John Nash | |
|---|---|
 Bust of Nash at All Souls, Langham Place | |
| Born | (1752-01-18)18 January 1752 Lambeth, London, England |
| Died | 13 May 1835(1835-05-13) (aged 83) East Cowes Castle, Isle of Wight, England |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings | |
John Nash (18 January 1752 – 13 May 1835) was an English architect of theGeorgian andRegency eras. He was responsible for the design, in theneoclassical andpicturesque styles, of many important areas of London. His designs were financed bythe Prince Regent and by the era's most successful property developer,James Burton. Nash also collaborated extensively with Burton's son,Decimus Burton.[1]
Nash's best-known solo designs are theRoyal Pavilion,Brighton;Marble Arch; andBuckingham Palace. His best-known collaboration with James Burton isRegent Street and his best-known collaborations with Decimus Burton areRegent's Park and its terraces andCarlton House Terrace. The majority of his buildings, including those that the Burtons did not contribute to, were built by James Burton's company.
Nash was born in 1752, probably inLambeth, south London.[a] His father was amillwright also called John (1714–1772).[5] From 1766 or 1767, Nash trained with the architect SirRobert Taylor. The apprenticeship was completed in 1775 or 1776.[6]
On 28 April 1775, at the now-demolished church of St MaryNewington, Nash married his first wife Jane Elizabeth Kerr, daughter of a surgeon.[6] Initially, he seems to have pursued a career as asurveyor, builder and carpenter. This gave him an income of around £300 a year (~£49,850 in 2020 money).[8] The couple set up home at Royal Row, Lambeth.[6]
He established his own architectural practice in 1777 as well as being in partnership with a timber merchant, Richard Heaviside.[6][9][page needed] The couple had two children, both were baptised atSt Mary-at-Lambeth, John on 9 June 1776 and Hugh on 28 April 1778.[6]
In June 1778, Nash, "by the ill conduct of his wife found it necessary to send her into Wales in order to work a reformation on her."[10] The cause of this appears to have been the claim that Jane Nash, "had imposed two spurious children on him as his and her own, notwithstanding she had then never had any child", and she had contracted several debts unknown to her husband, including one for milliners' bills of £300.[11] The claim that Jane had faked her pregnancies and then passed babies she had acquired off as her own was brought before theConsistory court of theBishop of London.[12] His wife was sent toAberavon to lodge with Nash's cousin, Ann Morgan, but she developed a relationship with a local man, Charles Charles. In an attempt at reconciliation, Jane returned to London in June 1779, but she continued to act extravagantly so he sent her to another cousin, Thomas Edwards ofNeath. She gave birth just after Christmas and acknowledged Charles Charles as the father.[13] In 1781, Nash instigated action against Jane for separation on grounds ofadultery. The case was tried atHereford in 1782. Charles, who was found guilty, was unable to pay the damages of £76 (~£13,200 in 2020 money) and subsequently died in prison.[13] The divorce was finally read 26 January 1787.[12]
His career was initially unsuccessful and short-lived. After inheriting £1000 (~£162,000 in 2020 money)[14] in 1778 from his uncle Thomas, he invested the money in his first independent works, 15–17Bloomsbury Square and 66–71Great Russell Street inBloomsbury. However, the property failed to let and he was declared bankrupt on 30 September 1783.[15] His debts were £5000 (~£760,000 in 2020 money),[12] including £2000 he had been lent byRobert Adam and his brothers.[15] Ablue plaque commemorating Nash was placed on 66 Great Russell Street byEnglish Heritage in 2013.[16]
Nash's early career demonstrates his dual capacity as architect and engineer. According to architectural historianJohn Summerson, Nash was "the last English architect to consider himself not only an architect but an engineer".[17]
Nash left London in 1784 to live inCarmarthen,[10]Wales, where his mother had retired (her family was from the area).[18] In 1785, he and a local man, Samuel Simon Saxon, re-roofed the town's church for 600guineas.[10] Nash and Saxon seem to have worked as building contractors and suppliers of building materials.[19] Nash's London buildings had been standard Georgian terraced houses.
