holywell house, st albans: an early work by william talman?

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Holywell House, St Albans: An Early Work by William Talman?Author(s): Frances HarrisSource: Architectural History, Vol. 28 (1985), pp. 32-39Published by: SAHGB Publications LimitedStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568525 .

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Holywell House, St Albans:

an early work by William

Talman? by FRANCES HARRIS

'The house is a sad thing, & stands as ill as 'tis possible', was the Duchess of Marlborough's unpromising verdict on Holywell in the I72os; although she did add that 'if one went thro some green fields to it, I could live very contentedly in such a place if I had no better'. 1 The property lay on the southern outskirts of St Albans, below the Abbey slope: a modest-sized house with extensive gardens, bounded on the west by the road which is now Holywell Hill, and on the south by the river Ver. By the I720s, as the Duchess's comment suggests, it had been hopelessly outclassed as a country house by Windsor Lodge and Blenheim Palace. But for many years before this happened it had been her family home, and evidence concerning its building suggests that William Talman's name can now be added to the number of distinguished architects whom she employed, not always to her satisfaction, in the course of a long and combative life.

In I571 the 'mansion house called Hallywell' was one of several properties in and around St Albans which the wealthy and childless Sir Ralph Rowlett had left to his nephew Ralph Jenyns.2 By the middle of the seventeenth century it had descended to the latter's great-grandson, Richard Jenyns, the father of Sarah, Duchess of Marl- borough. But in the years which followed his death in i668, when his estates were held successively by his two short-lived sons, and then in the joint ownership of his daughters, Holywell had fallen into a state of neglect and disrepair.3 It was not until October 1684 that Sarah and her husband, John Churchill, were able to buy out the share of her one remaining sister,4 and make the place their country home. The easy travelling distance from London was an advantage for a young couple who were already favourites at Court.

The first step was the rebuilding of the dilapidated Jenyns mansion, and in this connection the payment of ?500 to William Talman which was debited to the Churchills' account in the ledgers of Child's Bank on 30 September I686 is surely significant.5 Although no mention is made of the purpose of the payment, Holywell was the only substantial house owned by the Churchills at the time,6 and there is independent evidence that major work was going on there in this and the succeeding reign. Chauncy, in his county history published in I700, mentions the 'fair house' recently built by the Churchills at St Albans, while the beginning of the work can be



HOLYWELL HOUSE, ST ALBANS

dated to the early years of James II's reign by a Chancery writ of 4 September I687

concerning the diversion of the highway adjacent to the new house.7 Talman's rising reputation as a country house architect matched the Churchills' increasing status and prosperity, and it is perhaps also worth noting that their Court duties had brought them into close contact with one of his principal early patrons, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon.8 The round sum of ?5oo, too large for an unexecuted design, may represent an advance or intermediate instalment for the work, such as those specified in Talman's contract for Chatsworth in I693.9

Unfortunately only a few other names are mentioned in connection with the many payments on the Churchills' behalf which are recorded for this period in the Child's ledgers, but among them are two craftsmen who were probably also involved at Holywell: the mason Nicholas Lampen, who afterwards worked with Talman at Hampton Court, and Henry Lobb, a joiner and wood-carver later employed at Kensington Palace.10 Payments of ?80 and ?35 were made to them on 7 and 24 July 1687 respectively.

Not that the result was a very large or elaborate house. Neither the site nor the Churchills' means at the time would have permitted this, and Sarah at least had a marked preference for plainness in all forms of design and expression (including her own). 'Painters, poets and builders have very high flights', she wrote in later life, 'but they must be kept down'. 11 In the absence of earlier illustrations, sketches of the main north-facing block of Holywell in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries show a stuccoed facade, tall in relation to its width and depth, with a columned porch which is a possible late addition (P1. i). The lowest rank of windows in the north front, the tops of which are just visible at basement level in some illustrations, open at ground level on the garden side, a difference presumably permitted by the slope or terracing of the ground towards the river (P1. 2a). According to sale particulars of I814, this lowest floor of the house contained a 'summer parlour' opening directly on to the garden, with the kitchens and other domestic offices behind. Above this was the principal floor containing the entrance hall, drawing-room and 'eating room'. The two main bedchambers and dressing-rooms, with a 'handsome chamber between', were on the next floor, with the attic storey containing further bedchambers above. 12 On the whole the illustrations and the description confirm the Duchess's frank but affectionate assess- ment of the house as 'ordinary'. 13 The most notable external feature of the north front was the relief sculpture of military trophies on the pediment, probably reflecting John Churchill's pride in his recent achievements. In the summer of I685 he had been promoted to the rank of major-general for his services in suppressing the Monmouth rebellion. The payment to the mason Nicholas Lampen may refer to this decorative work.

