A Golden Age of Architecture: Rare Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Drawings by Thorpe and the Smythsons

John Thorpe
Survey drawing of ground floor and main elevation of Somerset House, Strand, London, with proposed alterations, c.1603, 
Brown ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/87-88

This drawing shows two things at once: three sides of the main quadrangle and the iconic elevation of Somerset House, the most important of the so-called Strand palaces in London, built by Edward Seymour, Lord Protector Somerset, between 1547 and 1552. It is a working survey which includes proposed alterations, and information about the upper floors, as is typical of most of Thorpe’s drawings. The style of this elevation, an eclectic combination of Continental and traditional features, epitomises the mixed influences of the English Renaissance. 

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Robert Smythson,
Survey of Somerset House and gardens, 1609
Ink on laid paper, 260x280mm
RIBA SMY/I/13

Like Thorpe, the Smythsons produced a survey drawing of Somerset House, but unlike Thorpe, they recorded no details about its interior layout. Instead, they concentrated on how the house was located in relation to its formal gardens which led down to the Thames. The Smythsons made this drawing on what was effectively a research visit to London. It seems likely that they were gathering inspiration for their work at Welbeck Abbey and were interested in the relationship between houses and their gardens. As one of the most important houses of recent times, Somerset House was a key example. 

Country Houses

John Thorpe
[Survey] of the ground floor plan of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1596-1603,
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/29

Wollaton Hall was built between 1580 and 1588 by Robert Smythson for Sir Francis Willoughby (1546-1596), whose wealth derived from coal mines. Thorpe was clearly very interested in the newly built house, drawing both a survey of its ground floor and a half elevation. It seems his motivation was to study Wollaton’s particular characteristics, such as the impressive central hall, and fashionable external ornament. 

Robert Smythson
Plan of Wollaton House and garden, Nottinghamshire, 1580-88, 
Ink on laid paper, 348x338mm
RIBA SMY/I/25

Robert Smythson’s plan for Wollaton is one of several surviving drawings by him, and possibly his son, for the site, including an elevation (discussed below) and interior details. The plan shows the layout of the ground floor as well as the gardens and outbuildings, including a stable, dairy, laundry, bakehouse and brewhouse. Robert Smythson’s monument in Wollaton church describes him as ‘architector and survayor unto the most worthy house of wollaton’. It remains one of his best-known buildings.

John Thorpe 
Half elevation of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1596-1603
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/49

Thorpe drew this elevation of Wollaton at nearly twice the scale of his survey of the plan, in order to show the complex detailing of the elevations and the remarkable elevated prospect room. As the building is symmetrical, Thorpe only needed to draw one half of it. In comparison to Thorpe’s other drawings, the use of perspective is not well-mastered here. The album contains drawings demonstrating varying degrees of ‘correctness’, indicating that they were valued for their ability to convey relevant information as much as for their technical accuracy.

Robert Smythson 
Partial elevation of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1580-88 
Ink and coloured wash on laid paper, 186x185mm
RIBA SMY/I/25(3)

In this drawing, attention is focused on the external ornamentation of one of Wollaton Hall’s corner towers. It shows the use of the architectural orders, ascending from the simple Doric on the ground floor, to the more ornate Ionic on the first floor, before culminating in the elaborate Corinthian on the second floor. It also details the so-called ‘strapwork’ decoration based on continental pattern books. Its purpose might have been to show the patron, Sir Francis Willoughby, what this part of the building would look like. 

Religious Buildings

John Thorpe
Plan of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, London, c.1603
Ink, pencil, brown ink and yellow wash on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/69

There are only two examples in the Thorpe Album of an ecclesiastical site; it is otherwise devoted to secular buildings, primarily houses. This drawing of Henry VII’s Chapel was probably a survey made in preparation for the erection of Queen Elizabeth I’s monument, installed soon after King James I’s accession in 1603. It is a beautifully presented drawing and, unusually within the album, is embellished with Latin inscriptions, suggesting it may have been produced for King James’s attention. 

Attrib. Robert Smythson 
Plan of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, London, probably 1609
Ink on laid paper, 176x169mm
RIBA SMY/I/15

This sheet contains four drawings: a plan of Henry VII’s Chapel, details of two vaults from the Chapel and the design of another window in Westminster Abbey. It was probably drawn during the Smythsons’ visit to London of 1609; certainly it was drawn after the installation of Queen Elizabeth I’s tomb which is shown in the north aisle. Henry VII’s Chapel, built between 1503 and 1516, was regarded as an architectural feat; the sixteenth-century historian John Leland called it ‘the wonder of the world’. This helps to explain why the Smythsons chose to record it.  