In Wales, he matured as an architect. His first major work in the area was the first of three prisons he would design, Carmarthen 1789–92.[20] This was planned by the penal reformerJohn Howard and Nash developed this into the finished building.[21] He went on to design the prisons atCardigan (1791–1796) andHereford (1792–1796).[22] It was at Hereford that Nash metRichard Payne Knight,[23] whose theories on the picturesque as applied to architecture and landscape would influence Nash. The commission for Hereford Gaol came after the death ofWilliam Blackburn, who was to have designed the building. Nash's design was accepted afterJames Wyatt approved of the design.[24]
In 1789,St Davids Cathedral was suffering from structural problems. Its west front was leaning forward by one foot, and Nash was hired to survey the structure and develop a plan to save the building.[25] His solution, completed in 1791, was to demolish the upper part of the façade and rebuild it with two large but inelegant flying buttresses. In 1790, Nash metUvedale Price, of Downtown Castle, whose theories of thePicturesque would influence Nash's town planning. Price commissioned Nash to design Castle HouseAberystwyth (1795). Its plan took the form of a right-angled triangle, with an octagonal tower at each corner, sited on the very edge of the sea.[26]
One of Nash's most important developments were a series of medium-sized country houses that he designed in Wales, which developed the villa designs of his teacher Sir Robert Taylor.[10] Most of these villas consist of a roughly square plan with a small entrance hall and a staircase offset in the middle to one side, around which are placed the main rooms. There is then a less prominentservants' quarters in a wing attached to one side of the villa. The buildings are usually only two floors in height and the elevations of the main block are usually symmetrical. One of the finest of these villas isLlanerchaeron, but at least a dozen villas were designed throughout south Wales. Others, in Pembrokeshire, includeFfynone, built for the Colby family at Boncath, nearManordeifi, and Foley House, built for the lawyer Richard Foley (brother of AdmiralSir Thomas Foley) at Goat Street inHaverfordwest.[27]
From 1796, Nash spent most of his time working in London; this was a prelude to his return to the capital in 1797.[28] At this time, Nash designed the delicateGothic Revival gateway toClytha Park nearAbergavenny inMonmouthshire,[29] and also his alterations in Gothic Revival style in 1794 toHafod Uchtryd forThomas Johnes atDevil's Bridge,Cardiganshire.[30] Also in c. 1794–95 he advised on the paving, lighting and water supply inAbergavenny and designed an elegant market building.[31] Other work includedWhitson Court, nearNewport. After his return to London, Nash continued to design houses in Wales including Harpton Court inRadnorshire, which was demolished, apart from the service wing, in 1956.[32] In 1807 he drew up plans for the re-building ofHawarden Castle with Gothic battlements and towers, but the plan appears to have been modified by another architect when it was carried out.[33] In about 1808, he designed Monachty, nearAberaeron, and later drew up plans for work atNanteos.[32]
He metHumphry Repton atStoke Edith in 1792[34] and formed a successful partnership with the landscape garden designer. One of their early commissions was atCorsham Court in 1795–96. The pair would collaborate to carefully place the Nash-designed building in grounds designed by Repton. The partnership ended in 1800 under recriminations,[35] Repton accusing Nash of exploiting their partnership to his own advantage. As Nash developed his architectural practice, it became necessary to employdraughtsmen; the first in the early 1790s wasAugustus Charles Pugin,[19] and later in 1795,John Adey Repton, son of Humphry.[19]
In June 1797, Nash moved into 28Dover Street, a building of his own design. He built a larger house next door at 29, into which he moved the following year.[36] Nash married 25-year-old Mary Anne Bradley on 17 December 1798 atSt George's, Hanover Square.[36] In 1798, he purchased a plot of land of 30 acres (12 ha) atEast Cowes on which he erected 1798–1802East Cowes Castle as his residence.[37] It was the first of a series ofpicturesque Gothic castles that he would design.
Nash's final home in London was 14 Regent Street which he designed and built 1819–23. Number 16 was built at the same time for the home of Nash's cousinJohn Edwards,[38] a lawyer who handled all of Nash's legal affairs.[39] Located in lower Regent Street, near Waterloo Place, both houses formed a single design around an open courtyard. Nash's drawing office was on the ground floor, and on the first floor was the finest room in the house, the 70-foot (21 m) long picture and sculpture gallery; it linked the drawing room at the front of the building with the dining room at the rear.[40] The house was sold in 1834, and the gallery interior moved to East Cowes Castle.
