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The Garden History Society A Forgotten Greenhouse by Joseph Paxton: The Conservatory at Hampton Court, Herefordshire Author(s): Catherine Beale Source: Garden History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 74-83 Published by: The Garden History Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1587327 . Accessed: 02/08/2013 06:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Garden History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Garden History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.209.6.50 on Fri, 2 Aug 2013 06:35:33 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

A Forgotten Greenhouse by Joseph Paxton: The Conservatory at Hampton Court, Herefordshire

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The Garden History Society

A Forgotten Greenhouse by Joseph Paxton: The Conservatory at Hampton Court,HerefordshireAuthor(s): Catherine BealeSource: Garden History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 74-83Published by: The Garden History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1587327 .

Accessed: 02/08/2013 06:35

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Garden History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to GardenHistory.

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NOTE

A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON: THE CONSERVATORY AT HAMPTON

COURT, HEREFORDSHIRE

This note makes the case for the addition of the conservatory at Hampton Court, Herefordshire, to the acknowledged works of Sir Joseph Paxton. Evidence includes photographs, contemporary connections between Chatsworth, Derbyshire, and the Arkwrights who owned Hampton Court in the nineteenth century, comparison with Burton Closes at Bakewell, Derbyshire, and surviving correspondence from the architect of the Crystal Palace, London. The Hampton Court conservatory is a rare example of the private, domestic commissions that Paxton was permitted by the Duke of Devonshire to undertake, but of which, because of the loss of records, little evidence survives.

A forgotten building by Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-65) has been discovered at Hampton Court, Hereford- shire. The case for Paxton's authorship of this conservatory has five elements: its date; archive photographs showing the conservatory's original roofline; circumstantial evidence connecting Hampton Court with Chatsworth, Derbyshire, in the nineteenth century;' signed letters by Paxton at the Herefordshire Record Office;2 and a comparison of the Hampton Court conservatory with an accepted contemporary Paxton work. This note considers the conservatory's significance, context and present condition before examining the evidence.

The planning and construction of the Hampton Court conservatory (1844-46) fall between Paxton's early triumph, the Great Stove (1836-40) at Chatsworth, and the design of Crystal Palace (1850-51), London. At that time, Paxton was undertaking commissions, but because of the loss of the papers concerning his private practice, little evidence of those works has survived.3 Architec- turally, the conservatory, connected to the house by a glazed passage, illustrates the evolution of the botanical and functional greenhouse formerly at a distance from the main building into the ornamental conservatory that came to embellish many later Victorian houses. Paxton himself made the distinc- tion, explaining to his client that 'you would want another house (a Common one) in the kitchen garden to have those plants prepared for the green house [conservatory]'.4 Therefore, although the Hampton Court conservatory is no Crystal Palace, the

significance of this 'uncommon' greenhouse is greater than suggested by its physical dimensions and present-day condition.

CONTEXT

When Paxton entered employment at Chatsworth in 1826, the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century greenhouse or orangery had changed from a protective winter shelter or botanical laboratory into the conservatory, a social prerequisite for any house of consequence. Architecturally, too, there had been significant developments. Heavy and dark timber or masonry constructions had given way to light, airy glasshouses. Developments in iron-smelting had resulted in glass roofs supported on iron pillars by 1803, causing Humphry Repton to recoil from the juxtaposition of a glass roof and a mansion.5

Despite Repton's misgivings, glass-roofed conservatories were built that were attached and sympathetic to the main house. The gothic and classical styles had been competing since the 1780s. Repton cited Bowood, Wiltshire, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire, Attingham, Shropshire, Dyrham, Gloucestershire, Kenwood, Middlesex, and Thoresby, Nottingham- shire, as all having eighteenth-century greenhouses attached or close to the house;6 and in 1803 he published his design for a conservatory at Plas Newydd, Anglesey, based on a gothic chapter-house, though apparently it was not built.7 George, Prince of Wales, preferred the gothic style when in 1807 the conservatory, designed by Thomas Hopper, was built at Carlton House, Pall Mall, London, complete with cast-iron and coloured glass roof.8 In 1818, John Buonarotti Papworth published his design for a gothic conservatory in Rural Residences (1818).9 One of the most spectacular gothic predecessors of the conservatory at Hampton Court was that at Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire (designed 1815-17), by Jeffry Wyatville (who was working at Chatsworth when Paxton arrived there).10

