Ed Kluz
— Monuments
Private View 13 October 6-9pm
Exhibition 14 - 31 October 2015
John Martin Gallery
38 Albemarle Street
London, W1S 4 JG
T +44 (0)20 7499 1314
[email protected]
Mon-Fri 10-6
Sat 10-2
— Bach-y-Graig
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Bach-y-Graig is thought to have been the first brick built building in Wales. The house was built in
1567 for Sir Richard Clough, Sir Thomas Gresham’s representative in Antwerp. Clough employed a
Flemish architect to create a house in the Renaissance style of the Netherlands. Owner of the nearby Nantlys Hall, Phillip Pennant, described Bach-yGraig as a singular house, which consisted of ‘
a mansion of three sides, enclosing a square court. The first consists of a vast hall and parlour: the
rest of it rises into six wonderful stories, including the cupola; and forms from the second floor the
figure of a pyramid: the rooms are small and inconvenient.’ By 1774, when the well-known lexicographer, critic and essayist Dr Samuel Johnson visited the house, it was in decline and he wrote in
his diary of its missing floors and stopped up windows. The main house at Bach-y-Graig was then
demolished at some point between 1795 and 1817, when Clough’s descendant Mrs Thrale married
an Italian music master called Piozzi. Together they built a new mansion, Brynbella - combining
their Welsh and Italian ancestry in the name. A wrought-iron weathervane from Bach-y-Graig is
thought to have been re-used at Brynbella’s stables. The Piozzis made numerous alterations to
what remained of Bach-y-Graig. What was originally the gatehouse became the main farmhouse.
This remains today and is currently Bed and Breakfast accommodation.
— Cannons House
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Cannons was a stately home in Little Stanmore, Middlesex. It was inherited by James Brydges, first
Duke of Chandos, after his marriage to his first wife Mary Lake. The name ‘Cannons’ is an obsolete
spelling of ‘canons’ and refers to the Augustinian canons of St Bartholomew-theGreat, London,
who owned the estate before the English Reformation. Brydges filled Cannons with Old Masters
and Grand Tour acquisitions, and from 1717 to 1718 appointed Handel as resident house composer.
Cannons’ fame led to the introduction of crowd control measures - including a one-way system - to
manage the large numbers of visitors. Early travel guides featured Cannons. In a 1725 travelogue by
Daniel Defoe, he described Cannons’ extravagance thus: ‘This palace is so beautiful in its situation,
so lofty, so majestick the appearance of it, that a pen can but ill describe it... ‘tis only fit to be talk’d
of upon the very spot... The whole structure is built with such a Profusion of Expense and finished
with such a Brightness of Fancy and Delicacy of Judgment.’ In 1720, the year in which the building
of the palace was completed, Brydges lost his fortune in the South Sea Bubble financial disaster.
Following the first Duke’s death in 1744, Cannons passed to his son Henry Brydges. In 1747 the
house was demolished and Henry Brydges held a twelve-day sale to compensate for family losses.
The sale catalogue included works by Titian, Giorgione, Raphael and Guercino. Among the most
notable paintings were Caravaggio’s ‘Boy Bitten by a Lizard’, which the National Gallery in London acquired in 1986, and Nicolas Poussin’s ‘The Choice of Hercules’. Of the sculptures, Grinling
Gibbons’ carved panel ‘The Stoning of St Stephen’ is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The
estate itself was bought by William Hallett, who built a relatively modest house in the site. Following his death in 1781 the estate passed though several owners before eventually being purchased
by its current occupants, the North London Collegiate School, in 1929.
— Claremont House
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Sir John Vanburgh, the architect responsible for the creation of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, built Claremont as his own residence in 1708. In 1714, describing it as a ‘very small box’, such
was its size relative to Vanburgh’s grander buildings, it was sold to the wealthy politician Thomas
Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare, who later became the Duke of Newcastle and served twice as Prime
Minister. Pelham-Holles commissioned Vanburgh to expand the house, and two great wings were
added, along with a fortress-like turret on the adjoining knoll to act as a viewing tower over the
Surrey countryside. On the Pelham-Holles death in 1768 the house was sold to Lord Robert Clive.
