Building record 1010/0/14 - C18th Garden Temple, Althorp Park (Originally Built in The Grounds of Admiralty House, London)

Summer-house. Late C18. Timber with lead roof. Open fronted with 2 reeded wooden columns and 2 similar flanking pilasters with Doric capitals supporting entablature with pediment over.

{1} Summer-house. Late C18. Timber with lead roof. Open fronted with 2 reeded wooden columns and 2 similar flanking pilasters with Doric capitals supporting entablature with pediment over. Plain brick to rear. Interior: Fielded panelled dado with pilasters on back wall. Moved from the gardens of Admiralty House by fifth Earl Spencer.

{3} The architect Dan Miles informed us that he got a dendro date for the timbers in the Summer House of 1708/9.

{5} {6} Originally constructed in the grounds of Admiralty House in London, the classical temple was moved to Althorp House by the fifth Earl Spencer and used as a summerhouse by the ornamental lake. The façade is composed of a row of four round fluted hollow columns supporting a pediment over an entablature, with square pilasters behind, all in oak. During early 1998 the temple was repaired to enable it to be used as a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, and the dismantling of the columns allowed samples to be taken from the resulting offcuts. Complete sapwood was obtained from a section of column as well as a backing batten, and the strong matches with central European chonologies suggest a German origin for the fine-grained oak timber.
Felling dates: Winter 1706/7 and Winter 1708/9.
Battens (1/2) 1706 (21C); Pilasters 1617, 1672, 1708 (33C); Columns (1/2) 1558. Site Master 1420-1708 ALTHORP 1 (t=12.8 HOLLST; 12.6 HUBER; 7.2 MASTERAL; 6.4 SENG98)

{7} Undated photo;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 7/9 (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), G01 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN44900.

<3> MILES D., 1999, Oral Report to SMR, (unchecked) (Oral Report). SNN50512.

<4> Pevsner N.; Cherry B., 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.82 (unchecked) (Series). SNN1320.

<5> Worthington, M., 2011, Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory Dendrochronology Dating Results, (checked) (Website). SNN108562.

<6> Moir J.; Moir M. (Editors), 1995-2005, Vernacular Architecture, vol.30 list 100 (checked) (Journal). SNN102633.

<7> Photographs of buildings in Althorp (Photographs). SNN111846.

Record last edited

Oct 23 2020 3:36PM