Hidden in Plain Sight
As the rebuilding work continues Betley Court, after our disastrous fire in 2019, long forgotten walls, altered corridors and bricked up windows have been rediscovered. Various members of the family have scaled the scaffolding to fathom out what phase of building has been revealed by restoration work. We have unanswered mysteries, such as one wall – we thought an interior wall – is expensively built with Flemish bonded Cheshire red and Staffordshire blue bricks. Surely it wasn’t built in that decorative way just to be covered in plaster and lathe? Or, is it that we have misunderstood hand drawn plans all these years?
One piece of architectural feature that we can verify,
has been hidden from sight since it was installed. It is an unprepossessing piece
of ironwork that holds the south wall up. More accurately, I should say, held
it up. The partial demolition of that area of the house undertaken in the
aftermath of the fire has relieved it of its load bearing duties for the time
being. We are incredibly lucky that we can trace the origins of this piece of
ironwork, right back to the person who commissioned it to be manufactured.
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| John Nash, architect |
In 1808, John Nash a leading figure of Georgian/Regency architecture was engaged to remodel the drawing room at Betley Court. Sir Thomas Fletcher, head of the house at that time, had chosen to revamp Betley Court’s showiest room, refurbing a dining room into a drawing room, fit for his family’s standing in society. In his book ‘This Old House’, Prof. Brown describes the scheme of works:
“Essentially, [John Nash] took
into the room an adjoining passage, and, in the middle of the garden front of
the room, he built on a bow. This involved extending the cellar as well, and
this, too, in its central section is bow shaped.”[1]
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| The drawing room before the fire (c.2018/9). Blue mark shows how well the 'Iron arch' was disguised. |
That bow, on the garden front of the room, is, of course where the fire started, on that fateful August day in 2019. However, we can rewind over two-hundred years back to when the bow was built because, luckily enough, John Nash wrote about it! His instructions explained,
“ The new Brickwall to go down to
the bottom of the cellars and gratings to let in the air….the ground excavated under the Bow – the upper wall over the Bow to
be needled* and an Iron arch enclosed in a fir beam put to carry the upper wall
– the Bow to be semicircular within the room and as large as it can be made –
the walls to be 2 Bricks thick and the window frames set in reveals and
gauged arches over them – the windows to
be of solid fir wrought framed rebated and beeded and the Casements to be
French casements down to the floor and glazed with the best crown glass and to
have brass morticse latches and butt hinges.”[2]
*pierced
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| The 'Iron arch' revealed after partial demolition work following the fire |
The ‘Iron arch’ he described allowed Nash to open out the
drawing room into the new bow, bearing the weight of the upper wall and roof.
Today we’d use an I-beam or an H-beam, made from steel. However, in Nash’s times,
iron was the go-to cutting-edge material.
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| The 'Iron arch' designed by John Nash. Refurbed by the team from Midland Conservation Ltd. Note the wood sandwiched between the iron plates (painted white). |
Our ‘Iron arch’ is essentially two flat iron plates, with shaped lugs (like jigsaw lugs) placed at each end, and the middle. The plates mirror each other, and sandwich two wooden beams between them. The two iron plates are secured with cast iron fasteners that correspond to the lugs, and are bolted top and bottom. Hopefully, the photos will explain. And so, Nash was able to create a light and airy drawing room, with 3 pairs of full height French doors leading out onto the garden.
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| Cast iron fasteners, with massive bolt |
The heritage people got quite excited when the ‘Iron arch’
was uncovered. It’s not often twenty-first-century eyes see the internal
workings of a nineteenth-century building alteration. And to be honest, we had
not given much thought to how the building was engineered, we took its stability
for granted until the fire stripped Betley Court of nearly everything.
Of course, once Nash had built the bow, the supporting ‘Iron
arch’ was covered over with plaster and lath, not to be seen for another
213-years. The ‘Iron arch’ is quite an elegant solution to the architectural
problem Nash was trying to overcome with the materials he had available at the
time. Cast iron became popular as an architectural material in this period,
allowing Georgian and Regency buildings to take on forms that were not possible
using traditional materials like wood. The structural strength it had over
timber enabled architects to make more daring buildings, especially when it
came to wide spans across rooms.
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New bearing pillars, bitting up against the old brickwork of the bow. Note the first course of bricks, which will become the new south elevation wall.
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The craftspeople and builders of Midland Construction Ltd, have done a beautiful job of restoring the ‘Iron arch’ to its former glory. New bearing pillars rise up either side of the ‘Iron arch’ holding it aloft. Work has started on repairing the bow itself, ready to receive the new roof top in the not-too-distant future. Eventually, of course, it will end up hidden under plaster again, secretly performing its job for (hopefully) centuries to come. It’s a testament to John Nash’s design and the workers of some long forgotten ironworks, that we have been able to recover this concealed piece of architectural history.
For more about John Nash at Betley Court, this postfrom 2019 might be of interest: A Palace, A Toilet, and a Tale of Two Thrones (deadgardenerssociety.blogspot.com)
Apologies for the lack of garden news this week. I'm working in Newcastle-under-Lyme on an arts residency, making a pop-up garden in one of the empty shops there as part of Newcastle Common. More information can be found at: Newcastle Common Artist: Ladybird Su - Appetite
All best wishes
Ladybird Su
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