. The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone;. d, so to express it, as were thespirit and history of the age itselt — continued, althoughmodified, to be the prevalent style until the Civil War. In a charming country about an hour by rail north ofLondon there is an extraordinary residence which shows thisform of Renaissance. Audley End,1 Essex, was not only thelargest mansion erected in the Jacobean period, but also wasapparently intended to be the grandest that had then beenbuilt in England. It stands on the estate of Walden Abbey, a 1 See Lord Bratbrookes History of Audley End and Saff
. The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone;. d, so to express it, as were thespirit and history of the age itselt — continued, althoughmodified, to be the prevalent style until the Civil War. In a charming country about an hour by rail north ofLondon there is an extraordinary residence which shows thisform of Renaissance. Audley End,1 Essex, was not only thelargest mansion erected in the Jacobean period, but also wasapparently intended to be the grandest that had then beenbuilt in England. It stands on the estate of Walden Abbey, a 1 See Lord Bratbrookes History of Audley End and Saffron Walden,Essex. Engravings and cuts, Roy. 4°, 1836. — Winstanlet, H., Plans, Eleva-tions, and particular Prospects of Audley End. Ob. folio, 24 plates. This is oneof the earliest and rarest works illustrating a great English residence, as well asone of the most expensive. The view here given (part of a plate ll£ by 20inches) is taken from the dedication copy to James II. which bears his arms, andbelonged to him It is now owned by the AUDLEY END. 373 house of the Benedictines founded in 1136 and granted byHenry VIII. in 1537 to Sir Thomas Audley. His daughtersson was distinguished in the fight with the Spanish Armadaand in other ways, and on the accession of King James, in 1603,was made Earl of Suffolk and Lord Treasurer. In the sameyear the Earl began this house, and probably superintendedthe work, assisted, it is thought, by John Thorpe and BernardJansen. Thirteen years afterwards the house was finished, ata cost of £190,000. There were two large quadrangles, ofwhich only three fourths of the chief one remains. When thetenth and last Earl of Suffolk died, in 1745, the estate at lengthpassed into the possession of Lord Braybrooke. By the inju-dicious advice of Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect, three sidesof the first quadrangle had already been destroyed, and in1750 the great gallery, 226 feet long, was also taken down;yet the best part of the edifice was spar
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidi, booksubjectarchitecture
