giles worsley & peter brigham, ‘oulton park, cheshire: an

text © the authors 2002

Giles Worsley & Peter Brigham, ‘Oulton Park, Cheshire: an attribution to Talman’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xII, 2002, pp. 114–131

T H E G E O R G I A N G R O U P J O U R N A L V O L U M E X I I

Looking through photographs in the Country Lifearchive for a book on lost country houses, one

early eighteenth-century house stood out, OultonPark, Cheshire, badly damaged by fire in andsubsequently demolished. It is not a house that hasreceived much attention. Though illustrated inCountry Life in and in Charles Latham’s InEnglish Homes in , it is unmentioned in KerryDownes’s English Baroque Architecture, and JamesLees-Milnes’s English Country Houses: Baroqueincludes only a brief description and a single view.

Similarly, Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz’sCheshire Country Houses () gives the house lines and one photograph. Perhaps the fullestaccount is that in John Martin Robinson’s A Guide tothe Country Houses of the North-West (), but eventhis has only a single photograph.

It is generally accepted by these authors that thehouse was built by John Egerton in or andaltered by Lewis Wyatt for Sir John Grey Egerton inc–. No firm attribution to an architect is given,though, following a tradition that dates back to theearly nineteenth century, Lees-Milne mentionsVanbrughian touches. Robinson suggests one of theSmiths of Warwick, on the grounds of similaritieswith Cottesbrooke Hall, Northamptonshire, andMawley Hall, Shropshire.The Country Life photographer, probably

Latham himself, took only four views: of the north orentrance and north-east fronts; of the south andsouth-west front (Fig. ); of the small dining roomshowing part of one wall and, most impressive of all,the hall (Fig. ). Two less oblique views of the

entrance front in the National Monuments Recordreveal the pediment more clearly (Fig. ) and there isa photograph of the south front of the house after thefire. An early image of the north front made in about can also be found on an estate survey carried outby William Williams (Fig. ).Though this needs tobe treated with some care as it is not entirely accurate(as in the treatment of the entablature of thefrontispiece), it shows that the house originally had acentral cupola and more urns along the rooftopbalustrade. This is confirmed by an unpublishedsketch of Oulton Park by Abraham Dickson, now inthe Yale Center for British Art, of about , whichagain shows a central cupola. A copy by JohnBroster of an early sketch, with a cupola, is in thelibrary at Tatton Park, Cheshire.The CheshireRecord Office holds a later eighteenth-centuryengraving of a view by M. Griffith (Fig. ).There isno known view of the south front before .The more one looks at the photographs and

drawings of Oulton Park, the more unusual itappears. The entrance front was fifteen bays wide. Inthe centre was a three-bay stone frontispiece withstraight, French quoins at the corners, round-headedwindows on the ground and first floors andCorinthian half columns supporting a pediment withan elaborately carved tympanum packed with militarysymbolism. Unusually, the entablature broke forwardover the columns, which meant that the lower cornersof the pediment also broke forward. The pedimentwas incorporated into a raised attic, which was thebase for the octagonal cupola.Flanking the frontispiece were intermediate

OULTON PARK, CHESHIRE: AN ATTRIBUTION TO TALMAN

G I L E S W O R S L E Y A N D P E T E R B R I G H A M

O U LT O N P A R K , C H E S H I R E : A N A T T R I B U T I O N T O TA L M A N


Fig. . South front, OultonPark, Cheshire (Charles

Latham, ). Country Life.

Fig. . Hall, Oulton Park,Cheshire (Charles Latham,). Country Life.



Fig. . North front, Oulton Park, Cheshire (photographer and date unknown). National Monuments Records Centre.

Fig. . William Williams, drawing of the north front of Oulton Park, made for an estate survey c. Cheshire Record Office.



sections of four bays, with two almost equal-heightstoreys of brick over a basement floor of channelledstone. The window surrounds were of stone, with acentral keystone, aprons under ground- and first-floor windows, a plat band and an emphaticentablature and balustrade. The two-bay end sectionsrepeated this, but with the balustrade replaced bywhat might be described as ‘Dutch’ gables (thoughthe end pavilions of Palladio’s Villa Barbaro at Maser(Fig. ) are a plausible source).The roofline wasdecorated with twenty Baroque urns.The side elevations, facing east and west, were of

seven bays with a central three-bay segmentalpediment flanked by a pair of chimneystacks withbulging acanthus leaf decoration. The windowtreatment repeated that of the main elevation butwithout the entablature or the aprons. The Griffithengraving (Fig. ) shows a central door into the rusticand the Country Life article describes a sunk courtyard

beneath the east façade, carefully concealed by wallsand balustrade, that gave access to the offices in thebasement floor.All this is unusual, but what made Oulton Park

remarkable, perhaps unique, was the south or gardenfront. This was of thirteen bays, with two-storeypavilions with ‘Dutch’ gables flanking a tall, nine-bay,single-storey piano nobile, with an attic over thecentral three bays. The central three bays projectedslightly, the corners being marked by Ionic pilasterssupporting a deep Ionic entablature. Thisentablature was continued over the intermediateranges, which also had a very tall parapet wall andbalustrade. The post-fire photograph shows that thecentral nine bays of the basement were lit by circularwindows, though the end pavilions had square-headed windows, like those on the north front.Thus Oulton is not what it initially appears, a

conventional double-pile, two-storey house, but

Fig. . M. Griffith, ‘Oulton the Seat of Philip Egerton Esq’(engraving, c–). Cheshire Record Office.

