Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry was an English architect best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.
Background and training
Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster, he was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry, a stationer, and Frances Barry. He was baptised at St Margaret's, Westminster, into the Church of England, of which he was a lifelong member. His father remarried shortly after Frances died and Barry's stepmother Sarah would bring him up.He was educated at private schools in Homerton and then Aspley Guise, before being apprenticed to Middleton & Bailey, Lambeth architects and surveyors, at the age of 15. Barry exhibited drawings at the Royal Academy annually from 1812 to 1815. Upon the death of his father, Barry inherited a sum of money that allowed him, after coming of age, to undertake an extensive Grand Tour around the Mediterranean and Middle East, from 28 June 1817 to August 1820.
He visited France and, while in Paris, spent several days at the Louvre. In Rome, he sketched antiquities, sculptures and paintings at the Vatican Museums and other galleries, before carrying on to Naples, Pompeii, Bari and then Corfu. While in Italy, Barry met Charles Lock Eastlake, an architect, William Kinnaird and Francis Johnson and Thomas Leverton Donaldson.
With these gentlemen he visited Greece, where their itinerary covered Athens, which they left on 25 June 1818, Mount Parnassus, Delphi, Aegina, then the Cyclades, including Delos, then Smyrna and the Ottoman Empire, where Barry greatly admired the magnificence of Hagia Sophia. From Constantinople he visited the Troad, Assos, Pergamon and back to Smyrna. In Athens, he met David Baillie, who was taken with Barry's sketches and offered to pay him £200 a year plus any expenses to accompany him to Egypt, Palestine and Syria in return for Barry's drawings of the countries they visited. Middle East sites they visited included Dendera, the Temple of Edfu and Philae – it was at the last of these three that he met his future client, William John Bankes, on 13 January 1819 – then Thebes, Luxor and Karnak. Then, back to Cairo and Giza with its pyramids.
Continuing through the Middle East, the major sites and cities visited were Jaffa, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, then Bethlehem, Baalbek, Jerash, Beirut, Damascus and Palmyra, then on to Homs.
On 18 June 1819, Barry parted from Baillie at Tripoli. Over this time, Barry created more than 500 sketches. Barry then travelled on to Cyprus, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Ephesus and Smyrna from where he sailed on 16 August 1819 for Malta.
Barry then sailed from Malta to Syracuse, Sicily, then Italy and back through France. His travels in Italy exposed him to Renaissance architecture and after arriving in Rome in January 1820, he met architect John Lewis Wolfe, who inspired Barry himself to become an architect. Their friendship continued until Barry died. The building that inspired Barry's admiration for Italian architecture was the Palazzo Farnese. Over the following months, he and Wolfe together studied the architecture of Vicenza, Venice, Verona and Florence, where the Palazzo Strozzi greatly impressed him.
Early career
While in Rome he had met Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, through whom he met Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and his wife, Elizabeth Fox, Baroness Holland. Their London home, Holland House, was the centre of the Whig Party. Barry remained a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party, the successor to the Whig Party. Barry was invited to the gatherings at the house, and there met many of the prominent members of the group; this led to many of his subsequent commissions. Barry set up his home and office in Ely Place in 1821. In 1827 he moved to 27 Foley Place, then in 1842 he moved to 32 Great George Street and finally to The Elms, Clapham Common. Now 29 Clapham Common Northside, the Georgian house of five bays and three stories was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell as his own home.Probably thanks to his fiancée's friendship with John Soane, Barry was recommended to the Church Building Commissioners, and was able to obtain his first major commissions building churches for them. These were in the Gothic Revival architecture style, including two in Lancashire, St Matthew's Church, Manchester, and All Saints' Church, Whitefield . Barry designed three churches for the Commissioners in Islington: Holy Trinity, St John's and St Paul's, all in the Gothic style and built between 1826 and 1828.
Two further Gothic churches in Lancashire, not for the Commissioners followed in 1824: St Saviour's Church, Ringley, partially rebuilt in 1851–54, and Barry's neglected Welsh Baptist Chapel, on Upper Brook Street in Manchester, long open to the elements and at serious risk after its roof was removed in late 2005, the building was converted to private apartments in 2014–17. His final church for the Commissioners' was the Gothic St Peter's Church, Brighton, which he won in a design competition on 4 August 1823 and was his first building to win acclaim.
The next church he designed was St Andrew's Hove, East Sussex, in Waterloo Street, Brunswick, ; the plan of the building is in line with Georgian architecture, though stylistically the Italianate style was used, the only classical church Barry designed that was actually built. The Gothic Hurstpierpoint church, with its tower and spire, unlike his earlier churches was much closer to the Cambridge Camden Society's approach to church design. According to his son Alfred, Barry later disowned these early church designs of the 1820s and wished he could destroy them.
