Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
well described by Professor C. H. Reilly (when referring to the entrance to Middle
Temple), in the following words:
The main wall face between the pilasters is in red brick, …He has done it by a
method of which he was very fond; witness parts of Hampton Court, by using very
small - about 6 inches by 2 inches, instead of the ordinary 9 inch by 3 inches -
soft rubbed bricks, which can be carved like cheese and yet stand the London
atmosphere.
Wren achieved a wonderful use of ashlar gauged work, and several finely
gauged niches built in the classical style of those seen in the Netherlands, at
Hampton Court Palace. Research, however, has revealed that it is incorrect to
attribute the design of the entrance of the Middle Temple to Wren. The archi-
tect was Roger North (1653-1734) who built the Great Gateway in 1683-84.
Roger North
Roger North (1653-1734) was a lawyer with the Middle Temple, writer and
member of the Royal Society, so was in touch with the intellectual and scien-
tific ideas of his time, and he was also a gentleman architect, and a friend of
May and Pratt. His treatise
Of Building
, on the re-building of his own home at
Rougham Hall (Norfolk) is considered 'probably the most detailed account of
the planning and building of a seventeenth-century house in English architec-
tural literature' (Colvin and Newman, 1981, xix-xx).
It was Roger North who designed the Great Gateway which still gives access
to the Temple from Fleet Street and of his design for the gateway, North him-
self writes (Colvin and Newman, 1981, 51):
…I was forc't upon such expedients in building the Middle Temple Gate: I
designed 4 pilaster columnes and a fron tone [pediment], …and then grounded
the wall with brick, rubb'd and gaged, which sett off the stone. [The master
mason was John Shorthose and the master bricklayer Joseph Lem].
Influential City Master Bricklayers
All the influential city master bricklayers displayed excellence in the use of fine
brick enrichments combined with a pragmatic knowledge and use of geome-
try to set out and work certain architectural elements such as gauged niches.
Whilst Peter Mills has already been discussed (Chapter 2), it is important also to
study two further individuals, Maurice Emmett and Edward Helder. In order to
understand how the skills and use of gauged brickwork were being used, passed
on, and subsequently proliferating at the highest level during this period.