Fig. . Isometric plan of the groundand first floors of Oulton Park.

Peter Brigham.

wraps two-storey ranges on the north, east and westaround a range of tall single-storey rooms on the southfront. This is a highly distinctive and unusual design.No plan or detailed description of the interior

survives but we know that the entrance hall was inthe centre of the north front and that the state roomsoccupied the south front and, in , containedmany family pictures. Country Life refers to thesuite of ‘lofty salons’ along the south front and notesthat the rooms on either side of the entrance hallwere smaller and simpler. From this information andfrom documents in the Cheshire Record Office, it ispossible to establish a very generalised interpretationof the layout (Fig. ). The room names are thosecurrent in the s.On the main floor the perimeter of the house was

occupied by the entrance hall then, readingclockwise, a family suite: Lady Egerton’s boudoir;Lady Egerton’s dressing room; Lady Egerton’sbedroom (the north-east corner room); and SirPhilip’s dressing room. The oak parlour (probablythe room illustrated by Country Life as the smalldining room) lay in the south-east corner and wasfollowed by three tall state rooms across the centre ofthe south front: the dining room, the salon and thedrawing room. In the south-west corner was thelibrary/billiard room; then a room in the north-westcorner with no specific name. Having turned the lastcorner back into the north range came the Japanroom and finally the ‘north front room’. In – thefirst floor, which was effectively divided into east andwest halves, had four bedrooms, two dressing rooms,adjacent to the south-west and north-west bedrooms,and six ‘rooms’. A central ‘core’ with corridors, theeast (best) staircase, the west staircase, at least onesubsidiary stair and two lightwells ran down the east-west spine of the house on both floors. As can beseen in the Country Life photograph of the hall (Fig.), the first-floor corridor opened into the hallthrough three arches, providing a sense of spatialpenetration that was a noticeable feature of the house. With this sequence established it is possible to

suggest how the house was originally organised. Theentrance hall led to the salon in the centre of thesouth front, which was flanked by two further tallreception rooms and two lower rooms beyond. Tothe left of the entrance hall lay the family suite, to theright the principal guest suite. This probablycomprised a room to the west of the hall, the Japanroom and the principal guest bedroom (in the north-west corner). An inventory of , cited by Sir Philipde Malpas Grey-Egerton in his catalogue of works ofart in , reveals that the Japan room was originallyknown as the Japan Withdrawing Room and had a‘set of old Japan’, presumably oriental lacqueredpanels, valued at £.These were described in the Country Life article as being “lacquered ingreen, red and gold upon a black background”, with“intricate scenes of houses, people, birds andvegetation” and “some panels about ft by ft”. Ifthese rooms were originally the principal guest suitethen it is not surprising that they had lost theirpurpose by the s (as is clear from the namesattributed to them at that date) given that grandground-floor bedroom suites were no longer in fashion.The layout of the staircases in Figure is

conjectural. The one to the east of the hall was calledthe best staircase and its size and layout are knownfrom a localised plan of . In memoranda datedOctober and November Wyatt proposedenhancement of it and also of an important weststaircase. In the same documents he refers to a‘circular’ staircase on the west side. This probably ranall the way from the basement to the attics. There wasprobably a secondary family entrance in the rustic inthe centre of the west end and one of the functions ofthe ‘circular’ staircase would have been to connectthis with the main floor. These Wyatt memoranda arealso the source of our knowledge of the existence ofcourts or lightwells which lit the staircases.The planning was undoubtedly grand. The two

principal bedrooms were both preceded by a pair ofwithdrawing rooms and have what could have been alarge dressing room behind. The suite of reception



rooms would have been very noble. But it is alsosurprisingly practical – and inventive. While the staterooms are taller, and therefore grander, than in aconventional two-storey house, the other rooms arelow, and therefore easier to keep warm. There is alsoa clear distinction between family, guest andreception rooms.Apart from the Country Life photographs of the

hall and the small dining room, which appears arelatively conventional, early eighteenth-centurypanelled room, no illustrations are known of theinterior. The Chester Archaeological and NaturalHistory Society, visiting in , described thereception rooms as lofty, with highly decoratedcornices, and reported that some of them haddomes. Country Life noted that the ‘lofty salons’had plain walls and heavy cornices supportingelaborately coved ceilings of caissons fitted with roseand other ornaments in high relief. The rooms oneither side of the entrance hall were described assmaller and simpler.We might have a better feel for the interior of the

house had Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egertontranscribed the inventory, rather than just listingthe names of rooms cited. However, he did mention anumber of portraits listed including one of SirThomas More, three Van Dycks, of the Earl ofStrafford, Archbishop Laud and Archbishop Juxon,and a set of Flemish tapestry of the Four Seasons ftin high and valued at £ in the TapestryWithdrawing Room (by the drawing room). Inone of the rooms was ‘The Entombment’, attributedto Caravaggio, which was evidently saved from thefire and now hangs in nearby Little Budworthchurch. The rooms mentioned in the inventorycannot be directly related to what is known of thearrangement of the house but the materials used todescribe them reveal a clear hierarchy of expense.Thus the Yellow Damask Bedroom and CrimsonDamask Bedroom, listed after the JapanWithdrawing Room, are likely to have been in theguest apartment. The Blue Mohair Bedchamber, the

Blue Cafoy Dressing Room, and the Green MohairBedchamber may, perhaps, have been part of thefamily suite. Other rooms included the YellowCallamanca Bedchamber, the Plaid Room, theStripped Callamanca Dressing Room, the Red andWhite Callamanca Dressing Room, the Blue andWhite Callicoe Bedchamber, the Oak Room and theSmoking Room.