Lord Clive demolished the building as it was by then out of fashion and supposedly built on damp
ground. Clive engaged the architect Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, who took on his future son-inlaw Henry Holland to assist on the project. Despite the vast building project he had undertaken at
Claremont, Lord Clive never actually lived at the house, dying the year the house was finished. Over
the next 100 years Claremont has various owners. In 1882, having enjoyed visits as a child, Queen
Victoria bought the building for her youngest son, Prince Leopold when he married the German
Princess Helena. The marriage was tragically short as Leopold died following a fall in 1884. Helena
was pregnant with their second child at the time and the son she bore, Charles, a German citizen,
served as a general in the German army during the First World War. Consequently the British government refused to allow him to inherit Claremont on his mother’s death in 1922. The house was
sold to Sir William Corry, director of the Cunard Shipping Line. Corry made many improvements to
the house but began to sell parts of the park to housing developers. Corry died in 1926 and in 1928
Claremont was, ironically, sold to a wealthy German financier. When the mansion and remaining
grounds came up for sale in 1930, it was bought by the Governors of a London school. Claremont
School merged with a boys’ preparatory school, Fan Court, in 1978 and has since been known as
Claremont Fan Court School, based in the mansion commissioned by Lord Clive. Fifty acres of the
remaining grounds were acquired by the National Trust in 1949. The Claremont Landscape Garden has been restored to its former glory. The tower on the knoll above Claremont, which had been
added at the request of Pelham-Holles survives intact as Belvedere Tower, owned by the school but
periodically opened to the public with the assistance of the National Trust.
— Coleshill House
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Small but perfectly formed, Coleshill House was architecturally groundbreaking in its day. Completed around 1662, its simple and logical layout was new to England. Its designer, Roger Pratt, went
on to become a Royal Commissioner for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. In
1668 he was knighted by Charles II, becoming the first architect to receive such an honour. Roger
Pratt designed the house for his cousin, Sir George Pratt. Fashionable European houses inspired
the design, but he laid out the house to meet the needs of an English country gentleman. The symmetrical plan meant Pratt had to put the main staircase into a central hall. The hall couldn’t be used
as a dining room, but it made a grand entrance hall for visitors to the house. Sir George was not
hugely wealthy, so Coleshill House was not as grand as other houses from the time. Yet no expense
was spared on the plasterwork and carving of the richly ornate ceilings and entrance hall staircase.
For many years the Pleydell Bouverie family lived in the house. The unexpected destruction of the
house came only a few years after it was sold to Ernest Cook at the end of the Second World War.
— Eastbury Park
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Work on Eastbury Park began in 1718 when the owner of the site, Lord of the Admiralty George
Doddington, commissioned Sir John Vanburgh to design him a new and suitably impressive mansion. Vanburgh had earned his reputation through Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard and Eastbury was the third large house that Vanburgh designed. The park and formal gardens were similarly impressive, being designed by Charles Bridgeman, who also created the gardens at Hyde Park
and Kensington Gardens. Doddington did not live to see the mansion completed. On his death in
1720 the estate passed to Doddington’s nephew, George Bubb, who assumed the name George
Bubb Doddington, and in 1738 the house was finally completed. Bubb Doddington was known for
his extravagant habits and social climbing. Born the son of an apothecary in Weymouth, he courted notable individuals, such as the Prince of Wales, and attracted the scorn of contemporary poet
Alexander Pope, who wrote of Bubb ‘he is too much a half-wit to love a true wit, and too much
half-honest to esteem any entire merit…. I must affront to be rid of him.’ From contemporary descriptions it appears that Bubb Doddington was an overweight dandy and member of the Hell Fire
Club (an eighteenth century club for high society rakes). On Bubb Doddington’s death in 1762, subsequent heirs were unable to afford the maintenance of Eastbury. The magnificent furniture was
sold off in 1763. In 1775 its owner George, 2nd Earl Temple of Stowe, sent instructions from Italy to
his steward, William Doggett, requesting the dismantling of the wings of the house. Doggett had
the main house and south wing dismantled, sold the materials and pocketed the money. On later
realising that the Earl was planning to return from Italy and discover the scale of his destruction
and theft, Doggett killed himself, giving rise to a number of ghost stories associated with the site.
What remained of the house was leased to Thomas Wedgewood, of the pottery family, between
1800 and 1805. On Wedgewood’s death the house was sold to the renowned sportsman James John
Farquarson, whose family still own it today.
