buIldIng cAstles In the AIr

buIldIng cAstles In the AIr gothic revival castles

Anne Anderson

FoLLoWING THE GREAT FIRE oF 1834, THE Palace of Westminster was rebuilt in a late Gothic idiom that was deemed to embody our national identity. `e Gothic was not only the true Christian style; it was also the true British style. Simultaneously the French and Germans embraced the Gothic as their national style; it was also their birthright, personifying the spirit of the North, while the south was identified with Classicism. `anks to Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–52) in Britain and Eugène Emmanuel viollet-le-Duc (1814–79) in France, Gothic became the most prominent revived architectural style; it was no longer reserved for churches but used for railway stations, factories, warehouses and even pumping stations. It was literally re-formed for contemporary needs. Equipped with the latest technologies, including gas-lighting and central heating, Gothic-style buildings were modern; opting for the Gothic style did not mean turning one’s back on progress.

However, the Gothic Revival did more than encourage the use of medieval architectural forms. Medieval culture ofered an antidote to the turbulence and uncertainty of the early nineteenth century. Chivalry, a moral system that united a warrior ethos with piety and courtly manners, was grasped as a means to instil the ethical values which underpinned the Age of Empire: God, King and Country. `e best elements of a medieval knight-errant were absorbed into the code of the gentleman, a code of conduct that instilled bravery and courtesy. It was the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) that shaped such conduct. Ivanhoe (1820), `e Talisman (1825) and Quentin Durwood (1823) ofered a Walter Scott version of the Middle Ages. Set against a background of castles and abbeys, ‘passions were violent, feuds relentless, battles frequent, loyalties unbreakable, and loves lasted for ever’.1 He captured his reader’s imagination with vivid imagery, as current audiences are held spellbound by the ‘blood and thunder’ of the television series Game of `rones. Scott described castles with drawbridges and portcullises; smokeblackened armour-clad halls; tilts, tournaments and knights with ladies’ favours pinned to their helmets; heroes numbering Richard Coeur de Lion, Robin Hood and his merry men; and Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. ‘Merry olde England’ expressed virtues which seemed lacking in modern life, bravery, loyalty, hospitality, a respect for women and ‘refusal to take advantage of an enemy except in a fair fight’.2 `e dashing Quentin Durwood not only set a standard that was imitated in countless novels but was also a model for young men in real life.

`e ‘Rules for the Gentlemen of England’ were entrenched in Sir Kenelm Henry Digby’s `e Broadstone of Honour, first published in 1822. A later edition carried the subtitle ‘`e True Sense and Practice of Chivalry’.3 Like Pugin, the most ardent Gothic Revival architect, Digby’s conversion to Catholicism shaped his world vision. For Digby, the past was superior to the modern age. True chivalry and the Catholic Church were bound together; civilisation had declined since the Reformation and rise of the middle class, who put their faith in money-making. `e enemy was avarice and the pursuit of wealth. Digby’s mission was to revive the practice of chivalry, to instil a virtuous code of behaviour; the modern gentleman could still be a knight. It was a question of character not birth or even intellect; anyone who possessed the right qualities was chivalrous. But it was easier, even expected, of men of good birth, as they were required to follow in the footsteps of their illustrious ancestors.

Being proud of one’s ancestry certainly contributed to the fashion for castle restoring and building that began around 1750; even modest country houses could be upgraded to castles. During the 1820s Lord Durham turned Lambton Hall, County Durham into Lambton Castle, Lord Brougham castellated and Gothicised Brougham Hall, Cumbria and Colonel `omas Wildman remodelled Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. John Matthew Russell restored Brancepeth Castle, County Durham, with the aid of his brother-in-law Charles Tennyson, between 1818 and his death in 1822. A Baron’s Hall was created in one of the old towers; its crowning glory was a stained-glass window commissioned by Tennyson commemorating the Battle of Neville’s Cross, which took place near Brancepeth in 1346. In 1835, upon inheriting his father’s estate, Charles immediately changed his name to Tennyson d’Eyncourt, while Bayons Hall, Lincolnshire became Bayons Manor, a modest Regency house quickly transformed into a home fit for a sixteenth-century gentleman. However, Bayons soon assumed the air of a castle, a battlemented central tower rising above the manorial roof in 1837. An enceinte, a defensive line of wall-towers and curtain walls, approached by a drawbridge and fortified gatehouse, created the illusion of a fortification. Inside, a medieval Great

