Devonshire House

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Devonshire House 1896

Devonshire House was a mansion on Piccadilly in the British capital, London . In the 18th and 19th centuries it was the town residence of the Dukes of Devonshire . The Palladian style house was built around 1740 for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire , based on plans by William Kent . It was used until the First World War and was demolished in 1924.

Many members of the English aristocracy had large houses in London that bore their names. As a ducal house (unlike the rest of Europe, such a house is not called a palace in England), Devonshire House was one of the largest and grandest of its kind, in a row with Burlington House , Montagu House , Lansdowne House , Londonderry House , Northumberland House and Norfolk House . With the exception of Burlington House and Lansdowne House, which have undergone major changes, all of these houses have long since been demolished.

Today a commercial building, also called Devonshire House , stands on the site of the former ducal house .

estate

The recently completed Devonshire House on John Rocque's Map of London from 1746

Devonshire House was built on the site of the former Berkeley House , which John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton , built for £ 30,000 from 1665 to 1673 after returning from his sojourn as Viceroy in Ireland . Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland , mistress of King Charles II , later lived in this house . The house, a classic mansion built by Hugh May , bought and named William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire , in 1697 at Devonshire House.

On October 16, 1733, the former Berkeley House, which was being renovated, was destroyed by fire. The fire was attributed to the carelessness of the workers. Ironically, the Duke's former town residence, Old Devonshire House at 48 Boswell Street in Bloomsbury, survived both successors until World War II .

Ethos

In the 18th century, the then existing forms of entertainment changed and large, lavish receptions became fashionable, often in the form of balls or concerts. Initially, the hosts rented one of the many new meeting rooms that had been built to keep up with the new fashion for this purpose. But it wasn't long before wealthier hosts, who more frequently hosted such events, had ballrooms added to their townhouses and richer hosts instead gave up their smaller houses in favor of new, sprawling palaces for entertainment only. The Duke of Devonshire, owner of extensive estates, belonged to the latter category. For example, the fire at Devonshire House in 1733 provided the opportunity to build a house that was fashionable at the time.

The 3rd Duke chose a then-hip architect, William Kent , for whom this was the first contract for a house in London. The new house was built between 1734 and around 1740. Kent was the protégé of the immensely cultured Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington , and had also worked on Chiswick House , which was built for the 3rd Earl in 1729, and the nearby Holkham Hall , which was completed around 1741. Both houses were held in the Palladian style and were considered to be the product of fashionable and fine architecture. Chiswick House would later come under the ownership of the Dukes of Devonshire when the 4th Duke married Lady Charlotte Boyle , the daughter of Lord Burlington.

architecture

Elevation and floor plan from Vitruvius Britannicus , Volume IV (1767)

In typical Palladian style, Devonshire House consisted of a corps de logis flanked by two wings for the servants. The seriousness of the three-story, 11-bay construction caused a contemporary critic to compare the mansion to a warehouse , and a modern Kent biographer to note its "simple seriousness". But the curiously simple exterior concealed Kent's lavish interiors. They housed large parts of the Dukes of Devonshire's art collection, considered to be one of the finest in the UK, and a well-known library housed in a 12 meter long room. Among her treasures was Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritas , his sketches of a life full of painting. In the Duke's living room, a showcase above the mantelpiece contained the best pieces from his collection of gems and medallions from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Such a prominent collection is of course also mentioned in Vitruvius Britannicus .

Devonshire House's floor plan defines it as one of the earliest of the great 18th century townhouses. At that time the construction of a large town house was similar to that of a country house from the same period. Its purpose was also the same, namely to demonstrate wealth and thus power. A large townhouse, for example, by its size and construction, highlighted the power of its owner by contrasting it with the monotony of smaller row houses in the area.

At Devonshire House, Kent's outside stairs led up to a belfry , where the entrance hall was the only room spanning two stories. Inconspicuous pairs of stairs were packed in modest spots on either side as the rooms upstairs were strictly private. The central halls were flanked by lines of interconnected rooms in which most of the space was reserved for the library. They adapted to the tradition of the symmetrical, baroque parade rooms , a construction that was not suitable for large gatherings. A few years later, architects such as Matthew Brettingham were the first to create more compact structures with a series of interconnected reception rooms around a central stairwell illuminated from above, allowing guests to "circulate". They were greeted at the top of the stairs and could then go into a comfortable "cycle" and rather retrace their steps. This construction was first realized in the now demolished Norfolk House, which was completed in 1756. Hence it appears that Devonshire House has been out of fashion and unsuitable for its intended use almost from the time it was completed. Therefore, most of its interiors have been rebuilt since the end of the 18th century.