John Thorpe
Designs for an H-plan house and corresponding half elevation, after 1601
Pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/25-26

This incomplete ground-floor plan and elevation show how Thorpe drew: starting with the basic contours in pencil, he later traced over his pencil lines with ink. One can also see that he used a ruled grid to construct the elevation. This drawing captures the essence of a building and its details. It demonstrates Thorpe’s free-hand drawing skills, showing him in artistic rather than in surveyor mode. This is comparable to the technique of other architects who were skilled draughtsmen, such as King James I’s court architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652). The inked-in gable derives from the 1601 edition of Vredeman de Vries’s Variae Architecturae Formae, indicating that this drawing must date from after that time.

John Smythson
Design for a pedimented doorway with rusticated Tuscan order, c.1600 
Pencil and wash on laid paper, 126x181mm
RIBA SMY/III/23

This sheet shows the various stages of how John Smythson set out a drawing. First, he used a metal stylus and ruler to draw an outline onto the paper – this left an incised mark that could be followed, but was not immediately visible. Next, he went over the incised line, in this case in pencil, to confirm his design. In some drawings, he moved directly to ink; in others he subsequently inked over the pencil line. Some elements, such as the finials and strapwork, he drew freehand directly in pencil or pen, without laying them out first in metalpoint. Finally, he sometimes used tinted washes to add colour or tone. 

John Thorpe
Design for, or survey of, the ground floor of a country house in plan and perspective, with elevations in perspective (on added paper); small sketch of a spiral staircase with two lobbies, between 1599 and c.1603 
Ink on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/37-38

The main purpose of this drawing is the mastery of perspective, as indicated by the text which is based on the method described by the Italian Mannerist architect Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554) in his second Libro d’Architettura (1545). The inclusion of this drawing in the album would have added to its usefulness as a teaching aid. 

Thorpe must have consulted Serlio’s treatise either in the Italian original or in later Flemish or Dutch versions, as it was only translated into English by Robert Peake in 1611, after the date of this drawing. Thorpe was an accomplished linguist. He translated Hans Blum’s treatise on the architectural orders into English (published in 1601 as The Booke of Five Columnes of Architecture, discussed below in Section 3) and produced a manuscript translation of Jacques Androuet du Cerceau’s Lecons de Perspective Positive (1576), written into the blank spaces in his own copy of it.

John Smythson
Perspective view of a house with a castellated wing, undated, perhaps c.1600
Ink and wash on laid paper, 309x165mm
RIBA SMY/III/21

Drawing in perspective was a skill that had to be acquired through study and practice. Robert Smythson probably learnt to draw from Humphrey Lovell, Master Mason to Queen Elizabeth I, and in turn passed on the knowledge to his son, John. In this view of a house with a castellated wing, the parts of the house shown straight on (in what is called ‘orthogonal projection’) are drawn correctly, but the walls that recede to the vanishing point are unevenly depicted. This suggests that at the time he made this drawing, John was still mastering how to render buildings accurately in perspective.

John Thorpe
Plan of Beaufort House, Chelsea, London, 1595-1603
Brown ink, pencil, yellow wash and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/63-64

This neat plan, virtually free from alterations, is likely to be a presentation drawing showing a design for the reconstruction of Beaufort House for Sir Robert Cecil, who became 1st Earl of Salisbury in 1605. The use of a central corridor was innovative. Combined with the lateral axis of the main entrance, the corridor creates a cruciform plan, a layout favoured by Thorpe for both large and small houses. As the inscription points out, the plan of the court is upside down, as it should face the front of the house. The style of handwriting suggests that Thorpe added this inscription later, indicating that he returned to the creation of the album over an extended period.

John Smythson
Survey drawing of the panelling in the Great Chamber at Theobalds House, Hertfordshire, 1618
Ink on laid paper with pencil shading, 84x235mm
RIBA SMY/III/13

This is the only drawing in the Smythson collection that is signed: John Smythson inscribed the sheet with the date and his signature ‘Jo: S:’. There has been much discussion over which of the Smythson drawings are by Robert Smythson and which are by his son, John. This securely identifiable example of John’s handwriting style in 1618 provides a benchmark against which to compare inscriptions on other drawings. Many of the drawings, however, do not include inscriptions, which therefore have to be attributed based on their subject matter or on drawing style and technical features.

