Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Rider concludes:
The fact that most of the building works were commissioned by the tenants
rather than by the Inn itself explains the lack of information in the Inner Temple
archives…. Presumably the building accounts and invoices etc, were retained
by the tenants and are now lost. … There is no evidence of any involvement by
Sir Christopher Wren in the 1678 building.
This final point is of great importance, as Wren is often documented as the
architect (such as by Lloyd, 1925, 277-9) yet there is no mention of his involve-
ment in the King's Bench Walk doorways in
The Wren Society Volumes
.
Whoever the architect, he would have worked in close co-operation with his
master bricklayer (such as Helder or Emmett). He would have gained all of
his full-size working templets for every shaped part of each frontispiece from
the drawing/s. From the templets, the individual bricks of the entire enrich-
ment could be set out, cut and rubbed, numbered, and dry bonded within the
cutting shed for on-site assembly. This combination would have left the fron-
tispieces to be completed under the direction and supervision of the master
bricklayer alone.
Study of measured and scaled drawings of these doorways and their details
drawn by Ernst V West (Amery, 1974, plates 34-40) enables one to assess the
technical superiority of the finely gauged brickwork against that of the pre-
Restoration period (Fig. 78). At number 5 King's Bench Walk, the orange-
coloured rubbing bricks are precisely ashlared and rubbed smooth (revealing
minor inclusions) measuring (Lloyd, 1925, 279) 7¾
3
5
⁄
8
2½ ins (197
92
51 mm).
These contrast favourably to the main walling bricks of 8½
3¾
2½ ins
(216
64 mm). The bonding of these frontispieces varies between English
and Flemish bonds, with a four-course gauge of 8¼ in (210 mm), the bed joints
averaging
1
⁄
16
in (1.5 mm).
Other influential seventeenth-century master bricklayers in the city of
London, most of whom worked for Wren, May, Hooke, and Pratt, were:
95
●
Tom and John Fitch (Fits, Fitz)
●
Thomas Hues
●
John and Anthony Tanner (Turner)
●
Richard Billinghurst
●
Thomas Horne (Horn)
●
Thomas Warren
●
Joseph Lem (Lemme, Lenns)
●
John Bridges
●
Benjamin Leach
●
Edward Goodman
●
Isaac Corner
●
Thomas Harris
●
Richard Stacey
●
Nicholas Wood
●
John Yeomans (Yemens)
●
Venturus Mandey
