Kew Palace
Kew Palace | |
---|---|
Artisan Mannerist | |
Governing body | Historic Royal Palaces |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
Official name | Kew Palace |
Designated | 10 January 1950 |
Reference no. | 1263073 |
Kew Palace is a British royal palace within the grounds of Kew Gardens on the banks of the River Thames. Originally a large complex, few elements of it survive. Dating to 1631 but built atop the undercroft of an earlier building, the main survivor is known as the Dutch House. Its royal occupation lasted from around 1728 until 1818, with a final short-lived occupation in 1844. The Dutch House is Grade I listed,[1] and open to visitors. It is cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the government or the Crown.[2] Alongside the Dutch House is a part of its 18th-century service wing, whilst nearby are a former housekeeper's cottage, brewhouse and kitchen block – most of these buildings are private, though the kitchens are open to the public. These kitchens, the Great Pagoda and Queen Charlotte's Cottage are also run by Historic Royal Palaces.
History
Fortreys and Capels
Beneath the Dutch House is the undercroft of a 16th-century building. This was on land owned by
In 1619, the building above the undercroft was leased by Samuel Fortrey, who finally demolished all but the undercroft in 1631, erecting a new larger south-facing
Kew House
Facing the 1631 house was another mansion, possibly of Tudor origin.
George II's children
In 1727, Queen Caroline and George II came to the British throne. By that time they had six children living with them at their summer residence at Richmond Lodge. In 1728 Caroline leased the Dutch House to house her three eldest daughters Anne, Amelia and Caroline and another nearby building which became known as the 'Queen's House', though the intended occupant may have been her son William rather than the queen herself.[13] This left Caroline's two youngest daughters Mary and Louise with her at Richmond Lodge.
George and Caroline had come to Britain in 1714 when George's father took the throne as George I, leaving their eldest son Frederick behind in Hanover aged 7. When George II succeeded his father, Frederick became Prince of Wales and so was finally allowed to come to Britain. He arrived in December 1728, less than a year after his mother had taken the lease on the Dutch House. Now aged 21, knowing little of his sisters and possibly wishing for a family rapprochement, he soon took a long lease on the old Capel House at Kew and in 1731 also purchased its contents from St André. Frederick then set about remodeling it with assistance from William Kent – it then became known as the White House due to its plastered exterior. Frederick also added a large new separate kitchen block, open to the public since 2012 as 'the Royal Kitchens'.[14][15] There was also a stable block of an unknown date serving the White House, located a short distance to its north-east and demolished in the late 19th century.
An oil-on-canvas musical portrait from 1733 shows Frederick and his three eldest sisters playing mandolin, harpsichord and cello. It was painted by his librarian and art agent
Along with
- I am His Highness' dog at Kew.
- Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?[19]
Augusta and George III
Frederick began remodelling the gardens associated with the White House, but "after staying all day in the garden till night, in the damp rain and hail to look at his workmen" in 1751 he caught a chill which – combined with a pulmonary embolism – proved fatal.[20][21] His widow Augusta continued living at the White House with their children and remodelling the gardens. She was advised by her husband's friend John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, and assisted by Sir William Chambers, one of the greatest masters of ornamental English gardening.
Frederick's sister Amelia was probably still in the Dutch House throughout the 1730s and 1740s, but seems to have moved out in 1751 when she was made ranger of
Chambers built the
George continued the Dutch House's use as a schoolhouse, now for his two eldest sons
A map of 1771 delineated the land between the Dutch House and the river as still belonging to barrister Levett Blackborne, Lincoln's Inn barrister and grandson of Sir Richard Levett.[23] This reflects the fact that the buildings and grounds were only leased by the royal family right up until 13 October 1781, when George III purchased the freehold from the Levetts for £20,000.[24][25] Seven years later, George was kept in the White House during his first bout of 'madness' from November 1788 to March 1789, with his wife Charlotte and their daughters living on the upper floors and the Grooms of the Bedchamber in the Dutch House. The White House was then allowed to fall into disrepair, though it still proved possible to house him there during the second bout in 1801, whilst Charlotte and her daughters moved into the Dutch House to await news of George's recovery. The White House was finally demolished in 1802 and so on the onset of the third bout of 'madness' in 1804 George was housed in an upgraded single-storey service wing of the Dutch House and possibly also on the ground floor of the Dutch House, with Charlotte and the princesses on the Dutch House's first and second floors. (That service wing was mainly demolished in 1881 but originally connected directly onto the west side of the Dutch House.)