Some alterations were carried out at unknowndates in the eighteenth century. Griffith’s engraving(Fig. ), made during the ownership of PhilipEgerton (–), who succeeded in , shows aPalladian perron (subsequently replaced duringWyatt’s alterations) instead of the original steps. SirPhilip Malpas de Grey-Egerton dated this to .

It also shows that the cupola had been removed andthe number of urns drastically reduced to pairs oneither side of the pediment and on each of thepavilions. It would be interesting to know whetherthe cupola originally lit the entrance hall, not unlikethe way the dome at Castle Howard lights the hallthere. It was in the right position and at the rightheight to do so.More substantial work was carried out by Lewis

Wyatt, who worked at Oulton Park between and, throwing the principal rooms on the south fronten suite, enlarging the dining room and heighteningthe drawing room.He also made alterationsoutside. Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton mentionsthe removal of the double flight of steps to theentrance hall, erected by his father; the addition of asubstantial terrace to the south, west and north of thehouse (significantly altering its appearance, as can beseen in Fig. ); demolition of the summer house andstables in the park and the erection of new stables.

This list can be expanded by studyingdocuments in the Cheshire Record Office. Workincluded extensive, though unlocated, plasterwork;rebuilding the entrance steps on both north andsouth fronts; dropping the cill level of the state-roomwindows on the south front; and giving the northentrance a square-headed door.



A critical question is how much Wyatt altered thesouth front. The end pavilions appear intact, but thetall parapet walls over the single-bay ranges areunusual and the upper part of the centrepiece is veryuncomfortable. The evidence suggests that the tallparapet walls are original. A memorandum by Wyattdated October refers to the “parapet wallsover the Dining and Draw’g rooms to be taken downand re-built in a different form – (query – by loweringthe ridge of the roofs over ditto. – about or feetand covering them with lead – the parapets may belowered nearly as much)”. However, it would appearthat this work was never carried out as the CountryLife photograph (Fig. ) shows that these rooms stillhad slated roofs. Wyatt’s memorandum implies thattheir strange proportions were found uncomfortablein the early th century, but not so uncomfortablethat it was felt worth spending substantial sums onalterations. It also explains the purpose of the highparapet walls, which served to disguise the slope ofthe roofs over the dining and drawing rooms.The upper part of the centrepiece is more

problematic. Though the language of urns, pilasters,French quoins, stone window surrounds and brick isthe same as the rest of the house, there is somethingunconvincing about the way the three attic-storeywindows break through the balustrade, unbalancingthe whole composition. This discomfort isemphasised by the volutes (one of which is justvisible in the Country Life photograph (Fig. ) as anintegral part of the lower balustrade, in the shadow ofthe centrepiece) that run uncomfortably into thecentrepiece, as if they had once served some moresignificant purpose but had become redundant. Thesuggestion that the upper part of the balustrade mayhave been altered is reinforced by the fact that itsroof-level balusters did not follow the pattern of thebalusters around the rest of the house, but that of thebalusters on external steps added by Wyatt. Nospecific written reference has been found to Wyattbuilding the three-bay first-floor projection, butaccording to his memorandum when he was

looking at the unaltered house he saw only “fourattics in the centre over the Salon”. All this suggeststhat what we see in the Country Life photograph wasperhaps a Wyatt enhancement of more modestservants’ attics into better-lit bedrooms.

Most tantalising of all is what Wyatt did to theentrance hall. This double-height space (Fig. ) withits giant Corinthian pilasters is remarkable andimpressive. The concatenation of pilasters, capitalsand entablatures in the corners presents a staccatovigour that is far superior to comparable work byFrancis Smith of Warwick at Sutton Scarsdale,Derbyshire, of , and perhaps at WingerworthHall, Derbyshire. Indeed, it is hard to rival anywhere.The bulbous acanthus leaf brackets from which thevaults spring have a similarly knowing sophistication.By comparison, the hall at Beningborough Hall,Yorkshire, of , perhaps the most similar double-height giant-pilastered hall, seems clunky andprovincial, and the hall of Gilling Castle, Yorkshire,with which it has also been compared, almostrudimentary.