The finest of the dozencountry houses that Nash designed as picturesque castles include the relatively smallLuscombe CastleDevon (1800–04);[41]Ravensworth Castle (Tyne and Wear), begun in 1807 but only finally completed in 1846, which was one of the largest houses by Nash;[42]Caerhays Castle inCornwall (1808–10);[43] andShanbally Castle,County Tipperary (1818–1819), which was the last of these castles to be built.[44] These buildings all represented Nash's continuing development of an asymmetrical and picturesque architectural style that had begun during his years in Wales, at both Castle House Aberystwyth and his alterations toHafod Uchtryd.[45]
This process would be extended by Nash in planning groups of buildings, the first example beingBlaise Hamlet (1810–1811). There a group of nine asymmetrical cottages was laid out around a village green.Nikolaus Pevsner described the hamlet as "thene plus ultra of the Picturesque movement".[45] The hamlet has also been described as the first fully realized exemplar of thegarden suburb.[46] Nash developed the asymmetry of his castles in hisItalianate villas. His first such exercise wasCronkhill (1802),[47] and others includedSandridge Park (1805)[48] and Southborough Place,Surbiton(1808).[49]
He advised on work to thebuildings of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1815,[50] for which he required no fee but asked that the college commission a portrait of him from SirThomas Lawrence to hang in the college hall.[51]
Nash was a dedicatedWhig[52] and was a friend ofCharles James Fox through whom Nash probably came to the attention of the Prince Regent (later KingGeorge IV). In 1806 Nash was appointed architect to theSurveyor General of Woods, Forests, Parks, and Chases.[53] From 1810 Nash would take very few private commissions and for the rest of his career he would largely work for the Prince.[54] His employment by the Prince Regent enabled Nash to embark upon a number of grand architectural projects.[55]
His first major commissions in (1809–1826)[56] from the Prince wereRegent Street and the development of an area then known asMarylebone Park. With the Regent's backing, Nash created a master plan for the area, put into effect from 1818 onwards, which stretched from St James's northwards and includedRegent Street,Regent's Park (1809–1832)[57] and its neighbouring streets, terraces and crescents of elegant townhouses and villas. Nash did not design all the buildings himself. In some instances, these were left in the hands of other architects such asJames Pennethorne and the youngDecimus Burton.
In 1814, Nash designed and erected a remarkable temporary structure known as the 'Polygon Room' or Rotunda in the gardens ofCarlton House for thePrince Regent's Wellington Fête of 21 July.[58] This 116-foot diameter structure employed pioneering structural techniques including:
The building survived the celebrations and was dismantled in 1818, then re-erected atWoolwich where it served as the Royal Artillery Museum until 2001. The structural innovations developed for the Rotunda directly influenced Nash's subsequent designs for the tent roofs at theRoyal Pavilion, Brighton (1817), where similar laminated timber construction was employed.[60]
Nash later proposed converting the Rotunda structure into a church for theChurch Building Commission, demonstrating its potential for economical construction at £6,893 compared to the typical £10,000 budget for new churches.[61]
Nash went on to re-landscapeSt. James's Park (1814–1827),[62] reshaping the formal canal into the present lake, and giving the park its present form. A characteristic of Nash's plan for Regent Street was that it followed an irregular path linkingPortland Place to the north withCarlton House, London (replaced by Nash's Carlton House Terrace (1827–1833),[63] to the south. At the northern end of Portland Place Nash designedPark Crescent, London (1812 and 1819–1821),[64] this opens into Nash'sPark Square, London (1823–24),[65] this only has terraces on the east and west, the north opens into Regent's Park.
The terraces that Nash designed around Regent's Park though conforming to the earlier form of appearing as a single building, as developed byJohn Wood, the Elder, are unlike earlier examples set in gardens and are notorthogonal in their placing to each other. This was part of Nash's development of planning, a most extreme example of this was found when he set out Park Village East and Park Village West (1823–34) to the north-east of Regent's Park,[66] here, a mixture of detached villas, semi-detached houses, both symmetrical and asymmetrical in their design are set out in private gardens railed off from the street, the roads loop and the buildings are both classical and gothic in style. No two buildings were the same, and or even in line with their neighbours. The park villages can be seen as the prototype for theVictorian suburbs.[67]
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Nash was employed by the Prince from 1815 to develop his Marine Pavilion in Brighton,[68] originally designed byHenry Holland. By 1822 Nash had finished his work on the Marine Pavilion, which was now transformed into theRoyal Pavilion. The exterior was based onMughal architecture, giving the building its exotic form, theChinoiserie style interiors are largely the work ofFrederick Crace.[69]