However, by the 1820s the development of glasshouses had been most influenced by John Claudius Loudon. Motivated (as was Paxton) by the requirements of the plants, Loudon laid down the early 'Principles of design in hot-houses' in 1822,11 by which time advances in glass-making were providing plants under cover with a quantity and uniformity of light hitherto unachievable. Loudon saw no problem in harmonizing the style of a conservatory with the

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A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON

Figure 1. The Conservatory at Hampton Court, Herefordshire, in its present condition as the tea-room for the Van Kampen Gardens that opened in June 2000. Photo: H. S. Owens.

house, provided that the style chosen did not interfere with the ready access of light. The ridge-and-furrow roof that Paxton was to use from Chatsworth to the Crystal Palace (via Hampton Court) had been published by Loudon in 1817.

THE CONSERVATORY AT HAMPTON COURT

The nineteenth-century conservatory at Hampton Court forms a westward extension of the south-west corner of this fifteenth-century fortified manor house.12 The conservatory (Figure 1) is in poor condition. The local red sandstone is spalling and the original roof has been replaced by corrugated plastic. A temporary floor covers the chasm left after the 1980s' swimming pool was removed, and the room is now used for serving teas on garden open days.

Dating the conservatory is straightforward. Hampton Court's agent, Edward Colley, wrote to his employer John Arkwright (1785-1858) on 10 September 1846: 'The conservatory is finished covering in'.13 Colley's assistant, Joseph Yates, noted that the 'rebuilding' of the house (particularly the south front) had cost ?30,280, 'including the conservatory'.14 Evidence of the conservatory's use survives in Arkwright correspondence. Its plants decorated family weddings and its palm fronds Hereford's Shire Hall for concerts and hunt balls. Johnny, John Arkwright's heir, wrote to his future bride Lucy Davenport1s in 1866: 'I never loved you more than I did in the conservatory on Wednesday night when I had the first joy of being allowed to kiss

away a tear'.16 In his dotage in 1902, Johnny complained to Lucy that the doctor was 'very savage about draughts & won't let me go into the conservatory even'.17

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

A photograph dating from the 1890s shows the south-east of the Hampton Court conservatory in its original state (Figure 2). The building has five bays divided by narrow stone piers with blind gothic tracery rising through the crenellated parapet to finials. Each window has four lights, the mullions crossed at two-thirds of their height by transoms and headed by trefoil arches. Above the stonework was a substantial wooden roof of the ridge-and-furrow type ('broken-back' outline), pitched to south and north at about twenty-five degrees. The gables enclosed tracery with cusped arches. The west wall consisted of two windows, each of three lights, and a two-light central doorway.

The passage connecting the conservatory to the house is just visible (Figure 2). It too had a crenellated parapet over gothic-arched sash windows. The passage was enlarged into a room standing slightly proud of the south front of the conservatory in the 1930s, as recorded in a contemporary photograph (not shown). The photograph also shows the double doors located centrally on the south front in the third bay. Finally, one of only two photographs (not shown) hitherto located of the interior of the conservatory shows little Philippa Burrell (b.1912)

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GARDEN HISTORY 30:1

Figure 2. The Conservatory (c.1890s) with its original distinctive roofline. Photo: Thomas Henry Winterbourne.

standing in front of a white pole, possibly a cast-iron column.

The case for Paxton's authorship of the Hampton Court conservatory would merit consider- ation from the evidence of these photographs alone. The ridge-and-furrow roof had been conceived by Loudon in the late eighteenth century but was not widely used. Paxton, driven by its horticultural virtues of permitting maximum light yet preventing the glass from being perpendicular to the sun at midday, adopted ridge-and-furrow roofing for greenhouses at Chatsworth from 1832.18 He developed it, and it was the foundation of the roofing system that he patented in 1851. Although others subsequently copied his system, at this time Paxton's peers, including Decimus Burton (with whom he collaborated on the Great Stove),19 although he used ridge-and-furrow at Glevering, Suffolk, in 1835, rejected ridge and furrow for more contemporary buildings like the Palm House (1844) at Kew, Surrey.