All, except the chimneypiece, which is clearlyLewis Wyatt’s work, appears so impressively earlyeighteenth-century that it comes as a shock todiscover bills for at least man-days of skilledplasterwork in the hall in and . These areamong the accounts for extensive plasterwork carriedout by Robert Hughes and Son of Manchesterbetween and . Work in the hall includedrunning cornice, small flowers in the frieze, castingand fixing festoons, panelling openings, preparingand fixing trusses and moulding a large truss. Wyatt’smemorandum mentions two outside circles inthe hall to be opened up and the upper gallery to befinished across the staircases with open arcades (thislatter probably refers to the upper corridor, not thehall). A memorandum by Wyatt of suggestscutting away the whole of the festoons over thedoors; fixing new frames and stained glass medallionsin the circular windows; fixing new sashes andframes in the lower windows; finishing the gallery



and strengthening the front; and enlarging the uppercentre arch.Much of this is mysterious. The circular windows

are presumably the circular features between thevaults on the side walls of the hall, but it is difficult tosee how these could have been opened up as therewere presumably bedrooms on the far side of thewall. It would appear from the Country Lifephotograph that the two circles in the south-westcorner of the hall at least were not opened up. Itshould be remembered that Wyatt’s memoranda weresuggestions of work to be done, not records ofcompleted work, and may not have been executed.So how much of the room is original and how

much Lewis Wyatt? Hughes could have been restoringthe room, repeating features that were already there –much as happened at Syon House in the s.

He could have been elaborating the room, buildingon an established language. Or he could have given ita completely new, though fundamentally earlyeighteenth-century, character. This last seemsimplausible. We know from Ormerod’s history ofCheshire, which was published in and sodescribes the house before Wyatt’s alterations, thatthe entrance hall was “ornamented with pilasters ofthe Corinthian order” and had a black and whitemarble floor.There is nothing to suggest in Wyatt’smemoranda or Hughes’s bills that the pilasters orentablatures were remade. Similarly, the bulgingacanthus-leaved brackets, for instance, are very closeto the pair of chimneystacks with bulging acanthusleaf decoration on the east and west elevations, afeature unlikely to have been added by Wyatt. Itseems reasonable to believe that the bones of therooms are original and that it is details that have beenaltered. One possibility, if the cupola did originallylight the hall, is that the new plasterwork wasintended to make good the upper part of the room,which must have been altered when it was removed. Oulton Park is obviously an unusual house in

search of an architect. Who could that be? There hasbeen a traditional attribution to Sir John Vanbrugh,

first recorded, it seems, by Daniel Lysons in MagnaBritannia in and repeated by George Ormerodin his history of Cheshire of .This should notbe accepted. The only architectural element at OultonPark that might be considered Vanbrughian is the useof round windows in the basement of the south front,not enough upon which to base an attribution.It is clearly not the work of any neo-Palladian

(who would consider it too licentious) nor of JamesGibbs, with whose work there are no obviousparallels. In the absence of any other lead one mightbe tempted to follow John Martin Robinson andsuggest Francis or William Smith of Warwick, theleading masterbuilders in the Midlands at this time,whose work is suitably idiosyncratic. But there isanother, even more idiosyncratic, architect whoshould be considered, William Talman, in whosework parallels can be found for virtually everyelement at Oulton Park.Despite the key position that Talman held in

British architecture in the last decades of theseventeenth century, surprisingly few country housesare firmly attributed to him, and these vary so muchin appearance that it is sometimes hard to knowexactly what it is that makes a Talman design. Onewould not automatically connect Oulton Park withthe architect of the south front of Chatsworth House,Derbyshire, Holywell House, Hertfordshire, orDyrham Park, Gloucestershire. But then at first sightone would not associate any of those houses witheach other. However, if Oulton Park is compared indetail with other designs by Talman, particularlythose made for the Duke of Newcastle in –,together with a pair of designs formerly in theLowther Castle collection, clear similarities emerge.

Clear parallels can be drawn between the northfront of Oulton Park, particularly as seen in theWilliam Williams drawing (Fig. ) and a drawing byTalman in the Sir John Soane Museum (Fig. ). If thecupola and the ‘Dutch’ gables are ignored, the twoelevations are very similar, both with two storeys overa rustic, an emphatic balustrade and ornamented





skyline, and fifteen bays long with a three-bay giantpilastered and pedimented frontispiece. Both designsuse French quoins to mark the slight projection ofthe end pavilions, though in the Soane Museumdrawing these are of three, not two bays. In bothcases the entablature breaks within the frontispiece:over the central bay in the Soane Museum drawing,over all three bays at Oulton Park.The side elevations at Oulton Park can similarly

be compared to the side elevation of one of thedesigns for the Duke of Newcastle (Fig. ). Thistime, Oulton Park is the less elaborate of the two, butboth are of seven bays, with a three-bay pedimentedcentrepiece flanked by slightly recessed double bays,the breaks and corners again being marked byFrench quoins. The elevation is two storeys highover a rustic, with a doorway, seen clearly in theGriffith engraving of Oulton Park (Fig. ), in thecentre of the rustic. Combining a piano nobileentered by a perron with access to the rustic at theside is characteristic of Talman’s designs for ThamesDitton (Fig. ) and Haughton, though it is notunique to him.

