Plates 3.40-3.44: Five Plates of Hedingham Castle
Plate 3.40 shows the keep set within the castle’s inner bailey along with indications of various demolished buildings. At the entrance to the bailey, on the east side, is a Tudor bridge that links the inner bailey to the area of the outer bailey of which only the northern bank survives. Within the area of the lower bailey the eighteenth century manor house is shown along with some ancillary buildings. Along the north side, beyond the baily bank, large areas of woodland are depicted and to the south a tree lined avenue leading up to the mansion house.
Plate 3.41 is dominated by plan views at five levels through the keep, though not including the basement level, with the plan of the entrance floor depicted at four times the size of the other four levels. At the top of the plate on the right hand side, with an orientation at right angles to the plan views, there are external views of the main entrance, with its highly decorated surround, and windows at various levels.
Plate 3.42 is divided into three parts designated as Figures 1-3. Figure 1 occupies the upper half of the plate and is a highly detailed elevation of the south wall. The lower half of the plate mainly involves three main elements including: a plan of the basement level; four internal door surrounds; and details of various column capitals and bases along with some others features. Somewhat confusingly figure 3, as set out in the explanatory account (1796, 13), consists of the left hand side of the plan along with the doorways and column elements.
Plate 3.43 involves a highly detailed sectional drawing throughout the whole height of the building.
Plate 3.44 is an external view of the keep of Hedingham Castle showing the south and west walls with views of the surrounding landscape on either side.
Objects: Hedingham Castle dates to the 1140s and has been described as being “among the finest and most complete examples of 12th-century military architecture in England” (RCHME 1916). The Great Tower or keep is set within a bailey defined by a large bank and ditch. To the east is a lower bailey which is linked to the inner one by a Tudor period bridge of red brick. Within the lower bailey is an eighteenth-century manor house and various outbuildings.
The keep is a five-story building made with a core of flint rubble faced externally and internally with dressed Barnack stone. The floor at ground level originally was only accessed from the entrance floor above, and so acted as a basement level. Above the basement level, the keep extends up a further four stories. When it was built, however, it only extended up three stories internally with the fourth floor windows opening onto pitched roofs. So the building originally involved the basement level, a single story entrance floor and then a double height hall overlooked by an intramural walkway running around the upper level. The hall’s roof was supported, in the middle, by a great arch running east-west. A smaller, now restored, arch is also a feature of the entrance floor below. Later the roof was heightened creating a further floor above the hall.
There is extensive use of chevron ornament, both externally and internally, on the archway tops of windows and doorways. The arch of the main entrance is particularly richly ornamented. The main entrance was originally covered by a fore-building, which survives only in the form of the scars left by its pitched roofs, clearly visible on Plate 3.44.
Transcription:
Plate 3.40:
Scale of Chains
Plan of the Ballium (or inner court) of Hedingham Castle.
Plate 3.41:
Fig. 7.
Scale in feet
Fig. 5.
Fig. 8.
Scale in feet
8H. Loop-Holes to the Ground Floor. Pl. XLII. Fig 2.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 2.
Scale in feet
H.y Emlyn del.
Basire sc.
Plate title, bottom center:
Plans of the Stories & Dungeon, Elevations of the Chief Entrance, Loop-Holes & Windows.
Sumptibus Soc. Antiquar. Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d April 1796.
Plate 3.42:
Fig. 1.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 2.
Scale to the Apertures.
Face of the Arch
Soffit
H.y Emlyn del.
Basire sc.
Plate title, bottom center:
Elevation of the South Front of Hedingham Castle, & of various Apertures, Bases, Columns etc. with a Plan of the ground Floor.
Sumptibus Soc. Antiquar. Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d April 1796.
Plate 3.43:
Scale of Feet.
H.y Emlyn del.
Basire sc.
Section of Hedingham Castle from East to West.
Sumptibus Soc. Antiquar. Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d April 1796.
Plate 3.44:
J. Carter del.
J. Basire sc.
The South West View of Hedingham Castle, in the County of Essex.
Sumptibus Soc. Antiquar. Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d April 1796.
Original Explanatory Account: Click here to read the original explanatory account for Plates 3.40-3.44.
