Ghastly Good Taste

by John Betjeman

  See sir, here’s the grand approach;

  This way is for His Grace’d coach:

  There lies the bridge, and here’s the clock,

  Observe the lion and the cock,

  The spacious court, the colonnade,

  And mark how wide the wall is made!

  The chimneys are so well design’d,

  They never smoke in any wind.

  This gallery’s contrived for walking,

  The windows to retire and talk in;

  The council chamber for debate,

  And all the rest are rooms of state.

  Thanks sir, cried I, ’tis very fine,

  But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?

  I find, by all you have been telling

  That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.

  Sir John Vanbrugh, who built it, would have been, had he lived today, an interior decorator to the very rich. In the eighteenth century there was no such thing. Men were either architects or artists. Sir John Vanbrugh was a genius, but wholly neither. His other enormous building, Castle Howard, is no wit as imposing as Hawksmoor’s comparatively small mausoleum which stands in its grounds. Hawksmoor wrapped his life in an industrious obscurity. Though it would be hard to believe that Vanbrugh, who also wrote plays, was idle.

  It should not be hard to tell a building which has been built purely for effect from one that has been built largely from convenience. The one fails to satisfy after close scrutiny. The second grows on one, although it may not strike the eye at first. Few people bother to look at Chelsea Hospital, London, which I regard as Wren’s masterpiece. There it stands, a stately unadorned brick building, whose north walls are only relieved by high round-headed windows, the whole façade split in two by a noble attached portico, behind whose pediment rises one of those stone cupolas that only Wren perfected, and the ‘thirty-nine’ buses shift a few indifferent Londoners past it every day. Yet even Carlyle, who was little alive to an appreciation of the visual arts, heaven knows, is said to have remarked: ‘I had passed it daily for many years without thinking about it, and one day I began to reflect that it had always been a pleasure to me to see it, and I looked at it more attentively and saw that it was quiet and dignified and the work of a gentleman.’ Here is a building that combines convenience of plan with elegance of dimensions. The Gothic tradition was not dead. It did not even sleep. It was translated into humanism. No one could say that all Wren’s city churches were Renaissance buildings. Who saw an ancient Roman edifice which had even a detail like any part of the soaring steeple of St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street?

  And not only did the Gothic tradition go on in the larger public buildings of the late seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century, but also in domestic architecture. An upper class ruled the country and acquired a dignity suitable to its office. The eighteenth century has been interpreted by the fanciful performances of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, as an age of Ombre and ‘Obleegement’ and a quaint old-world artiness that has already descended to the higher-class teashops. Edmund Dulac, Lovat Fraser and their countless imitators have sentimentalised a hard, reasonable age, which produced a hard and reasonable architecture—buildings which were described in Victorian guide books as ‘barrack-like’ mansions, but which contained behind their nobly proportioned façades a plan fitting in reasonably and well with the social plan of their age. There would be the spacious entrance hall with possibly a ceiling of elaborated plaster-work, while an imposing staircase, with heavily wrought iron or carved wood balusters, formed the main feature of it, and terminated in a gallery leading to the bedrooms. Meanwhile, on the ground floor, double doors with moulded architraves led to saloons, and thence to drawing-rooms and libraries, the one leading out of the other, for all Georgian rooms contain two entrances. Nor would the magnificence of the entrance be confined to their mouldings and their proportions. The architect would design furniture and adornments to fit his rooms; and, although there are few examples of this splendid tradition left in England today, there are still many houses of Ireland, where the Victorian sunlight flooded in less gaudily, that possess their ancient fittings. I have seen many late Georgian houses in Ireland whose severe mahogany furniture remains in the niches designed for it, whose porcelain and silver is of the eighteenth century, whose wallpaper is Chinese, put up when the house was built, houses where even the contemporary fenders and pokers have remained. The inhabitants were eighteenth-century characters too.

  Perhaps the first idea of what the eighteenth century was like, as well as of what the mediaeval was like, may be gained by the Englishman by a visit to Ireland. For that country, as George Moore has said, was never subjected to a nineteenth century. It has fortunately escaped the industrialism which changed the face of England, if it had not yet changed her architectural vision, and there are still but two classes of any importance—the peasant and the landlord. Admittedly the Land Acts have deprived the last of his powers, but he still hangs on, eccentric and splendid in his (s)mouldering Georgian mansion.