One of Oulton Park’s most distinctive features isthe unusual broken entablature of the northfrontispiece. This is a feature that Talman used onthe most ambitious of his designs for the Duke ofNewcastle (Fig. ). ‘Dutch gables’ used on the endpavilions at Oulton Park appear twice in Talman’sdesigns, though both times in rather more elaborateform and to mark the centre of the building (Fig.). A variant without the curved brackets is usedover the end pavilions in the grandest of the Duke ofNewcastle elevations (Fig. ). French quoins are aregular feature of Talman’s designs (Figs. , , and) and were used at Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire.Channelled rustication on the basement floor is alsocommonplace (Figs. , , , and ).

Segmental pediments, like those used on the endelevations at Oulton Park, were used on the stables atDyrham Park and twice in drawings (Fig. ).

Talman’s fondness for an emphatic entablaturetopped by a balustrade, preferably articulated bypiers and urns, as seen at Oulton Park, appearsrepeatedly in his work, at Chatsworth and DyrhamPark and in numerous designs (Figs. , and ).

Fig. . William Talman, design for the Duke of Newcastle (drawing, c. –). Courtesy of the Trustees of the Sir John Soane Museum.



Fig. . William Talman, design for the Duke of Newcastle (drawing, c–). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.

Fig. . William Talman, design for the Thames Ditton Trianon (drawing, c). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.



Fig. . William Talman, design for the Duke of Newcastle (drawing, c. –).Courtesy of the Trustees of the Sir John Soane Museum.

Fig. . William Talman, design for the Duke of Newcastle (drawing, c. –). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.

Fig. . William Talman, design for a house, formerly in the Lowther Castle Collection (drawing, n.d.). RIBA Library Drawings Collection.



Talman also uses volutes similar to those flanking thecentrepiece on the south front at Oulton Park tosupport a central Dutch gable on two of the Duke ofNewcastle designs (Fig. ) and on the greenhouseat Wanstead House, Essex, firmly attributed toTalman by Harris (Fig. ).The articulation of thefacade as a series of staccato elements, characteristicof both the north and south elevations of OultonPark, is particularly evident in two of the Duke ofNewcastle designs (Figs. and ).

But it is the south façade that is most telling. Theidea of combining a single principal storey (over arustic) with two-storey wings and centrepiece seemsto be without peer in contemporary Englisharchitecture, except in Talman’s work. He can be seentoying with the idea at the Thames Ditton Trianon(Fig. ), where there is a single main storey over a low

rustic. It is more clearly articulated in the grandestdesign for the Duke of Newcastle (Fig. ). Thecomparison with Oulton Park would have been clearerbefore the rustic was obscured by Wyatt’s terrace.The most direct comparison is with the Lowther

design (Fig. ). As at Oulton Park, this has a rusticand a single-storey principal floor with two-storeyend pavilions and centrepiece. The rhythm of bays isalmost the same, –––– as against ––––. Inboth cases the centrepiece is divided by an emphaticentablature and the end pavilions are given elaboratearchitectural treatment: a segmental pediment in onecase, a ‘Dutch’ gable in the other. Strong similaritieswith a design for stables by Sir Christopher Wren,now among the drawings at All Soul’s College (Fig.), suggest a possible source for the Lowther Castledesign and for the garden front at Oulton Park.

Fig. . William Talman (attributed), the Orangery at Wanstead, Essex, from J.Kip and L. Knyff, Britannia Illustrata, London, .



The design, which is shown to be for Charles II byhis monogram and crown, is for a single-storeybuilding with a tall, hipped roof and two-storeycentrepiece and pavilions, the latter with segmentalpediments. Dr Anthony Geraghty confirms that thedrawing is almost certainly in Wren’s hand andwould have been held at the Office of Works, whereTalman would have been able to examine it. Hepoints out that a common source for such acomposition is Palladio’s Villa Barbaro (Fig. ),which makes the use of ‘Dutch’ gables at OultonPark, also found at the Villa Barbaro, particularlysignificant. The use of Palladian precedents but in amanner that owes nothing to the traditional neo-Palladian vocabulary, would fit with what we know ofTalman’s approach to Palladian precedentselsewhere in his work.

None of the known plans of Talman’s housesexactly follows that of Oulton Park, but two parallelscan be pointed out. Placing two staircases on eitherside of the hall in the spine of the house, found atOulton Park, was a characteristic feature of Talman’splanning and can be seen in his designs for KivetonPark, Yorkshire, Castle Howard, Yorkshire, and theTrianon designs.We also know from the ChesterArchaeological and Natural History Societydescription that some of the rooms at Oulton Park

had domes (though none of the other sourcesmention anything more ambitious than ‘heavycornices supporting elaborate coved ceilings’), afeature clearly spelt out in one of the plans for theDuke of Newcastle. Above all, the plan of OultonPark is one of the most original of its day and weknow from his designs for Kiveton, the Trianon andthe Duke of Newcastle, among others, that Talmanwas a highly inventive planner.

Individually, one or two of these motifs might beput down to a common architectural language. Whenvirtually every element of Oulton Park, even the basicplanning and disposition of the building, has aprecedent in Talman’s work the case becomes difficultto resist. If so, what might have been the originalform of the centrepiece on the south front? It isimpossible to be certain but a number of possibilitiessuggest themselves. One would be a lower, windowedattic with pediment as in the Lowther design (Fig.). Another might be a tall pediment backed by araised attic, as in one of the designs for the Duke ofNewcastle (Fig. ) and indeed, much as the WilliamWilliams drawing (Fig. ) shows the pediment of thenorth front of Oulton Park. Alternatively, the presenceof volutes may suggest a low parapet as on theGreenhouse at Wanstead (Fig. ).Although the architectural language seems to talk

Fig. . William Talman, design for the Duke of Newcastle (drawing, c–). Courtesy of the Trustees of the Sir John Soane Museum.