— Eaton Hall
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
The Eaton estate had been home to the Grosvenor family since the 1400s and the main house
was rebuilt several times throughout their ownership to keep up with the various fashions of each
era. When the 1st Earl of Grosvenor died in 1802, he was succeeded by his son, who engaged the
architect William Porden to create a large lateGeorgian Gothic Mansion to replace the ‘unfashionable and rundown’ previous house. Building started in 1803 and Porden estimated it would take
three years to build at a cost of £10,000 - almost £800,00 today. It actually took almost 10 years to
build and a cost of over £100,000 – around £5,500,000 today. The previous house was encased and
surrounded by ‘every possible permutation of the gothic style’ including turrets, pinnacles, arched
windows, octagonal towers, and buttresses. Two new wings were added in the first stage, and in
the 1820s more wings were added, but this time under the direction of Benjamin Gummow. The
interior of the house was as lavish as the exterior, with even more Gothic detailing. The hangings
for the state bed included almost 100 meters of purple damask and fine silk trimmed with gold
lace. When the future Queen Victoria visited in 1832 at the age of 13, she wrote in her journal: ‘The
house is magnificent’ although others described it as ‘extravagant and opulent as the very latest
upholstererdecorators could make it’. A critic found it ‘the most gaudy concern I ever saw’. Richard
Grosvenor, succeeded his father in 1845 and commissioned the Scottish architect William Burn to
make alterations to the house. Burn raised the centre of the south front to make it look like a tower,
and changed some of the external Gothic features. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner
described this house as a ‘spectacular Gothic mansion’. By the time the 3rd Earl (later the 1st Duke
of Westminster from 1874) inherited the mansion, the gothic style was very unfashionable and the
Duke felt it necessary to rebuild. By 1881, the elaborate gothic mansion was replaced by an enormous Victorian palace.
— Garth Hall
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
From 1717 there was a house on the site in Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, built for Richard Mytton.
But is was his grandson who commissioned John Claudius Loudon to build the new house and
stables in1809. John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish landscape gardener and architect. Loudon
was the most influential horticultural journalist of his time and his writings helped shape Victorian
taste in gardens, public parks and domestic architecture. Garth Hall, or The Garth, remained in the
family until World War II but was then abandoned and used by the army as a munitions depot. The
highly ornate, early 19th century house and stables, designed by Loudon, were demolished after
the war after its content auctioned off. Remnants of the ornamental grounds include a terrace, two
lakes and the remains of a kitchen garden. In 1954 the site passed to the local council and much of
it is now used as farmland.
— Hamilton Palace
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
Hamilton Palace was the family seat of the Hamilton’s from approximately 1591 until 1919. There
had been buildings on the site since the 1300s, but in 1695 the 3rd Duke and Duchess of Hamilton
began an ambitious programme of building aiming to transform the existing Hamilton Palace into
the largest country house in Scotland. The work included the addition of a new south front in the
Palladian style. This style had never been used before in Scotland and comprised of an enormous,
Corinthian pediment portico, designed by the architect James Smith. More transformative work,
however, was undertaken by Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton, who enlarged the building from
1819 by adding a new north front and a servants’ wing, additional offices and stabling, all executed by the leading architect in Glasgow at the time, David Hamilton. The designs were structured
around plans drawn up by William Adam in the 1730s, which the financial and health concerns of
the 5th Duke had prevented from being executed. The 10th Duke had also amassed a large and
enviable art collection, including works by Rubens, Titian and van Dyck, and matched the opulence of the newly extended palace. Much of these works had come to the Duke through marriage
to his distant cousin Susan Beckford, daughter of the creator of Fonthill Abbey, William Thomas
Beckford. The extent of building and art collecting that the 10th Duke and his successors indulged
in led to mounting debts. In 1882 many of the Palace’s artworks were sold at Christies, making the
equivalent of £24,000,000 today. The Hamilton’s ability to indulge in such projects had been bankrolled by their ownership of the profitable Lanarkshire coalfields, but the mining that founded the
family’s financial success also brought about its downfall. In 1882 the 12th Duke of Hamilton began
leasing out mineral rights on the Palace grounds. This eventually caused subsidence and began
to threaten the stability of the Palace. In 1919 the mining company refused the Hamilton’s request
to give up their lease. The Palace became unsustainable and the Hamilton’s moved to Dungavel
House, their hunting lodge near Strathaven. In 1921 the Palace was sold to demolition contractors.
The Palace Grounds today are home to a retail park and a sports complex. The Mausoleum, the
hunting lodge and the ducal buildings that make up Low Parks Museum all survive.
— Hamstead Marshall
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
The mother of the 1st Earl of Craven bought the estate in 1620 for her young son William Craven,
who was knighted in 1627 in recognition of his services in the Netherlands and made Lord Craven
of Hampstead Marshall the same year. Craven decided to build a grand palace on the site for Elizabeth, the sister of King Charles I & dispossessed Queen of Bohemia with whom he had fallen deeply in love. Elizabeth died before construction work had even begun, but William continued with the
building as a monument to her memory. The grand house at Hamstead Marshall was designed by
Sir Balthazar Gerbier with the assistance of William Wynne. Gerbier was an AngloDutch courtier,
diplomat, art advisor, miniaturist and architectural designer. When Gerbier died at Hampstead
Marshall either in 1663 (according to a petition to the king from his daughters who asked for £4000
in unpaid salary) or in 1667 (according to Gerbier’s monument in the local church) Wynne took
over the design and build. The house appears to have taken the next thirty-four years to complete.