use

A ball at Devonshire House 1850 from The Illustrated London News

James Wyatt carried out renovations to Devonshire House over a long period of time, from 1776 to 1790. Decimus Burton later did the same , who in 1843 designed a new portico , a new entrance hall and a large flight of stairs for the 6th Duke. At that time, the double external staircase was torn down so that the house could be entered via the ground floor through the new portico. Until then, only subordinate rooms were housed on the ground floor, which in the style of the 18th century was the domain of the servants. The new staircase led the guests from the low entrance hall via a newly created recess, which was created through an arch in the middle of the garden facade, directly to the piano nobile. The staircase called "Crystal Staircase" had a glass handrail and glass balustrades. Burton merged several main rooms. He created a sprawling, gilded ballroom from two previous salons, often creating double-height rooms at the expense of the upstairs bedrooms. This made the house even more of a place for exhibitions and entertainment than a residential building.

Devonshire House set the scene for brilliant social and political life around William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire , and his wife, Lady Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire , Whig supporter of Charles James Fox .

In 1897 a large, imaginative costume ball was held in the mansion to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee . The guests, including Albert Edward, Prince of Wales , and the Princess of Wales , were dressed up as living historical portraits. The many portrait photographs that were taken at this ball adorn countless books on the social history of the late Victorian era .

demolition

The entrance facade to Piccadilly (1906)

After World War I , many aristocratic families separated from their townhouses in London and Devonshire House was no exception. It was given up in 1919. The demolition of the house has been mentioned nostalgically in the literature several times. So it made Virginia Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway think: "Devonshire House, without its gilt leopards" (Eng .: "Devonshire House without its gilded leopards"; a tribute to the gilded gates of the house) as she walked down Piccadilly. Even better known is the inspiration of Siegfried Sassoon's Monody on the Demolition of Devonshire House .

The reason for the abandonment of the house was because the 9th Duke had to pay inheritance tax for the first time , which came to over £ 500,000. In addition, he inherited the 7th duke's debts . This double exposure resulted in book sales at Caxton , including many Shakespeare first editions, and Devonshire House, with its even more valuable 12,138 square foot downtown lot. The sale was completed in 1920 at a cost of £ 750,000 and the house was demolished. The two buyers were Shurmer Sibthorpe and Lawrence Harrison , wealthy industrialists who sold the property and later built a hotel and apartment building there. When asked that the proposed demolition was an act of vandalism, Sibthorpe replied, referring to the critics of the 18th century building: “Archaeologists have gathered around me claiming that I am a vandal, but personally I think the property is an insult to the eyes. "

legacy

London's legacy of Devonshire House: the former gates of the manor house now form the entrance to Green Park in London.

A new office building on Piccadilly was completed in 1924 by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts . It is now also called Devonshire House. During the Second World War , the headquarters of the War Damage Commission was located there .

Some of Devonshire House's paintings and furniture are now at the Dukes of Devonshire headquarters at Chatsworth House . The gates to today's Green Park and the wine cellar (today ticket sales at the Green Park underground station) have been preserved to this day as fragments of the manor house . Other architecturally interesting pieces such as entrance doors, mantels and furniture were moved to Chatsworth House. Some of these stored items were on May 5th – 7th. Auctioned at Sotheby’s in October 2010 . At that sales event, five William Kent mantels were described by auctioneer Lord Dalmeny as of special interest and value: “You cannot buy them because they are all now in listed buildings. It's as if you were able to hire Rubens to paint your ceiling. "

The wrought-iron entrance gates between their frames with rusticated corner stones , on which sphinxs sit, were rebuilt on the other side of the street as entrance gates to Green Park .

In the short string of grand, detached aristocratic houses that were once found in London's West End, where even the richest and most beautiful were likely to live in terraced houses , most such as Devonshire House, Norfolk House and Chesterfield House are among the thousands lined up in demolished houses in England. Lansdowne House lost its front facade due to a road widening. Very few are left, and most of them are publicly owned or owned by companies: Marlborough House fell to the Crown in the 19th century. Apsley House was preserved, but is now a museum on a small island in the middle of the traffic; his gardens have long since disappeared and the family only lives on the top floor. Spencer House is a venue. Manchester House is home to the Wallace Collection . Bridgewater House of Charles Barry now serves as an office building. Clarence House by John Nash is the last great of London, architecturally important townhouses, which is used today as its builders it had once provided.

literature

  • George Trease: London. Thames & Hudson, London 1975, p. 161.

