Why Ashdown matters
A globally unique example of Greek Revival architecture
Benjamin Henry Latrobe is often known as ‘America’s first architect’. There he designed the White House and U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore Cathedral; the Bank of Philadelphia; the canals of New Orleans; and hundreds of public and private buildings.
But in 1793, he had never set foot in America, and the young Latrobe, then just 29, was designing Ashdown.
It is a building of supreme refinement, beauty and innovation. It’s one of the earliest Greek Revival houses in existence, and one of only two buildings in Europe by Latrobe. Its beautiful Ionic portico represents an immaculate and yet pared-back form of neoclassicism. It was no doubt this which led Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the great chronicler of British architecture and a very sparing user of superlatives, to call Ashdown “very perfect indeed”.
Latrobe’s only other independent work on this side of the Atlantic is at Hammerwood, 2 miles north. The architectural historian James Stevens Curl describes this pair of houses as “two of the most remarkable buildings for their date in the British Isles”.
Hammerwood was very nearly lost to dereliction in the decades after the Second World War. It was saved only by the colossal efforts of its custodians, volunteers and supporters over many years hence, a project which continues today.
It’s almost unbelievable that Ashdown now faces the same fate – of dilapidation, carving up, and consequent grave loss of heritage. Meanwhile, only three of Latrobe’s 70+ domestic houses now survive in the United States, and much of his most recognisable public architecture has been altered. In the words of Prof. Patrick Snadon, “America has realized too late Latrobe’s extraordinary genius and his architectural contributions to his new country.”
In his letter accompanying the LHT’s application to Historic England to upgrade Ashdown’s Listing, which contains more detail on Ashdown’s history and significance, Prof. Snadon notes that Ashdown is the best-preserved Latrobe building in the world, and implores us not to make the same mistake.
A prototype for the Capitol and White House
Latrobe would emigrate to America in 1795, where he later designed the US Capitol Building, the White House, and where he became known as ‘America’s first architect’, shaping the aesthetic of the new republic.
Scholars (see Fazio & Snadon, 2006) have described Ashdown’s domed rooms as ‘miniature prototype’ for the Capitol’s.
Its ingeniously recessed semi-circular portico is similar in form to the White House’s (see Latrobe’s January 1817 drawing, property of the Library of Congress, 2001698953); Ashdown’s pilasters continue above its columns to the first floor where the White House’s portico spans the full height of the building.
Ashdown’s domes also closely preface Latrobe’s designs at Baltimore Cathedral, still extant, and the Bank of Pennsylvania, sadly demolished in 1867.
Also shown are perspective drawings for Hammerwood Lodge, Sussex (1792; property of the Latrobe Heritage Trust, held at the RIBA Collections, RIBA13248) and the US Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. (1806; property of the Library of Congress, 2001697195) show their similarities. Latrobe drew considerably on unrealised elements of his design for Hammerwood at Ashdown, including the central Ionic portico.
Its portico, domes and stunning 1793-95 interior
Ashdown’s most exceptionally architecturally significant aspects are its domes; on its top floor (described as ‘miniature prototypes for Latrobe’s later work at the Capitol), and within its Ionic temple-portico, visible in the first two images above.
An American visitor commented in 1805:
the circular portico is not to be found elsewhere, excepting, perhaps, in Greece. I think, however, the thing is original, for its taste is to me original. The dome is made of Coade’s artificial stone and is covered with Italian marble. It is, by far, the prettiest thing of that manufactory, which has produced so many pretty things. It seems to be of one piece, but consists of more than one hundred stones, each is enriched with a sculptured pannel of beautiful design.
He was an astute observer. The dome is a shallow segment of a circle, composed of 100 coffers, diminishing to a scalloped circular centrepiece; each coffer is an individual Coade stone piece, all interlocking by a tongue-and-groove system of assembly. It is a self-supporting structure of pre-cast modular pieces. In a manner consistent with his engineering training, Latrobe pushed the capabilities and application of the material further than any other neoclassical architect.
The capitals and bases of the Ionic capitals of the portico are also cast in Coade stone (as were the Doric capitals at Hammerwood). A record of his study of this order (the Erechteum anta), which he took from the Erechteum in Athens via Julien-David Le Roy’s Les Ruines des Plus Beaux Monuments de la Grèce (Paris, 1758), is preserved in his English notebook.
The portico is ingeniously integrated into the façade. By leaving it open to the exterior (the current glazing is not original) and interior through the use of window-and-shutter mechanisms for its inner wall, Latrobe maintained an illusion of a freestanding temple, and integrated it more obviously in its landscape setting. Finally, he eliminated the exterior profile of the dome, so that it did not spoil the composition of the elevation at first-floor level.
Ashdown’s interior (see right) is of exceptional quality, unique, and largely unaltered. It pioneers the concept of ‘interior scenery’, with the pioneering portico leading into a succession of spaces which meld and overlap both with one another, and the house’s landscape setting. It incorporates extensive use of iconography from the Tower of the Winds, drawn from Latrobe’s study of Le Roy, and evinces an experimental instinct in applying and adapting the neoclassical to new contexts.
In the upper hall, horizontal entablatures float across the half-domed apses, supported on pairs of freestanding columns with Tower of the Winds capitals of Coade stone. These bear a striking resemblance to Latrobe’s ‘American order’ columns and pilasters at the US Capitol, which incorporate tobacco leaves and corncobs, designed for Thomas Jefferson in an attempt to advance the neoclassical into the new American age.
In his arrangement of Ashdown’s interior, Fazio & Snadon (2006) argue that Latrobe went further than any other architect of his generation in the creation of ‘interior scenery’, echoing the compositional principles of eighteenth-century landscape design. Removing standard walls and doors between spaces meant that views and circulation could flow, unimpeded, from one space to the next (an enfilade), particularly within an entry sequence. Latrobe advanced this principle at Ashdown, by ‘crowding, overlapping, and interpenetrating spatial units and architectural events in a dynamic, compacted, and even disturbing way’:
this dynamic and unstable sequence of overlapping and interpenetrating special zones moves from the exterior landscape, through an interior scenery of architectural events, returning finally to landscape views. It is a vertical reinterpretation by Latrobe of the traditional, horizontal circulation path found in most eighteenth-century English country houses…
Its beautiful Chapel and ‘layered history’
The name ‘Ashdown House’, adopted in the late 19th century, obscures the fact that this isn’t just a pretty Georgian villa.
Formerly known as the Manor of Lavertye, Ashdown’s earliest recorded occupation was in 1285. Just a few hundred yards away, Roman iron-working is known to have taken place, and a find-spot of Palaeolithic (the palaeolithic period being the earliest period of known human culture) material is recorded on the application site. The Tudor parts of Ashdown, dating from the late sixteenth century and extant by 1597, survive today as an integral part of the rear of the present building.
As such, Ashdown enjoys considerable ‘layered history’. Serving as a preparatory school since 1886, it also has a beautiful Chapel, built in c. 1930 as a war memorial by Norman Evill, a fine architect who worked extensively under Edmund Lutyens. His best-known work was in the extensive re-modelling of Nymans (now owned by the National Trust), near Handcross, West Sussex, creating a neo-medieval house in the style of a Cotswold manor.
Evill was a cousin of Arthur Evill, owner-headmaster of Ashdown from c. 1910–39, who lost a son or sons in the First World War (there is presently no public access to the Chapel, but there are extensive memorials within). The War Memorials Trust page for the Chapel can be found here.
