecianTemple was informed by the overlay of iconographic references to Patriotismand Liberty around 1763, the landscape changed similarly. The initial schemeof a Grecian Temple commanding an artificial valley formed by LancelotBrown, was developed with a series of transformations to include views to theCobham Monument and Wolfe's Obelisk, extending the symbolism of bothvalour and liberty out to the wider landscape. Whilst the tympanum wasadorned with Scheemaker's bas-relief celebrating Britannia, the heroism ofGeneral Wolfe was celebrated by Vanbrugh's Guglio resited from the OctagonLake and remodelled as a commemorative obelisk. Together the Temple ofConcord and its setting represent the interests and ambitions of the twogenerations that created Stowe, and reflect it as a place of immense culturalvalue whose authenticity must be maintained.

Through collective research, documentation and analysis, the culturalimportance of Stowe is becoming apparent to such a degree that we believethat the place, embodying architectural, artistic, social, historical, political,religious, sentimental, patriotic and nationalistic values, is truly one ofinternational importance.

HEH Henry E. Huntington Library, Pasadena, California, USA

Illustrations:(reproduced by kind permission of the Governors of Stowe School)

a The Grecian Temple', engraving 1750Benton Seeley, Views of the Temples and other Ornamental Buldingsin The Gardens at Stow 1750

b 'The Grecian Temple', engraving 1753George Bickham, The Beauties of Stowe 1753

c The Temple of Concord & Victory', engraving by T Medland 1797Benton Seeley, Views of the Temples and other Ornamental Buldingsin The Gardens at Stowe 1797

d The Temple of Concord & Victory', watercolour drawing by JeanClaude Mattes 1805

References1. Robert Adam receipt, 1 June 1771 (HEH, STG A/c Box 113)



2. Lloyds Evening Post & British Chronicle (1762)

3. SEELEY, Benton (1762) "A Description of the Gardens of LordViscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire", Northampton

4. 1839 Inventory (HEH ST VOL)

5. BRIDGEMAN, Sarah (1739) "tSYmyc Garden z/zBuckinghamshire... la Id out by Mr Bridgman.. ", London

6. Building Accounts HEH STG A/c

7. Building Accounts HEH, STG A/c

8. Clarke, George (1991) "The Lady with the Squint: An Examinationof Revolutionary Iconography at Stowe", La Grecia Antica Mito ESimbolo Per L 'Eta Delia Grande Rivoluzione, pp 299-319. Milan

9. SEELEY, Benton (1797) 'L4 D cn);fzb/z o/' f/zc Garde/is o/ lordViscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire", Northampton

10. Earl Temple to Lady Chatham, 21 July 1771. (PRO Chatham Papersf.222)

11. Building Accounts HEH, STG A/c


Documents

Conservation of the garden monuments at Peter Inskip ...€¦ · Conservation of the garden monuments at Stowe: the Temple of Concord and Victory P. Inskip Peter Inskip & Peter Jenkins