  As late as 1870 it was possible for Adolphus Cooke, of Cookesborough, to annoy the foxhunting gentlemen of Westmeath by keeping two half-wits, whose opinion he consulted on his every act, and to amaze his workmen by ordering them to pick up the twigs off his lawn and build nests for the rooks. Such eccentricity would not have been countenanced in many other parts of Europe at the time. Should a man wish to live in the eighteenth century, let him take with him what capital he has left, and buy one of those hundreds of empty Georgian mansions in the remote parts of Ireland. There, with his undulating park around him, the railway far distant and never the sound of a motor car near, he may drink himself to an honourable death, keeping his individuality alive.

  Though he may have been a despot, the eighteenth-century landlord was not often the fop that he has been pictured by lovers of the antique today. The typical relations between patron and architect are illustrated in these letters between Lord Ongley, newly created in the peerage of Ireland, and Batty Langley, Architect. Langley was famous in his day for his practical books on mouldings, chimney-pieces, grottoes, doors, windows, useful at once to the man of taste and to the builder. His one venture in experimentalism crowned him with ridicule, for he attempted to divide Gothic architecture into five orders. The book in which he put forward this theory was instrumental in reviving an interest in that style, whose dire consequences will be seen later on. These letters, which I have the pleasure of printing below, show the relations between patron and architect:

  To Batty Langley, Esq.,

  Archt.

  Lord Ongley presents his compliments and is obliged to Mr. Langley for his designs for his new residence at Old Warden. He was insistent, when he last saw Mr. Langley, on all absence of Fandango and of plaster-work within the house in the saloons and withdrawing-rooms, in what it pleases Mr. Langley to call the Gothick or Hermit style. Vitruvius, as Mr. Langley is no doubt aware, says that architecture consists of Fabric et ratiocinatio. If Mr. Langley will allow the latter of these two qualities to exercise his mind he will know that neither Lord Ongley nor Lady Ongley are Goths or Hermits. Though they would not wish their entertainments to be ostentatious, they would wish them to be profuse. Mr. Langley has provided no more than two withdrawing-rooms from the saloon, nor has he provided the space necessary for his Lordship’s collection of ancient coins and busts. The library is not large enough and the accommodation for Lord Ongley’s servants, who number twenty-six, though fitting for their station, it can but be obvious to Mr. Langley, is inadequate for the storing and cooking requisite for the banquets that are projected in the New Hall at Old Warden. Should Mr. Langley desire further to display his skill in abstruse and ancient styles, Lord Ongley will be pleased for him to do so in the Summer Pavilion and Eye-catchers. Considerable acreage of land in the county is in the possession of Lord Ongley, and the eminence on which the New Hall is to be situate commands a fine prospect as far as Langford and Clifton Arlesey, all of which can be cl
eared to widen up the view and cause Lord Ongley’s mansion and domain to be another Chatsworth, Carton or a Russborough. Mr. Langley will save his Lordship considerable time in writing lengthy letters, if he will send a larger design with a bolder frontage and a finer and less mean interior, worthy both of his Lordship’s rank in life and the talents of his architect. Should this be impossible there is doubtless another modern Vitruvius capable of producing a design worthier of Lord Ongley’s patronage than is Mr. Langley.

  Sept. 17, 1770.

  Old Warden, Bedfordshire.

  Mr Langley’s Answer

  MY LORD,

  I am in no way to be thought to despise or to take into little account the gracious condescension which your Lordship has hitherto seen fit to employ. But, my Lord, there is a moment when plain words must be uttered. I have spent near thirty year now in the prosecution of my business of architect and with great toil and application I have arrived at a proper estimation, or so I would believe, of what is due both to your Lordship and to your humble servant. I grant the truth of your Lordship’s observations as to the withdrawing-rooms, and the space needed for your Lordship’s collections; and these matters, as that of due provision for the storage of victuals and the cooking and serving of the same, shall be speedily amended, should your Lordship see fit to continue his present patronage. On all these matters, I bow to your Lordship’s greater knowledge and cry Mea Culpa!