THE ARKWRIGHTS AND CHATSWORTH

Other evidence supports Paxton's involvement. The Arkwright name is closely connected with Derby- shire. John was the fourth son of Richard Arkwright the younger (1755-1843), himself the only son of Sir

Richard Arkwright (1732-92) the cotton spinning industrialist.20 When John was seven years of age, his illustrious grandfather died. Richard the younger inherited a fortune to add to significant sums made from his own spinning concerns at Curbar, immediately north of Chatsworth park. It was here, at Stoke Hall, that John had lived until he was sent to Eton and subsequently to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Richard Arkwright sold the spinning enterprises, retaining only the Cromford and Masson mills near his new home, Willersley Castle,21 the house that Sir Richard had been building when he died. With the proceeds he began to invest in landed estates. In 1810, he completed the largest such purchase, paying the 5th Earl of Essex ?226,535 for Hampton Court and its 6220 acres.22 Four years later, John was granted his father's permission to move to Herefordshire.23

Among other properties that Richard Arkwright purchased was Sutton Hall, south-east of Chesterfield, for ?216,000 in 1824.24 Sutton became the home of John's eldest surviving brother, Robert (1783-1859).25 Robert's wife, Fanny, a niece of Sarah Siddons, was a favourite of William Spencer Cavendish, the 'Bachelor' 6th Duke of Devonshire who was Paxton's employer. In 1849, the Duke

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A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON

confided to his journal that he was 'struck down today by news of Mrs. Arkwright's death. ... Of all the strong attachments I have had in my life mine to her has been the purest the truest the most salutary. O how I loved her!'26

From Herefordshire, John frequently returned to Derbyshire, visiting his father at Willersley and his brothers, including Robert at Sutton. Trips to Chatsworth, with opportunities (from 1826) to meet the Duke's Head Gardener, would inevitably have featured. John was a keen gardener with an interest in hothouse cultivation.27 Among his close friends in Herefordshire was Andrew Knight of Downton, son of T. A. Knight, President of the Horticultural Society of London.28

In 1830, John Arkwright married Sarah Hoskyns of Harewood, near Ross on Wye.29 They had twelve children and the growing family was the catalyst for change at Hampton Court. John's choice of architect, the amateur Charles Hanbury Tracy,30 seemed wise. A cousin of the Earl of Essex, he had known Hampton Court since childhood. Hanbury Tracy's work on his own home at Toddington, Gloucestershire, promised designs sensitive to the ancient architecture. However, clashes between Sarah and Hanbury Tracy cast John as go-between from the

start and a decade of alterations and altercations ensued. By the time the parties diverged in the early 1840s, the Arkwrights probably felt they deserved a treat.

Before the changes to the south front of Hampton Court, a glasshouse had stood at the south- western extremity. Erected by Lord Essex in the 1790s,31 it appears to have been covered with an early glass roof. It must have been demolished during Hanbury Tracy's work, if not before. Before that, a greenhouse with a plain lean-to roof, apparently also of glass (Figure 3), had stood there. The site suggested itself for the new building. As with the house, family requirements probably promoted the addition of a conservatory. Besides providing amusement on wet afternoons, it would be a useful compromise for sickly youngsters between incarceration indoors and the free run of the gardens.

The Arkwrights' desire for a conservatory was probably further fuelled by visiting the Great Stove at Chatsworth.32 Paxton's extraordinary building of curvilinear ridge and furrow, planted with exotics, was a modern wonder of the fashionable world. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stoked hothouse mania by visiting it in December 1843. Paxton's reputation grew after the Duke of Wellington was

I

Figure 3. 'South-west view of Hampton Court from the lawn Easter Monday 12 o'clock 25th April 1791', watercolour (detail) by James Wathen (1750/51-1828). Photo: courtesy Herefordshire Libraries.

