Lot 334: BURGES, WILLIAM (1827-1881).

Plans and elevations and detailed drawings for Gayhurst House, Buckinghamshire, a seat of Lord Carrington, c.1858. Twenty-five numbered drawings including a map of the estate, enlarged map of house and grounds, three ground plans, five elevations, and fifteen drawings of details of the old house together with Burges' designs for The New Entrance Doorway, The New Staircase (6) and The New Front (3). One inscribed "Designs made by Burges for the Carringtons about 1870", the majority inscribed "W.Burges/architect/15 Buckingham Street, WC"; with an earlier ground plan of 1842, a drawing of the staircase at Castleacre, and two plans of Burnstan Farm inscribed on the flyleaf: To Walter Carlisle Esq of Gayhurst / from Lord Lincolnshire - Dec 1915. These plans were drawn by Mr. Burges about 1858 when Gayhurst / House, which was practically a ruin, was restored by Lord Lincolnshire's / father Lord Carrington Ld. Lieut of Bucks / at a cost of over £30,000, contained in a large album stamped "Gayhurst" on cover

PROVENANCE

Commissioned by Robert, 2nd Lord Carrington;
Thence by descent to his son Lord Lincolnshire who presented them to William Walter Carlile in 1915, who had inherited Gayhurst from his father James William Carlile in 1909;
Later sold with the Gayhurst estate to Lord Hesketh
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

J. Mordaunt Crook, William Burges and the High Victorian Dream, 1981, p.144
CATALOGUE NOTE

This handsome volume, long thought to have been lost or destroyed (op.cit. J. Mordaunt Crook) contains both the meticulous drawings of Gayhurst made for Burges' first major patron as well as his designs for the changes to the house dating from the later 1850s and early 1860s. The bound drawings of the house attest both the Burges' careful attention to details of building and his craftsmanship; the loose architectural drawings to his growing confidence as a designer of some of the most innovative architecture to be seen in Britain during the third quarter of the nineteenth century.

His patron here, Lord Carrington (1796-1868) took in 1856 a repairing lease on the ancient Digby house in north Buckinghamshire, the home of Sir Everard Digby, associate of Guy Fawkes, and Sir Kenelm Digby (see lot 36). During the later 1850s he commissioned Burges to redesign specific parts of the house, firstly new mullions in 1858 and bookcases in 1859 but Burges had in mind a full-scale restoration and remodelling. These drawings are the outcome of his protracted musings. The volume was presented to his patron: a large watercolour of his intended new staircase was placed before the public at the Royal Academy, 1860, no.643. It was Burges' first large scale domestic commission and he clearly wishes to make the most of the opportunity. Whilst, as was often to be the case in this architect's career, it bore partial fruit - The Calibar Staircase (1859-61), The Guard Room (1859), The Great Dining Room (1861), The Peacock Room (1860), The Drawing Room (1861 and 1865), and The Great Kitchens.

The style, or rather styles, of the architecture reveal Burges' extraordinary diverse repertoire, fed through his continental tours of the previous decade, but all are held in a sort of harmony by his genius. The Ecclesiologist shrewdly commented that Burges had created 'a sort of free Gothicising renaissance which displays much playful fancy'.

This volume of drawings remained at Gayhurst when the property was sold in 1882 to J.W. Carlisle of Ponsbourne Manor, Hertfordshire. In the middle of the last century the estate was acquired by the Hesketh family and the volume came thus to the Library at Easton Neston.