Thankfully, I do not make that many mistakes in my posts, but when I do, readers always find them, which is really brilliant as some are very embarrassing, and I want the posts to be as factually correct as possible.
I have made a couple of mistakes in the last two posts. In my post on Basing House, I brought the siege forward from 1643 to 1943 in a couple of places in the text, but the most embarrassing was in last week’s post, when I confused the late 18th – early 19th century architect, George Dance the Younger, with the contemporary actor, Charles Dance.
When I wrote the post, I had the Pevsner guide in front of me, clearly stating George Dance the Younger, but there was obviously some disconnect between my eyes and brain, and my fingers as I typed. I still did not pick this up when reading through the final version of the post.
I have no idea if Charles Dance is a descendant of George Dance, although according to his Wikipedia entry, Charles Dance attended the Plymouth Drawing School and studied Graphic Design and Photography at Leicester College of Arts, so he may have similar talents to George Dance.
As a penance for making this embarrassing mistake, I decided to find out more about George Dance the Younger and to track down a couple of his remaining works in London.
Later in the post, I will also be exploring St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, after reading a brilliant book about this medieval chapel, and original home of the House of Commons.
George Dance the Younger
George Dance the Younger was born in Chiswell Street in 1741, the fifth and youngest son of George Dance senior (for simplicity, all future references to George Dance the Younger will be as George Dance).
George Dance by George Henry Harlow in 1814:
Source and attribution: George Dance by George Henry Harlow pencil and chalk, 1814 9 1/4 in. x 7 3/4 in. (235 mm x 197 mm) Purchased, 1936 Primary Collection NPG 2812
To add to my earlier comments about mistakes and trying to be factually correct, the National Portrait Gallery record with the above image does not make clear this this is “the Younger”, but does give the dates of life of the sitter as 1741-1825, which coincides the life span of George Dance the Younger.
The portrait is also dated 1814, and his father, George Dance the Elder, had died much earlier in 1768.
At the age of 17, George Dance went to Italy with his older brother Nathaniel (later Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland who was a painter, member of Parliament and member of the Royal Academy), and whilst in Italy, George studied in a number of cities including Florence, Rome and Naples.
In 1765 he returned to England, and took over his father’s role, by purchase, as the Clerk of Works to the City of London.
My first stop in my search for locations connected with George Dance was the house where he lived during the later part of his life, and where he died in 1825.
To the left of centre of this terrace in Gower Street is a blue plaque:
The house with the plaque:
Which confirms that George Dance the Younger lived there:
In addition to St Bartholomew the Less featured in last week’s post, George Dance was responsible for a number of works across London, however the majority have been demolished. These include:
- Repairs and alterations of Newgate Prison after damage sustained during the Gordon Riots
- St. Luke’s Hospital, Old Street
- The Giltspur Street Comptor, also known as the City House of Correction
- The Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall
- At the Mansion House in the City, he added a potico to the west door, which was later removed, and he also lowered the roof of the Egyptian Hall
- At the Guildhall, he rebuilt the southern front in a Gothic Style, but this was later demolished, and the Chamberlain’s Court, also demolished
Between 1806 and 1813 he was responsible for the home of the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, however the building was rebuilt by Charles Barry between 1836 and 1837, but Barry did keep Dance’s original portico, which we can still see on the front of the building:
The Royal College of Surgeons does look as if it was the product of a single design, however the portico is from George Dance’s original building (1806 – 1813), the lower part of the building behind is by Charles Barry (1837 – 1837), and the attic storeys and the wings are by Stephen Salter (1888 – 1889):
My next stop was in London Wall to find the church of All Hallows on the Wall, which was rebuilt between 1765 and 1767 by George Dance:
Which is recorded on a plaque next to the entrance to the church:
As a town planner, George Dance worked on a transformation of part of the Minories, which included the original layout of America Square in 1728. My father photographed part of America Square in 1949, when it looked very different to Dance’s original plans:
His work on America Square extended south to include the construction of the Crescent:
The original buildings of the Crescent were badly damaged by bombing during the last war. The damage started with total destruction on the right and progressively reducing along the buildings to the left.
