Matthew Brettingham: Encyclopedia II - Matthew Brettingham - Architect

Matthew Brettingham - Architect

There is no evidence that Brettingham ever formally studied architecture or even travelled abroad. The Dictionary of National Biography reports him as having made two study trips abroad. However, this assumption was made on the strength of an anonymous book now ascribed to someone else, and the other because of confusion with his son Matthew Brettingham the Younger.

In 1734, Brettingham had his first great opportunity, when two of the foremost Palladian architects of the day, William Kent and Lord Burlington, were collaboratively designing a grandiose Palladian country palace at Holkham in Norfolk for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Brettingham was appointed Clerk of Works, a position he was to retain until the completion of Holkham Hall in 1764. The illustrious architects were mostly absent; indeed Burlington was more of an idealist than an architect, and thus Brettingham and the patron Lord Leicester worked on the project together: the practical Brettingham interpreting the plans of the architects to Leicester's requirements. It was at Holkham that Brettingham first worked with the fashionable Palladian style, which was to be his trademark. Holkham was to be Brettingham's vaulting horse to fame, as it was through his association with it that he came to the note of other local patrons.

Brettingham was commissioned in 1740 to redesign Langley Hall, a mansion standing in its own parkland in South Norfolk. Brettingham's resultant design was very much in the Palladian style of Holkham, though much smaller: a large principal central block linked to two flanking secondary wings by short corridors. Ironically the corner towers, while similar to those later designed by Brettingham at Euston Hall, were the work of a later owner and architect. The neoclassical lodges were also a later addition, by Sir John Soane. Brettingham began work in 1745 on the construction of Hanworth Hall, Norfolk, which again is in the Palladian style with a 5-bay facade of brick with the centre three bays projected with a pediment. (similar to that at Gunton pictured below)

In 1745 Brettingham designed Gunton Hall in Norfolk for Sir William Harbourd, the former house on the site having been gutted by fire in 1742. The new house of brick had a principal facade like that of Hanworth Hall with five bays, with the centre projected and pedimented. However, this larger house was seven bays deep, and had a large service wing on its western side.

In 1750, now well-known, the architect received an important commission to remodel Euston Hall, coincidentally in East Anglia, the Norfolk country seat of the influential Duke of Grafton. The original house, built circa 1666 in the French style, was built around a central court with large pavilions at each corner. While keeping the original layout, Brettingham formalised the fenestration and imposed a more classically severe order whereby the pavilions were transformed to towers in the Palladian fashion (similar to those of Inigo Jones's at Wilton House) and the pavilion's domes were replaced by low pyramid roofs similar to those at Holkham. Brettingham also created the large service courtyard at Euston that now acts as the entrance court to the mansion, which today is only a fraction of its former size.

The Euston commission seems to have brought Brettingham firmly to the notice of further wealthy patrons. In 1754, he began designing a new picture gallery for the Earl of Egremont at Petworth House, Suffolk, and continued work intermittently at Petworth for the next nine years.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Architect", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki