Design of the House
Here we see how the house and its details were designed in Georgian and Regency London.
We will look at the house of a famous actor, David Garrick, built in the Adelphi, one of the most fashionable developments in London.
We see a design for a chimneypiece by William Chambers, an architect of the generation before Soane; and another design by Adam, for an ornamental wall at the rear of a yard in a grand London house.
Sir Watkins Williams Wynne’s House: an Ornamental Wall
Adam Vol. 40/72
This is an ornamental wall on the back wall of the yard between the house and offices of Sir Watkins Williams Wynne’s house, St James’s Square, by Robert Adam. This was designed to be something elegant and beautiful to look at across the yard. See what trouble Adam went to designing something purely ornamental.
The statues are not drawings of real ones but were to show the client where suitable statues might go. This design was particularly grand but other simpler designs were made for smaller houses. Sir Watkins Williams Wynne was extremely rich and owned estates in Wales which produced coal and iron – this was just at the beginning of the industrial revolution when these commodities were in great demand. Many aristocratic families became very rich this way.