Penrhyn Castle, north Wales © Indigo Goat

Hall, embodiment of feudal authority, was recreated, complete with screens, minstrels’ gallery and open-timber roof. `e Great Hall where all classes of society came together for feasting and entertainments lay at the heart of ‘Merry olde England’. `e Great Hall at Newstead, is said to be the first convincingly recreated great hall of the nineteenth century.4 At Knebworth, Hertfordshire, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s words of welcome were inscribed around the Great Hall:

Read the rede of this old roof tree … Hearth where rooted friendships grow Safe as altar even to foe Home where chivalry and grace Cradle a high-hearted race.5

`e Gothicising of Knebworth went quickly, completed 1844–45, as it was all done with stucco, the exterior bristling with towers, pinnacles and gargoyles.

It seemed natural to build a new castle in Scotland, Wales or Ireland. Penrhyn Castle, Gwynedd, North Wales, inevitably takes the form of a Norman keep; reconstructed by Samuel Wyatt in the 1780s it was transformed by `omas Hopper from 1822 to 1837. Admired by Christopher Hussey, who considered it ‘the outstanding instance of Norman revival’, Penrhyn’s sombre style creates the semblance of a medieval fortress despite the ground-level drawing room windows.6 Robert Adam (1728–92) was responsible for quite a few Scottish castles: Wedderburn (1771–75), Culzean (1772–90) Seton (1789) and Dalquharran (1789–92). Although the picturesque demanded asymmetry, Adam’s castles are resolutely symmetrical, invariably a central block flanked by corner towers. `is pattern was followed at Taymouth Castle (1806–18), Perthshire, one of the grandest neo-medieval houses in Scotland, built for the Campbells of Breadalbane by the Elliot brothers. Here continuity dictated the Gothic style; the new castle was built on the site of the much older Balloch Castle. `e already lavish interior was given a make-over for the state visit of Queen victoria in 1842; her consort Albert, being steeped in German Romanticism, took chivalry very seriously. At the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842 they appeared as Edward iii and Queen Philippa; in his History of Chivalry (1825) Charles Mill declared ‘the sun of English chivalry reached its meridian in the reign of Edward iii’.7 Painted by Edwin Landseer in their carefully researched costumes (1842, Royal Collection Trust), victoria and Albert also hoped to revive chivalry in modern Britain.

Building in the Gothic style established a direct link with one’s medieval forebears, legitimising political, social and economic power; acting as visual shorthand, heraldic devices bristled above fireplaces or caught the eye as stained glass panels. Heraldry, which had been invented for the knights, was the perfect vehicle for displaying the antiquity of one’s lineage. Judicious marriages helped new money to assimilate, leading to the ‘quartering’ of coats of arms. Each quartering displays the arms of a separate family thereby demonstrating the alliances forged through matrimony; Sir Samuel Brydges probably went too far, his shield made up of some 360 quarterings. At Knebworth a double flight of stairs, surmounted by lions bearing armorial shields, leads up to the State Drawing Room which was transformed by the decorator John Crace, under the influence of Pugin, to honour the illustrious Bulwer Lytton ancestry; the ceiling represents Elizabeth Bulwer Lytton’s forty-

Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire © Philip Pankhurst

four armorial quarterings, while the frieze depicts the arms of the families from which she traced her descent from Edward iii and the legendary Welsh king, Cadwallader.

`e ‘richest commoner in England’, William Beckford, whose origins were rather dubious, decorated King Edward’s Gallery at Fontill Abbey, Wiltshire (1796-1813), with seventy-two coats of arms, representing Edward iii and the Knights of the Garter from whom Beckford claimed descent. An arch-romantic Beckford penned a Gothic novel, Vathek, an Arabian Tale (1782), which capitalised on the vogue for all things oriental. Alongside Horace Walpole’s `e Castle of Otranto (1764) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) Vathek stands in the first rank of early Gothic fiction. Unfortunately ‘Beckford’s Folly’, as Fonthill was dubbed, did not stand the test of time; its great tower-spire, which rose to an unstable 90 metres (300 feet) finally collapsed in 1825.

At Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire (1812–20), the heraldic focus is the Gothic drawing room decorated according to Pugin’s designs in 1849. A splendid chimney-piece, which reaches to the ceiling, is painted with the family tree. Conceived by the architect Robert Smirke for John Cocks, 1st Earl Somers (1760–1841), the castle was intended to look like a medieval fortress guarding the Welsh borders. `is illusion was made possible by using cast-iron roof-trusses and floor beams. Charles Locke Eastlake did not approve of such shamfortresses:

It is a massive and gloomy-looking building, flanked by watchtowers, and enclosing a keep. To preserve the character at which it aimed, the windows were made exceedingly small and narrow. `is must have resulted in much inconvenience within … `e building in question might have made a tolerable fort before the invention of gunpowder, but as a residence it was a picturesque mistake.8 It is surely no coincidence that a spurt of castle building followed in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789 and the onset of prolonged hostilities with France. Wordsworth’s Happy Warrior (1807), who was able to transmute the horrors of war to ‘glorious gain’, epitomised the pride and hero-worship evoked by British victories.9 Walter Scott’s Abbotsford Castle (1811–24), near Melrose, was one of a large group of castles conceived by William Atkinson between 1803 and 1824: ‘All over the British Isles brand-new castles were rising above the trees and battlemented lodges, bridges and stables were being built to go with them’.10 At Abbotsford, Scott emulated the life of a Scottish laird. Here he was able to stage ‘Scott the gentleman of good family and connections, Scott the antiquary and collector of armour, Scott the lover of … soldiers and border castles’.11 Abbotsford shaped the taste of the nation, ‘a microcosm of its age as well as of Scott’.

`ese new castles were inspired by numerous motives, ranging from the aesthetic, as they were picturesque and romantic, to personal vindications of hereditary power and authority. English landscape designer Humphrey Repton (1752–1818), saw the potential for new business, bringing in the architect John Nash (1752–1835) to assist. For Repton the visual argument was compelling. Luscombe Castle, Devon (1799–1800), built for the banker Charles Hoare, created a ‘picturesque efect … by blending a chaste correctness of proportion with bold irregularity of outline, its deep recesses and projections producing broad masses of light and shadow, while its roof is enriched by turrets, battlements, corbels and lofty chimneys’.12 Architect Peter Frederick Robinson (1776–1858) was captivated by romantic associations, as a castle led the mind ‘back to the days of our feudal system … we almost expect to see the ancient Baron surrounded by his followers ascending the valley’.13 However, during the Regency era the Gothic style was often only skin

deep; Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, the seat of the Dukes of Rutland rebuilt to designs by James Wyatt between 1799 and 1816, bears a superficial resemblance to a medieval castle, its central tower reminiscent of Windsor Castle but inside only the Guard Room, Staircase and Library are Gothic. Belvoir, which means ‘beautiful view’, was almost destroyed by a fire in 1816, its reconstruction by Sir James `ornton being completed in 1832.

George iii had many reasons for rebuilding Windsor Castle, which was rich in medieval and chivalric associations. Between 1800 and 1814 over £150,000 was spent on Gothicising the state apartments at Windsor, both inside and out. For this work George iii relied on Robert Adam’s rival, James Wyatt (1746–1813), whose knowledge of the Gothic style rested on his designs for Fonthill Abbey. `ese renovations provided a backdrop to St George’s Day 1805, when twenty-five Knights of the Garter were installed in time honoured-tradition. Apparently it was his majesty’s wish ‘that as many of the old customs should be kept up as possible’; the pomp and ceremony was ‘calculated to cherish that chivalrous spirit which burned in the breasts of our ancestors’.14 `is ritual, performed at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, was calculated ‘to fan the flame of loyalty and patriotism’. George iv, who had never got on with his father, got his own back by efacing much of his father’s work at Windsor. However, he also realised the value of medievalism as a symbol of tradition and authority, as seen at his own remodelling of Windsor Castle. Although the King’s favourite style was Louis Quatorze, the state sequence of grand staircase, armoury, Waterloo Chamber and St George’s Hall, laden with arms, armour and heraldry, was duly chivalric and feudal. `e new works were entrusted to Jefrey Wyatt, a nephew of the late surveyor James Wyatt; George iv authorized his change of name to Wyatville and later conferred a knighthood upon him.

Wyatville also succeeded his uncle at Ashridge House, Hertfordshire (1806–17), the seat of the Earls of Bridgewater. `e new house was commissioned by John William Egerton, 7th Earl of Bridgewater (1753–1823), upon the site of a thirteenth-century Priory; the Gothic style clearly ofered a measure of continuity. `e undercroft of the monastic refectory, featuring a rib-vaulted ceiling, was repurposed as a beer cellar. `e castellated parapet and perpendicular flat-arch and ogee windows are typical of the early Gothic revival; inside the Great Hall, the staircase tower and the chapel are Gothic, the main reception rooms being George iv’s favoured Louis Quatorze style. However, drawing on his restoration of Henry vii’s Chapel at Westminster, Wyatt’s Gothic details give Ashridge a convincing fifteenth century appearance. Ashridge anticipates the archae-ological correctness that is associated with the victorian Gothic revival.

