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Shardeloes
Shardeloes is a large 18th-century country house located one mile west of Amersham in Buckinghamshire, England (). A previous manor house on the site was demolished and the present building constructed between 1758 and 1766 for William Drake, Sr., the Member of Parliament for Amersham. Shardeloes is a Grade I listed building. Design and construction The architect and builder was Stiff Leadbetter; designs for interior decorations were provided by Robert Adam from 1761. Built in the Palladian style, of stuccoed brick, the mansion is nine bays long by seven bays deep. It was constructed with the piano nobile on the ground floor and a mezzanine above. The north facade has a large portico of Corinthian columns. The terminating windows of the piano nobile are pedimented and recessed into shallow niches, as are the end bays of the east front. The roof, typically for the palladian style, is hidden by a balustrade. The original plans of the house by Leadbetter show a design close ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Drake (1723–1796)
William Drake (1723–1796), was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons for 50 years between 1746 and 1796, eventually becoming Father of the House. Drake was the son of Montague Garrard Drake, MP of Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire and his wife Isabella Marshall and was born on 12 May 1723. His father died when he was five. He was educated at Westminster School in 1738. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford on 2 October 1739 aged 16 and was created DCL on 12 April 1749. The Drake family controlled both seats at Amersham and in 1746 he was returned as Member of Parliament for Amersham. From then on he was returned at every election until his death. Between 1758 and 1768 he rebuilt the house at Shardeloes in the Palladian style, of stuccoed brick. The architect and builder was Stiff Leadbetter and designs for interior decorations were provided by Robert Adam. Drake died on 8 August 1796. He had married Elizabeth Raworth, daughter of John Raworth of Basinghall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stiff Leadbetter
Stiff Leadbetter (c.1705–18 August 1766) was a British architect and builder, one of the most successful architect–builders of the 1750s and 1760s, working for many leading aristocratic families. Career Leadbetter's career began when he was apprenticed as a carpenter in 1719, and he worked for the next decade or so as a journeyman carpenter. By 1731 he had settled in Eton, marrying Elizabeth Hill (born c.1709), daughter of a London timber merchant; and he worked as carpenter to Eton College from 1740. Leadbetter leased Eton College Wharf as his principal home and workshop from 1744. He was employed as a builder in his own right by the 1740s, and in the following two decades he worked both as a designer but primarily as a builder of many new country houses, hospitals and speculative urban development. In 1756 Leadbetter was appointed as Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul's Cathedral, and through this position also gained many ecclesiastical commissions. Many of his building ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amersham (UK Parliament Constituency)
Amersham, often spelt as Agmondesham, was a constituency of the House of Commons of England until 1707, then in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and finally in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament (MPs), elected by the bloc-vote system. Boundaries The constituency was a parliamentary borough in Buckinghamshire, covering part of the small town of Amersham. It is located 2 miles north west of London, in the Chiltern Hills of England. Davis describes it as "a thriving little market town". Before the borough was re-enfranchised in 1120 and after it was disenfranchised in 1832, the area was represented as part of the county constituency of Buckinghamshire. History The borough was first enfranchised in 1300, but only seems to have sent burgesses to Parliament for a short time. By 1307 it was no longer included in the list of Parliamentary boroughs. In the 17th century a solicitor named ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amersham
Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There are two distinct areas: * Old Amersham, set in the valley of the River Misbourne, containing the 13th-century parish church of St Mary's Church, Old Amersham, St. Mary's and several old pubs and coaching inns * Amersham-on-the-Hill, which grew in the early 20th century around , which was served by the Metropolitan Railway, now the Metropolitan line, and the Great Central Railway. Geography Old Amersham occupies the valley floor of the River Misbourne. This is a chalk stream which dries up periodically. The river occupies a valley much larger than it is possible for a river the size of the present River Misbourne to cut, which makes it a misfit stream. The valley floor is at around Ordnance Datum, OD, and the valley top is at aro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Adam
Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his older brother John, Robert took on the family business, which included lucrative work for the Board of Ordnance, after William's death. In 1754, he left for Rome, spending nearly five years on the continent studying architecture under Charles-Louis Clérisseau and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. On his return to Britain he established a practice in London, where he was joined by his younger brother James. Here he developed the "Adam Style", and his theory of "movement" in architecture, based on his studies of antiquity and became one of the most successful and fashionable architects in the country. Adam held the post of Architect of the King's Works from 1761 to 1769. Robert Adam was a leader of the first phase of the classical revival in En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphry Repton
Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of the 19th century. His first name is often incorrectly rendered "Humphrey". Biography Early life Repton was born in Bury St Edmunds, the son of a collector of excise, John Repton, and Martha (''née'' Fitch). In 1762 his father set up a transport business in Norwich, where Humphry attended Norwich Grammar School. At age twelve he was sent to the Netherlands to learn Dutch and prepare for a career as a merchant. However, Repton was befriended by a wealthy Dutch family and the trip may have done more to stimulate his interest in 'polite' pursuits such as sketching and gardening. Returning to Norwich, Repton was apprenticed to a textile merchant, then, after marriage to Mary Clarke in 1773, set up in the business himself. He was not successf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Wyatt
James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life Wyatt was born on 3 August 1746 at Weeford, near Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. Early classical career Wyatt spent six years in Italy, 1762–68, in company with Richard Bagot of Staffordshire, who was Secretary to the Earl of Northampton's embassy to the Venetian Republic. In Venice, Wyatt studied with Antonio Visentini (1688–1782) as an architectural draughtsman and painter. In Rome he made measured drawings of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, "being under the necessity of lying on his back on a ladder slung horizontally, without cradle or side-rail, over a frightful void of 300 feet". Back in England, his selection as architect of the proposed Pantheon or "Winter Ranelagh" in Oxford Street, London, brought him almost unparalleled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Country House
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who ruled rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses. With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for many rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s, the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biagio Rebecca
Biagio Rebecca (1731–1808) was an Italian artist, active mainly as a decorative painter in England. Life Rebecca was born at Osimo, near Ancona, in the Marches, and served his apprenticeship in Rome. In England he became known for Neoclassicism, neoclassical scenes from mythology, often working on decorative schemes in collaboration with Robert Adam, for example at Harewood House and at Kedleston Hall. He also decorated Heaton Hall in Prestwich, near Bury, Lancashire and frescoed a ceiling at the Marine Pavilion (Brighton, England), Marine Pavilion at Brighton. With Angelica Kauffman, he painted the old lecture room at Somerset House, then home of the Royal Academy. He also designed a set of stained glass windows in the chapel at New College, Oxford. He was employed to do some painting at Audley End House by John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, Sir John Griffin. In late 1772 Ann White, a servant at the house, gave birth to his illegitimate son, John Biagio Rebecca. Rebec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilaster
In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ..., a pilaster is an :Architectural elements, architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall surface, usually treated as though it were a column, with a Capital (architecture), capital at the top, plinth (base) at the bottom, and the various other column elements. In contrast to a pilaster, an engaged column or buttress can support the structure of a wall and roof above. In human anatomy, a pilaster is a ridge that extends vertically across the femur, which is unique to modern humans. Its structural function is unclear. Definition In discussing Leon Battis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthetic attitude dependent on principles based in the culture, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, with the emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, clarity of structure, perfection, restrained emotion, as well as explicit appeal to the intellect. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the ''Discobolus'' Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art. A violent emphasis or a sudden acceleration of rhythmic movement would have destroyed those qualities of balance and completeness through which it retained until the present century its position of authority in the restricted repertoire of visual images." Classicism, as Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Waves
In meteorology, lee waves are atmospheric stationary waves. The most common form is mountain waves, which are atmospheric internal gravity waves. These were discovered in 1933 by two German glider pilots, Hans Deutschmann and Wolf Hirth, above the Krkonoše. They are periodic changes of atmospheric pressure, temperature and orthometric height in a current of air caused by vertical displacement, for example orographic lift when the wind blows over a mountain or mountain range. They can also be caused by the surface wind blowing over an escarpment or plateau, or even by upper winds deflected over a thermal updraft or cloud street. The vertical motion forces periodic changes in speed and direction of the air within this air current. They always occur in groups on the lee side of the terrain that triggers them. Sometimes, mountain waves can help to enhance precipitation amounts downwind of mountain ranges. Usually a turbulent vortex, with its axis of rotation parallel to the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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