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GARDEN HISTORY 30:1

heard to sigh that he 'would have liked that man [Paxton] for one of his generals'.33

Earlier in 1843, John's father had died.34There followed an unseemly public rush to discover the extent of Richard Arkwright's wealth. From Germany to New Orleans in Louisiana, unbridled newspaper estimates declared him the richest commoner in Europe. In fact, it is believed that Richard Arkwright died worth ?3.25 million.35 His will bequeathed to John and Robert their respective estates, to John an additional ?50,000 and to Robert ?100,000, plus a one-fifth share of the residue that amounted to ?263,745 a piece. John Arkwright, therefore, had the motive, means and site to construct a conservatory at Hampton Court.

The Duke of Devonshire allowed Paxton to undertake private commissions. In about 1837, Paxton had designed the conservatory at Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire, for Edward Davies Davenport. Circa 1840, he designed a ridge-and-furrow roof con- servatory for Holker Hall, Cumbria, which was built later. The only constraint on Paxton's private practice, as his correspondence with John Arkwright reveals, was time. By the 1840s, his responsibilities extended far beyond the perimeter of Chatsworth's pleasure grounds. He was the Duke's companion and delight, as well as his personal and financial confidant.

THE PAXTON LETTERS

Five letters to John Arkwright in Paxton's hand survive. They span the decade between September 1844 and March 1854. Those discussing the Hampton Court conservatory cover September 1844 to May 1845.36 From the first letter of 4 September 1844 (damaged in its upper portion), it is clear that the Arkwrights and Paxton had previously agreed37 a trip by the latter to Hampton Court at his earliest convenience. Paxton, however, was busy trying to help the Duke reduce his growing debts at this time, a fact that he quite remarkably confided to the Arkwrights. In his place Paxton offered to send John Robertson, 'a first rate architect who is solely employed by me upon the various works I am engaged in and would as far as the Greenhouse is concerned do just as well'.38

The reference made by Paxton to his assistant is significant. Drawings almost certainly by Robertson39 depict the stone apexes of the conservatory. Robertson had formerly been draughtsman to Loudon,40 but little has hitherto been established of his precise working relationship with Paxton. Here Paxton gives his own account, with an opinion of Robertson's abilities, albeit possibly inflated to reassure the Arkwrights that they were not being sent a lesser designer.

The second letter from Paxton to John Arkwright, dated 12 September, bears no year, but it probably belongs here, in 1844.41 Before filing the letter, John noted: 'Mr Paxton approves alterations in his plan'. Paxton acknowledged that

the alterations you have made are improve- ments and others may no doubt suggest themselves, as the plan I sent was only a first idea, I think it would be well for you to send it me back for this purpose, and then all the working drawings showing the manner of opening the flues, & all other details can be given.

The Arkwrights' patience was rewarded with a visit from Paxton soon after New Year 1845, when the gardener enjoyed a memorable day's duck shooting with his client. On 20 January, Paxton promised that: 'The plans &c. for the Conservatory shall be sent next week or more properly this week'. By 3 May, the Arkwrights had studied the plans and raised more points. Paxton conceded that:

It is true there is no room for small pots provided in the plan but when the greenhouse is finished we shall find out places for little slopes for small plants. I told Mrs. Arkwright you would want another house (a Common one) in the kitchen garden to have those plants prepared for the green house, it is impossible to have all the advantages of a small House in a House that is to hold large plants and suit the appearance of your mansion still the House will be so light that almost every thing will succeed in it.

The key words here are 'a House that is to hold large plants and suit the appearance of your mansion'. They confirm that Paxton was concerned not with a kitchen garden greenhouse, but with a conservatory to be seen in conjunction with the house.42 Also interesting is Sarah Arkwright's contribution to the plans. The dates of this letter and of the agent's confirmation of the completion of the roof limit construction of the conservatory to between May 1845 and September 1846.

BURTON CLOSES CONSERVATORY

Paxton's nearest comparable project in date, setting and scale was undertaken just south of Bakewell, Derbyshire. In 1846, he designed Burton Closes for his Quaker stockbroker John Allcard (1779-1856).43 The drawings were made (as at Hampton Court) by Robertson.44 Paxton's hand was clearly discernible in the conservatory at the south-west corner of the house, in the conservative wall45 and in the terracing of the sloping grounds around the house. On Allcard's death in 1856, Burton Closes was left to his son, William (1809-1861), who employed E. W. Pugin and T. D. Barry to enlarge the house. This included the relocation of the conservatory further west to insert a new bay.