Nash was also a director of theRegent's Canal Company set up in 1812 to provide acanal link from west London to theRiver Thames in the east.[70] Nash's master plan provided for the canal to run around the northern edge of Regent's Park; as with other projects, he left its execution to one of his assistants, in this caseJames Morgan. The first phase of the Regent's Canal was completed in 1816 and finally completed in 1820.[71]
Together withRobert Smirke and SirJohn Soane, he became an official architect to theOffice of Works in 1813[72] (although the appointment ended in 1832) at a salary of £500 per annum (£57,810 in 2020 money).[73] Following the death in September of that year ofJames Wyatt, this marked the high point in his professional life. As part of Nash's new position, he was invited to advise the ParliamentaryCommissioners on the building of new churches from 1818 onwards.[74] Nash produced ten church designs, each estimated to cost around £10,000 (£1.2 million in 2020 money) with seating capacity for 2000 people;[75] the style of the buildings were both classical and gothic. In the end, Nash only built two churches for the Commission: the classicalAll Souls Church, Langham Place (1822–24), terminating the northern end of Regent Street, and the gothicSt. Mary's Haggerston (1825–27), bombed duringThe Blitz in 1941.[76]
Nash was involved in the design of two of London's theatres, both inHaymarket. The King's Opera House (now rebuilt asHer Majesty's Theatre) (1816–1818) where he and George Repton remodelled the theatre, with arcades and shops around three sides of the building, the fourth being the still surviving Royal Opera Arcade.[77] The other theatre was theTheatre Royal Haymarket (1821), with its fine hexastyleCorinthian orderportico, which still survives, facing downCharles II Street toSt. James's Square, Nash's interior no longer survives (the interior now dates from 1904).[78]
In 1820 a scandal broke, when a cartoon was published[79] showing a half-dressed King George IV embracing Nash's wife with a speech bubble coming from the King's mouth containing the words "I have great pleasure in visiting this part of my dominions". Whether this was based on just a rumour put about by people who resented Nash's success or if there is substance behind is not known. Further London commissions for Nash followed, including the remodelling of Buckingham House to createBuckingham Palace (1825–1830),[80]and for theRoyal Mews (1822–24)[81] andMarble Arch (1828).[82] The arch was originally designed as atriumphal arch to stand at the entrance to Buckingham Palace. It was moved when the east wing of the palace designed byEdward Blore was built, at the request ofQueen Victoria whose growing family required additional domestic space. Marble Arch became the entrance toHyde Park and theGreat Exhibition.
The parents of John Nash, and Nash himself during his childhood, lived inSouthwark,[83] whereJames Burton worked as an "Architect and Builder" and developed a positive reputation for prescient speculative building between 1785 and 1792.[84] Burton built theBlackfriars Rotunda in Great Surrey Street (nowBlackfriars Road) to house theLeverian Museum,[85] for land agent and museum proprietorJames Parkinson.[86] However, whereas Burton was vigorously industrious, and quickly became "most gratifyingly rich",[87] Nash's early years in private practice, and his first speculative developments, which failed either to sell or let, were unsuccessful, and his consequent financial shortage was exacerbated by the "crazily extravagant" wife whom he had married before he had completed his training, until he was declared bankrupt in 1783.[88]
To repair his finances, Nash cultivated the acquaintance of James Burton, who consented to patronize him.[89] James Burton responsible for the social and financial patronage of the majority of Nash's London designs,[90] in addition to for their construction.[91] Architectural scholar Guy Williams has written, "John Nash relied on James Burton for moral and financial support in his great enterprises. Decimus had showed precocious talent as a draughtsman and as an exponent of the classical style... John Nash needed the son's aid, as well as the father's".[92]
Subsequent to theCrown Estate's refusal to finance them, James Burton agreed to personally finance the construction projects of Nash atRegent's Park, which he had already been commissioned to construct.[85][91] Consequently, in 1816, Burton purchased many of the leases of the proposed terraces around, and proposed villas within, Regent's Park and, in 1817, Burton purchased the leases of five of the largest blocks on Regent Street.[85] The first property to be constructed in or around Regent's Park by Burton was his own mansion:The Holme, which was designed by his son,Decimus Burton, and completed in 1818.[85] Burton's extensive financial involvement "effectively guaranteed the success of the project".[85] In return, Nash agreed to promote the career of Decimus Burton.[85]
Nash was a vehement advocate of the neoclassical revival endorsed byJohn Soane, although he had lost interest in the plain stone edifices typical of the Georgian style, and instead advocated the use of stucco.[93] Decimus Burton entered the office of Nash in 1815,[94] where he worked alongsideAugustus Charles Pugin, who detested the neoclassical style.[95] Burton established his own architectural practice in 1821.[96] In 1821, Nash invited Decimus Burton to designCornwall Terrace in Regent's Park, and he was also invited byGeorge Bellas Greenough, a close friend of the Prince Regent,Humphry Davy, and Nash, to designGrove House in Regent's Park.[97]