Although Kenelm Digby maintained that ‘tournaments and steel panoply’ were not essential to chivalry, such re-enactments undoubtedly brought old traditions back to life. George iv’s coronation, which attempted to outclass the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor, saw the revival of feudal dresses, as well as feudal grandeur. As well as keeping up ‘the old customs’, including the King’s Champion of horseback, the guests at the coronation wore pseudo-Elizabethan cloaks, rufs, slasheddoublets, hose and plumed caps. `is pageant provoked `e Eglinton Tournament of 1839, a re-enactment of a medieval joust and revel staged by Archibald William Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton and Winton at his seat in Ayrshire. `e tournament was intended to compensate, in some measure, for Queen victoria’s coronation which had been dubbed the ‘Penny Crowning’. `e Whig government replaced the costly traditional medieval-style state banquet in Westminster Hall in favour of a procession for the benefit of the public. Although there was some popular support for this austerity measure, there were also many complaints; the failure to observe traditional rituals, notably the throwing down of the gauntlet by the Queen’s Champion, was perceived as an attack against the monarchy. Lord Eglinton hoped to honour such rites of passage by staging a full scale re-enactment claiming ‘I have, at least, done something towards the revival of chivalry’.15 Such obeisance countered the threat to the old guard; it was a ‘symbol of Tory defiance, of aristocratic virility, of hatred of the Reform Bill’.16 `is ‘living re-enactment of the literary romances’ was inspired by Scott’s Ivanhoe; the Hon. Grantley Berkeley (1800–81) was seized with an extraordinary desire to enter the lists, thinking only of ‘ a Queen of Beauty, brave deeds, splendid arms, and magnificent horses’.17 `e prospect of the Marquess of Waterford, dubbed Knight of the Red Cross and Charles Lamb, Knight of the White Rose, accompanied by their personal retinue parading in medieval costumes and entering the lists proved irresistible, the spectacle attracting around 100,000 spectators. Unfortunately on the day it was washed out by torrential rain, the knights literally stuck in the mud. For satirists, the ‘knight under an umbrella’ encapsulated this humiliating disaster. yet undaunted the Earl refused to give up; the sun eventually shone, the procession took place and the jousting ended in genuine fisticufs, as Lord Waterford and Lord Alford lost their tempers and began fighting in earnest. Although the Eglinton Tournament is considered one of the most infamous follies of the victorian era, it struck a chord in the popular imagination.18 `e tournament entered the public consciousness through commemorative memorabilia, such as the Eglinton Tournament jugs marketed by Ridgeway Son and Co.

Despite being condemned as sham, new castles continued to spring up. However, they were becoming more authentic; Peckforton Castle (1844–50), described by Mark Girouard as the ‘most complete and archaeologically correct nineteenth century castle yet to be built in England’ rose on a hilltop in Cheshire.19 Its architect Antony Salvin (1799–1881) gained a reputation as a restorer of old castles and for building in the Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean styles. For John Jervis Tollemache, 1st Baron Tollemache (1805–90), who needed a new family seat, Salvin reverted to the Gothic style. Built on a massive scale, the Norman-style castle, has been described as the last serious fortified home built in England, although Edwin Lutyen’s Castle Drogo (1911–30) also shares this epithet. Peckforton has a dry moat, gatehouse, portcullis, external windows that are little more than arrow slots, and large towers. In 1851 `e Illustrated London News declared it ‘seems to exhibit the peculiar beauties of Carnarfon Castle without its inconveniences’, while Sir George Gilbert Scott considered it ‘the largest and most carefully and learnedly executed Gothic mansion of the present’; it was ‘the very height of masquerading’.20