Illustrations of Burton Closes showing Paxton's conservatory in both locations survive. It is shown in its original form in Figure 4. Although of eight bays (instead of five, each window being of three lights instead of four) there is a strong resemblance with that at Hampton Court.46 Most striking is the

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A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON

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Figure 4. Joseph Paxton's conservatory at Burton Closes, Bakewell, Derbyshire, as originally built c.1846. Photo: John Kenworthy-Browne courtesy of Mrs J. Allcard.

broken-backed ridge-and-furrow roof. As at Hampton Court, it rose from the south facade, 'broke' half way back, and sloped down to the north wall. The apexes on the south front had three lights, corresponding (as at Hampton Court) with the windows beneath.

An interior photograph of the Burton Closes conservatory roof survives (Figure 5). Looking west, the gable is visible through the remaining glass. The broken-backed profile of the ridge-and-furrow roof is clearly seen. Narrow iron columns rise to triangular cusped brackets supporting the ribs at the furrows of the roof. There appears to be one pair of brackets, north and south, for each furrow. These may correspond to the white-painted column shown in the Burrell photograph (not shown) of Hampton Court.

Similarities in the stonework are important for indicating that Paxton was responsible for the conservatories' walls as well as their roofs. At Burton Closes, as at Hampton Court, piers with blind gothic tracery rose through a crenellated parapet to finials.47 The lower tracery on the piers terminated level with the transom towards the top of the windows, as at Hampton Court. The proportions of the lights were also similar. The central southern entrance corresponded with that at Hampton Court, eight steps rising to the fourth and fifth bays. The configuration of the west end of the conservatory is

not clear, but residual stone moulding suggests a central window or door. The west gable was devoid of the lights inserted at Hampton Court.

The ridge-and-furrow roof at Burton Closes was replaced by a slate roof (c.1950) for conversion of the house to four dwellings. Today, the house is a nursing home, the partitioned conservatory (Figure 6) a specialist wing for the rehabilitation of disabled young people. The windows have been replaced with wooden-framed lights whose proportions do not correspond exactly with the original. The residual central steps to the south are obscured by overgrown flower beds.

Paxton's roof at Hampton Court disintegrated just before its equivalent at Burton Closes. The Hereford family's photographs demonstrate that it was lost before the Second World War. After the War, the mother of the present Viscount Hereford planted up the remains of the conservatory as a romantic folly, with hydrangeas in the beds and roses up the north walls.48 By 1974, when Hampton Court was purchased by Paul Cooke, the house had reached its nadir and the conservatory had lost its roof. The house was sold to George Hughes, who, in the 1980s, converted the conservatory into a pool house. It was reglazed and covered with the present corrugated plastic. The excavation of the swimming pool destroyed evidence of underground heating systems for Paxton's conservatory and its

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GARDEN HISTORY 30:1

Figure 5. The interior of the Burton Closes conservatory roof (c.1940s) giving the best indication of the likely appearance of the Hampton Court conservatory roof. Photo: Professor Marcus Whiffen.

predecessors. The pool was removed after the Van Kampens bought the house in 1994. It is hoped that the roof might be restored to its original line.49

The completion of the conservatory did not end the correspondence between Paxton and the Arkwrights. John and Sarah would have attended the Great Exhibition (1851),50 and Sarah anticipated it with trepidation that spring. The wisdom of assembling so many people from diverse nations in the heat of the London summer just three years after the European revolutions was questioned. Sarah wrote to Johnny on 21 March: 'Altogether everybody is in such a fright about what may happen at the Great Exhibition. Nobody knows what, but something dreadful. I pray it may please God in Mercy to save this poor country from the dangers which seem gathering round us'.51 In fact, of course, the Great Exhibition was an unparalleled success. So grateful was the Prince Consort for the magic Paxton wrought in turning the pumpkin proposals for his Exhibition building into a glass palace fit for the Queen that Paxton was knighted.

Two years later, on 14 February 1853, Paxton wrote again to the Arkwrights. He had asked John for permission to include his Hampton Court drawings

in a book and John now sought their return. Paxton promised to see to it the following week, but a year passed before John could annotate the final letter from Chatsworth, 'Sir J. Paxton April 54 returns plans of conservatory'. In his letter of 28 March, Paxton apologized 'for having so long omitted returning the plans of your conservatory which you was so good as to lend me.'

