How often are we seduced by the merest glimpse of a well composed early Georgian house such as this handsome example, Iver Grove, on the right? It is exactly the sort of house which can be described, as Marcus Binney did in The Times, as "a Georgian gem... Love at first sight for almost everyone". The five bay main elevation, with a finely detailed triangular pediment over the centre is a classic example of the English country house built in the 1720s, soon after the accession of George I (who died in 1727 and was succeeded by his son George II).
Definitions associated with monarchs' reigns do not reflect sudden changes and this house is of a type which is still part of the evolving classical tradition of design from the
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later 17th century. The deep cornice and the brick quoin detailing, which marks the edge of elevation where two walls meet, are familiar in domestic design from the 1660s. |
The delicious colour contrast between the plum-brown brick of the walls, and the bright orange red of the details, can be seen in many other distinguished buildings of the late 17th and early 18th century, for instance, the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.
What makes Iver Grove so characteristic of early Georgian is the more emphatic use of a Classical order, in this case Doric, for the central frontispiece in the image of a portico. Thus the house is just distinct from the characteristically plain but symmetrical houses. It suggests knowledge of the 16th century treatise by Palladio, 'Quattro Libri dell'Architettura', which with Lord Burlington as its champion, became the bible for early and mid-Georgian English architects.
Andrea Palladio, who designed so many handsome villas near Venice for the Venetian merchant aristocracy, set the ideal of a kind of Classical portico for a country house, although history now relates that a columned portico under a triangular pediment would have been reserved for temples in Classical Rome.
The Doric order is the plainest of the three principal orders of Classical architecture; the others are Corinthian, notable for its highly decorative capital (that is literally at the head or crown of the column), formed in the image of the acanthus leaf, and Ionic, with its simple scrolled capitals, vaguely reminiscent of ram's horns. As their names suggest, they were ultimately derived from Greek architecture. In this case they are used on pilasters, the word used to describe a column which is only in shallow relief and not freestanding.
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This type is known as 'Roman Doric', because as architects discovered much later in the 18th century, the original Greek version Doric was rather different, "fluted" and without a base detail. In both cases, as here, Doric is identified by the use of a frieze of sets of three vertical grooves, known as 'triglyphs', which are thought to derive from the representation of the ends of cross beams in early structures. This detail is never used with the other Classical orders.
The use of the tall segmental headed window openings on the ground floor, is also a feature of houses of the earlier 1700s, and is largely superseded by the conventional flat headed version by the 1730s and 40s (Wren's preference for decades, as the earlier Winslow Hall, left, demonstrates). The tall windows belong to the first generation that would have been universally timber sash, rather than leaded casement (opening outwards), and as the 18th century progressed sash windows became progressively wider in proportion.
The early Georgian house stands between the building traditions of the late 17th century and the more self-conscious Classical detail derived from Palladio from the 1720s onwards. It often combines the good qualities of both and can seem especially attractive to the English eye, as with this beguiling example.
Left: Winslow Hall, Bedfordshire £3.0 million guide
Below: Iver Grove, Iver, Buckinghamshire; excess £5 million
The architect for Iver Grove, John James, studied under Matthew Banks who was the King's Carpenter, Wren's Master Carpenter and the master carpenter for Winslow Hall.
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