Commentary by Peter Berridge: In April 1796, the last five prints that would form Volume III of Vetusta Monumenta were published by the Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL). These five plates are depictions of Hedingham Castle based on drawings by Henry Emlyn (1729-1815), John Carter (1748-1817), and an unknown artist. As well as descriptive text associated with the plates there was also an explanatory account of the history of the building written by Lewis Majendie (1756-1833), the then owner of the Hedingham Castle estate. While this must surely have started as something of a vanity project for Majendie, his decision to commission a series of drawings from Henry Emlyn represents the shift that was taking place in the approach to depicting a standing, ancient building, not only in the context of Vetusta Monumenta but, more generally, in the depiction of castles in Britain. In particular, in relation to castle depictions, Emlyn’s sectional drawing through the castle keep (Plate 3.43) must rank as one of the first of this type published in Britain. In addition to the work of Emlyn, the plate based on the drawing by Carter can also be viewed as a broader reflection of changing attitudes in relation to portraying ancient monuments.
The Headingham Castle Estate
The Hedingham Castle estate, made up of the Norman castle at Hedingham and extensive lands in the surrounding area, was originally part of the property granted to Aubrey de Vere by William I following the Norman Conquest. It was the first Aubrey’s grandson, also called Aubrey, who, in the 1140s, most probably built the castle. The estate descended through the de Veres, the Earls of Oxford, until the mid-seventeenth century, apart from a brief period at the end of the sixteenth century when it briefly fell into the hands of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. In 1655 the estate became the property of Elizabeth Trentham and her second husband, Bryan Cockayne, second Viscount Cullen. In 1713 it was purchased by Robert Ashurst who, in 1719, was responsible for the building of the mansion house that sits next to the Castle. The estate then passed down through members of the Ashurst family until coming into possession of Elizabeth Ashurst. In 1761 Elizabeth married Sir Henry Hoghton of Hoghton Tower, Lancashire, a Dissenter and M.P. for Preston. The property then passed to their daughter Elizabeth Hoghton and then, on her marriage in 1783, came into the possession of Lewis Majendie, the critical figure in relation to the origin of the Vetusta Monumenta images.
The Majendies were a French Huguenot family who sought refuge in England following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In England the first notable member of the family was John James Majendie (1709-1783) who, after studying at Leyden, was ordained as a priest of the Church of England and became pastor of the French Church of the Savoy. Then, from 1761 to 1769, he was preceptor to Queen Charlotte to whom he taught English and he was also a tutor to her sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. He also served as a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral and a canon of Worcester from 1769. He subsequently served as domestic chaplain to the Queen before being appointed a canon of Windsor in 1774.
Dramatis Personae
At this point, before going on to describe the events leading up to the production of the Hedingham Castle prints, and a discussion of the individual plates, it seems worthwhile to introduce the three main protagonists in the story: Lewis Majendie; John Carter; and Henry Emlyn. In terms of Lewis Majendie, he was the second son of John James Majendie. He had been educated at Charterhouse and the University of Gothenburg, after which he had served in Her Majesty’s 15th Light Dragoons. In 1783, as already mentioned, he married Elizabeth Hoghton and thus came into possession of the Hedingham estate. The younger Majendie was a man of wide interests including agriculture and botany, and he was a founder member of the Linnaean Society as well as a member of the Royal Society. In 1793 he was elected vice-president of the Essex Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture and Industry and in 1794 he was nominated as an honorary member of the Board of Agriculture. Locally he was active as the Lieutenant Colonel of the Eastern Corps of Provisional Cavalry in the county and was involved in preparations for a possible Napoleonic invasion. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for Essex and a justice of the peace. Majendie also had antiquarian interests, perhaps inspired by his association with Hedingham Castle, and in February 1791 he was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (Essex Record Office DD/DMh).
John Carter is a well-known figure, both through his work as an artist and his association with the SAL. Born in 1748, he was the son of Benjamin Carter, a noted marble carver as was his uncle, Thomas, and his cousin, another Thomas. At an early age John was sent to a boarding school at Battersea where he displayed a talent in both music and drawing. This period of formal education, however, ended when he was twelve and began to be involved in his father’s workshop where, in particular, he was involved in producing designs and working drawings for the stone masons. After his father’s death in 1766, with his uncle taking over the family business, the eighteen-year-old John became apprenticed to Joseph Dixon, a surveyor and mason, with whom he gained valuable experience. The quality of his drawings soon began to be noticed more widely and by the early 1770s he was receiving direct commissions. Notably, from 1774 to 1778 he was employed to produce all the drawings and most of the designs engraved in the Builder’s Magazine (Wroth 1885-1900, 200; Crook 1995, 4; Nurse 2011, 214). Though Carter had earlier exhibited some drawings at the Antiquaries, it was in March 1784 that his first formal engagement with them took place when he was employed officially as their draughtsman (Evans 1956, 182; Nurse 2011, 229). This first period of involvement with the SAL was relatively short-lived, ending in December 1785 when Carter, due to a perceived slight, declined to conduct further work (Nurse 2011, 230-31). However, several drawings from this brief period were engraved for Vetusta Monumenta and appeared in Plates 2.36-37 and Plates 2.39-40. It was during this period of estrangement from the SAL that Carter made his first recorded visit to Hedingham Castle (Crook 2011, 248). Around five years later there was a process of reconciliation and in 1790 Carter again began to undertake work for the Society, though tensions would remain, and on 5 March 1795 he was elected as a Fellow (Evans 1956, 191; Nurse 2011, 232, 236; SAL Minutes XXV.519). It was later in the same month that he became directly involved in the matter of Hedingham Castle and Vetusta Monumenta.