This letter concludes the surviving Paxton correspondence with John Arkwright. John died four years later, on 27 February 1858, exactly a month after the wedding of Caroline, his eldest daughter,52 and only six weeks after the death of Paxton's great patron, the Duke of Devonshire. Paxton survived them by seven years. Hampton Court changed hands seven times during the twentieth century and the conservatory's origins were obscured. Its extra- ordinary appearance, preserved in photographs, might have given rise to tentative attributions to Paxton, reinforced by a comparison with the con- servatory at Burton Closes. However, the survival of Paxton's correspondence with John Arkwright makes a conclusive case for the addition of this building to Paxton's known works.

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A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON

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Figure 6. The conservatory at Burton Closes (July 2000) subdivided, re-roofed and reglazed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I acknowledge with gratitude the generous assistance of John Kenworthy-Browne in the preparation of this note. I am also grateful to the Burrell, Hereford and Allcard families and to Messrs Paul Cooke and Richard Winterbourne for permission to use their images. My thanks, too, to John Hill of Burton Closes and to the Matron there, Julie Thornhill, for permission to visit and take photographs. Finally, I am very grateful to the Van Kampen family and to the Hampton Court estate manager, Ed Waghorn, for assistance with materials.

CATHERINE BEALE

Little Bryan's Ground, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2LP, UK

REFERENCES

1 A seventeenth-century connection between Chatsworth and Hampton Court already exists. William Talman (1650-1719), architect (from 1686) of the south and east fronts of Chatsworth for the 4th Earl/lst Duke, almost certainly worked on the gardens at Hampton Court with George London for Thomas, Lord Coningsby in the 1690s. Coningsby was one of those named by John Vanbrugh in 1703 as having suffered 'vexation and disappointment' with Talman; John Harris, William Talman: Maverick Architect (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), 20. Both Coningsby (1692) and the Duke of Devonshire (1694) were ennobled for their support of William III.

2 Herefordshire Record Office (HRO), Arkwright papers, ref. A63: the Paxton letters are at A63/III/42/11 (the first four letters concerning the conservatory) and at A63/IV/9/26 (the last two letters concerning Paxton using the plans for his book).

3 George F. Chadwick, The Works of Sir Joseph Paxton (London: Architectural Press, 1961), 187, notes that 'Paxton's office at Chatsworth clearly functioned as the locus of his private practice until the events of 1850. ... The accounts of Paxton's practice have not survived, and the only information available is in his correspondence.'

4 HRO, A63/III/42/11, Joseph Paxton to John Arkwright (3 May 1845).

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5 John Claudius Loudon (ed.), The Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of Humphry Repton (London & Edinburgh: Longman, 1840), 216-19.

6 Ibid., 217. 7 Ibid., 218. 8 May Woods and Arete Warren, Glass Houses

(London: Aurum, 1988), 102. It was demolished in 1827.

9 John B. Papworth, Rural Residences (London: R. Ackerman, 1818), pl. XXI, p. 85.

10 Derek Linstrum, Wyatville (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), pl. on p. 102.

11 John Claudius Loudon, 'Principles of design in hot-houses', in An Encyclopaedia of Gardening (London: Longman, 1822), 353-76.

12 Licence to crenellate was granted to Sir Rowland Leinthall in 1434. For a full architectural assessment of the house, see Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales 1300-1500, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), II, 540.

13 HRO, A63/IIV42/10, Edward Colley to John Arkwright (10 September 1846).

14 HRO, A63/III/72/1, Joseph Yates's record book of principal events at Hampton Court during his fifty-six years of service, 1838-94. This entry was made in 1845, curiously before construction was complete.

15 Lucy was the daughter of John Davenport, who purchased Foxley, Herefordshire, in 1856 from Sir Robert Price, Sir Uvedale Price's son. It was he who introduced Arkwright to Charles Hanbury Tracy.