Disuse and decline
Another reason for the demolition of the White House and the decreasing use of the Dutch House was the Castellated Palace, whose planning and design began around 1800. George's chosen architect was James Wyatt, whom he had taken on for works at Windsor Castle at around the same time. The building also became known as the New Palace or New Kew Palace and so the Dutch House was often known as the Old Palace or the Old Red House between 1800 and 1828.
George created a site for the Castellated Palace by demolishing the old Queen's House and construction began around 1802. Known by some historians as "a late Georgian Nonsuch",[4] it was in the neo-Gothic style. George was a late convert to this style – he wrote to his daughter Charlotte in 1803 stating:
I never thought I should have adopted Gothic instead of
Grecian architecture, but the bad taste of the last forty years has so entirely corrupted the professors of the latter I have taken to the former from thinking Wyatt perfect in that style, of which my house will I trust be a good example.[26]
He had possibly been influenced by nearby
On a former occasion I have viewed its interior, and I am at a loss to conceive the motive for preferring an external form, which rendered it impracticable to construct within it more than a series of large closets, boudoirs, and rooms like oratories.
John Bew also included the Castellated Palace in his tourists' guide of 1820:
[T]his Anglo-Teutonic, castellated, gothized structure, (which has never been completed, and probably never will be) must be considered as an abortive production, at once illustrative of bad taste and defective judgment. From the small size of the windows and the diminutive proportion of its turrets, it would seem to possess "Windows that exclude the light,/ And passages that lead to nothing."[28] The northern front was intended to be appropriated to the use of domestics; the whole building is rendered nearly indestructible by fire, by means of cast-iron joists and rafters, &c. The principal part is brick, stuccoed to resemble stone.[29]
The king stopped off at the Dutch House in August 1805 to meet with his daughter-in-law Caroline and his granddaughter Charlotte. His family moved back into the Dutch House in October that year until renovation work at the princesses' rooms in Windsor was complete. George made a final visit to Kew in 1806 to view works on the Castellated Palace and never returned, though the Dutch House was refitted in 1809 for his youngest daughter Princess Amelia, who had expressed a wish to move into it to convalesce from her tuberculosis. However, her parents vetoed this and she remained at Windsor, where her death in 1810 probably triggered the king's final bout of 'madness'.[30]
This fourth and final bout of 'madness' also meant that work on the Castellated Palace ceased for good, leaving only a mostly roofed shell. This bout lasted ten years, all of which time he was confined at Windsor rather than Kew. In 1818, Queen Charlotte set out from London to Windsor to see the king and to attend the double wedding of her sons
George died at Windsor in 1820 and his eldest son and successor George IV decided to demolish the Castellated Palace. After studying the project's accounts (its total costs had risen to £500,000 by 1811 (equivalent to
Innumerable are the instances of princes having sought to perpetuate their memories by the building of palaces, from the Domus Aurea, or golden house of Nero, to the comparatively puny structures of our own times. As specimens of modern magnificence and substantial comfort, the latter class of edifices may be admirable; but we are bound to acknowledge, that in boldness and splendour of design, they cannot assimilate to the labours of antiquity, much of whose stupendous character is to this day preserved in many series of interesting ruins:—
- Whilst in the progress of the long decay,
- Thrones sink to dust, and nations pass away.[33]
As a record of this degeneracy, near the western corner of Kew Green stands the [Castellated Palace] ... [its] north front possesses an air of solemn, sullen grandeur; but it very ill accords with the taste and science generally displayed by its nominal architect [George III].
