The History of Danson House

University Degree Architecture, Building and Planning

Danson House Coursework Assignment

Introduction

Many large country houses such as ‘Danson House’ are described as being ‘typical’, as they are a style of house widely associated with that era. The era in this case is 18th century Palladianism. Country Houses were seen as a status symbol in the 18th century and many entrepreneurs and merchants often built houses much larger than they needed. The main reason for this is to show how wealthy they were. Country Houses often contained rooms, such as galleries, ballrooms and large dining rooms, aswell as other luxury rooms. The Grand Tour led to the spread of Palladianism in Britain, with architects such as Inigo Jones in the 17th century, however his trends soon fell out of fashion, but were later revived by 3 men, Leoni, Campbell and Burlington in the 18th century. All 3 men came from extremely wealthy backgrounds and took part in the Grand Tour. Many young men would tour Europe and this was seen as part of their education. Italy was visited and it was here that the 3 men found out the ideas of Vitruvius, whose ideas had been later revived by Palladio in Italy and Jones in Britain.

The History of Danson

Although Danson House is situated in 200 acres of land at present, it was previously in as much as 600 acres of land under the ownership of John Boyd. John Boyd bought the last of the lease from Styleman’s descendants in 1759, but still had to pay £100 a year to the charity set up under Styleman’s will. In 1761 Boyd offered £100 annuity to the charity in exchange for the charity’s half of the freehold. An act of parliament was needed to accomplish this and in 1762 the “Styleman Act” was passed. It was then that over the next forty years that Boyd enlarged the estate to an area of around 600 acres. Boyd approached a young architect, Robert Taylor, and he was chosen to design the new house, which was to be situated on rising ground to the north of the old house. Which is now beneath the lake that can be seen from the existing house. The grounds were landscaped and Danson Stream was dammed making a lake to add to the scenery.

Although Danson House was built in the era of Palladianism, it is not as big in comparison with other Palladian houses such as Chiswick House and Marble Hill House. Obviously one reason for this is money. John Boyd was not as wealthy as the owner of Marble Hill, Henrietta Howard, or Lord Burlington, the owner of Chiswick House was. John Boyd was not able to build a house as large as the others due to lack of funds, whereas Howard and Burlington were able to do this. In the early years of her life Henrietta Howard was an orphan, however received enough money from the Prince of Wales, in total she was given £11,500 and invested this on building the house. Lord Burlington was from an already wealthy background so he could put most of his money into the development of his new house. They were therefore able to build much more grand houses, with Chiswick House having a huge Balustrade on the front entrance staircase, although Danson House does have a Balustrade it is not on the same scale as the one at Chiswick. Marble Hill House is gay accessible via the ground floor whereas Danson and Chiswick you enter on the first floor, which I feel gives it a much grander look. Also the entrances to Danson and Chiswick are very big compared to the very small entrance of Marble Hill, although large entrances look good they also make the house look smaller so, this may be why Henrietta Howard chose to have a small entrance. One thing that all the houses have in common is that the grounds were all purposely landscaped

Exteriors

On the North side of Danson House, there is a huge staircase leading up to the main entrance on the first floor, the staircase is between a grand looking balustrade

that runs along the stairs and then to the house itself, Stourhaed House and Chiswick House also both have balustrades. Chiswick House has a very old looking balustrade but is the same colour as the house the balustrade itself givers the house a far more effective look and makes it look that much more attractive. The main entrance has an architrave surrounding it with a pediment ...