John Thorpe
Drawings, with details and notes, of the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders, 1596-1603
Ink on laid paper,425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/13-14

This drawing, located at the beginning of the album, shows the five architectural orders set out over two pages. They are accurately copied from Hans Blum’s treatise, Quinque Columnarum Exacta Description atque Deliniatio, published in Zurich in 1550. Thorpe was responsible for its English translation, published in 1601 by Hans Woutneel as The Booke of Five Columnes of Architecture. The orders are fundamental to the practice of Classical architecture, explaining why Thorpe positioned them at the beginning of the album and suggesting that he included them to educate the reader. 

John Smythson
Drawing for a round window in a curved wall, 1599
Ink on laid paper, 195x345mm
RIBA SMY/II/33

Although the Smythsons were interested in classical learning, as shown, for example, by their sophisticated use of the architectural orders, their drawings also demonstrate their practical expertise rooted in medieval building traditions. This drawing for a traceried window is remarkable for showing the complicated calculations necessary to create a round window in a curved wall. This drawing documents the kind of applied knowledge that would generally have been passed on from one generation of masons to another by word of mouth and practical training rather than by written record. 

John Thorpe
Sketches for the ground-floor plan of three attached houses ‘for the cytty or for a country howse’, 1596-1603
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/18

This drawing shows three different variations of a simple house, conceived as a perfect square efficiently arranged around facilities such as fireplaces, ovens and built-in cupboards. This kind of arrangement is likely to derive from Andrea Palladio’s I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1580) and would have been viewed as a modern solution to the challenges of internal planning. As the title of the drawing indicates, each house could be an individual dwelling in a city or the three could be combined as one to become a country house. This flexibility shows Thorpe’s ingenuity as a designer and demonstrates how he used drawings to explore and develop his ideas. 

John Smythson 
Plan for the new orchard at Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1618
Ink on laid paper, 171x127mm
RIBA SMY/III/16

In this design for a new orchard at Wollaton Hall, John Smythson returned to the site where he had begun his architectural career working for his father, Robert, who had designed Wollaton. At the centre of the proposed orchard is an earthwork in the shape of Wollaton’s distinctive plan, creating a miniature representation of the house set amongst the trees. The success of this playful reference depends on the viewer’s familiarity with forms of architectural representation such as elevations, sections and plans. 

John Thorpe
Designs for the ground floor of a small compact house, undated
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/36

This plan shows a variation of the compact house type, which Thorpe explores repeatedly in the album. Modest in scale, but ambitious in its inventiveness, the building is approached through an elevated entrance court and has a main façade flanked on each side by a tower. A central flight of fan-shaped steps leads to the main entrance which is positioned between two wide windows. The steps are mirrored on the opposite side of the building by an impressive though peculiar triangular room which has wide windows but no external door, suggesting that it might have overlooked a body of water.

Robert Smythson or John Smythson 
Designs for a small house, about 1600
Ink on laid paper, 72x249mm
RIBA SMY/II/22

The Smythsons produced various designs for small houses, of which this is one. The rooms are each labelled with their function, from the cellar in the basement to the bedrooms on the top floor. The large public room – the Hall – is located on the ground floor while a more intimate ‘Dining Chamber’ is positioned on the first floor. At the bottom of the sheet, a note has been added observing that this is a ‘good ground platte [plan] for little houses’. 

John Thorpe 
Design for the ground-floor plan of a house in the form ‘I T’; Design for or study of the ground floor of a small compact house (right); Rough sketch for or variation of the same (left), 1596-1603
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/30

The rhyming couplet which accompanies this plan explains its identity: ‘These two letters I and T, joined together as you see / Is made a dwelling house for mee’. The Classical Latin spelling for John is Ioannes, meaning that in the educated language of the day, Thorpe’s initials were ‘I. T.’. He therefore designed a country house for himself in the shape of those letters. His great achievement is to combine improbable forms into a fully functioning scheme, probably designed for a real site.

John Thorpe 
Perspective plan and, on additional attached sheet, perspective of a house in the form ‘I T’, 1596-1603
Ink on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/50

These two drawings show Thorpe’s house in the form of his initials in the manner of a perspective by the French designer Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau (c.1520-1586). The elevation shows that the two parts were to be connected by a two-storey balustraded walkway. Whilst ovens are only shown in the I-shaped wing, we know from pencil annotations in the T-shaped wing that it had a number of service rooms too, like a kitchen and a buttery. In this way, each wing has the practical provision that it requires.

