Journal Article

A palace for an ‘English country squire’: early designs for Harlaxton Manor, Lincolnshire

Knox, Tim

1993

Overview

‘Mr Gregory may be said to have accomplished one of the greatest domestic architectural works of his time; and Harlaxton will be a lasting monument to posterity of his taste and perseverance’. So wrote the noted genealogist James Burke in 1853 of Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire, the house and gardens of which, he asserted, ‘show that a plain English country gentleman of moderate fortune can erect a pile which might be envied by the greatest princes of the continent’. Harlaxton still survives as testimony to the caprice of its patron Gregory Gregory and as justification for Burke’s encomium. However, despite the splendour of the ensemble few contemporary descriptions of it survive and documentation relating to the design of the house is tantalizingly incomplete. The discovery of four previously unrecorded designs for Harlaxton is therefore of considerable importance to our understanding of this early and sophisticated mansion in the revived Jacobean taste. The newly discovered drawings are designs attributed to Anthony Salvin (1799–1881), architect of the house, and comprise pen and watercolour perspective views of the house from the north-west, south, and west, and a proposal for the staircase hall. The drawings date from c. 1831–32 and are among the earliest surviving designs for the house.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press,Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain
• Subject: Architectural design / Design / Halls / Home gardens / Houses / Jacobean era / Manor houses / Mansions / Staircases / Windows