  But, my Lord, though I admit the truth of Vitruvius his observation, which your Lordship cites, I see not the application. My bosom almost bursts when I read your Lordship, so justly renowned for his learning and taste, to despise the Gothick or Hermit manner. My Lord, bethink you, if I may make so bold, that we have cast aside this two years the fashions which your Lordship would prefer; that Fandango and Gothick plasterwork within are now universal in the politest circles.

  Your humble servant’s station in life is so far below that of your Lordship, that only the sternest necessity would lead him to address your Lordship in such bold terms. But, my Lord, I should not be an honest man, nor deserving of your Lordship’s regard, were I not to say plainly that what your Lordship would desire is out of fashion, and that Fandango is in. Of the truth of this I have the strongest assurance from the metropolis so late as last Thursday week.

  I pray you, my Lord, give further consideration to the matter. I study only your Lordship’s interests when I say that I cannot bring myself to confine the Gothick to the purlieus of your new Mansion. The whole must be of a piece and in consonance. My conscience will not allow me to play hoity-toity with so serious a matter.

  I fear I shall have offended your Lordship in daring thus to express myself, but believe me, my Lord, nothing is further from the thoughts of your humble servant than to offend his most esteemed and worshipful patron.

  I am, my Lord,

  Your Lordship’s humble servant,

  BATTY LANGLEY.

  Lord Ongley to Batty Langley

  Mr. Langley, do not speak to me about the fashions for what I know of them I despise and what I do not I prefer to ignore. I asked for a noble palace and all I receive is ignoble flattery. Were you as able with your pencil as you are with your quill I would have more words of commendation for designs which I doubt I will ever receive. It is eight weeks now since I returned to you your former plans as mean conceptions, overloaded with decoration, since then I have had no more than your polite but indefinite letter. Allow me, sir, to state my wants and if my temper seems to get the better of me, remember that it is through stating my wants too often, both to you in person and through the tiresome medium of a written statement. I require a mansion worthy of the position I occupy with regard to my tenantry, and worthy of the landskip in which I have chosen to place it. First let it be convenient, next let it be elegant without ostentation, impressive without Italian or Gothick heaviness, desirable without exciting the envy of the covetous, yet calculated to impress the mean-spirited. All these qualities it is possible for an architect to incorporate in his designs if he is not so guided by fashion that he cannot call his soul the possession of an All Wise Creator, and if he is not so lacking in the Spirit of Inspiration that he cannot conceive greater grandeur than he sees from his window in St. Giles. Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Gibbs, and even my lamented father’s friend Dean Aldrich, were capable of fine conceptions and of carrying them out honestly and without undue expense. You have the reputation they enjoyed, let me see their ability. As for your ideas of fashion let them be guided by ratiocinatio. Doubtless your Goths and Hermits will be welcomed by empty headed cits who have neither the Learning nor the Breeding to find worthier objects of entertainment. I do not wish to dispose the patronage which you have enjoyed from yourself to someone of more rapid methods. Pray let me have the plans with due haste; my Lady Ongley wilts in her present discomfort here, since it is not the time to go to Bath while I regret the rude shelter which my ancestors enjoyed, as my mind daily awaits the spacious dwelling you are to prepare, and is daily disappointed.

  ONGLEY.

  We notice in these letters Lord Ongley’s sourness over the new Gothick Fandango which Batty Langley, above all people, would be most anxious to provide. Lord Ongley had the ruling hand and, like the majority of his class at that time, he preferred to let state and dignity overrule mere fashions in taste.

  It must strike the foreigner as curious that, when English architectural styles become what old-fashioned purists will call ‘debased’, they become simpler. That ‘debased’ style, Perpendicular Gothic, and its even more ‘debased’ Tudor successor went in the opposite direction to architecture abroad. In England any buildings containing ‘flamboyant’ features, similar to the late Gothic periods in France and Germany, can be counted on one hand. Where Continental architects branched off into a morass of decoration for decoration’s sake, as in many hideous hôtels de villes in Flanders and prickly cathedrals, English architecture seemed to be shorn of all superfluities. It is a long cry from the austerity of fifteenth century buildings like King’s College Chapel to contemporary edifices abroad.

