ELIZABETH WILBRAHAM AT WINDSOR by John Fitzhugh Millar
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| Elizabeth Lady Wilbraham - by Sir Peter Lely (Wikipedia) |
When I was a fourteen-year-old student over sixty years ago at the famous Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, I stumbled across the work of a mystery architect who designed in the style of Christopher Wren. With help from leading British architectural historian John Cornforth, I found that the mystery architect was Elizabeth Mytton, Lady Thomas Wilbraham (1632-1705) – the world’s first woman architect.
If she had been a man, she would be more famous than Wren, who was in fact her star student. Elizabeth had been trained in quick succession during her extended honeymoon at age 19 by Pieter Post in Amsterdam, Baldassare Longhena in Venice, and Gian-Lorenzo Bernini in Rome. She had been told by everyone that it was illegal under English law for women to practice architecture, so she was very careful not to leave behind any piece of documentary paper that could serve to convict her. That is why she is so little known, and many of her buildings are falsely attributed to others.
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| Pieter Post in 1651. Portrait by Pieter Nolpe, detail of a larger work (Wikipedia) |
As it happened, there was no such statute on the books outlawing women as architects, but because everyone thought there was, it had just the same effect as if it were true. She managed to be asked by Charles II to design a number of important buildings, including the 1662 addition to Somerset House for Charles’ mother, the French-born Henriette-Marie, and that building contained the first ever sash windows in the British Isles, which means that she introduced the sash window to Britain, although no one really knows in which country it originated. It also had England’s first Italian-style chimneys, which is proof that its designer had visited Italy.
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The south side of Windsor Guildhall showing the Cornmarket, with the Statue of Prince George above and the 1829 extension on the right. (Wikipedia) |
One of the many public buildings that
Elizabeth Wilbraham was asked to design in the 1680s was the Guildhall at
Windsor; the intention was that the ground floor of the building should serve
as the area’s produce market, surrounded by an elegant arcade, (much later, the arches were replaced by columns that look
rather out of place). The large room upstairs over the market was a
multi-purpose room, where the town council could meet, and where the courts
could hold sessions, and where English Country Dance assemblies and concerts or
even small theatrical plays could be held. Wilbraham apparently calculated
carefully how strong the floor timbers needed to be in order to support the
upstairs room for any conceivable activities to be held there.
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| The former covered corn market. The full image shows the apparent gaps at the top of four inside columns. |
Since Wilbraham could not be seen to be
supervising construction, she arranged to place in overall charge of the
project Sir Thomas Fitch of London, whom she had engaged on several previous
occasions (and she in turn had designed a handsome mansion for him on the
Thames, not far from the outflow of the River Fleet). Construction began in
1687. When Fitch unfortunately died in 1689, the building was approximately 95%
complete. However, the city fathers panicked when they learned of Fitch’s
death. They approached Sir Christopher Wren and told him that since he had been
born in Windsor owed it to the city to see the construction through to the end.
Wren was rather annoyed, and pointed out
that the workmen all knew what they were supposed to do to finish it; that he
knew the architect well and had complete confidence in the architect’s
abilities. Then it transpired that the city fathers were actually terrified
lest the upper room crash through down into the market, and all of the
platitudes that Wren could muster would not assuage them. They ordered him to
place eight columns in the market under the middle of the upper room, so he did
just as they demanded; the cost of the columns was met by omitting the planned
cupola that would have contained a public clock and a bell.
However, in the nineteenth century, workmen were hired to paint the columns. One of the painters, standing near the top of his ladder, is reported to have exclaimed, “’Ere! Look at this! There’s a two-inch gap between the tops of the columns and the underside of the upper room!”
Of course, as soon as they learned about the gaps, the authorities
ordered the gaps to be filled in with tiles, which is how matters stand today. So,
Wren and Wilbraham had the last laugh, although of course they were no longer alive
to watch the punch-line unfold.
Alas, the original building with its arcade
was a lot more attractive than the present building’s columns all around, but
since it is a Grade I Listed Building it is doubtful that permission could ever
be obtained to return it to the original appearance as laid out in a period
painting. HRH King Charles III married Queen Camilla in the building in 2005, so it is
hypothetically possible that the architecturally sensitive then Prince of Wales
could be persuaded to lend his authority towards a complete restoration, but someone
who knows him will have to bring it to his attention.
Helen} John Millar admits that not a single letter or signed drawing survives with Wilbraham's name on it connecting her with any project. His argument is based around the annotations in her copy of Andrea Palladio and similarities he claims to have found in buildings built at the time. His claim that she designed 400 buildings is equally based on visual similarity. But I think his theory is entirely plausible - and believable!
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| Work In Progress (final content might change) |
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