Fig. . Andrea Palladio, the Villa Barbaro at Maser, from Quattro Libri dell’Architettura, Venice, , II, .

Fig. . Sir Christopher Wren, design for stables for Charles II (drawing, n.d.). All Souls College, Oxford.

so clearly of William Talman, only tangential linkshave been found to connect him to the house. Thebuilder of Oulton Park was an obscure Cheshiresquire, John Egerton, who inherited the estate on thedeath of his father in . Egerton did not sit forParliament and, apart from helping make the RiverWeaver navigable, left little mark on history beyond abad-tempered row with his brother and his nephewand heir, Philip Egerton, recorded in a letter and amemorandum. These make it clear that John Egertonwas responsible for rebuilding Oulton Park. Theletter referred to “The many thousand pounds I havelaid out in the house and gardens at Oulton, I neednot mention the exact sum, every one that sees them

will compute it for me”. In the memorandum hereferred to “a kindness not to be overlook’d, theexpense and fatigue of building a house for his heir,for it must be allowed the regard to posterity morethan my own pleasure was the ruling motive of thatwork”. Egerton was so distrustful of his heir’sintentions towards his new house that in a codicil tohis will, drawn up just before he died, he insisted thathis nephew take out a bond of £, guaranteeingthat he would reside at least six months of the yearat Oulton.

Though no date is given for Oulton Park inOrmerod’s history of Cheshire, Lysons, writing in, states that the house “was built in or about

”. Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton, writingin his privately printed A Historical Account of thePossessors of Oulton…compiled from public andprivate documents of , declared of John Egertonthat “In he set about rebuilding”. Grey-Egertonclearly had access to family papers, some of which heprints in the Historical Account, but he does notmake clear the evidence for this statement. Ifaccepted, it means that though Egerton succeededhis father in , when he was , he did not starton a complete rebuilding until he was nearly andhad presumably realised that he would never havechildren. By this time Egerton could have been inpoor health, as we know that he suffered from failingeyesight and by the end of his life was blind.On the face of it or seems unlikely.

Certainly a date closer to would fit better withthe – date of the designs for the Duke ofNewcastle, with which Oulton Park bears such closestylistic similarities. Building accounts in the Grey-Egerton papers in the Cheshire County RecordOffice, while incomplete, suggest that building workmay indeed have begun on John Egerton’ssuccession, if not before.No account books survive from to but

there are two for to . One, kept by RobertTaylor, has payments from December to March and from July to December .The other,kept by William Whaley, runs from October

to July .The next two account books arefrom – and –, the latter being kept bythe steward, John Billington.

Among the payments starting December inthe first two account books, which specificallyindicate construction of a new building at Oulton,are those for measuring the new building; laying adrain; levelling; measuring boarding and flagging;wainscotting and sash windows ‘at Oulton’; glazing;locks; ‘new pillars at Oulton’; wainscotting the twoend rooms; and slating new building at Oulton.Dates for these go through to , and there areitems for furniture in . Billington’s accounts

include a payment in to Mr Crane, a painterwho also worked at Cholmondeley Old Hall, foreight books of gold leaf.The sums recorded are clearly fragmentary,

totalling only £ for building work, though at least£ was spent on furniture. But they do show that a‘New Building’ was in hand, that it was at Oulton,and that it was a building of some distinction, asreferences to sash windows, a slate roof, wainscot andpillars demonstrate. It seems likely that work mayhave already begun before December , that isduring his father’s time, though John Egerton makesit clear he considers the house to be his work, notthat of his father. ‘Measuring’ suggests measuringcompleted building work, perhaps the shell, ratherthan measuring out the ground. If so, there is alogical progression to installing windows andwainscot the following year and painting doors andbuying furniture the year after that. This makes adate of perhaps or to plausible for thehouse. As fitting-up (suggested by references togilding in ) could well have continued after ,perhaps was the date of final completion. Even if the attribution to Talman is accepted as

plausible along with a date of c.–, onefurther problem has to be faced. John Egerton, as faras we can tell, lived a life of provincial obscurity, incontrast with Talman’s patrons, most of whom wereWhig grandees, men like the Dukes of Bolton,Chandos, Devonshire, Leeds and Newcastle, theEarls of Carlisle, Clarendon, Exeter, Fitzwilliam,Northampton, Portland, Portmore, and Tankerville.Egerton’s political affiliations are unclear but hisfather, Sir Philip Egerton, was a staunch Tory,evident from the presence in the house of paintingsof the Earl of Strafford, Archbishop Laud andArchbishop Juxon. He was twice MP for Cheshire,helped search the houses of leading local Whigs afterthe Rye House Plot, was active in James II’sparliament and imprisoned in Chester Castle in

as a Jacobite suspect.

