Ernest Law

“ Romance, and all the thoughts and feelings of tender, natural affection, which appear to have been smothered in the preceding century and a half of powder and gold-lace, seem to awaken and revive once more with the child born in this Palace eighty years ago, in the little girl playing about in these rooms and in these gardens, in the youthful Queen, who stepped forth from her simple chamber here to take possession of the greatest throne in the world! ”

“ In this sumptuous and gorgeous chamber, with its marble-pillared doorways, its painted and gilded walls, its niches, brackets, slabs, and pediments of white marble, its gilt antique statues, its gaudy domed ceiling of blue and gold, we have the very acme and essence of the style and art of William Kent, triumphant and rampant. After our remarks on his work in the foregoing room, we shall not be expected to lose ourselves in admiration over this masterpiece of his pseudo-classic design and decoration. ”

“ I delighted to walk in Kensington Gardens. As I passed along the broad central walk, I saw a group on the lawn before the Palace.... The Duchess of Kent and her daughter, whose years then numbered nine, were breakfasting in the open air.... What a beautiful characteristic, it seemed to me, of the training of this royal girl, that she should not have been taught to shrink from the public eye; that she should not have been burdened with a premature conception of her probable high destiny; that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity of a child’s nature ”

“ To future ages, if not indeed already to the present one, this plain, modestly-decorated chamber must have an interest far transcending that of the more gorgeous Georgian saloons, which we have just traversed. For, it was for many years the bedroom of our own Queen, when as a little girl of tender age she lived in quiet simplicity at Kensington Palace with her mother, the Duchess of Kent. ”

“ But it is not within the scope of these pages, confined as they are to topics directly connected with Kensington Palace as a new public resort, to describe these two hundred and fifty acres of delightful verdant lawns, sylvan glades, and grassy slopes. We must resist the temptation, therefore, to wander away into the attractive prospect, which unfolds itself beneath our gaze when looking out from the windows of the state rooms, or into which we can saunter when we quit the Palace. ”

“ Although this room formed part of the state apartments built by Kent, it was much transformed in the reign of George III., so that it bears little trace of its original decoration. Indeed, it is so commonplace in appearance, that, except for the pictures which now hang on its walls, it looks more like an ordinary bedroom in an old-fashioned country inn than a king’s chamber in a palace. The plain deal dado, the common chimney-piece of black veined marble, the wood and plaster cornice, the shutters and windows, are all of the most ordinary and inartistic pattern. ”

“ In this room we have a blending of the style of Wren, who originally built and designed it, and of Kent, who redecorated it for George I. The chimney-piece and over-mantel, with its fine Gibbons carving of foliage, fruit, and flowers, the beautifully designed and richly carved oak cornice and the panelled dado are Wren’s; whereas the painted ceiling and the doors are Kent’s. It was, doubtless, he also who altered the spacing of the window sashes, and substituted the present ugly large panes for the originally picturesque small ones. ”

“ From this we see that Queen Caroline, who embarked in so many gardening enterprises, left Queen Anne’s new gardens substantially intact; though she made a clean sweep of all the old fantastic figured flower beds and formal walks of William III.’s parterres to the south and east of the Palace; substituting therefor bare and blank expanses of lawn and wide gravel paths.
During the reigns of George III. and George IV. all the gardens were allowed to become more and more uncared for; and at last those to the north of the Palace were destroyed altogether. ”

“ On the barbarity of painting the beautiful oak work in this gallery, and especially the exquisitely carved oak architraves and cornices, we need not dwell. They remained painted until last autumn, when with infinite trouble and pains, the paint was cleaned off, and all the delicate chiselling of Gibbons and his assistants revealed to the eye, after being obscured for a hundred and seventy-four years. The visitor can judge for himself with what success this has been accomplished. ”

