Nicholas Hawksmoor
Nicholas Hawksmoor | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1661 Nottinghamshire, England |
Died | |
Occupation | Architect |
Buildings | Easton Neston Mausoleum Castle Howard Christ Church, Spitalfields St George's, Bloomsbury St Mary Woolnoth St George in the East St Anne's Limehouse St Alfege Church, Greenwich All Souls College, Oxford The Queen's College, Oxford Worcester College, Oxford West Towers of Westminster Abbey |
Nicholas Hawksmoor (c. 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the
Life
Hawksmoor was born in
Apprenticeship
Wren, hearing of his "early skill and genius" for architecture, took him on as his clerk at about the age of 18. A surviving early sketch-book contains sketches and notes, some dated 1680 and 1683, of buildings in Nottingham, Coventry, Warwick, Bath, Bristol, Oxford and Northampton.[2] These somewhat amateur drawings, now in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection, show that he was still learning the techniques of his new profession at the age of 22. His first official post was as Deputy Surveyor to Wren at Winchester Palace from 1683 until February 1685.[1] Hawksmoor's signature appears on a brickmaker's contract for Winchester Palace in November 1684.[2] Wren was paying him 2 shillings a day in 1685 as assistant in his office in Whitehall.[2]
From about 1684 to about 1700, Hawksmoor worked with Christopher Wren on projects including
Maturity
In 1702, Hawksmoor designed the baroque country house of
He then worked for a time with Sir John Vanbrugh, assisting him on the building Blenheim Palace for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, where he took charge from 1705, after Vanbrugh's final break with the demanding Duchess of Marlborough, and Castle Howard for Charles Howard, later the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. In July 1721, John Vanbrugh made Hawksmoor his deputy as Comptroller of the Works. There is no doubt that Hawksmoor brought to the brilliant amateur the professional grounding he had received from Wren, but it is also arguable that Wren's architectural development was from the persuasion of his formal pupil, Hawksmoor.
By 1700 Hawksmoor had emerged as a major architectural personality, and in the next 20 years he proved himself to be one of the great masters of the English Baroque. His baroque, but somewhat classical and gothic architectural form was derived from his exploration of
Work at Oxford & Cambridge
As he neared the age of 50, Hawksmoor began to produce work for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1713 he was commissioned to complete
Hawksmoor conceived grand rebuilding schemes for central
Hawksmoor's six London Churches
In 1711, parliament passed an Act for the building of Fifty New Churches in the Cities of London and Westminster or the Suburbs thereof,
The six churches wholly designed by Hawksmoor were
After the death of Wren in 1723, Hawksmoor was appointed Surveyor to Westminster Abbey. Parliament had voted £100 for the repair and completion of the Abbey in 1698. The west towers of the Abbey were designed by Hawksmoor but not completed until after his death.
Gallery of churches
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St Alphege's Greenwich (1712–18)
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Interior of St Alphege's Greenwich (1712–18)
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Christ Church, Spitalfields (1714–29)
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Interior of Christ Church, Spitalfields (1714–29)
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St Anne's Limehouse (1714–30)
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Interior of St Anne's Limehouse (1714–30)
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St George in the East (1714–29)
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St George's Bloomsbury (1716–1731)
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Interior of St George's Bloomsbury (1716–1731)
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St Mary Woolnoth (1716–23)
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Interior of St Mary Woolnoth (1716–23)
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St Luke's Old Street (1727–33), joint work with John James, tower by Hawksmoor.
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St John's Horsleydown (1727–33), joint work with John James, tower by Hawksmoor, bombed in London Blitz then demolished.
Garden buildings and monuments
Hawksmoor also designed a number of structures for the gardens at Castle Howard. These are:
- The Pyramid (1728)
- The Mausoleum (1729–40) built on the same scale as his London churches, it is almost certainly the first free-standing mausoleum built in Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.[9]
- The Carrmire Gate, (c.1730)
- The Temple of Venus (1731–35) demolished
At Blenheim Palace he designed the Woodstock Gate[10] (1723) in the form of a Triumphal arch. He also designed the Ripon Obelisk in Ripon's market place, erected in 1702, at 80 feet (24 m) in height it was the first large scale obelisk to be erected in Britain.[11]
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Ripon Obelisk (1702), Ripon, Yorkshire
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The Mausoleum (1729–42), Castle Howard
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Pyramid (1728), Castle Howard
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The Carrmire gate (c.1730), Castle Howard
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Woodstock gate (1723), Blenheim Palace
Death and obituary
Hawksmoor died on 25 March 1736 in his house at
P M S
L
Hic J[acet]
NICHOLAUS HAWKSMOOR Armr
ARCHITECTUS
obijt vicesimo quin[t]o die [Martii]
Anno Domini 1736
Aetatis 75
Hawksmoor's only child was a daughter, Elizabeth, whose second husband, Nathanial Blackerby, wrote the obituary of his father-in-law.