Pevsner’s guide to the City of London explains that there were originally 11 houses, and only numbers 6 to 11 can be seen today. Numbers 6 and 7 (the two on the left of the terrace) retain their original doorcases. The facades were extensively restored in 1985-6 when replicas of numbers 8 to 11 (the houses to the right) were built.
Although only two originals survive (with much restoration), it is good to see that George Dance’s crescent design can still be seen, having avoided being replaced by yet another glass and steel block.
Dance was also responsible for the original layout of Finsbury Square in 1777.
A number of his plans and proposals were not carried out, including improvements to the Port of London and for the layout of the Camden estate in St. Pancras.
George Dance also worked on a number of projects outside of London, including::
- The Theatre Royal, Bath
- Ashburnham Place, Sussex
- Wilderness Park near Sevenoaks in Kent for the Marquis of Camden
- Alterations to Kidbrook near East Grinstead for Charles Abbot, the Speaker of the House of Commns
As well as an architect, George Dance was also an artist, and perhaps one of his most touching works is a portrait of his son, also George, dating from 1793, when his son was around the age of 15. He would later die of a liver complaint and fever whilst in India in 1813:
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
As well as his brother Nathaniel, George Dance was also a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Sir John Soane and William Mountague were pupils of George Dance, and when Dance retired from his position of Clerk of Works to the City of London in 1815, William Mountague took on the role.
George Dance died in Gower Street on the 14th of January, 1825, aged 84, and he was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, close to where Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Joshua Reynolds were also buried. At the time of his death, George Dance was the last of the 40 founding members of the Royal Academy.
In May of 1825, the Royal Academy held an exhibition of sculpture, and one of the items on display was a bust of George Dance, described as “An animated and expressive head of one, who, in the later stages of life, still had a very vigorous bearing, that repelled the infirmities of decay. The likeness is very accurate, and bold; the character of the mind speaks through it. At present it is but a model that is to be executed in marble.”
Despite much having been demolished, traces of George Dance’s work can still be seen across London. As well as an architect, he was an accomplished artist and one of the founding members of the Royal Academy, where he was also on the Council and was elected a Fellow.
And definitely not a contemporary actor.
St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster
A couple of week’s ago, my post was about the siege of Basing House, after reading a brilliant book about the subject and which encouraged a follow-up visit to what remains of the site. For this week, I have another random find when browsing the shelves of a bookshop. This is The Lost Chapel of Westminster by John Cooper:
The Lost Chapel in the title is St Stephen’s, a chapel that had been at the heart of royal, religious and political life from the time construction began in 1292 under Edward I, until it was destroyed in 1834, during the fire which devasted much of the Palace of Westminster.
The chapel was one of the most significant building projects of the late 13th and early 14th centuries, and took a significant time to complete, under the reigns of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, finally being completed in 1348, with internal decoration continuing for a couple more decades.
St Stephen’s Chapel had two primary roles. As the private chapel for the King and the royal family whilst they were resident in Westminster. Secondly, the chapel maintained a daily routine to pray for the dead, including monarchs who had died as well as those who had left money and lands to the chapel. During this period in medieval history, the belief in purgatory was common, with the associated belief that the prayers of the living would hasten the purification of the souls of the dead, and speed their transition through purgatory.
The location of the chapel is shown within the red oval in the map of the Palace of Westminster prior to the 1834 fire:
(Unless stated, all prints in this section of the post are: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)
The building to the upper right of the chapel is Westminster Hall, so as this structure is still there, we can locate where St Stephen’s Chapel was, on a plan of the site today, where the 19th century structure on the footprint of the old chapel is now called St Stephen’s Hall:
In the above plan, to the right of the yellow oval there is the outline of a surviving medieval structure. These are the old cloisters of St Stephen’s Chapel / College, which did survive and can be seen today in the centre of the following Google map, just above the St. Stephen’s Hall label (this map will probably not appear if you receive this post via email, just the way custom HTML is handled. Click here to see the map on Google Maps)
Another medieval survivor is the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft. This was also built in the same sequence by Edwards I, II and III, and whilst the chapel was used by the monarch and members of the monarch’s family, the undercroft was used by the Royal Household.