  So with the eighteenth century we find an even greater restraint practised in England. There was hardly any Rococo. Among the only examples of Rococo decoration in England are those large gilt Chippendale glasses in the Chinese or the French manner, which so frequently form the only elaborate feature of the English withdrawing-room. Here and there an essay in the Chinese taste, either in a cabinet for the house or in a bridge or grotto near some undulation of the park, marked the only excursion of the English gentleman from his true tradition. Our aristocracy, when it controlled the public taste, was too serious and politically and logically minded to indulge in any artistic hobbies outside antiquarianism. And if there was any Rococo in this country, it did not express itself in those acres of tinted plasterwork, those trumpeting cherubim and long-drawn perspectives with which the Sitwells have made us familiar, but in sham ruins, sham keeps, pseudo-Gothic abbeys and romantic plaster castles, that grew so sophisticated as the eighteenth century wore into the nineteenth, as to be mistaken for the very objects they travestied. Classical architecture, having cast off decorative impulse, depended more and more on proportion. A style was created more lovely than any European architecture; the crescents and squares of Bath; the crescent at Buxton; and in every considerable town, well-proportioned assembly rooms, plain without, decorously arrayed by the Brothers Adam within. Decoration became flatter and flatter, until it sank into the building and scarcely dared show itself outside the house. Who would think, walking down Henrietta Street, Dublin,* or enjoying the ever-opening vistas in Merrion Square, that the delicate fanlight over a modest front door in a plain red brick house was a token of the carved balusters, plaster ceilings emblazoned with medallions, and marble mantelpieces within? Who, walking down Wimpole Street or Harley Street today, attempting down those endless perspectives to find his doctor, would expect to see the magnificent staircase behind the front door? And, should his doctor have left his wa
iting-room un-Jacobethanised, would he not be surprised at the splendid proportions and marble mantel which confront him? Nor are these interiors in any sense Rococo; they are not extravagant, the beauty of the effect is in the tiny mould of a cornice or the delicate flattened urn on a mantel.

  I do not wish to say there is no Baroque or Rococo in England. (I am taking these words to mean ‘extravagant’, wrongly perhaps, but the differences between them and the wideness of the terms need not be discussed here, and for that reason I may do devotees of Baroque and Rococo an unwitting injustice.) Blenheim Palace, much of the interior of Wilton House, the town of Blandford Forum, Greenwich Hospital, the Rotunda Hospital Chapel, Dublin, and State rooms in various palaces and town halls are in the accepted Baroque, and very fine they are. But for the most part English classical architecture simplified itself just as Gothic did, and behaved in the contrary way to Continental styles. We have only to visit the Wallace Collection or a Mayfair-Italianate antique dealer to see the various styles that were prevalent in the rest of Europe.

  Everyone can tell an eighteenth-century house if he uses his eyes. The material is generally local brick or stone; the front of the house is flat, and the windows, whose shape is made interesting by the sizes of the panes divided by thick glazing bars in earlier, and thin in later examples, are smaller on the first floor than on the ground floor and smaller still on the top floor. The roof is generally hidden by a low wall or balustrade, and the servants’ bedrooms looked out on to this brick parapet, or possibly on to a balustrade which served the purpose of a plain parapet in earlier houses. Servants, when there were only two classes, lived ‘according to their station’. The outbuildings of an eighteenth-century house are always well proportioned, and all roofs at this time were made with tiles larger at the bottom, going smaller as they reached the ridge at the top. Any decorative extravagance confined itself to the front door of the house, which perhaps had the familiar pediment over it, or a round head containing a lead fanlight. If the house did not face flat on the street, keeping an orderly, dignified countenance next its neighbours of whatever style, a neat wrought-iron gate broke the high brick wall which kept the continuity of the street. Houses like these exist in every large town today of any antiquity. They even exist in West Ham and Walthamstow. They are so unpretentious that commercial gentlemen like to pull them down or cover their undecorated surfaces with advertisements or plate glass windows. It is only when these houses have been done away with that people realise how pleasant such buildings were. In many country towns they still exist untouched, generally occupied by solicitors or doctors or retired soldiers’ widows, who look out on to the street through broad curtains, regretting their horse-drawn pasts.