His first major civil commission came when he won a competition to design the new Royal Manchester Institution for the promotion of literature, science and arts, in Greek revival style, the only public building by Barry in that style. Also in north-west England, he designed Buile Hill House in Salford this is the only known house where Barry used Greek revival architecture. The Royal Sussex County Hospital was erected to Barry's design in a very plain classical style.
Thomas Attree's villa, Queen's Park, Brighton, the only one to be built of a series of villas designed for the area by Barry and the Pepper Pot, whose original function was a water tower for the development. In 1831, he entered the competition for the design of Birmingham Town Hall, the design was based on an Ancient Greek temple of the Doric order, but it failed to win the competition.
The marked preference for Italian architecture, which he acquired during his travels showed itself in various important undertakings of his earlier years, the first significant example being the Travellers Club, in Pall Mall, built in 1832, as with all his urban commissions in this style the design was astylar. He designed the Gothic King Edward's School, New Street, Birmingham, demolished 1936, it was during the erection of the school that Barry first met Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, he helped Barry design the interiors of the building.
His last work in Manchester was the Italianate Manchester Athenaeum, this is now part of Manchester Art Gallery. From 1835–37, he rebuilt Royal College of Surgeons of England, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Westminster, he preserved the Ionic portico from the earlier building designed by George Dance the Younger, the building has been further extended and. In 1837, he won the competition to design the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London, which is one of his finest Italianate public buildings, notable for its double height central saloon with glazed roof. His favourite building in Rome, the Farnese Palace, influenced the design.
Country house work
A major focus of his career was the remodelling of older country houses. His first major commission was the transformation of Henry Holland's Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, between 1834 and 1840. It was remodelled in the Italianate style with a large tower. Barry also designed the Italianate gardens, with parterres and fountains. Largely demolished in 1912, only a small portion of the house, consisting of the porte-cochère with a curving corridor, and the stables, are still standing, although the gardens are undergoing a restoration. Additionally, the belvedere from the top of the tower survives as a folly at Sandon Hall.Between 1834 and 1838, at Bowood House, Wiltshire, owned by Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, Barry added the tower, made alterations to the gardens, and designed the Italianate entrance lodge. For the same client, he designed the Lansdowne Monument in 1845. Walton House in Walton-on-Thames followed in 1835–39. Again Barry used the Italianate style, with a three-storey tower over the entrance porte-cochère. Then, from 1835 to 1838, he remodelled Sir Roger Pratt's Kingston Lacy, with the exterior being re-clad in stone. The interiors were also Barry's work.
Highclere Castle, Hampshire, with its large tower, was remodelled between about 1842 and 1850, in Elizabethan style, for Henry Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon. The building was completely altered externally, with the plain Georgian structure being virtually rebuilt. However, little of the interior is by Barry, because his patron died in 1849 and Thomas Allom completed the work in 1861. At Duncombe Park, Yorkshire, Barry designed new wings, which were added between in 1843 and 1846 in the English Baroque style of the main block. At Harewood House he remodelled the John Carr exterior between 1843 and 1850, adding an extra floor to the end pavilions, and replacing the portico on the south front with Corinthian pilasters. Some of the Robert Adam interiors were remodelled, with the dining room being entirely by Barry, and he created the formal terraces and parterres surrounding the house.
Between 1844 and 1848, Barry remodelled Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland, Scotland, in Scots Baronial Style, for George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland for whom he had remodelled Trentham Hall. Due to a fire in the early 20th century, little of Barry's interiors survive at Dunrobin, but the gardens, with their fountains and parterres, are also by Barry. Canford Manor, Dorset, was extended in a Tudor Gothic style between 1848 and 1852, including a large entrance tower. The most unusual interior is the Nineveh porch, built to house Assyrian sculptures from the eponymous palace, decorated with Assyrian motifs.
James Paine's Shrubland Park was remodelled between 1849 and 1854, including an Italianate tower and entrance porch, a lower hall with Corinthian columns and glass domes, and impressive formal gardens based on Italian Renaissance gardens. The gardens included a -high series of terraces linked by a grand flight of steps, with an open temple structure at the top. Originally there were cascades of water either side of the staircase. The main terrace is at the centre of a string of gardens nearly in length.
Between 1850 and 1852, Barry remodelled Gawthorpe Hall, an Elizabethan house situated south-east of the small town of Padiham, in the borough of Burnley, Lancashire. It was originally a pele tower, built in the 14th century as a defence against the invading Scots. Around 1600, a Jacobean mansion had been dovetailed around the pele, but today's hall is re-design of the house, using the original Elizabethan style.
Barry's last major remodelling work was Cliveden House, which had been the seat of the Earls of Orkney from 1696 till 1824. Barry's remodelling was again on behalf of the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. After the previous building was burnt down, Barry built a new central block in the Italianate style, rising to three floors, the lowest of which have arch headed windows, and the upper two floors have giant Ionic pilasters. He also designed the parterres below the house. Little of Barry's interior design survived later remodelling.