His obituary appeared in Read's Weekly Journal, no. 603. 27 March 1736:
Thursday morning died, at this house on Mill-Bank, Westminster, in a very advanced age, the learned and ingenious Nicholas Hawksmoor, Esq, one of the greatest Architects this or the preceding Century has produc'd. His early skill in, and Genius for this noble science recommended him, when about 18 years of age, to the favour and esteem of his great master and predecessor, Sir Christopher Wren, under whom, during his life, and for himself since his death, he was concerned in the erecting more Publick Edifices, than any one life, among the moderns at least, can boast of. In King Charles II's reign, he was employ'd under Sir Christopher Wren, in the stately buildings at Winchester; as he was likewise in all the other publick structures, Palaces &c, erected by that great Man, under whom he was assisting, from the Beginning [factually wrong, Hawksmoor was 14 years old then] to the Finishing of that grand and noble Edifice the cathedral of St. Paul's, and of all the churches rebuilt after the Fire of London. At the building of Chelsea-College he was Deputy-Surveyor, and Clerk of Works, under Sir Christopher Wren. At Greenwich-Hospital he was, from the Beginning 'till a short time before his death, Clerk of Works. In the Reigns of King William and Queen Anne, he was Clerk of their Majesties Works at Kensington, and at Whitehall, St. Jame's and Westminster. In the reign of King George I, he was first Surveyor of all the new Churches, and Surveyor of Westminster-Abbey, from the death of Sir Christopher Wren. He was chiefly concern'd in designing and building a great number of magnificent Nobleman's Houses, and particularly (with Sir John Vanbrugh) those of Blenheim and Castle-Howard, at the latter of which he was at his Death, carrying on a Mausoleum in the most elegant and grand Stile, not to mention many others: But one of the most surprising of his undertakings, was the repairing of Beverley Minster, where the stone wall on the north-side was near three Foot out of the perpendicular, which he mov'd at once to its upright by means of a machine of his own invention. In short his numerous Publick Works at Oxford, perfected in his lifetime, and the design and model of Dr. Ratcliff's Library there, his design of a new Parliament-House, after the thought of Sir Christopher Wren; and, to mention no more, his noble Design for repairing the West-End of Westminster-Abbey, will all stand monuments to his great capacity, inexhaustible fancy, and solid judgement. He was perfectly skill'd in the History of Architecture, and could give exact account of all the famous buildings, both Antient and Modern, in every part of the world; to which his excellent memory, that never fail'd him to the very last, greatly contributed. Nor was architecture the only science he was master of. He was bred a scholar. and knew as well the learned as the modern tongues. He was a very skilful mathematician, geographer, and geometrician; and in drawing, which he practised to the last, though greatly afflicted with Chiragra, few excelled him. In his private life he was a tender husband, a loving father, a sincere friend, and a most agreeable companion; nor could the most poignant pains of Gout, which he for many years laboured under, ever ruffle or discompose his evenness of temper. And as his memory must always be dear to his Country, so the loss of so great and valuable man in sensibly, and in a more particular manner felt by those who had the pleasure of his personal acquaintance, and enjoy'd the happiness of his conversation.
Upon his death he left a widow, to whom he bequeathed all his property in Westminster, Highgate, Shenley, and East Drayton, who later married William Theaker; the grandchild of this second marriage ultimately inherited Hawksmoor's properties near Drayton after the death of the architect's widow.
Gallery of architectural work
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Easton Neston House (c.1695–1710)
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King William Block (1699–1702), Greenwich Hospital
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Kensington Palace Orangery (1704–05)
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King's Gallery, Kensington Palace (1694)
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South Stoneham House (1708), Southampton
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All Souls College (1716–34), Oxford
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Codrington Library, All Souls College (1716–34), Oxford
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Tower (1718–24), St Michael, Cornhill, London.