Greenough's invitation to Decimus Burton was "virtually a family affair", for Greenough had dined frequently with Decimus's parents and brothers, includingthe physician Henry Burton. Greenough and Decimus finalized their designs during numerous meetings at the opera.[98] The design, when the villa had been completed, was described inThe Proceedings of the Royal Society as, "one of the most elegant and successful adaptations of the Grecian style to purposes of modern domestic architecture to be found in this or any country."[99]
Subsequently, Nash invited Decimus to designClarence Terrace, Regent's Park.[99] Such were Decimus Burton's contributions to the Regent's Park project that the Commissioners of Woods described Burton, not Nash, as "the architect of Regent's Park".[100] Contrary to popular belief, the dominant architectural influence in many of the Regent's Park projects – includingCornwall Terrace,York Terrace,Chester Terrace, Clarence Terrace, and the villas of the Inner Circle, includingThe Holme and theLondon Colosseum attraction (the latter toThomas Hornor's specifications)[91][101] all of which were constructed by James Burton's company[85] – was Decimus Burton, not John Nash, who was appointed architectural "overseer" for Burton Jr.'s projects.[100]
Decimus Burton, to Nash's chagrin, developed the Terraces according to his own style to the extent that Nash sought, unsuccessfully, to demolish and completely rebuild Chester Terrace.[85][91][102] Decimus subsequently eclipsed his master and emerged as the dominant force in the design ofCarlton House Terrace,[91] where he exclusively designed No. 3 and No. 4.[103] He also designed some of the villas of the Inner Circle: his villa for the Marquess of Hertford has been described as, "decorated simplicity, such as the hand of taste, aided by the purse of wealth can alone execute".[104]
Nash's career effectively ended with the death of George IV in 1830. The King's notorious extravagance had generated much resentment, and Nash was now without a protector.[105] TheTreasury started to look closely at the cost of Buckingham Palace. Nash's original estimate of the building's cost had been £252,690, but this had risen to £496,169 in 1829;[106] the actual cost was £613,269 (~£69.5 million in 2020 money), and the building was still unfinished. This controversy ensured that Nash would not receive any more official commissions, nor would he be awarded theknighthood that other contemporary architects such asJeffry Wyattville,John Soane andRobert Smirke received. Nash retired to the Isle of Wight to his home,East Cowes Castle.[107]
_(Tomb_of_John_Nash)_(2).JPG)
On 28 March 1835 Nash was described as "very poorly and faint".[108] This was the beginning of the end. On 1 May Nash's solicitor John Wittet Lyon was summonsed to East Cowes Castle[108] to finalise his will. By 6 May he was described as "very ill indeed all day",[109] he died at his home on 13 May 1835. His funeral took place atSt. James's Church, East Cowes on 20 May, where he was buried in the churchyard with a monument in the form of a stonesarcophagus.[110] His widow acted to clear Nash's debts (some £15,000; £1.97 million in 2020 money),[110] she held a sale of the Castle's contents, including three paintings byJ. M. W. Turner painted on the Isle of Wight, four byBenjamin West and several copies of old master paintings byRichard Evans. These artworks were sold atChristie's on 11 July 1835 for £1,061 (~£139,500 in 2020 money).[110] His books, medals, drawings and engravings were bought by a bookseller named Evans for £1,423 on 15 July (~£187,078 in 2020 money). The Castle itself was sold for a reported figure of £20,000 (~£2.63 million in 2020 money) toHenry Boyle, 3rd Earl of Shannon, within the year.[110] Nash's widow retired to a property Nash had bequeathed to her inHampstead where she lived until her death in 1851; she was buried with her husband on the Isle of Wight.[111]
Nash had many pupils and assistants, includingDecimus Burton;Humphry Repton's sons,John Adey Repton andGeorge Stanley Repton;Anthony Salvin; John Foulon (1772–1842);Augustus Charles Pugin; F.H. Greenway;James Morgan;James Pennethorne; and the brothers Henry,James, andGeorge Pain.[112] A particularly important collaborator was William Nixon (d. 1826), whom Nash described as "the most diligent attentive and the most honest Clerk of the Works that I have ever met with".[113] Nixon served as superintendent of works at Carlton House from 1811, and may have been responsible for resolving the structural details of the Rotunda's innovative roof. According to T. F. Hunt, writing in 1830, the Rotunda's roof "was designed or invented by, and executed under the direction of, the late William Nixon".[114] Nixon later supervised Nash's works at Brighton Pavilion and served as superintending Clerk of the Works at Buckingham Palace until his death in 1826.
Works in London include:[b]
The changes made by John Nash to the streetscape of London are documented in the filmJohn Nash and London, featuringEdmund N. Bacon and based on sections of his 1967 bookDesign of Cities.
Work in Wales include:[120]
Nash's only known work in Scotland is:
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