However, the days of masquerading were coming to an end; antiquarian by inclination, Pugin and viollet-le-Duc drew

on medieval sourcexs, criticising their precursors for their lack of fidelity to ancient models. Although they promoted an authentic medievalism, their desire for colour and rich ornament still led them to create flights of fancy. Although Pugin is best known for his churches, he also created several spectacular private residences for extremely wealthy clients. With Pugin dying prematurely in 1852, these projects were invariably finished by his son Edward. `ese romantic Gothic palaces were highly theatrical, their roof lines brimming with towers and turrets; Carlton Towers, Goole, with its striking clock tower, nearly bankrupted Henry, 9th Baron Beaumont; John, the sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury created a new family seat at Alton Towers, Shropshire, while Scarisbrick Hall, the ancestral home of the Scarisbrick family since King Stephen (1135–54) boasts a 100-foot tower, which is visible from many miles around. Not to be out done, William Burges’ (1827–81) Clock Tower at Cardif Castle stands at 46 metres; the accommodation comprised a suite of bachelor’s rooms – a bedroom, a servant’s room and the Summer and Winter smoking rooms. It commemorated the coming of age of John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute (1847–1900). Bute’s passion allied with Burges’ fanciful imagination led to the recreation of Cardif Castle (c.1868–95) and Castell Coch (c.1872–82), the finest surviving expressions of victorian Gothic Revival domestic architecture. Bute’s colossal wealth, largely derived from the Bute Docks, allowed him to retreat from the ugliness of modern life into a fantasy castle that drew inspiration from Chaucer, Shakespeare and Arthurian legend. `e fireplace in the banqueting hall recounts the exploits of Robert the Consul, the nobleman credited with having built the Norman keep; his dutiful wife is leaning over the parapet and waving goodbye with her handkerchief, a truly victorian gesture.

Gifted to the City of Cardif, the Castle and Castell Coch survived the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, notably death duties. other spectacular Gothic mansions have not been so lucky. Eaton Hall, inherited by the 2nd Earl Grosvenor in 1802, was Gothicised by William Pordon. `e earlier house was encased and surrounded by ‘every possible permutation of the gothic style’; including turrets, pinnacles, arched windows, octagonal towers, and buttresses, both regular and flying.21 `e interior was as lavish as the exterior, its pseudo fan vaulted ceilings composed of plaster rather than stone; one critic found it ‘the most gaudy concern I ever saw’ and ‘a vast pile of mongrel gothic which … is a monument of wealth, ignorance and bad taste’ . 22 `e ‘vast pile’ continued to grow, as Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, commissioned Alfred Waterhouse to add a private wing, clock tower and chapel. Although Nikolas Pevsner declared this ‘outstanding expression of High victorian originality’ was ‘the most ambitious instance of Gothic Revival domestic architecture anywhere in the country’ such protestations could not save it.23 only the chapel, clock tower and stables survive; the bulk of the mansion was demolished in 1963.

1. Mark Girouard, `e Return to Camelot Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven and London: yale University Press, 1981), p. 35. 2. Ibid., p. 36. 3. In 1828–29 it was reissued in four parts, Godefridius, Tancredus, Morus and Orlandus. 4. Girouard, `e Return to Camelot, p. 76. 5. Knebworth House, Hertfordshire Home of the Lytton Family since 1490 (Derby: Heritage House Group, 2005), p. 20. 6. Christopher Hussey, ‘English Country Houses: Late Georgian 1800–1840’, Country Life, 1988, p. 181. 7. Charles Mill, History of Chivalry or Knighthood and its times, vol. 2 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, orme, Brown and Green, 1825), p. 2. 8. Charles Locke Eastlake, A History of the Gothic Revival (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1872), p. 70. 9. Girouard, `e Return to Camelot, p. 42. 10. Ibid., p. 44. 11. Ibid., p. 40. 12. Hussey, English Country Houses: Late Georgian, pp. 60–61. 13. P.E. Robinson, ‘Designs for ornamental villas’, Design, vi, 1827, p. 15. 14. N.H. Nicolas, History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire, vol. ii, (London: John Hunter, 1842), appendix, pp. xx–xxi. 15. Simon Goldhill, `e Buried Life of `ings, How Objects Made History in Nineteenth Century Britain (Cambridge: CUP, 2015), pp. 172–3. 16. Girouard, `e Return to Camelot, p. 93. 17. Grantley F. Berkeley, My Life and Recollections, vol. ii (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865), pp. 126–7. 18. Ian Anstruther, `e Knight and the Umbrella: An Account of the Eglinton Tournament, 1839 (London: Geofrey Bles Ltd, 1963). 19. Girouard, `e Return to Camelot, p. 103. 20. Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard, Nikolas Pevsner, `e Buildings of England: Cheshire (New Haven and London: yale University Press, 2011), pp. 524–27. 21. Diana Newton and Jonathan Lumby, `e Grosvenors of Eaton (Cheshire: Jennet Publications 2002), p. 22. 22. Ibid., p. 24. 23. Nikolas Pevsner and Edward Hubbard, `e Buildings of England: Cheshire (New Haven and London: yale University Press, 2003), p. 208.