In terms of Henry Emlyn he was born in 1729 at Cookham in Berkshire. His father was a bricklayer and, in 1744, Henry followed his father into the building trade when he was apprenticed to a carpenter. Having served his apprenticeship, his prospects were greatly improved when, in 1761, he secured work at Windsor Castle first by the Office of Works and then, from 1773 onwards, also by the Dean and Canons of Windsor. In 1784 he was appointed official Chapter carpenter. His work at Windsor brought him to the attention of George III with the result that he was trusted with the task of supervising a major restoration project at St. George’s Chapel conducted between 1787 and 1790. Emlyn is also notable for a published work entitled A Proposition for a new Order in Architecture (1781). While as a publication this work was relatively well received, going through three editions, it failed to influence other architects and the only two known instances of it being put into practice were by Emlyn himself in the porch of his own house and at another house near Windsor (Godwin 1885-1900, 356). Emlyn was notably involved in uncovering the tomb of Edward IV, in St. George’s Chapel, in June of 1790. His account of the discovery and the drawings he made were published in Vetusta Monumenta (Plates 3.7-9). In June 1795 he was elected as a Fellow of the SAL (SAL Minutes XXV.454).
The Production of the Vetusta Prints
Having introduced the dramatis personae it is time to describe the circumstances leading to the production of the prints, The first clear event occurred on 14 September 1791, when John Carter made a drawing of Hedingham Castle. As well as taking on direct commissions, Carter made regular trips around parts of England and built up a large body of drawings of buildings, often involving multiple views. While this was in part related to his own interests, it was also a matter of speculation in that he might be able to secure commissions from interested parties to work up the drawings as published prints, as would happen in relation to his drawing of Hedingham Castle (Nurse 2011, 231). Carter had in fact made an earlier visit to Hedingham in 1787 when he made a number of drawings of the castle from different aspects (Crook 2011, 248; British Library Add MS 29927, fols.134-6).
Next, perhaps related to his election to the SAL in 1791, Lewis Majendie commissioned Henry Emlyn to produce several drawings of the castle. It was, presumably, through his father’s role at Windsor that Lewis Majendie become acquainted with Henry Emlyn and so recruited him to produce his drawings. Armed with these, along with a historical account he had written, Majendie presented them at a meeting of the SAL on 29 May 1794. As noted in the minutes:
The Earl of Leicester President presented to the Society from Lewis Majendie Esq – four valuable drawings of Hedingham Castle Essex executed by Mr Emlyn of Windsor from actual acrt measurement, accompanied with an historical account of the said Castle which the President informed the Society would be read [at] the first opportunity.As it transpired the “first opportunity” was at a meeting a couple of weeks later, held on 19 June, when Majendie read the substantial part of his paper. However, due to its length, the final part, which included a description of Emlyn’s drawings, was held over until the next meeting in the following week (SAL Minutes XXV.193-99, 202-06).
Thanks were ordered to Lewis Majendie Esqr for this present & to the President by whom it was made to the Society. (SAL Minutes XXV.179)
Continuing the thread of events, now traced through the Council Minutes of the SAL, the next recorded event occurred on 21 January 1795:
Ordered that the Secretary be directed to inform Mr. Majendie that the Council have agreed to engrave his drawings of Hedingham Castle Essex omitting the views of his House, already engraved in Morant’s history of Essex, on a reduced scale so as to make two plates of the Vetusta Monumenta, provided that it meets with his approbation & if not that they are ready to return him his curious drawings, with their thanks for his obliging communication of them. (SAL Council Minutes III.198)Taking the wording literally, this would seem to indicate that Majendie had proposed to have the print that Philip Morant had included in his 1768 two-volume work The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex republished alongside the drawings by Emlyn. An alternative and more probable interpretation is that Emlyn had also made a drawing that included a view of the house that was very similar to one published by Morant.