16 HRO, A63/IV/56/1, John H. Arkwright to Lucy Davenport (1 June 1866).

17 HRO, A63/IV/56/12, John H. Arkwright to Lucy Arkwright (3 April 1902).

18 This is the year in which Paxton reroofed the old Chatsworth greenhouse of 1697 using ridge-and- furrow. Examples of his ridge-and-furrow survive in the kitchen gardens at Stratfield Saye, Berkshire, and at Somerleyton Hall, Suffolk. He was to use ridge- and-furrow on the Great Stove and at the Crystal Palace. One of these roofs is presently being restored at Sheffield Botanical Gardens.

19 Chadwick Works of Sir Joseph Paxton, 78-9. 20 Background information on the Arkwrights is

taken mainly from Robert Fitton, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989).

21 A seven-bay mansion house in gritstone by William Thomas, completed in 1796.

22 Robert Fitton states ?230,000, but Lord Essex removed some of the contents and solicitors were brought in by Richard Arkwright to settle the difference; Fitton, Arkwrights, 232.

23 It is not clear precisely when John took up residence at Hampton Court. He sought his father's permission to do so in 1814. Fitton, Arkwrights, 267-8, places his first year of his residence there at 1819. However, an account book of John's (private collection) dating from 1817 suggests he was living at Hampton Court by then.

24 Sutton was designed in 1724 by Francis Smith of Warwick for Nicholas, 4th Earl of Scarsdale.

25 Robert and Fanny had hitherto lived at Stoke Hall, Curbar, the boys' childhood home neighbouring Chatsworth park.

26 James Lees-Milne, The Bachelor Duke (London: John Murray, 1998), 182.

27 In 1827, it was written of Hampton Court that 'the green-house contains a great variety of curious plants, which, together with the gardens, are kept in complete order'; W J. Rees, The Hereford Guide, 3rd edn (Hereford and London: T. B. Watkins, 1827), 213-14. The hothouses at Willersley were noted for their pineapples, melons and peaches, but especially for the winter grapes for which John's father won a Horticultural Society Gold Medal in 1822; Fitton, Arkwrights, 274.

28 T. A. Knight had been experimenting with ripening fruit under glass since early in the century. Chadwick, Works of Sir Joseph Paxton, 75, states that 'Paxton certainly knew of Knight's experiments and was in personal communication with him on this [ridge-and-furrow roofs] question.' John Arkwright's account book of 1817-27 (private collection) records small monetary gifts given to the gardener at Downton during his visits. Andrew Knight was killed in a shooting accident in November 1827.

29 Sarah (1808-69) was the eldest daughter of the impecunious Herefordshire baronet Sir Hungerford Hoskyns (1776-1862).

30 Hanbury Tracy was created 1st Baron Sudeley in 1838 for his work chairing the committee for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament destroyed by fire in 1834. For a record of the work done and of the sensitive relationship between architect and client, see M. J. McCarthy, 'The work of Hanbury Tracy, Lord Sudeley, at Hampton Court, Herefordshire', Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, XXXVIII (1964), 71-5.

31 This was before Essex inherited when his title was still Viscount Malden. Work was carried out between approximately 1791 and 1795 on the south front at Hampton Court. The attribution of this work to Wyatville has been described by John Cornforth as 'shakier' than the Talman connection with Hampton Court; John Cornforth, 'Hampton Court, Herefordshire - II', Country Life (1 March 1973), 521. It rests chiefly on Wyatville's contemporary work on Hereford Cathedral and Lord Essex's subsequent employment of Wyatville at Cassiobury. There are striking similarities in plan between the quadrangles at Cassiobury and at Hampton Court. (If the Wyatville attribution is correct, then it provides another connection with Chatsworth, where Wyatville built the north wing for the 6th Duke.) However, the quadrangle at Hampton Court dates from Hanbury Tracy's work in the 1830s and not from the 1790s. The conservatory is shown in a watercolour by Simon Fisher painted after the 1790s alterations; ibid. It seems likely that the conservatory was built by Viscount Malden when he altered the south front.

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A FORGOTTEN GREENHOUSE BY JOSEPH PAXTON

32 The Great Stove was 277 feet long, 123 feet wide, 67 feet high and cost ?33,099 10s. lid. It was begun about 1836 and completed in 1840. It was dismantled in 1921.