It is not clear what features, if any, of the old house were retained, though the siting suggests that some incorporation was intended. Early nineteenth-century remi- niscences of Holywell indicate that the stone cloister which then ran along the bay-windowed garden front was locally believed to be part of an earlier building.14 Bird's-eye views of the house on plans of St Albans by Benjamin Hare andJohn Oliver (the former of I634, the latter published by Chauncy in I700 but surveyed before the diversion of the road to the west of the new Holywell) do show what appears to be a

33



ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 28:1985

straight row of archways along the garden side; and in his Memoirs the Earl of Ailesbury records a conversation with Sarah at Holywell in the summer of I691, during which they took refuge from the sun to sit 'under the stone arches adjoining the house'. 15 On the other hand the east-facing garden wing (containing a library and a further set of bedrooms, according to the sale particulars of I8 14) does not seem to be shown at all on the plan by Andrews and Wren in 1766, and its pinnacled and battlemented appearance in later illustrations suggests that this part of the house had undergone considerable alteration in the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the property had been inherited by the Spencer family (PI. 2b).

Views of thejenyns house on seventeenth-century plans also show that its west front came up to the very edge of the road (Pl. 3a). But the Churchills were not prepared to tolerate this proximity for their new dwelling. The solution, the diversion of a section of the highway, has already been noticed. As can be seen from the plan of 1766 (Pl. 3b), it was thrown out in a short arc to the west of the house, and outbuildings, which included the stable-block, placed in the newly enclosed area between the road and the house. This afforded it some seclusion, and also accommodated an alignment which was quite different from that of the old. The main entrance was now in the north front, with the courtyard opening at the top of the arc in a direct line with the road uphill into the town. Yet this was a makeshift arrangement at best. The diversion became an increasing inconvenience to traffic, while the owners found that it still did not sufficiently conceal the closeness of the road and the southern fringes of the town.

Work on Holywell continued in the following reign. In I692 the Churchills, who had now acquired the Marlborough title, were dismissed from Court, and for the next eight years or so spent a great part of their time leading a quiet family life at St Albans. Marlborough himself, having no occupation in public life, concentrated his energies on the completion of the house and garden. But there is no evidence of Talman's further involvement. Work on the house at this stage was performed by a 'good honest' local man named Joseph Carter, who was regularly employed in the repair of the tenant farms on the neighbouring Sandridge estate, and who may already have been con- cerned in the building under Talman's guidance. His one surviving bill of October I692 for 'the new buildings dun this summer' comes to just over ?300, and mentions among other items at Holywell, a 'new great roome', a new chimney and alterations to the roof and stables.16 By I699 the disruption and expense of'Lord Marlborough's frequent alterations' at St Albans had become something of an annoyance to his wife, who realized that the house could never be entirely satisfactory because of its awkward siting.17

But in the remodelling of the gardens at least, Marlborough's efforts appear to have been genuinely repaid. There can be no doubt that they were substantially his personal creation. 'If you were here', the Lord Treasurer Godolphin wrote to him later from Holywell, 'you could not avoyd taking delight in the work of your own hands, for this garden is really a charming thing'.18 However the Churchills had certainly been in contact with George London at the time of the Revolution, when along with his master Bishop Compton he had assisted Sarah and the Princess Anne in their famous flight to Nottingham;19 and it is tempting to believe that Holywell had been the scene, on a minor scale, of one of the partnerships between Talman and London. The extent and

34



HOLYWELL HOUSE, ST ALBANS

something of the arrangement of the gardens can be judged from the plan of 1766, though by this time many of the original details had probably been lost. They included extensive orchards and kitchen gardens, a dovecote, a bowling-green and a summer house. But the main feature was the diversion of water from the river Ver to form a canal and a series of pools along the southern boundary. These provided 'Trouts and other Fish' for the table, though their practical and ornamental value was somewhat offset by their periodic tendency, if not carefully managed, to 'drown' the low-lying parts of the garden. 20

Even after I702, when Holywell was largely superseded by Windsor Lodge and Blenheim Palace, the Marlboroughs still occasionally stayed there, but during her long widowhood the Duchess found that it had too many associations with the past to be a comfortable home. 'This place is convenient & suits well enough with my Inclination, who never was fond of magnificent things', she wrote to her granddaughter from St Albans in 1735, 'yet 'tis so dismal . . . to be here alone in a Place that makes me reflect upon many Scenes of happiness, none of which can ever return, that I cannot bear to stay'.21 At her death in 1744 Holywell passed to her grandson, John Spencer, and soon after to his son, the Ist Earl Spencer, whose widow came to live there in the I780s. The extensive alterations made during her residence, particularly to the layout of the gardens, can be seen on Thomas Godman's plan of St Albans of I822.22 After her death in I814 the days of the house, 'massive though not picturesque', as it struck one observer, were numbered. In 183 7 it was finally demolished and the road restored to its former course. 23

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to the Marquis of Tavistock and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates, the Assistant General Manager, Child & Co., the Head of Record Services, Devon Record Office, and the County Archivist, Hertfordshire Record Office, for allowing me to use manuscripts in their possession; to Mr D. J. Dean for supplying me with a copy of the sale particulars of 1814, and to my colleagues at the British Library, Charles Hind and Arthur Searle, for their advice.