Web links

Commons : Devonshire House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual references and comments

  1. ^ Berkeley House and Devonshire House. London Online. ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 21, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.londononline.co.uk
  2. ↑ Girouard (p. 194) explains this phenomenon.
  3. ↑ Kent, William. In: Howard Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840. 3. Edition. 1995.
  4. ↑ Chatsworth: The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. Derbyshire Countryside, 2005, p. 52.
  5. ^ E. Beresford Chancellor: The Private Palaces of London. Chapter E: "It's spacious, and so are the East India Company warehouses ."
  6. ↑ Michael I. Wilson: William Kent, Architect, Designer, Painter, Gardener, 1685-1748. 1984, p. 172, states: "The fact that the house was hidden from the public behind a high wall must have helped give it the appearance of a prison."
  7. ↑ Your centerpiece, which hung in the previous house on this property, was mentioned by "Pierre-Jacques Fougeroux", a copy of whose manuscript Voyage has survived in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum . Francis Russell: Early Italian Pictures and Some English Collectors. In: The Burlington Magazine. Issue 136. No. 1091 (February 1994), pp. 85-90. There fashionable Tintorettos, Veronese and Raphaels, as well as less to be expected paintings from the Quattrocento , such as so-called Bellinis, are mentioned.
  8. ^ B. Lambert: The History and Survey of London and its Environs. 1806, p. 529.
  9. ↑ Mentioned in a brief note in: The Crayon. Issue 1. No. 12 (March 21, 1855), p. 184.
  10. ^ Vitruvius Britannicus . Book IV (1767). Panels 19 and 20: illustration.
  11. ^ AA Tait: Adam, Robert (1728-1792). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004. Online edition, October 2009. Retrieved August 21, 2015.
  12. ↑ The great height of the grandiose drawing rooms depicted in The Illustrated London News was achieved through extensive renovation under Decimus Burton by incorporating former upstairs bedrooms into the public spaces. So Devonshire House became even more of a place only for public receptions and exhibitions.
  13. ↑ Girouard, pp. 194-195.
  14. ↑ Wyatt, James. In: Howard Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840. 3. Edition. 1995.
  15. ↑ Burton, Decimus. In: Howard Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840. 3. Edition. 1995.
  16. ↑ Mansions in Piccadilly. In: British History Online. Retrieved August 21, 2015.
  17. ↑ Chatsworth House Auction predicted to raise £ 2.5m. In: Guardian Online. September 29, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2015.
  18. ^ Hugh Stokes: The Devonshire House Circle. 1916.
  19. ^ Sophia Murphy: The Duchess of Devonshire's Ball. 1984.
  20. ↑ Narrated in Calm Prose. Victoria and Albert Museum, Lafayette Archives. Retrieved August 24, 2015.
  21. ↑ Noted by Fiske Kimball, who described the interior of Lansdowne House , which was rebuilt at the Philadelphia Museum of Art : Lansdowne House Redivivus. In: Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin. 1943.
  22. ↑ Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street. 1923.
  23. ↑ a b Richard Davenport-Hines: Cavendish, Victor Christian William, ninth duke of Devonshire (1868-1938). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004. Retrieved August 24, 2015.
  24. ↑ Today at the Huntington Library in California.
  25. ↑ Chatsworth: The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. Derbyshire Countryside, 2005, p. 54.
  26. ↑ Laura Battle: Defining Moment: An aristocrat's London residence gives way to modern life, 1925. In: FT Magazine. August 21, 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2015.
  27. ↑ Holland & Hannen and Cubitts - The Inception and Development of a Great Building Firm. 1920, p. 42.
  28. ^ Sotheby's Catalog.
  29. ↑ Ben Hoyle In: The Times. September 29, 2010, p. 55.
  30. ↑ A full list would also include Melbourne House , which was converted into Albany House , as well as Dover House in Whitehall (now government offices), Derby House on Stratford Place on Oxford Street, Crewe House on Curzon Street, Bourdon House in the northeast corner Berkeley Square, Egremont House on Piccadilly, which is now the Naval and Military Club , and Bath House . All are mentioned in: Nikolaus Pevsner: London I: The Cities of London and Westminster. In: Buildings of England. 1962, p. 78 f.

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '26.2 "  N , 0 ° 8' 33.9"  W.