Wilton House - The Palladian Idea

Wilton House

The Palladian Idea

At this period plans were also drawn up for a gracious & magnificent house to match the gardens & King Charles I encouraged the idea. However, family fortunes & the civil war caused rectification of the original scheme to the proportion we see today. With some assistance from Inigo Jones [6], who was working on the Queens house at Greenwich at the time. The south front drawn by de Caus, as seen in his sketch, originally had a large central Portico, with triangular pediment or entablature set on six Corinthian columns. This idea was modified by de Caus & certainly lifted in its true classical elegance by the insertion of a great Venetian window above the balustraded entrance.

The building then further elevated by two end towers topped by pyramidal pediment & pavilion roofs. Further development by John Webb in 1649, from the original plans of his uncle & father in law Inigo Jones, being necessary after a fire had damaged some of the former work of the construction of the de Caus building in 1647. Today we notice the true classical Palladian style in the south front. The balustrades at attic level on the roof line, rows of symmetrical windows, triangular pediments over the windows in the north & south towers, portico entrance under balustrade & pediment, pilaster columns above, rusticated basement level as well as the other features formerly mentioned. A symmetrical & flawlessly composed fascade, regarded by some as the finest of its design in England today. Architectural historians had some consternation when Howard Colvin originally discovered de Caus's plan in the library of Worcester College.

They had assumed Inigo Jones to be solely responsible for this impressive fascade. The Italian influence of Andrio Palladio (1508-1580) had however, been bought to fruition in England through Jones's work & drawings. If not personally by his own hand at Wilton, then certainly under his influence through the work of de Caus. However, it is evident that English Palladian design was completely different to Italian Renaissance ideas. Although based on the same design features, it does not carry on the repetitive idea of the constantly repeated features in Italian design. Adopting instead principals of isolation and space.

In 1715 there was a huge Palladian revival & it was this Palladianism that was to become the main country house style of the 18thC. The issue of Vitruvius Britannicus, [7] edited by Lord Burlington's Architect, Scotsman Colen Campbell, & much encouraged by Burlington to proliferate his own ideas & buildings to further propagate the style.

It is interesting to note that virtually all Palladian architects of this second period of the style made some reference in their works to Wilton's end towers. Jones had borrowed these features from Vincenzo Scamozzi's L'idea della architettura universale of 1615. It was felt that these features represented the most characteristic motif of the earlier Palladianism. The towers appeared again in 1721 at Burlington's Tottenham Park, Campbell's Houghton Hall of 1722 and were a recurrent feature in the country houses by Roger Morris, whose principal patron was of course the then, present Earl at Wilton.