Lady Wedgwood

This excerpt from the history of Harlaxton Manor, its construction, interiors and inhabitants, is reproduced from the Harlaxton Manor Guide Book (©Harlaxton College 1984).

The difference between Victorian architecture and other revivals is a double one. The Victorians set about resuscitating everything at once instead of one thing at a time; and they did it, not in the sense of reverent imitation, but of open rivalry. Only a society that believed in the concepts of evolution and progress could attempt to improve upon the sum of artistic achievement of the past. If the weakness of Georgian architecture was restraint, the failing of the Victorian was hubris. Every aspect of the Victorian ambiance can be demonstrated succinctly at Harlaxton. It is the more astonishing that the date of Victoria's accession is inscribed, not on the foundation stone, but on the parapet and that the house was well under way in the year 1835 when 'Elizabethan' was first officially recognised as a respectable style to imitate in the competition for the Houses of Parliament. The exterior of Harlaxton challenges Burghley with a dash of Montacute round the hem. The circumstance of the site means that Salvin's Romantic massing is placed with a nearly northern aspect, with the happy result that the main facade is veiled most of the time in nebulous shadow, giving this Pelion upon Ossa the quality that has captivated, to our enrichment, the imagination of John Piper.

Architecture was the all-consuming passion of two remarkable nineteenth-century patrons: Gregory Gregory and Ludwig II of Bavaria - yet Gregory is the forerunner. Ludwig's mind we know, was bent upon realising around him the Valhalla of Wagner. Gregory's we can only guess, was stocked with Scott and Coleridge, Byron and perhaps Goethe and Beethoven's Fidelio. His equivalent, more fairly, was Ludwig 1, but while Hohenschoengau has the castellar flavour that Harlaxton lost when the assorted suits of armour of the Great Hall were dispersed, its dreams are mostly carried out in paint, while Harlaxton's are in three dimensions. C. S. Lewis said in a very different context that the inside is larger than the outside: nowhere in England could this architectural magic be demonstrated better than in the Cedar Staircase. Externally it is hardly detectable. Internally the giants attempt Olympus and nearly get there.

This beautifully produced book gives a taste of the range of Harlaxton's surprises. In that rare survival, the Conservatory, architectural capriccios appear to emerge from the greenery rather like elephants dancing a minuet. The Gold Drawing Room and the Ante-room show how discerning Gregory was in picking up the boiseries of the French chateaux after their Revolution; Waddesden and Polesden Lacey have here and at Belvoir their forebears. We can only laugh at the effrontery of the Great Hall where Salvin's intended 'Tudorbethan' was carried out with the help of atlantes that are country cousins of the figures at Schloss Bruld. It is all on a scale of daring, a reckless mixing of aesthetic drinks, that in sum disarms.

But one mixture has not been at all reckless: the coming together in this book of so many of the most distinguished historians and art historians at present working on this period. We are very proud of our friends within these covers; we are grateful to them for the generosity with which they have been ready to work together to produce the first serious offering on this amazing house. Many lovely discoveries have been made in the course of the endeavour: best and brightest being perhaps the first publication here, by courtesy of Sir Bruno Welby, of Salvin's original water-colour perspectives of the house.

The discerning reader will observe, as he compares the entries, delicate shades of opinion between the scholars as to the responsibilities of the architects who finished the interior. Now there are so many hounds upon the trail, more documents will be traced: until they are, we are at liberty to form our own opinions.

Why did Gregory change architect in midstream? The Foreword is perhaps the place for speculation, and my guess is that he required Salvin to incorporate storehouses of doorways, chimney-pieces, panelling and even funerary monuments into his rooms, and Salvin refused to comply. So Gregory found others more prepared to absorb, if need be, a ton or two of other people's pediments into the decor. The sometimes frantic ingenuity with which this conundrum was resolved is one of the perennial fascinations of Harlaxton.

Our gratitude to everyone concerned - to the Government, whose Historic Buildings Council Grants help to put this noble pile into shape again; to Dr William Ridgway and the University of Evansville who are proud of their magnificent campus; to the American students who love this place and treat it with the respect which is its due; and above all to the interchange of scholarly generosity which has brought this book about, and is of a piece with the house. And that to quote the earlier architectural dictum has 'outwardly a gravid in Publicke Places, whear ther is nothing els looked for, yet [is] inwardley with immaginacy set on fire, and sumtimes licenciously flying out'. Thus Inigo Jones in 1615: thus Harlaxton.

Pamela Tudor-Craig, PhD, FSA (Lady Wedgwood)