“ In the middle of this century the tide of fashion set back towards Rotten Row and Hyde Park Corner; and Kensington Gardens have, for the last sixty or eighty years, been very little frequented by the “world.” Their attractions, however, have not suffered on this account in the view of the poet, the artist, and the lover of nature. “Here in Kensington,” wrote Haydon the painter, “are some of the most poetical bits of trees and stump, and sunny brown and green glens and tawny earth.” ”

“ Now, however, the most prominent objects to the eye here, are the glass-houses, and the tops of the forcing frames, in which the whole stock for the bedding out in the park and gardens has been reared for the last thirty or forty years. It is truly an amazing thing that a piece of ground, situated as this is, close under the windows of the Palace, and opposite this orangery, should have been appropriated to so grossly disfiguring a use. ”

“ If we could say with truth that there ever was a “Queen Anne style,” this would, indeed, be a representative and unrivalled example of it—as it certainly is of Sir Christopher Wren’s, which, developing in the reign of Charles II., was definitely formed and fixed in that of William and Mary.
To an artist like Wren to beautify the ordinary and useful was to give expression to one of the highest functions of architecture ”

“ The panels, which are very thin and of unusual breadth, nevertheless have remained but little twisted or buckled to this day, owing to Wren’s particular and invariable insistence that only the best seasoned wood should be used in all the work under his charge. In the course of the restorations, it has, however, been necessary to take it all to pieces in order to repair the injuries of nearly two centuries of misusage and neglect. Here, as in the staircase, are to be noticed the extreme richness in grain of the old oak, and its deep warm tone of colour. ”

“ The protruding doorway in the right-hand corner, the picturesque recess on the left-hand side of the fireplace, and the porch-like treatment of the similar recess on the other side—where is the doorway into the Queen’s Closet—all show how the accidents of construction and convenience may be so judiciously laid hold of, as to render what would otherwise have been a mere uninteresting commonplace room, a charmingly homelike and picturesque one. ”

“ It was at Kensington, in the summer of 1836, that the Queen first saw her future husband. The Prince in his diary recorded that his aunt, the Duchess of Kent, “gave a brilliant ball here at Kensington Palace, at which the gentlemen appeared in uniform and the ladies in so-called fancy dresses. We remained until four o’clock.... Dear Aunt is very kind to us, and does everything she can to please us, and our cousin also is very amiable.” ”

“ Interior of Queen Anne’s Orangery.
IT is not, however, the exterior of this building, but the interior, which will arouse in those who behold it the greatest admiration, for it is here that we can appreciate Wren’s imaginative and constructive genius at its very best. The longer we know and contemplate it, the more supremely beautiful does it strike us, both in the mass and in its details. ”

“ The signature of the artist, “William Kent pinxit, 1725,” has been found a little to the left of the right foot of Semele.
When the restoration of this room was taken in hand last winter, the ceiling was so begrimed with the dirt, dust, smoke, and smuts of upwards of a hundred and fifty years of London atmosphere, as to be nearly black. The cleaning was carried out with the most scrupulous care, and practically no re-painting or re-gilding has been necessary. ”

“ HIS magnificent gallery, the finest of all the state rooms at Kensington Palace, was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren for William III. about the year 1693. It owes much of its architectural effect to the great architect’s wonderful knowledge and appreciation of proportion—an element too often disregarded in buildings of modern times. Its length is 96 feet, its breadth 21 feet 6 inches, and its height 18 feet to the top of the cornice, and 19 feet 8 inches to the highest point of the ceiling. ”

“ Yet it has been all this minute—though no doubt sometimes costly—attention to details, this laborious piecing together of old fragments, this reverential saving of original material and work, this almost-sentimental imitation of the old style and taste where patching in by modern hands was inevitable, which has produced a result and effect likely, we think, to arouse the admiration of all who relish the inimitable charm of antique time-mellowed work. ”

“ Although Queen Caroline had to put up with a good deal of snubbing, she managed, at the same time, usually to get her own way. She was very fond of art; and it was she who discovered, stowed away in a drawer at Kensington Palace, the famous series of Holbein’s drawings. ”

