Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The ashlared orange rubbing bricks have been laid to Flemish bond (as an
outer half-brick casing around a stock brick core), and with joints averaging
1mm in width with mop-stick (or staff) cut-moulded quoins.
Colvin (1995, 647) recording a contemporary observation by John Aubrey,
suggests:
Twas Mr Hugh May that brought in the staff-moulding on solid right angles, after
the Restauration of the king. The fashion has taken much.
Brayley, Brewer and Nightingale (1815, 73) mention the property as:
A copy hold house with two acres of garden was sold in 1663 by Henry Broad a
Chiswick resident in 1664 to Sir Stephen Fox, who between 1682 and 1684 replaced
it with a house designed by Hugh May, Comptroller of the King's Works….
The house was pulled down in 1812 and the grounds were added to Chiswick
House. By studying a print from Brayley, Brewer and Nightingale (1815, 73) we
see an Anglo-Dutch styled brick house with stone dressings that would most cer-
tainly have linked constructionally and aesthetically with these piers (Fig. 68).
Figure 68
Print taken from A
History of Middlesex
of Sir Stephen Fox's
house, designed by Sir
Hugh May, 1682-84.
Sir Stephen Fox (1627-1716) is himself of interest with regard to the links with
the master craftsmen and designers who used gauged work. He was a Treasury
Commissioner and had been Paymaster General from 1661-79 and continued
to control army finance after that period, hence his involvement with Wren on
the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, London (1682-84) of which he was a benefactor.
He became a very wealthy man with a personal fortune of £200,000, of which