On the face of it, it seems unlikely that John



Egerton moved in the same social or political circlesas the majority of Talman’s clients. The nearestprospective Talman commissions were at LowtherCastle in Westmorland and Welbeck Abbey inNottinghamshire, well beyond Egerton’s presumedgeograpical range. The closest family link to adefinite Talman commission is through Egerton’suncle Sir John Egerton of Wrinehill, who marriedAnne, daughter of George Winter of Dyrham Park,Gloucestershire. Anne, who died in , was theaunt of Mary Winter, her brother John’s onlysurviving child. It was Mary Winter who marriedWilliam Blathwayt, bringing him Dyrham Park,where he employed Talman in –. Theconnection, through the niece of an aunt living acouple of hundred miles away, is tenuous and in theabsence of further knowledge of the intimacy offamily relations is probably worth no more thanbeing noticed.However, in John Egerton married, as his

second wife, Elizabeth Cholmondeley, making himthe brother-in-law of Hugh Cholmondeley, aninfluential Whig who rebuilt his house,Cholmondeley Old Hall. This lies nine miles fromOulton Park and just over a mile from Egerton Hall,the family’s other estate. Cholmondeley rallied earlyto the cause of William III in and was rewardedby being created Baron Cholmondeley in andEarl of Cholmondeley in . There is no directevidence to link Talman to Lord Cholmondeley, whodid not obtain high office at court until Talman hadlargely been abandoned by his Whig clients, and whois known to have employed Vanbrugh atCholmondeley Old Hall in .Were it not for theabsence of any sign of Vanbrugh at Oulton Park, theCholmondeley connection might suggest a linkbetween Egerton and Vanbrugh, but it may simplymean that Lord Cholmondeley was conventional inhis use of Whig-favoured architects.As John Harris has kindly pointed out to the

authors, Talman’s close associate George Londondrew up plans for an extensive new garden at

Cholmondeley Old Hall in . John Harrisdescribes the relationship between London andTalman as “undoubtedly one of close collaboration”,and continues that “it is therefore rewarding tospeculate on the extent to which London may havesummoned Talman to design those architecturalparts of his gardens. Generally, where Talman goes,London follows, or vice versa. At Chatsworth,Burghley, Castle Ashby, Dyrham, Castle Howard,Hampton Court, Middlesex as well as HamptonCourt in Herefordshire, probably Kimberley andFetcham, and possibly Lord Clarendon’s Cornbury,the chief architect and gardener of the WilliamiteCourt were together”.

It is unlikely that Lord Cholmondeley wouldhave intended remodelling his gardens on such agrand scale without planning work on his antiquatedhouse as well. Presumably nothing came of this as thefirst evidence we have of building work atCholmondeley Old Hall is in , when RichardJones, a London surveyor, attempted to redesign thehouse. So could Cholmondeley Old Hall have beenanother abortive commission for William Talman?And could it have been Lord Cholmondeley whointroduced his brother-in-law to Talman? In theabsence of firm documentation Oulton Park mustremain an attribution. The parallels with Talman’swork are striking and it is hard to see to whom else itcould be plausibly attributed. On the other hand,though there are tempting connections, there is noclear link between Egerton and Talman. In thepreface to his brief study of Talman, WilliamTalman: Maverick Architect, John Harris describedthe frustration of trying to pin down new attributionsto the architect: “Alas, year succeeded year, and thetask was like trying to run up a down escalator”.

In that sense Oulton Park could be described as aquintessentially Talman building.





Giles Worsley, England’s Lost Houses, London, ,–.

Charles Latham, In English Homes, , III, London,–.

James Lees-Milne, English Country Houses: Baroque–, London, , .

Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz, CheshireCountry Houses, Chichester, , –, fig. .

John Martin Robinson, The County Houses of theNorth West, London, , –.

Swindon, National Monuments Record, BB /;Cheshire County Council House of Images.

Chester, Cheshire Record Office (hereafter CRO),DEO//, published in the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians of Great Britain Newsletter No. , Autumn, . The drawing must date between , whenthe survey of the Egerton estates was begun on thesuccession of Philip Egerton, and , when thesurvey was completed.

New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, Department ofRare Books, ‘The First book of houses of ArchibaldDickson’, fol. . The book includes drawings of a mixof fantastical and real houses, the latter include CreweHall, Cheshire, dated , and Bold Hall, Lancashire.The Oulton drawing is not inscribed but is identical tothe William Williams drawing. I am grateful to RichardHewlings, who identified this drawing, for thisinformation.

Tatton Park, library, YDR –, incorporated into anexpanded version of Daniel King, The Vale Royal ofEngland, which Broster put together in . Broster’sdrawing was probably made in the s. DeFigeuiredo and Treheurz , op. cit., refer to this sketch.

CRO, VPR . There are two versions of this engraving.One is dedicated to Philip Egerton, probably the onewho inherited in and died in . Another, withmore mature trees, is dedicated to Sir John Grey-Egerton, post .

Andrea Palladio, I Quattro Libri dell’architettura,Vicenza, , II, .

George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatineand City of Chester, London, , II, .

CRO, DEO / and /, particularly a listing forthe installation of bells in –.

Two small drawings for proposed localised alterationdated in CRO, DEO / only ‘work’ if thedining room was east of the salon.