Papers in the Bodleian Library in Oxford give a detailed description of work on the house, which
continued for the rest of the 17th century. They include 40 drawings that show designs for gateposts, porticoes, stabling and a floor plan with 30 rooms including a ‘withdrawing room to repair
the records’ a ‘room to repose after bathing’ and a distillery, spicery, confectioner’s room and ‘Lardery’. In 1718 Hamstead Marshall burned to the ground when a brazier was left untended on the
roof. The mansion’s ownership by the Craven family continued uninterrupted until the mid-21st
century. Very little is left on this site although the original palace gates still stand and it is said that
some of the mansions basements still exist underground.
— Holdenby
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
“ the best house that hath been built in this age. I will say, as I think, that,
for a gentleman’s dwelling of most honour and estimation, it is the best
and most considerate built house that yet mine eyes have ever seen “
Sir Thomas Heneage in a letter to Sir Christopher Hatton July 5th 1583. The
Elizabethan Lord chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton built Holdenby
House in 1583 and it became the largest private house to be built
during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. Having built the palace in honour of
his beloved Queen, it is believed that after the house’s completion,
Hatton refused to spend a single night at Holdenby until Queen Elizabeth
I had slept there herself. The palace captured some of the new and
fashionable styles seen in renaissance architecture that had spread
from Italy, and is particularly demonstrated in the mullioned windows,
symmetrical facades and open Doric arcades.
Hatton died in 1591, shortly after the completion of the grand house,
having been financially ruined by his ambitious venture. The house
passed to Hatton’s nephew and was later purchased by King James I in
1607. James I used the palace to entertain his friends. It was held by the
Crown for a further four decades until in the wake of the English Civil War,
it was used as a prison to incarcerate Charles I. He plotted to escape but
Cromwell sent 500 soldiers to remove him to more secure surroundings –
events that ultimately lead to Charles I’s execution.
Subsequently the Palace was reduced to a single wing, on the
instruction of Holdenby’s new owner, the Parliamentarian Adam Baynes.
The Duke of Marlborough bought the house in 1709, and since this time
ownership has passed down the female line to the Lowther family, who
own the property to this day.
Today Holdenby House is open to the public and used as a venue for
corporate events and weddings.
— Wanstead House
Collage on Paper, 31½ x 43½ ins £4,000
In 1715 Sir Richard Child commissioned the Scottish architect Colen
Campbell to replace his current residence with a grand mansion in
the new Palladian style. This was completed in 1722. The estate passed
through the family until it reached Catherine Tylney-Long in 1805, making
her the richest heiress in England.
In 1812 Catherine married the MP William Wellesly-Pole. Upon the
marriage, the estate was conveyed to a trust with the lifetime
arrangements of £4,500 per annum to Catherine and the remainder to
Wellesly-Pole. A newspaper report of 1814 commented that Wellesly was
“…fitting up Wanstead House in a style of magnificence exceeding even
Cartlton House (the Prince Regent’s Palace in Pall Mall). The whole of the
interior will present one uniform blaze of burnished gold”.
In 1822, Wellesly-Pole mortgaged the marriage settlement trust that
owned Wanstead House and its contents to his creditors in order to settle
a £250,000 debt. Wellesly-Pole then obtained the position of Usher to
King George IV (himself a renowned debtor), which gave immunity from
arrest for debt, before fleeing the country. The trustees auctioned off
Wanstead House’s contents in a sale that lasted 32 days. In 1825, having
been unable to find a buyer for Wanstead House, demolition began.
The sale of the building materials raised £10,000; initial building costs had
been in the region of £360,000.
In 1825 Catherine made their sons Wards in Chancery and started
divorce proceedings. She changed her will in favour of the children,
disinheriting her husband, before dying a few months later at the age
of 35. Sir George Dallas praised Catherine’s beauty, piety and virtue in
an epitaph, writing that ‘few of her sex ever commenced life with more
brilliant prospects, or closed it under a darker cloud’.
John Martin Gallery
38 Albemarle Street
London, W1S 4 JG
T +44 (0)20 7499 1314
[email protected]
Mon-Fri 10-6
Sat 10-2