“ IN this gallery have now been collected a large number of sea-pieces, sea-fights, dockyards, and admirals, mainly of the time of the Georges, to illustrate the history of the British Navy. Though but very few—for instance, those by Monamy and Scott—can be considered fine works of art, yet all of them will be found interesting and curious; and no one, who has known them only when hanging in bad lights on dark screens in the overcrowded rooms at Hampton Court, would have suspected how much there is to be studied in them, now that they are at length properly displayed. ”

“ The spirit has been rather that of a private owner reverentially restoring his ancestral home, than that of an ordinary public official, with an energy callous to all sentiment, sweeping away the old to replace it with a spick-and-span new building. This method of treatment has nowhere been applied more scrupulously, and we venture to think with greater success, than in the treatment of the old oak panelling and the beautiful carving, all of which had been covered over with numerous coats of paint, so long ago—we have discovered from the old accounts in the Record Office—as 1724. ”

“ Barring the last half dozen items, something in the antique formal style would, indeed, be a relief from the tedious monotony of modern “landscape” gardening.
Exterior of Queen Anne’s Orangery.
AS a specimen of an unaffectedly ornamented exterior of brick, this elevation to the south, aiming rather at simplicity and plain dignity than magnificence or grandeur, is to our view admirable.
In the centre is a compartment, more decoratively treated than the rest, with four rusticated piers or pillars of brick, supporting an entablature of the Doric order, mainly in stone. ”

“ Equal pains were taken in finishing the surface with oil and wax polish—no stain whatever being used on the panelling, doors or cornices—so that the real true colour of the wood is seen, varying only with its natural variation, and exhibiting all its richness of tone, and its fullness of grain. It makes one almost glad it should have suffered so many years of long neglect—that when at last it has been taken in hand, it should have been done when the historical significance and the technical and artistic value of such things are more truly appreciated than formerly. ”

“ Before recapitulating the events of the Queen’s early life here, we must give a brief outline of the history of the Palace since it became a royal residence.
The original building, of which it is probable that a good deal still stands, was erected mainly by Sir Heneage Finch, Lord Chancellor and Earl of Nottingham, who acquired the estate, including some hundred and fifty acres of meadow and park—now Kensington Gardens—from his brother Sir John Finch. ”

“ The square space thus formed beside the first landing, and the spandril space beside the rise of the stairs, are filled with representations, in chiaro-oscuro, of sea-horses, armorial trophies and other devices, and scroll-work, heightened by gilding. These, as well as similar paintings on the arcade, opposite and under the stairs, show that Kent’s taste and skill as a decorative artist were by no means contemptible, whereas as a painter of subjects or figures he was no artist at all. ”

“ KENT also had a great reputation as a horticulturist, and was generally designated, at the end of last century, as the “Father of Modern Gardening”—his ghastly progeny consisting of the destructive and desolating “landscape-gardening” enterprises of “Capability Brown,” Repton, and their followers. His hand doubtless fell heavy on the old Queen Anne formal gardens about Kensington Palace. ”

“ Although this carved over-mantel is an addition, and as far as the pediment is concerned, very out of place so close to the cornice, yet it is very beautiful and of much interest as being one of the finest examples of decorative design executed in England during the reigns of the first two Georges. In it we trace the influence of the lighter French taste of Louis XV., which Kent had no doubt become acquainted with when travelling abroad. The marble chimney-piece below, on the other hand, is in that architect’s regular massive, heavy style. ”

“ We have also a contemporary account of the gardens as formed by William and Mary, in a “View of the Gardens near London,” dated December, 1691: “Kensington Gardens are not great, nor abounding with fine plants. The orange, lemon, myrtle, and what other trees they had there in summer, were all removed to Mr. London’s and Mr. Wise’s greenhouse at Brompton Park, a little mile from them. But the walks and grass laid very fine; and they were digging up a flat of four or five acres to enlarge the garden.” ”