NOTES

I Devon Record Office, Seymour of Berry Pomeroy MSS: to the Duke of Somerset, 7June [1723-25]. 2 Herts Genealogist and Antiquary, II (I 897), 184. 3 Herbert C. Andrews, 'Notes on the Rowlett and Jennings Families', Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th series, vIII (I932-34), especially pp. 89-90o; Public Record Office, C5/5o6/84. 4 Herts Record Office, Manorial Records, Miscellaneous Collections VI, 40955-40956. 5 Child & Co., Williams and Glyn's Bank, London: Ledger for I681-87, fol. 205. 6 The one other place in which they could have employed an architect on this scale was their Cockpit lodgings at Whitehall; but these were comparatively new, and the Churchills' receipt-book for January I685 shows that renovation, including mason's work, carpentry, plastering and painting, at a cost of about ?Ioo, had already been carried out there at the time they moved in, in the winter of 1684-85 (British Library Add. MS 6I 346, fols I05-o9). 7 Sir Henry Chauncy, Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (London, 1700), p. 466; PRO, C202/70/4. 8 The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, ed. S.W. Singer (London, I828), I, I4I: Churchill to Clarendon, 4July i685. 9 Wren Society, xvII (1940), 38. 10 Douglas Knoop and G. P. Jones, The London Mason in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester, 1935), p. 48; Geoffrey Beard, Craftsmen and Interior Decoration in England 1660-1820 (Edinburgh, I98I), p. 124.

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36 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 28: 985

11 Letters of a Grandmother, ed. Gladys Scott Thomson (London, I943), p. 134: to the Duchess of Bedford, 13 July I734. 12 The Particulars of the Elegant Freehold Mansion, Called Holywell House . . . Which Will Be Sold by Auction, by Mr Willock . . . the Eighteenth of August, 1814 . . . I3 Letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough . . .at Madresfield Court (London, I875), p. II114: to Robert Jennens, 23 August 1714. 14 E. Stanley Kent, 'St Albans in the Early Nineteenth Century', St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society Transactions (I929), p. 237. 15 Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, n (190o8), facing p. 460; Chauncy, facing p. 428; Memoirs of Thomas, Earl ofAilesbury, Roxburghe Club (I890), I, 280. i6 Letters . . . at Madresfield Court, pp. 30-31: toJennens, 20 March I713; BL Add. MS 61348, fol. 4. I7 BL Add. MS 61442, fol. 148: Lady Sunderland to Sarah, 15 August I699. I8 The Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, ed. Henry L. Snyder (Oxford, I975), II, 66I: 30 August I706. I9 Stephen Switzer, The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener's Recreation (London, I7I5), p. 60. 20 Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence, I, I I8; Letters . . . at Madresfield Court, p. 8; Thomas Lediard, The Life of John, Duke of Marlborough (London, I736), III, 291; Katherine Thomson, Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess ofMarlbrough (London, I839), I, 10; Chauncy, p. 466; BL Add. MS 61463, fol. 184: Sarah to Charlotte Clayton, 9 October I722. 21 Bedford Estate Office, London; Duchess of Marlborough letters, No. 36: to the Duchess of Bedford, [summer 17351. 22 Robert Clutterbuck, History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford (London, I8I5-27), i, facing p. 55. 23 Thomson, Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, n, 439; Elsie Toms, The Story of St. Albans (St Albans, I962), p. I46.



V

P1. I Holywell House, northfront, byJohn Buckler, from the Grangerized edition of Robert Clutterbuck, The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford (1832), I, 54F



II . IlI. .......... .

I

i

I



w

P1. 3a Plan ofSt Albans byJohn Oliver, before 1686,from Sir Henry Chauncy, The Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (London, 1700),facingp. 428 (detail)

OPPOSITE

P1. 2a Holywell House, north and eastfronts, by John Baskerfield, dated 19 July 1792;from British Library Add. MS go63,fol. 165

P1. 2b Holywell House, east font, by John Buckler, fom the Grangerized edition of Clutterbuck, i, 54E

PI. 3b Plan ofSt Albans by I. Andrews and M. Wren, 1766, from British Library Add. MS32351, fol. 23 (detail)



holywell house, st albans: an early work by william talman?

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