Up until this point, John Carter had not been directly part of the Hedingham Vetusta Monumenta project, but at the end of March 1795 he became involved, though initially in a relatively peripheral fashion. As recorded in the SAL Council minutes (31st March 1795), “Ordered that the drawings of Hedingham Castle Essex be sent to Mr. Carter to be reduced, under the inspection of H. C. Englefield & Mr. Windham” (SAL Minutes III.200). Sir Henry Englefield (1752-1822) was an influential figure within the SAL through the last two decades of the eighteenth century and into the early nineteenth century. He was also a patron to Carter and championed his cause within the SAL (Wroth 1885-1900, 374-5; Nurse 2011, 227). Joseph Windham was a close associate of Englefield within the SAL and also did much to promote Carter’s work. Most notably both men were heavily involved in overseeing the series of prints comprising the Society’s Cathedral Antiquities which would see some of the finest examples of Carter’s work published in print form (Evans 1956, 206; Sweet 2004, 260; Nurse 2007, 145).
What precisely happened at this stage is unclear, but for some reason the decision to reduce the drawings from three to two was reversed. It seems likely that wiser heads prevailed as, while reducing the drawings to two plates would certainly have been the cheaper option, it would surely have severely impacted the quality of the final plates.
It seems highly probable that Carter’s involvement at this stage led him, either directly or indirectly through Majendie, to bring to the Society’s attention his 1791 drawing of Hedingham Castle with the idea of including it in the Vetusta Monumenta series. Certainly Carter was not known for his reticence in promoting his own work. That the SAL had been made aware of the drawing by Carter is made clear in the postscript to a letter, sent by the Earl of Leicester, which was read at a Council meeting on 5 February 1796, “P.S. I wish you would also mention that I have seen Mr Carter’s Drawing of Hedingham Castle which I really think should be engraved with the architectural Plans of the same Building” (SAL Minutes III.215). Based on this recommendation, at the same Council meeting, it was ordered: “That Mr. Basire shall have twenty guineas for engraving the view of Hedingham Castle by Mr Carter, presented to the Society by Lewis Majendie Esq. He leaving out the sky and part of the Landscape” (SAL Minutes III.216). This order was amended at the next meeting (held on 15 February 1796) when reviewing the minutes of the previous meeting—all was confirmed “except the order respecting Mr Majendie’s Drawing of Hedingham Castle” (SAL Minutes III.218). Instead, the order was altered to read: “Ordered that Mr Basire shall have thirty guineas for engraving Mr Majendie’s Drawing aforesaid as it is and without any alteration” (SAL Minutes III.218).
From these entries it can surely be inferred that Majendie had agreed to commission Carter to allow his 1791 drawing to be converted into a print. Carter had learned the art of etching and used this skill to great effect in some of his own works, for instance in his six-volume work Views of Ancient Buildings in England and his two-part work The Ancient Architecture of England (Carter 1786-93; Carter 1795-1814). In consequence, he would probably have preferred to have received the engraving commission himself not only in terms of the financial reward but also so that he could ensure the quality of work as, on occasion, he had cause to be highly critical of the quality of the work of others in relation to his own drawings (Nurse 2011, 215, 228). He would, however, surely have been satisfied with James Basire (1730-1802) taking on the role, as he was one of the finest engravers working in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century and the one who would later be responsible for bringing to print some of the finest examples of Carter’s work as seen in the Cathedral series. Basire had been appointed as engraver to the SAL in March 1759, succeeding James Green who had died shortly before (Evans 1956, 129: DNB vol. 3, 358-9). Much of Basire’s finest work can be found in Vetusta Monumenta and in Volume III his name appears as the engraver on thirty-one of the forty-four plates, including four of the Hedingham Castle plates.
