Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/415

 ii s. VIL MAY 24, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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of London, and there it was that, in 1662, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, architect, ambassador, traitor, and fantastic, laid the foundations of his imitation of Heidelberg in pious flattery of the Queen. No nobler site can be imagined. The house stands upon a wooded plateau in a country which not even railroads and jerry-builders have succeeded in spoiling. The house, destroyed by fire in 1718, we know only by Kyp's engraving. Its effect was one of exquisite uniformity. It stood in a walled and formal garden, and even to-day, nearly two hundred years after the fire, we can yet trace the founda- tions of the house and its boundaries. The brick piers of the gates, which once gave access to the garden, still remain, no less imposing relics of a vanished splendour, because they stand as it were in a wilderness, the outposts of a ruined house. The ingenious Lysons thought little of them. in the park, ornamented with sphinxes and gry- phons, afford but an unfavourable specimen of the architect's taste.' The sphinxes and gryphons are no longer to be seen, and for the rest it is impos- sible to accept Lysons' censure. Nor are the piers the only relics of the past grandeur of Hampstead Marshall. There you may still descry the orchard, with its trees planted in well-ordered rows, as in Kyp's day, and beyond the orchard a raised plat- form, which, approached by a double staircase, served the purpose of bowling alley and belvedere."
 * Some clumsy brick piers,' says he, 'which remain

Here it is stated that two houses stood, on the present site : ( 1 ) one built temp. Queen Elizabeth, and (2) a second begun by Lord Craven in 1662, and burnt down in 1718; the design of the latter is attributed entirely to Sir Balthazar Gerbier.

Mr. Reginald Blomfield (' Hist, of Renais- sance Architecture in England,' 1897), however, speaking of Gerbier, writes :

" Wai pole says that he gave the designs for Hampstead Marshall, since destroyed, begun in 1662, and finished by his pupil Captain Wynne ; but this appears to be inaccurate, as Gerbier was in utter disgrace at the Restoration and died in 1662. Gerbier is said to have designed the original house for Lord Craven in 1620 in imitation of Heidelberg. This house was burnt, and it is not known that he had anything to do with the second house, which was designed and carried out by Wynne." P. 132.

Here we have mention of two houses again on the site, but the " original " one is stated to have been built in 1620 by Gerbier, and the second in 1662 by Wynne. The first as well as the second is said to have been burnt.

Of Wynne's work Mr. Blomfield says <p. 188) :

" Hampstead Marshall was begun in 1662, accord- ing to Walpole, on the site of the older house. There is a view of it in Kyp's 'Britannia Illus- trata,' made before 1709, which shows a large rectangular house of three storeys and an attic, ranged round three sides of a court, with the stables at the back and the pleasure grounds on

the south side The house was burnt to the

ground in 1718, and all that remains are a walled garden, seven acres in extent, with a raised terrace

and eight sets of entrance gates French influence

is evident throughout the work. Wynne for this work belongs to the latter part of the 17th century, and must have been designed by him, and not by Gerbier was evidently an accomplished artist."

Horace Walpole's statement is as follows ('Anecdotes of Painting,' ed. Dallaway, 1849, vol. i. p. 279) :

" Hempstead-Marshall, the seat of Lord Craven, since destroyed by fire, was the last production of Gerbier. He gave the designs for it, and died there in 1667, while it was building, and was buried in the chancel of the church. The house was finished under the direction of Captain Wind."

To this Dallaway adds in a note : " The foundation was laid in 1662."

The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' states that Gerbier died in 1667, but Mr. Blomfield seems to be correct in placing the date five years earlier. That Gerbier died at Hampstead Marshall and is buried in the parish church there is true, but in what year is not immediately clear, as, unfortunately, the registers do not begin till 1675. Ashmole, in his * Anti- quities of Berkshire ' (ed. 1719, vol. ii. p. 251), writing of Hampstead Marshall Church, says :

" Under the south window in the chancel lies the body of Sir Balthazar Gerbier, but there is no stone or memorial erected for or laid over him."

There is now, however, a stone slab in the floor of the middle alley of the aisleless nave, near the pulpit, with this inscription :

" Here lyeth the Body of | S r Balthazer Gerbier K* Archt. I who built a stately pile of Building | m the yeares 1662 to 1665 for the | R l Hon. William Earl of Craven | at Hampsted Marshall, the greatest | part of which was destroyed by lire | in the year 1718. | He died in the year 1667."

Necessarily this inscription was cut sub- sequent to the fire of 1718, and consequently more than fifty years after Gerbier's death, but how long after I have been unable to discover. If Ashmole was right in stating that there was " no stone laid over him," we may assume that when cut this inscription was new, and did not reproduce an older one. The date of death here given there- fore cannot be accepted in face of evidence proving Gerbier to have been dead before 1663.

This is found in the ' Calendar of State Papers, Domestic,' vol. Ixxix. p. 253, where under date 24 August, 1663, is set out the

" Petition of Elizabeth, Mary, and Deborah, daughters of the late Sir Balthazar Gerbier, to the King, for relief from the extremities of the starving condition in which they are left by their father* death, to whom 4,000?. arrears were due from the late King. Their case is worse than ever by the expense of their six months' solicitation.