John Smythson 
Design for a marble-vaulted room in the Little Castle, Bolsover, Derbyshire, about 1610
Ink on laid paper with pencil annotations, 124x231mm
RIBA SMY/III/1/2

None of the Smythsons’ designs demonstrate the idiosyncratic flair of Thorpe’s house in the form of his initials, but like Thorpe, they often embraced the technique of combining elevation and plan on one sheet. This drawing for a vaulted room in the Little Castle also has a three- dimensional element – there are two cut-out flaps to represent window shutters, while the plan indicates a balcony outside the window. At the bottom right are pencil notes calculating how many pieces of marble will be needed to construct the vault. 

John Thorpe
Ground-floor plan and elevation for a substantial timber-framed house, before 1603
Ink, pencil and yellow wash on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/95-6

Tentatively associated with a version of Camden House, Kensington, built by Sir Baptist Hicks in about 1612, these drawings show a highly elaborate timber-framed house, a type which features less prominently in the album. The elevation shows a crescendo of projecting windows, dormers and chimney stacks, fronted by an ornate Italianate entrance portico and softened by the simple pattern of the timber structure. The drawings are clearly made as ‘show pieces’. Yet, as is typical of other drawings by Thorpe, the technique used to render the elevation – part orthogonal projection and part perspective – is idiosyncratic and not quite correct.

Robert Smythson or John Smythson 
Designs for a brewhouse, about 1600
Ink on laid paper, 129x62mm; 128x56mm; 129x60mm; 110x59mm
RIBA SMY/II/21(2)

The range of drawings in the Smythson collection is particularly wide, from aristocratic residences and city houses to modest dwellings. The drawings also include designs for service buildings, which are notable as the buildings themselves often do not survive. These four drawings for a brewhouse provide information about both the plan of the building and the functional fittings.

John Thorpe and Sir John Soane 
Ground-floor plan of a polygonal house on a circular terrace, on pasted paper by Thorpe; and sketch plans of the same by Soane (to the left), 1596-1620s; 1810
Ink and pencil on laid paper, 425x272 mm
SM Volume 101/145-46

The main plan shows a speculative design combining circular, triangular and rectangular forms, resulting in a virtuoso arrangement of three main halls and towers, reminiscent of a medieval fortified structure. This innovative proposal caught Soane’s attention, and he elaborated on it in his own sketch. The pasted-down plan conceals two other drawings, including a survey of parts of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, London. This demonstrates that Thorpe added to the album over time. 

Robert Smythson 
House in the form of a Greek cross, before 1614
Ink and wash on laid paper, 137x135mm
RIBA SMY/II/10 

This drawing of a house shows how the plan is formed out of a combination of two elements: a cross with equal-length arms and a quatrefoil. The cross creates four large rectangular rooms around a central square courtyard while the quatrefoil produces curved corridors and ancillary spaces. The result is visually appealing but would be practically inconvenient, suggesting that it is a theoretical and playful exercise rather than a genuine proposition for a site. 

Soane office draughtsman
Copy of Thorpe’s design for the ground-floor plan of a house, shaped in the form of his Latin initials, ‘I T’ (Ioannes Thorpe), after 1810
Ink and wash on paper, 483x693 mm
SM 74/1/1

Thorpe’s were the earliest British architectural drawings that Soane was ever able to acquire. Although he recognised their significance, he was reluctant that students should use Thorpe’s designs as inspiration, as he regarded Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture as a debased form of classicism. In lecture 8 of his Royal Academy lectures, Soane discussed Thorpe’s achievements, praising his inventiveness and noting ‘Of his labours I have a large volume, consisting of original designs, many of them very ingenious and whimsical studies for houses, some of which he carried into execution.’ He singled out Thorpe’s house in the form of his initials and had it produced as one of his lecture drawings. 

Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863)
Plan of Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, 1825 
Pencil on tracing paper, 259x202mm
RIBA SC116/3

Designs for houses form the core of the Thorpe Album and are a prominent theme within the Smythson drawings. In a similar way to that in which Thorpe and the Smythsons gathered together survey drawings of existing buildings, in the early nineteenth century the architect Charles Robert Cockerell assembled his Ichnographia Domestica – an album of drawings reflecting his interest in domestic planning. It is no surprise that he chose to include Wollaton Hall, renowned as one of Robert Smythson’s most innovative plans.