The work on translating the drawings to plates was successfully conducted, with four of the plates bearing the publication date of 23 April 1796. Within the SAL, matters now turned to thanking Majendie, returning Emlyn’s drawings to him, and arranging for the distribution and sale of the prints. These details can once again be traced in the SAL Council minutes with the next relevant entries, dating to 17 June 1796:
Ordered on the Request of Lewis Majendie Esq.r that the several Drawings of Hedingham Castle in Essex from whence the engravings of that edifice just published by the Society, have been made, returned to him with the best thanks of the Council, for indulging the Society with the use of them for that purpose.The minutes then went on with the following statement: “Resolved that the present Delivery of the remaining Plates of Vetusta Monumenta vol. 3 be advertised for sale, as soon as or sufficient Numbers are got ready and that the same be sold in parts at the prices following” (SAL Minutes III.227). There then followed a list of the last of the fourteen plate sets intended to be included in Vetusta Monumenta, along with the prices at which the individual plates were to be sold. At the bottom of the list it was stated, “Pl.40 to 44 inclusive being five views of Hedingham Castle in Essex with Letter press Description of the same – one guinea” (SAL Minutes III.227). This is a reminder that while Vetusta Monumenta was principally a mechanism for the SAL to circulate images of antiquarian interest among connoisseurs, it did have a commercial aspect. However, it should be noted that none of the print series produced by the SAL ever came close to recouping their costs (Nurse 2007, 143-4).
Ordered that the Secretary do signify to Mr Majendie the consent of the Council, in conformity of their printed order dated May 31st 1782 [should read 1796] to his having taken off twenty Impressions of each of the prints of Hedingham Castle with the like number of Letter press accounts of the same, at his own Expence: the Council at the same time begging his acceptance of ten copies more of each, in return for his very obliging communications. (SAL Minutes III.226)
The final matter relating to the Hedingham Castle plates can be found in the minutes of a Council meeting on 4 July 1796:
A letter from Lewis Majendie Esq.r dated June 26th 1796, was then read, returning thanks to the council for their order of the 17th inst. respecting thirty Copies of the Letterpress acct. and plates of Hedingham Castle, and stating how much it would add to the obligation he was already under to that Body, might he be allowed to receive 20 copies more to make presents of to Gentlemen in his neighbourhood.Clearly proud of his foray into antiquarian circles, Majendie wanted to be able to impress chosen friends and acquaintances with copies of his work.
Ordered that Mr. Majendie be permitted to have fifty copies of his paper on the Hedingham Castle and the plates thereof at his own Expence; unless he prefers having twenty at his own Expence and ten as a present from the Society according to the former order of the Council. (SAL Minutes III.229)
Despite the statement at the May meeting in 1794 that the drawings were to be returned to Majendie, the three by Emlyn subsequently became part of the collections of the SAL, though whether Majendie declined to have them returned or later gifted them has not been established. Whatever the mechanism, Emlyn’s three drawings were subsequently pasted into a large folio volume of drawings and prints. On an adjacent page was also a 1738 print of Hedingham Castle by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck (SAL Red Portfolio: Essex fols. 19-20). The original drawing by Carter, however, did not come into the possession of the Society. Carter typically preferred to keep his original drawings and that of Hedingham Castle was in his possession at the time of his death in September 1817. It was subsequently included in a sale of Carter’s works held at Sothebys in February 1818 (Wroth 1885-1900, 201). It is now in the collection of the British Library where it is pasted, as a later insert, into a volume of his drawings made in 1786 and 1787, alongside his earlier drawings of Hedingham Castle made in 1787 (British Library Add MS 29927, fol.137).
Plate 3.44
Plate 3.44 features a southwest view of the castle and is based on the 1791 pencil drawing by Carter, which he worked up in ink and titled, along its lower edge, “Hedingham Castle Essex Spt.r 14 1791 SW.” While this is not a stone by stone depiction, with details of coursing only added in the upper part, Carter did in fact reveal some important details that reflect what a good observer he was. In his writings, he emphasized the need for accuracy in depictions of ancient buildings so as “to give information and instruction,” as he put it, as opposed to “picturesque appearances produced by the skill of the artist” (Carter 1803, 106; Smiles 2007, 124). Notably on the west face of the castle the scars left by a double pitched roof, which had once extended over the demolished fore-building, are portrayed. Also just discernible is the scar of a rather curious arch, on the west face of the north-west clasping buttress tower, below the northerly of the two pitched roofs and at the same level as the main doorway arch. All of these features are clearly visible today but they are not evident on some earlier depictions of Hedingham Castle. For instance Joseph Strutt (1775, 89, plate 29) in his portrayal of the building from the same aspect as Carter, did not show them. Carter’s image also features putlog holes, the slots that once held the scaffolding poles used during the construction of the castle. While Carter only depicted a few of those in the western face, thirteen in all, from direct observation today these all seem to be accurate. The chevron ornament of the main doorway arch is also clearly depicted. In terms of the surrounding area, Carter included more modern features such as some buildings lying on the western side of the eighteenth-century house to the east. Also shown is some fencing that extends out westwards from behind the Castle. Another clear example of Carter depicting what he saw was the inclusion of a long animal feeding trough lying in front of the Castle, close to its southern edge. Carter did add a slight artistic flourish by way of two human figures, a man and perhaps a woman, sketchily outlined standing next to the Castle’s main entrance.