33 Violet Markham, Paxton and the Bachelor Duke (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), 150.

34 Richard Arkwright died after suffering a stroke on 23 April 1843.

35 Fitton, Arkwrights, 296. This figure placed Arkwright at joint 180th richest man in Britain since 1066; William Rubinstein and Philip Beresford, 'Richest of the rich', published with The Sunday Times (26 March 2000). (Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, grandfather of Margaret Fitzalan, first wife of Sir Rowland Leinthall, was, judged by the same criteria, the second richest man.)

36 Peter Day, Keeper of the Collections at Chatsworth, has confirmed that no letters from John Arkwright survive in the Paxton papers (formerly the Markham papers).

37 It would appear that the arrangement might have been made after the royal visit to the Great Stove.

38 HRO, A63/III/42/11, Joseph Paxton to John Arkwright (4 September 1844).

39 These remain in the possession of the Van Kampen family at the Hampton Court Estate Office as does a fragmentary letter about the conservatory that mentions Robertson by name.

40 Robertson had been designer and architectural draughtsman to John Claudius Loudon for over nine years before his appearance in the Chatsworth accounts in June 1840, when he received ?62 10s. for five months' work in connection with rebuilding Edensor Village. Robertson appears to have left Chatsworth around 1846; Chadwick, Works of Sir Joseph Paxton, 160-1.

41 I am grateful to John Kenworthy-Browne for his assistance in placing this letter. I had inserted the letter in September 1845, imagining the plans mentioned to have been drawn up after Paxton's visit. Kenworthy-Browne pointed out that in September 1845 Paxton was very much tied up with railway business and was unlikely to have been able to attend to the Arkwrights' conservatory. However, the issue remains problematic. There is no mention of plans in the first letter, and it seems remarkable that Arkwright might have replied asking for a rough idea of what might be built, have received the plans, studied them and returned them to Paxton in time for the latter to write again, all within eight days.

42 Paxton had echoed Repton when he made it

clear that he felt the two should not be seen together and that a conservatory should always be set apart, so disharmonious was its appearance with a house. It required 'more complete and decided isolation, and must be situated in a spot where its own influence alone can be felt. ... Their outline is as remote as possible from that of a mansion, and the quantity of glass they contain renders them strikingly peculiar'; Joseph Paxton, 'Garden architecture', Magazine of Botany and Register of Flowering Plants, VIII/16 (no. 92) (1841), 184-5.

43 The precise extent of Paxton's involvement in the house itself at Burton Closes is unclear. Chadwick noted the most contemporary account of Paxton's involvement by Adam: 'We understand Mr. Paxton designed the building and the laying out of the grounds, and Mr. Pugin had a "carte blanche" to arrange and decorate the interior'; William Adam, Gem of the Peak (Menston: Moorland, 1973 repr. of 5th 1851 edn), 164. Pugin made the designs for the decoration of the interior and employed craftsmen such as John G. Crace (the Duke's interior decorator), John Hardman and George Myers. It was Allcard's summer residence.

44 George Challenger, 'Burton Closes, Bakewell', Bakewell & District Historical Society Journal, XVII (1990), 13.

45 The conservative wall at Burton Closes has now been destroyed. It may have been added slightly later, at around the same time as Paxton glazed in the Conservative Wall at Chatsworth in 1848.

46 Interior dimensions: Hampton Court, 59 feet 9 inches by 25 feet; Burton Closes, 62 feet 7 inches by 16 feet 3 inches.

47 The Burton Closes finials appear more slender and ecclesiastical in influence.

48 Rust marks from the supporting pins and wires remain on the north wall.

49 If this is undertaken, then the photographs of the Burton Closes roof structure may provide the best model for reproduction.

50 John Arkwright's sister-in-law wrote to him on 26 May 1851 stating that she hoped the sightseeing and Exhibition might cure Sarah of her neuralgia; HRO, A63/IV/9/23/5, Mrs Charles Arkwright to John Arkwright (26 May 1851).

51 HRO, A63/IV/21/1, Sarah Arkwright to John H. Arkwright (21 March 1851).

52 At Caroline's wedding, the dining room was decorated with 'the resources of the conservatory, nicely bloomed' and 'effectively grouped in various parts of the room'; Hereford Journal, CXXII/6178 (3 February 1858), 6.

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