The bell installers’ list includes items for attic storeyrooms for lady’s maid, housemaids, and a bedroom,‘late the housekeepers’. These were probably therooms over the salon and do not appear to have beenaccessible by the two principal staircases.

In the mid nineteenth century these were believed tohave come from the previous house on the site. SirPhilip de Malpas Grey-Egerton, A Historical Accountof the Possessors of Oulton, , –.

CRO, DEO /. Ibid., DEO /. ‘Notes on Oulton Hall’, Chester Archaeological and

Historical Society (hereafter CAHS), NS, XV, –,.

Saloon, Tapestry Withdrawing Room, CrimsonDamask Withdrawing Room, Japan WithdrawingRoom, Yellow Damask Bedchamber, Crimson DamaskBedchamber, Blue Mohair bedchamber, Blue CafoyDressing Room, Green Mohair Bedchamber, YellowCallamanca Bedchamber, Plaid Room, StripedCallamanca Dressing Room, Red and WhiteCallamanca Dressing Room, Blue and White CallicoeBedchamber, Oak Parlour, Smoking Room [Philip deMalpas Egerton Grey, Descriptive Catalogue of thePictures and other Works of Art at Oulton Park,Cheshire, London, , ix]. The set of Flemishtapestries of the Four Seasons in the TapestryWithdrawing Room were valued at £, the set of ‘oldJapan’ in the Japan Withdrawing Room was valued at£.

Grey-Egerton, Historical Account, cit., . Ibid., . Ibid., –. James Lees-Milne suggests, some of the idiosyncraciesof the exterior, particularly the Dutch gables, wereWyatt’s work. However, we know from the WilliamWilliams survey drawing that these date from the earlyth century [Lees-Milne, Baroque, cit., ]. Theoriginal round-headed door can be seen in the WilliamWilliams, Griffith and Broster views.

CRO, DEO / and /. Lees-Milne, Baroque, cit., , , figs. , . CRO, DEO / and /. Eileen Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam: His

Interiors, New Haven and London, , . George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine

and City of Chester, London, , II, .

N O T E S



Daniel Lysons, Magna Britannia, Vol. : Topographicaland Historical Account of Cheshire, London, , ;Ormerod, County Palatine, cit., .

In particular, one might note the use of French quoins(Baginton Hall, Warwicks., –; Newbold Revel,Warwicks., ; Swynnerton Hall, Staffs., ;Davenport Hall, Shropshire, – and Kinlet Hall,Shropshire, –); an interest in the use of giantorders as external pilasters, as on the garden front atOulton Park, (Cottesbrooke Hall, Northants., –;Sutton Scarsdale, Derbys., –; Chicheley Hall,Buckinghamshire, –; Sandywell Park, Glos.,c.–; Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwicks., –;Alfreton Hall, Derbys., –; Swynnerton Hall,Staffs., and Mawley Hall, Shropshire, c.–);and double-height pilastered halls (Newbold Revel,Warwicks., and Wingerworth Hall, Derbys.,–). However, as Andor Gomme makes clear inSmith of Warwick: Francis Smith, Architect andMaster-Builder, Stamford, , these features are byno means confined to Francis Smith, and given thevery distinctive elements at Oulton Park that are notfound elsewhere in Smith’s oeuvre the link is tootenuous to make a plausible attribution. Moreover, if,as seems likely, Oulton Park was begun in the lates, it would have been exceptionally early inFrancis Smith’s career.

These are held by the RIBA Library DrawingsCollection and the Sir John Soane Museum. See JillLever (ed.), Catalogue of the Drawing Collection of theRoyal Institute of British Architects T-Z, , .

John Harris, William Talman: Maverick Architect,London, , fig..

It also appears in the main cross wing of Bretby Park,Derbyshire, which John Harris attributes to Talman[Harris, Talman, cit., fig. ]. Talman also broke theentablature over the central bay in two designs [ibid.,fig. and fig.].

See also Harris, Talman, cit., fig.. See also ibid., figs. and . See also ibid., figs. and . See also ibid., fig. . See also ibid., figs. , , and . See also ibid., fig. . Ibid., fig. . See also ibid., fig. . Oxford, All Soul’s College, II., reproduced in The

Wren Society, V, London, , pl. XXXI. Giles Worsley, “William Talman: Some stylisticsuggestions”, Georgian Group Journal, II, , –.

Harris, Talman, cit., figs. , and . CAHS, cit., ; Harris, Talman, cit., fig. . Harris, Talman, cit., figs. , , and . See also ibid., fig. . Grey-Egerton,Historical Account, cit., , –. Ibid., , and . Ormerod, County Palatine, cit., II, ; Lysons, Magna

Britannia, cit., II, . CRO, DEO//. Ibid., DEO//. Ibid., DEO/ /, /. Basil Duke Henning (ed.), The House of Commons,

–, London, II, , . Lord Cholmondeley was first Comptroller of theHousehold and then Treasurer from to withonly a short break in –.

CRO, Cholmondeley Papers, DCH/K//. Harris, Talman, cit., . CRO, Cholmondeley Papers, DCH/L/. Harris, Talman, cit., .

giles worsley & peter brigham, ‘oulton park, cheshire: an

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