In ordering the print, the SAL Council had instructed Basire to omit some detail, to leave “out the sky and part of the Landscape.” He certainly did leave out some elements—for instance, all of the modern features in the surrounding area including the buildings to the east and the fencing on the left hand side of the drawing. Also the animal feeding trough, which Basire presumably considered far too mundane, is omitted. However, while specifically instructed to leave “out the sky,” he in fact added more sky including clouds, whereas in Carter’s drawing the sky area is uniformly blank. Basire also added more detail in terms of coursing on the western face. It is also interesting to note that while Basire depicted the pitched roofline scars clearly, as Carter had, he engraved the lower arched scar, which was only very sketchily shown on the drawing, far more firmly. Also the plate shows very clearly an area of damage below the first floor window of the western face. This is still plainly visible today and is very accurately depicted by Basire. The curious issue is that this area of damage is only partially discernible on Carter’s drawing. It is hard to understand how anybody could have correctly interpreted Carter’s slight indications as this area of damage, as depicted by Basire, without having independently viewed the building. So perhaps Basire had some personal knowledge of Hedingham Castle that allowed him to so accurately depict this feature? Though of no real consequence, some slight divergence from accuracy is evident in relation to the putlog holes as Basire did not include all of those by Carter and also added a few spurious ones. More notably, Basire omitted the buildings lying to the north but seems to have misinterpreted their rooflines as a fence line instead.
This particular plate (3.44) can be considered in the context of some other depictions of Hedingham Castle. In the eighteenth century, the first notable image to consider is a print published in 1738 which was drawn and engraved by the Buck brothers, Samuel and Nathaniel. It was entitled THE SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF HEDINGHAM-CASTLE IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEX and was dedicated to Thomas Ashurst, the then owner of the Hedingham estate. While the castle is prominently displayed, more than half the print is taken up with the house. Incidentally, this print was later used to form an illustration entitled A Perspective of Hedingham Castle in the County of Essex in a 1757 issue of the Universal Magazine. It is an exact copy of the Bucks’ view except for the addition of a coach and horses, preceded by two men on horseback, entering the scene on the right hand side. This is clearly intended as a fig leaf to originality in order to separate it from the Bucks’ original of which no mention is made.
The Buck print is very comparable to the print first published in 1768 in Philip Morant’s two-volume history of Essex that has already been referred to. This print, simply entitled HEDINGHAM CASTLE, is dedicated to Sir Henry Hoghton, the then owner of the estate, and bears the name of the artist, Olive, and the engraver, Bland. In this view, which is from the same vantage point as the earlier Buck depiction, the emphasis is even more on the house with the Castle acting simply as a backdrop. Added detail to the drawing includes a grazing horse in the center foreground and, left of center, a gentleman with a musket, accompanied by a dog, who is presumably going on a hunting expedition. As with the Bucks’ print, this also can be found in later versions. Most notably it appeared in Robert Goaby’s A New Display of the Beauties of England but without any attribution to artist or engraver (A New Display of the Beauties of England 1776). In this case, a slight modification has again been made with the omission of the horse in the foreground.
Clearly Ashurst and Hoghton were proud of their house and that it appeared prominently in the two prints was either at their instruction or intended by the artist to flatter them and secure a commission. The house did not, however, appeal to all and notably in 1748 Horace Walpole labelled it as “a trumpery new house … in the bad taste of architecture that came before the charming venerable gothic and pure architecture” (Bettley and Pevsner 2007, 195). As a proud home owner, Majendie had also clearly wanted a depiction of his house to be included in the Vetusta Monumenta series but, as already noted, this had been rejected by the SAL.
A shift in emphasis can be seen in three images drawn and engraved by the antiquary Joseph Strutt (1775, 89, plate 29). One of these images is a plan view, a second is a relatively distant view of the castle from the southeast, and a third is a closer view from the southwest. This last view is similar to the one by Carter and it would become the favored vantage point for many later artists. In both the plan and the more distant view, Strutt deliberately edited out the eighteenth-century house and other more recent features. Strutt did not achieve the same level of accuracy as Carter, but his depictions represent a shift in approach. In the previous images the castle was largely viewed as an ornamental addition to a stately home, but for Strutt, as an antiquarian rather than an artist, the focus was firmly on the castle. This shift is then even more clearly seen in Carter’s drawing.