Being below ground level, St Mary Undercroft survived the 1834 fire, and today it is available for use by members of the House of Commons and the Lords.
St Stephen’s Chapel survived as a chapel until the Reformation.
Up until the middle of the 16th century, the Commons did not have their own, permanent home. Debates would be held at different locations, with the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey being one of the places in use.
St Stephen’s Chapel became the long term home of the House of Commons in 1547 when Edward VI gave the chapel for use as their debating chamber.
The pews were removed and replaced by benches along either side of the old chapel. A speakers chair was installed, along with a table and raised platform in front of the speaker.
And so it remained until it was destroyed by the 1834 fire. The key challenge during the almost 300 years of use by the Commons was to accommodate the ever growing number of MPs.
Prints of St Stephen’s Chapel provide an idea of how impressive the chapel, and later home of the Commons was, within the overall Palace of Westminster:
The view from the Thames:
Inside St Stephen’s Chapel during it’s time as the House of Commons:
In the above print, we can see the changes made over the centuries to accommodate the growing number of MPs, with benches running around the back of the speaker’s chair, and upper galleries on either side.
St Stephen’s Chapel / House of Commons after the fire:
Another view of the destruction caused by the fire:
During the chapel’s use as the House of Commons, wooden panelling had been put up along the walls, which hid the medieval decoration. The original chapel was known to have been incredibly well decorated.
In the years before the fire, antiquaries had spent time looking behind the panneling, and also after the fire there was work to record as much of the chapel as remained.
The following illustration gives an idea of how richly decorated the chapel was:
The above print shows the remains of the paintings discovered on the wall adjoining the site of the altar, and the print below illustrates some of the other wall paintings:
The following print shows specimens of sculpture from St Stephen’s Chapel:
Although St Stephen’s Chapel was lost during the 1834 fire, when the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt, the new home for the House of Commons was moved to a new location within the overall site, but retained the same layout as the original House of Commons, as shown in the print above, with the opposing benches, and the Speakers Chair and central table.
The current House of Commons has the same problems as the original, as whilst the rebuilt structure is slightly larger, it still cannot accommodate all the MPs, which is why there is always a crowd of MPs standing at the entrance when there are the type of debates that the majority of members want to attend.
It is though remarkable, that the current House of Commons continues a format that was implemented in the 16th century to make use of the space of a medieval chapel.
Today, brass studs in the floor of St Stephen’s Hall mark the outline of the original chapel and the Speaker’s Chair.
Research by the University of York has been turned into a 3D visualisation of St Stephen’s Chapel, giving an idea of the impressive decoration. The home page of the project website is here:
https://www.virtualststephens.org.uk/
One of the 3D visualisations is of the 1360s medieval chapel, which can be found here:
https://www.virtualststephens.org.uk/sites/virtualststephens.org.uk/files/panoramas/1360s/tour.html
There is much to explore on the Virtual St Stephen’s website.
And again I highly recommend The Lost Chapel of Westminster by John Cooper for a comprehensive study of the origin of St Stephen’s Chapel, the medieval life of what was both a religious and royal establishment, the transformation into the first permanent home of the House of Commons, and how it developed until the fire of 1834.
Finding the book was one of the benefits of browsing and buying in a physical bookshop, rather than depending on the algorithms of online sellers.
I believe St Stephen’s Hall is still on the tours available of the Houses of Parliament, unfortunately the old cloisters are working offices, so not available for public access, and St Mary Undercroft does not appear to be publicly accessible. A real shame that these medieval survivors within the 19th century Palace of Westminster, are not available to visit.