Silverton Park

Landmark Trust

The house known as Silverton Park was erected for the 4th Earl of Egremont from 1839-45. Put out at inheriting the title but not the great family seat at Petworth, he determined to build a mansion to rival Petworth. His architect, James Thomas Knowles Senior, designed a huge house with 187 rooms, 150 cellars and 130 marble mantelpieces occupying an acre of ground. But the Earl died in 1845, the interior was never fully completed and after only 50 years it was totally demolished. Only the unfinished stable block remains.
The scale of all the buildings at this great house was such as to impress, and the stables are no exception. They were built in equally monumental style with a huge gateway and four pediments. The exterior was originally intended to be rendered in a ‘Patent Metallic Cement’.

Design for a house for the Earl of Egremont, Silverton, Devon:

longitudinal section through the hall

(RIBA)

Aldworth House

Aldworth House, on the top of the Blackdown Hills in Surrey, was built for Tennyson to the designs of his friend J. T. Knowles as a summer retreat from the vacation crowds near his long-time home Farringford, on the Isle of Wight. Some of the elaborate exterior stonework and interior woodwork reflects Tennyson's description of Arthur's Camelot in Idylls of the King.

detail of Portico (RIBA)

Ivy-clad façade (RIBA)

Kensington House - Ballroom

Design for the interior decoration of Kensington House, 15 Kensington Palace Gardens, London: elevation showing decorative wall panels and mouldings surrounding the windows in the ballroom/concert room

Knowles & Sang
London
Date: 1875

Design for the interior decoration of Kensington House

Design for the interior decoration of Kensington House, 15 Kensington Palace Gardens, London: plans and elevation of the picture gallery ceiling

Knowles & Sang
London, 1875

Grosvenor Hotel

Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico, London
Designer
Knowles, Sir James Thomas (1831-1908)

Builder, vol. 19, 2861 June 1, p. 375

Grosvenor Hotel

A postcard view of the Grosvenor Hotel, designed by the same architects as Monserrate: J.T. Knowles, Father & Son. Picture from the mid 1950's - there is a Routemaster Double Decker in the right-hand corner, first introduced to London traffic in 1954.

Most conspicuous similarity with Monserrate from this view is the turret from which flies the Union Jack. Though four-square rather than round it is the ancestor of Monserrates central dome (not counting Filippo Brunelleschi). Knowles initially designed the hotel with a grandiose central dome, which was never built. Looks like they sold the idea to Francis Cook.

The Lisiteners

Diana Resting With Her Nymphs,
Giovanni Battista Franco, engraver Italian, 1498 - 1561
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts

. . . . . . There was one
Marble contrast smiling lone,
Sweet Pindaric Ode in Stone :
A glistening white Carrrara group,
Where fair Diana deigns to stoop
On a bank of forest flowers
Her languid limbs. With toil opprest,
The virgin Huntress calm doth rest,
While speed the noontide's fervent hours,
And a beauteous Nymph doth share
Her quiet time --- and couchant there
At their feet, a favourite hound ;
His ear attentive, some sweet sound
Hath softly smitten, and the three
List far-wafted harmony
From Apollo's lyre divine,
As seated with the Muses nine,
One some bright peak Thessalaian near,
He doth enchant the atmosphere,
Rolling on Dian's startled ear
Such strains she cannot choose but hear !



Music Room, Monserrate. "The Listeners"

Sculptural group in Carrara marble. Described in Fairy Life in Fairyland and also reported in 1890. The group seems to have been removed by 1929.

" ... a music room of fine acoustic proportions, and beautifully decorated. It is circular in shape ; and around the walls are niches filled with statues, between which are marble pillars supporting a tastefully decorated ceiling tapering up to a dome of white and gold, and having at its base for each arch a head of the muses in marble. A grand piano from the Austrian Exposition, a marble group of " The Listeners," carved Indian furniture, dainty jardinières of teak-wood from Goa, and rare vases complete the outfit of the room."

"The Listeners". The sculpture was deliberately placed in the Music Room. And the poem tells us just to whom Diana and the nymph (and even the dog!) were listening to.

"And the three list far wafted harmony ..."

Strains of music from Apollo's lyre. Apollo, floats above them in the celestial dome, surrounded by his muses, St. Cecelia, and the poet Sappho: the sixteen busts in the spandrels.

Fairies ! now direct your sight
To that high circle glowing bright
With every Muse that haunts the streams
Of Arcady in poet's dreams,
And the bewitching Graces three,
who ever their companions be,
And Dryads coy of dale and grove,
Nymphs who soft seclusion love ! --
Each Gothic archéd Spandril wide,
Hollowed express, is occupied
By a wondrous effigy,
Snowy white reality,
Most speaking work of glowing art,
Stealing softly to the heart :
Medallioned, large, they stately show
And standing out in classic row
Expressive, far they stretch around
All our dome's symmetric bound,
And Cecilia, type of song, well doth close their glittering throng.

The poem then goes on to describe the arched niches between the columns and windows. These were as yet empty but:

"... each recess will soon receive

Such gem as sculptor's art can weave."

Take a look at the photograph of "The Listeners" again. The niche behind the Indian carved round table contains a marble figure (perhaps a little short for the niche - suggesting a purchased item rather than a comissioned piece). The use of classical statuary in niches was a favourite device of James Knowles, repeated over and again in his projects.

Silverton Park, Devon (Earl of Egremont)

Long section for hall

J. T. Knowles Sr. c. 1839-40

(From Priscilla Metcalf's biography)

Friday Grove, Clapham Park

Knowles' own house, built 1845

At Clapham Park the sculptures fill the niches suggesting that Knowles had them manufactured for his project. Francis Cook enjoyed hunting down Classical sculpture and probably would have waited until he found something suitable to fit (more or less).

Here in a detail from Knowles original architectural section of the Music Room (1858) the statues of both corridor and salon are clearly visible. Too bad that Knowles' painting exhibited at the 1862 London Exhibition has not yet come to light.