In the context of the Vetusta Monumenta plate, two further views of Hedingham Castle, by the artists Edward Dayes and Thomas Girtin, need to be mentioned as they are so closely related to Carter’s drawing that they must have been directly copied from it. The actual date of Dayes’s drawing is unknown, but it was included as a plate, engraved by J. Roffe, in the fifth volume of The Beauties of England and Wales (Bayley and Britton 1803). In terms of detail, the plate is almost identical to Carter’s drawing, including the feeding trough, the buildings to the east, and the two figures standing by the castle doorway with the figure on the right-hand side now clearly being shown as a woman. All these features are clearly derived from Carter’s drawing as they are not on the published print. There are, however, a couple of differences. Firstly, the surrounding trees are far more clearly depicted than on Carter’s original drawing and, secondly, the fence-line extending out from behind the keep to the west is omitted. Girtin’s depiction is a pencil drawing which entered the national collection as part of the Turner bequest, now at Tate Britain, in 1856. In terms of detail, it is largely identical to the one by Dayes except that it does include the western side fence.
While Girtin’s drawing has been has loosely dated to 1797, it must surely date to the early 1790s when Girtin was apprenticed to Dayes. This apprenticeship started in May 1789 and continued through into the early 1790s. While the date of the termination of the apprenticeship is unknown, the two men were still closely associated in 1794 or 1795 when both were working with the antiquarian James Moore (Davies 1924, 7-13; Girtin and Loshak 1954, 21-23).
As Dayes was the more senior figure the situation suggests a link between him and Carter rather than one with the younger Girtin. Whatever the nature of this link, it allowed Dayes to have access to Carter’s drawing from which he made a copy. Accepting this scenario, it would then seem logical to conclude that Girtin, via Dayes, also was allowed to directly copy Carter’s drawing and hence his inclusion of the western side fence line which was omitted by Dayes.
Plates 3.41-3.43
Coming next to Plates 3.41-3.43, these are based on the drawings by Emlyn. It is clear that Emlyn approached his commission very much as an architect and in doing so he produced the first measured survey of Hedingham Castle. The drawings largely give the impression of being very exact in terms of detail; notably, the southern external elevation appears to be almost a stone by stone depiction. From modern inspection, however, it is clear that with some minor aspects Emlyn was not wholly accurate. For example, some putlog holes are precisely located, but not all those depicted can be traced today and some others are clearly omitted. As with Carter, however, these minor deviations are of little consequence as Emlyn clearly conveyed a realistic overall impression of the appearance of the building.
In converting the drawings, Basire was largely faithful to the originals, portraying (for instance) the same number of courses shown in Emlyn’s external elevation. There are, however, some differences. Most notably, he added the lettering on the prints so that the different elements could be more clearly linked to the descriptions in the accompanying text. In Plate 3.42 (Fig. 1), the southern elevation, Basire did introduce some banding courses in the plinth area, whereas Emlyn correctly depicted it as being composed of fairly uniform blocks. Another difference occurs in the internal north-south section through the building. While Emlyn gave very limited detail in terms of coursing, leaving most of the internal walling as uniformly blank, apart from the major structural divisions, Basire exercised a degree of artistic license by adding considerably more detail, for instance adding individual blocks of ashlar to the great arch on the first floor.
The movement towards setting improved standards in relation to the recording of ancient buildings, particularly within the circles of the SAL, very likely provided the impetus for the production of these plates. The new standards were codified in 1790 in the Report on the proper methods of measuring and drawing antient buildings, co-authored by Henry Englefield and Joseph Windham under the auspices of the SAL. This report emphasized the need for accuracy, especially in terms of measurements, and the need to depict a range of architectural detail, such as windows, doors, and columns. As well as stressing the importance of plans and elevations, it also promoted the use of sections (Nurse 2011, 233). Published cross-sections of buildings can certainly be found among architectural designs, for instance in the case of the architects Robert and James Adam in their designs for Kenwood House, Luton House, and the Registry Office Edinburgh (Adam and Adam 1778). Published cross-sections of standing buildings are, however, extremely rare. In the circles of the SAL the first good example can be found in an account by James Essex (1782), the Cambridge-based builder and architect, of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, generally known as The Round Church, in Cambridge. His depiction of the church, comprising an external elevation, a plan view, and, most notably, a section through the building, is of exceptional quality and reflects both his skill as an artist and his detailed knowledge of building construction (Clark 1885; Evans 1956, 159; Sweet 2004, 258). Carter, probably influenced by Englefield and Windham, also employed cross-sections to great effect in his Cathedral depictions (see for example his 1801 Durham Cathedral and his 1807 Wells Cathedral, both reproduced in Nurse 2007, 159, plates 115, 116, and 161). Emlyn’s sectional view through Hedingham Castle can certainly be seen in this wider context of shifting attitudes toward the recording of ancient buildings, but it also needs to be seen in a narrower context of castle depictions in Britain. It has, in fact, so far proved impossible to find a similar, published, sectional drawing of a British castle that predates Plate 3.43. It is only after this date that other comparable published castle images can be found and so Emlyn’s work can be seen as representing a significant landmark in the development of castle representations in Britain.
