Chapter 4
The Research Setting: A Narrative of a Building in the Making
PLATE 2.1: Gloucester as approached from the Welsh side of the Severn, shown without floodwaters which would have filled the flat area from foreground to city during high flood on Buckingham’s approach. “Perspective view of the City of Gloucester, in Gloucestershire” anonymous engraver, published in The Modern Universal Traveller, by Charles Burlington, about 1779. Copper engraved print, 30 x 19 cm to plate mark, plus margins. Image courtesy of www.antiqueprints.com. Public domain.
PLATE 2.2: The new palace at Richmond as seen from the banks of the Thames, showing the palace flanked by walled grounds on both sides, and with a highly articulated roofline punctuated by several ornate brick chimneys. “Richmond Palace as seen from the SW,” by Anthony van den Wyngaerde, c.1558-62. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 20.1 x 89.7 cm. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Wyngaerde_Richmond_1562.jpg CC - Public domain.
PLATE 2.3: The east entrance gate and walls of Richmond Palace opening on to the Great Court with a significant resemblance to Thornbury Castle. “The East view of Henry VII’s Palace on Richmond Green,” engraved by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck in Buck’s Antiquities, 1737. Royal Collection Trust RCIN 703008, © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021, etching 15 x 10cms, retrieved from https://www.rct.uk/collection/703008/the-east-view-of-henry-viis-palace-on-richmond-green.
Figure 4.1: (left image): Site plan and courtyards of Thornbury Castle and environs with castle and walls, church, missing the Great Hall at the open end of the Inner Court. This work is a derivative of a composite layer of 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey Plans provided by the British Library and National Library of Scotland as part of the Know Your Place West Heritage Lottery Funded project (kypwest.org.uk). This initial Ordnance Survey was undertaken for Gloucestershire and Somerset—the Gloucestershire area was surveyed 1873–1884. Ordnance Survey 25, 1st Edition. Bristol City Council. https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/edition=som. GIS Datasets DB-755 (2013) licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. (right image): Site plan of Thornbury Castle showing former Great Hall and other structures demolished by Buckingham (dotted lines) to open up the Inner Court to the north-east winds (arrow). Walls redrawn using plan of building in Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Volume 3, Southern England by Emery, Figure 4.3) with all linework, corrections and additions by author.
PLATE 2.4: Reconstructed plan by author: Thornbury Castle showing Inner Court opening to healthful north-east winds. The kitchen spaces and garden are on the north side, valuables in the west “fortified” side in the wardrobe and offices, and living quarters for the family on the south facing the fragrant Privy Garden. Construction would have taken place in the Inner Court as well as on the perimeter. Drawing by author composed by fragments taken from The History of Thornbury Castle by Richard Ellis (Thornbury: Hamilton Adams and Richard Ellis, 1839). Public Domain.
Figure 4.2: Portrait of Edward Stafford, Third Duke of Buckingham, with his sanguine complexion and full-figured physique. Magdalen College, Cambridge, 1520, artist unknown, oil on canvas, 74 cm × 62.5 cm.
PLATE 2.5: Wind Rose for Thornbury Castle showing annual wind directions. Each spoke indicates the frequency of winds from each direction (the longer the spoke, the more frequent the wind from that direction). The most common prevailing winds are from the south and west, and occur in the summer, fall and winter. Winds from the north-east occur predominantly in the spring when the gardens and orchards to the north-east are in bloom bringing healthy fresh air into the courtyards, captured by the open mouth of the U-shaped building. Historical wind rose diagram from www.meteoblue.com licenced under CC BY-NC-ND. Underlying map has been derived from a composite layer of 1:2500 scale Ordnace Survey Plans provided by the British Library and National Library of Scotland as part of the Know Your Place West Heritage Lottery Funded project (kypwest.org.uk). This initial Ordnace Survey was undertaken for Gloucestershire and Somerset - the Gloucestershire area was surveyed 1873-1884. Ordnance Survey 25, 1st Edition. Bristol City Council. https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=som. GIS Datasets DB-755 (2013) licenced under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
PLATE 2.6: Main brick chimneys at Thornbury Castle built in the Inner Court, dated 1514. Drawing by A. Pugin and A.W. Pugin in Examples of Gothic Architecture, Vol. II, (Edinburgh:1895) Plate XV, p176. Retrieved from Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/examplesofgothic02pugiuoft/page/n175/mode/2up , Public Domain.
PLATE 2.7: Three kitchens and two details showing activity and porosity of the spaces with details of cooks’ waving to the reader/apprentice through the frame of the page. Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera, 1570. A) The Main Kitchen retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliodyssey/3353830798/sizes/o/, B) A Field Kitchen retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliodyssey/3353827202/sizes/h/, and C) The Room Next to the Kitchen retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibliodyssey/3353830798/sizes/h/ Posted on Flickr by Peakay at http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009_03_15_archive.html, CC BY 2.0 license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Figure 4.3: Figure 4.3 Two Horae scattering flowers, watched by two satyrs, detail of the rustic banquet celebrating the marriage of Cupid and Psyche from the Sala di Amore e Psiche, 1528, fresco by Giulio Romano, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. Perspective angle leveled by author for this portion of the original image by Di Sailko copyright Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported at https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Te#/media File:Giulio_romano,_rinaldo_mantovano_e_ benedetto_pagni,_camera_di_amore_e_psiche,_1526-28,_03.jpg
PLATE 2.8: Bird’s-eye view of the detailed chimneys over the lodging wing at Thornbury looking towards the kitchens with the Severn beyond. Drone footage by Ben Hayward (pilot) and Sheryl Boyle (conductor), June 2018.
PLATE 2.9: Learning about cut-and-rubbed brickwork from Peter Minter, June 2018: a) bricks stacked in his dome kiln, b) feeling the unique proportions and weight of bricks from different periods of time, c) Peter describing how to feel the tension in the buck-saw, d) using the buck-saw to cut my bricks, e) sample of cut-and rubbed brickwork from Thornbury Castle in the Thornbury District Museum, f) Peter and I in the clay seam, g) learning to stack bricks for air-drying.