... [Its foundations are] in a bog close to the
Thames, and the principal object in its view is the dirty town of Brentford, on the opposite side of the river; a selection, it would seem, of family taste, for [George III's grandfather] George II is known to have often said, when riding through Brentford, "I do like this place, it's so like Yarmany [ie Germany]."The premature fate of [the new] Kew Palace renders it at this moment an object of public curiosity[34][35]
Opened to the public
George IV also planned to demolish the Dutch House, but this did not come to fruition. Possibly influenced by having been married there in 1818, his brother William IV commissioned plans for adding a west wing to it and bringing it back into use, but this too did not come about. William did offer the Dutch House to his sister-in-law
The Dutch House remained open to the public until 1996, when a major restoration project commenced. This not only included physical restoration to the building, but also weaving of period draperies and other fabric décor carried out by master
References
- ^ Historic England. "Kew Palace (1263073)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
- ^ "Who We Are". Historic Royal Palaces. Archived from the original on 1 September 2011. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, pp. 15–17
- ^ ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, pp. 19–26
- ^ Sir Richard Levett in Noble, Mark; Granger, James (1806). A Biographical History of England. W. Richardson. p. 4.
a biographical history of england mark noble levet.
- ^ Sir Richard Levett in Le Neve, Peter (1873). Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights Made by King Charles II., King James II., King William III. and Queen Mary, King William Alone, and Queen Anne. Harleian Society. p. 337.
le neve knights john holt.
- ^ a b "Parishes: Kew" (1911), in A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 3, ed. H. E. Malden. London: Victoria County History, pp. 482–487. British History Online. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, p. 26
- ^ "Kew Gardens Sundial". Public Monuments and Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 29 January 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ^ "Thomas Tompion (1639–1713) – Sundial circa 1699". Royal Collection Trust. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
- ^ J Rocque, Plan of the house, gardens, park and hermitage of their majesties at Richmond, 1734 – Royal Collection
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, pp. 40–41
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, pp. 41–52
- New York Times. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
- National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 21 April 2007.
- ^ "Mercier, The Music Party, 1733". National Trust. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016.
- ^ "Mercier, The Music Party, 1733". Royal Collection.
- ^ Hastings, Max (15 December 2003). "Poetic dog licence". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
- ^ "Frederick, Prince of Wales". The Georgians – The German Kings Who Made Britain. BBC Four. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
- ^ Natalie Livingstone, The Mistresses of Cliveden (Random House, 2015), chapter 6
- ^ Paul Sandby, A view of the Prince's House at Kew, c.1771–72 – Royal Collection
- ^ Levett Blackborne, Kew, British History Online
- ^ The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Historical and Descriptive, William Jackson Bean, 1908
- ^ The Home Counties Magazine: Devoted to the Topography of London, Middlesex, Essex, Herts, Bucks, Berks, Surrey and Kent, W. Paley Baildon (ed.), Vol. X, Reynell & Son, London, 1908
- ISBN 0300078692.
- ^ Watkin, David (2004). The Architect King: George III and the Culture of the Enlightenment. Royal Collection Publications. pp. 136–145.
- ^ A quotation from A Long Story by Thomas Gray
- ^ John Bew, The ambulator; or, The stranger's companion in a tour round London, 1820, page 194
- ^ Groom & Prosser 2006, p. 99
- ^ a b UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ Desmond 1995, p. 81
- ISBN 9781108048316.
- ^ The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, Volume 10, Issue 275 (29 September 1827), pages 209–210
- ^ The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 275, 29 September 1827, by Various
- ^ Desmond 1995, pp. 136–137
- ^ HRP Press Release – 'Royal Kitchens at Kew uncovered for first time in 200 years.'
- ^ HRP Press Release – 'Dragons to return to The Great Pagoda at Kew after 200 year hunt.'
Sources
- Desmond, Ray (1995). Kew: The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens. London: Harvill. ISBN 978-1-86046-076-0.
- ISBN 978-1-85894-323-7.