Plate 3.40
The last plate to consider is 3.40. It is a plan of the keep set within its upper bailey, the neighboring eighteenth-century house and associated buildings, as well as some of the surrounding landscape. Within the upper bailey are indicated the foundations of other structures that previously stood there, including the castle’s fore-building. Various features are labelled in lower case letters, running from a-l, with j omitted. An artistic flourish by the artist, or engraver, is to depict the plan as if it is on a piece of separate paper or parchment that is nailed, at the top, to an underlying surface. This is further emphasized by the bottom right-hand corner of the plan being shown as being slightly curled over.
Oddly, the plate has no reference to artist or engraver and also lacks the standard credit line naming the SAL and the date of publication, which is included on the vast majority of plates in Vetusta Monumenta. Some of the plates lack some elements, but Plate 3.40 stands out as the only plate in the series with all of these elements missing. Could it indicate that the drawing the plate was based upon was not by either Emlyn or Carter? The artistic conceit of displaying the plan as if tacked to an underlying board also further differentiates this image from the others and so could be taken as further evidence of another artist. The SAL minutes refer to four drawings by Emlyn, but one of these was probably of the adjacent house. The latter cannot be identical with this plan (Plate 3.40), as it is likened to one contained in Morant (1768), which is a view of the house, with the castle alongside, seen from the southwest. The explanatory account that accompanied these plates does, however, refer to four drawings made by Emlyn (Majendie 1796, 8) and so the simplest explanation would be that the plan was also by Emlyn. But then why the stylistic and textural differences? Also, if it was by Emlyn, why was it not retained by the SAL along with the others? It is also particularly curious that James Basire’s name is not to be found on the print and so perhaps he was also not involved in its production. While he certainly did the majority of engraving work in Volume III of Vetusta Monumenta, five of the plates are by other engravers and another six have no attribution in this respect. One possibility, though perhaps unlikely, is that Majendie supplied a completed plate to the SAL. The solution will only perhaps be discovered if the original drawing is ever found. It is certainly not in the collections of the SAL and does not appear to be held by British Library.
In a section devoted to this plate in his explanatory account, Majendie considers the foundations of the surrounding structures in the upper bailey: “of these no remains are visible, though the foundations of several are not many inches below the surface of the earth” (1796, 11). This would seem to imply that these foundations were sometimes visible as parch marks. This was certainly the case during a very dry summer in 1868, as noted by Majendie’s son Lewis, which resulted in targeted excavations to explore the foundations (Majendie 1869). Certainly today, from a vantage point in the upper reaches of the keep, some of the surrounding foundations are clearly visible as discolorations in the surrounding grassland. Another possibility is that the artist was able to refer to a plan dated to 1592 (reproduced in Majendie 1869, 240) that shows a range of standing buildings and structures in the upper bailey, most of which can be equated with the foundations depicted in Plate 3.40. In passing, it should be noted that when Strutt (1775, 89, plate 29) viewed the area, and drew a far more simplified plan of the upper and lower bailey areas, he did not depict any of the surrounding foundations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Vetusta Monumenta plates of Hedingham Castle can be viewed in the context of the shift that was taking pace, particularly in the circles of the SAL, towards setting improved standards in the depiction of ancient buildings. A leading champion of this movement was John Carter and this is reflected in his drawing of Hedingham Castle. It is especially notable that Emlyn, though much less well known, achieved the goals of this movement so fully in his drawings of the castle. These drawings display an exceptional level of skill and accuracy as measured by the standards of the time. This is particularly true of his cross-sectional drawing, the first such depiction to occur in Vetusta Monumenta and certainly one of the earliest cross-sections of a castle published in Britain.
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