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The Long Library (1722–25), Blenheim Palace
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Entrance, The Queen's College Oxford (1733–36)[14]
Hawksmoor in modern literature
Hawksmoor's architecture has influenced several poets and authors of the twentieth century. His church St Mary Woolnoth is mentioned in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land (1922).
Algernon Stitch lived in a "superb creation by Nicholas Hawksmoor" in London in the novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938).
Hawksmoor is the subject of a poem by Iain Sinclair called 'Nicholas Hawksmoor: His Churches' which appeared in Sinclair's collection of poems Lud Heat (1975). Sinclair promoted the poetic interpretation of the architect's singular style of architectural composition that Hawksmoor's churches formed a pattern consistent with the forms of Theistic Satanism though there is no documentary or historic evidence for this. This idea was, however, embellished by Peter Ackroyd in his novel Hawksmoor (1985): the historical Hawksmoor is refigured as the fictional Devil-worshipper Nicholas Dyer, while the eponymous Hawksmoor is a twentieth-century detective charged with investigating a series of murders perpetrated on Dyer's (Hawksmoor's) churches.
Both Sinclair and Ackroyd's ideas in turn were further developed by
Memorials
- In Towcester, Northamptonshire Nicholas Hawksmoor Primary School, built on land formerly part of the Easton Neston estate, is named in recognition of the architect of nearby Easton Neston house.
References
- ^ a b c Downes 1979, p. 1.
- ^ a b c Downes 1979, p. 2.
- ^ Downes 1979, p. 98.
- ^ Doig 1979, pp. 23 to 27.
- ^ Tyack 1998, p. 168.
- ^ Berman 2010, p. 140.
- ^ "St Anne, Limehouse, Commercial Road, Tower Hamlets". Archives in London and the M25 area. AIM25. 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2012.
- ^ Downes 1970, p. 103.
- ^ Curl 1980, p. 179.
- ^ Hart 2002, p. 122.
- ^ Barnes 2004, p. 18.
- ^ Downes 1979, p. 6.
- ^ Downes 1979, p. 7.
- ^ "Nicholas Hawksmoor". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
Sources
- Barnes, Richard (2004). The Obelisk: A Monumental Feature in Britain. Frontier. ISBN 978-1-872914-28-2.
- ISBN 978-0-571-24688-5.
- ISBN 978-0-300-07207-5.
- ISBN 978-0713473360.
- Doig, Allan (1979). The Architectural Drawings Collection of King's College, Cambridge. Avebury Publishing.
- Downes, Kerry (1970). Hawksmoor. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20096-3.
- Downes, Kerry (1979). Hawksmoor. A. Zwemmer Ltd. ISBN 0-302-02783-1.
- De la Ruffiniere du Prey, Pierre (2000). Hawksmoor's London Churches: Architecture and Theology. London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Goodhart-Rendel, H.S. (1924). Nicholas Hawksmoor. Masters of Architecture. London: Benn.
- Hart, Vaughan (2002). Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders. Yale University Press.
- Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1891). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 25. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 232–236.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hawksmoor, Nicholas". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Tyack, Geoffrey (1998). Oxford: An Architectural Guide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-817423-3.
- Exhibition catalogues
- Downes, Kerry (1977). Hawksmoor. An exhibition selected by Kerry Downes. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery.
- The Hawksmoor Committee (1962). Hawksmoor. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
- Journals
Berman, Richard Andrew (2010). The Architects of Eighteenth Century English Freemasonry, 1720 – 1740 (PhD thesis).
- "Hawksmoor's Christ Church Spitalfields". Architectural Design. A.D. Profile 22. 49 (7). 1979. ISSN 0003-8504.
- Rose, Steve (25 September 2006). "Hawksmoor's churches". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
External links
- A Timeline of Hawksmoor's life
- Google map showing where Hawksmoor's London churches are
- Christ Church Spitalfields
- "Archival material relating to Nicholas Hawksmoor". UK National Archives.
- Portraits of Nicholas Hawksmoor at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- Images relating to Nicholas Hawksmoor at the Country Life Picture Library
- Images relating to Nicholas Hawksmoor[English Heritage Archive