Comfort and Convenience at Audley End House

Abstract

Increasing interest has been shown in the ways in which country-house owners in the 18th and 19th centuries adapted their houses to incorporate new technical innovations which would improve their comfort, something that has been explored by the authors in their Country House Technology Project. Audley End House was little modernized from the second half of the 19th century onwards and was also the first great house to be acquired by the Ministry of Works. As a consequence, many of the fixtures and fittings associated with early water supply, communications, lighting, heating and sanitation remain within the house, while their interpretation has been aided by the excellent survival of the Braybrooke family archives. This article explores the ways in which some of the owners of Audley End House were pioneers in technological innovation and illustrates what remains of their work within the house and its estate.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge the considerable help given to them in their work at Audley End House by Andrew Hann, English Heritage Properties Historians’ Team Leader, and by members of his team, particularly Hannah Waugh. The staff of Essex Record Office in Chelmsford were generous in their help with the Braybrooke archives, as were English Heritage staff at Audley End House in allowing access to obscure parts of the property.

Notes

1 Paul Drury, Audley End, English Heritage, 2010.

2 Chelmsford, Essex Record Office (hereafter ERO), D/DBy, passim. http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/centre-for-historical-archaeology/research-1/country-house-technology

3 Peter Mandler, The Rise and Fall of the Stately Home, New Haven and London, 1977, 339.

4 Drury, op. cit., 47.

5 http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/ member/griffin-john-griffin-1719-97 (accessed 21 July 2013).

6 Audley End House, ‘Scrapbook’, 1787 plans.

7 Audley End House, ‘Scrapbook’, ‘Plan of the Attick Story [sic] Audley House 1787’; probate inventory of Sir John Griffin Griffin (Lord Howard de Walden), taken August 1797 (cat. no. 88073826) photocopy viewed at Audley End House.

8 ERO, D/DBy A82/9 1824; ERO, D/DBy A231, Summary Estate Accounts, 1835–50, January 1847.

9 ERO, D/DBy A253, Engineer’s Day Book.

10 ERO, D/DBY A259, Accounts 1763–64.

11 ERO, D/DBy A/43/16/1785.

12 Adam Hart-Davis, Thunder, Flash and Thomas Crapper: an Encycloopaedia [sic], London, 1997.

13 ERO, D/DBy A/43/10, 27 July 1785.

14 Idem.

15 ERO, D/DBy A/43/11/1785, 30 November.

16 Audley End House, ‘Scrapbook’, 1787 plans.

17 ERO, D/DBy A811-12, ‘2 August 1823 – 0.75 days work 2 men repairing the pipes to closet at the end of Great Hall £0 5s 3d’.

18 Audley End House, ‘Scrapbook’, 1787 plans.

19 The National Archives (hereafter TNA), WORK 31/847, Audley End plan, showing foundations and drainage (undated).

20 Maureen Dillon, Artificial Sunshine: a Social History of Domestic Lighting, London, 2002, 101.

21 ERO, D/DBy A/43/12/1785; A44/9–12; A43/3 1786–87.

22 ERO, D/DBy A202 January 1771; A203 April 1772; A30/4.

23 ERO, D/DBy A44/9/12.

24 Probate inventory of Sir John Griffin Griffin (Lord Howard de Walden), taken August 1797 (cat. no. 88073826), photocopy viewed at Audley End House.

25 Donal McGarry, ‘Historic Communications Systems for Buildings, 1750–1910’, unpublished Dip Arch thesis, The Architectural Association School of Architecture, Building Conservation course, June 1988.

26 ERO, D/DBy A 258.

27 ERO, D/DBy A37/1.

28 ERO, D/DBy A/43/10/1785, ERO, D/DBY A/43/11/1785.

29 ERO, D/DBy A/44/9-12.

30 ERO, D/DBy A/44/9–12, 17 June.

31 ERO, A45/3 1787.

32 ERO, D/DBy A/43/10/1785, A44/6/1786.

33 ERO, D/DBy A/44/9–12, 17 June.

34 Reading, Berkshire Record Office, D/EZ6 C2/2, fo. 189, Richard Aldworth Neville to Jenny, 8 January 1814. We owe this reference to Hannah Waugh, who is writing a book on this period at Audley End.

35 ERO, D/DBy A367, March 1814.

36 Richard, Lord Braybrooke, The History of Audley End: to Which are Appended Notices of the Town and Parish of Saffron Walden in the County of Essex, London, 1836.

37 ERO, D/DBy A83/1–12, 10 August 1835, ‘to 9 tins and writing for the bells’; and D/DBy A84/1–12 1826, 23 October, ‘to writing 4 labels for bells’.

38 ERO, D/DBy A230.

39 ERO, D/DBy A321, Repairs to Audley End, 1825–57.

40 ERO, D/DBy A231, Summary Estate Accounts 1835–50, June 1835 and October 1845.

41 ERO, D/DBy A321.

42 ERO, D/DBy A231, Summary Estate Accounts 1835–50, June 1848.

43 Probate inventory of Sir John Griffin Griffin (Lord Howard de Walden), taken August 1797 (cat. no. 88073826) photocopy viewed at Audley End House.

44 ERO, D/DBy A361, Household Accounts 1827–32, July 1827.

45 Charles Sylvester, The Philosophy of Domestic Economy, London, 1819.

46 For more information on G & J Haden, see http://www.hevac-heritage.org/victorian_engineers/haden/ haden.htm (accessed May 2014).

47 John James Stevenson, House Architecture, London, 1880, 219–20.

48 ERO, D/DBy A230, Summary Estate Accounts, 1820–34, August 1823.

49 ERO, D/DBy A8422, Box 2, Bundle 28.

50 ERO, D/DBy A84/8.

51 ERO, D/DBy A8422, Box 2, Bundle 28; D/DBy A321, Abstract of Accounts for Repairs at Audley End Mansion 1828.

52 ERO, D/DBy A321, 1834, 1838, 1839.

53 ERO, D/DBy A321, 1846.

54 Swindon, English Heritage Archives, DP155874.

55 ERO, D/DBy A358, Household Day Book 1831–34, December 1832.

56 ERO, Acc A8422 11/51; according to White’s Directory of Essex 1848, Jabez Church was manager of Chelmsford Gas Works.

57 This may have been D Hulett & Co, gas-light fitting manufacturers of High Holborn, London.

58 Information from Richard Hewlings.

59 ERO, Acc A8422 11/49.

60 ERO, Acc A8422 11/15.

61 ERO, Acc A8422 11/49.

62 ERO, Acc A8422 12/14.

63 For more information about the Gardener’s House, together with an illustration, see Andrew Hann, ‘Labour Recruitment on the Audley End Estate in the Late 19th Century’, English Heritage Historical Review, V, 2010, 134–55.

64 ERO, D/DBy C44, Letter Book 1902–04, 8 July 1902.

65 Idem.

66 Swindon, English Heritage Archives, AEH 0274–6, ‘Drainage of Audley End House, 1904’; ‘No. I General Plan’; ‘No. II Detailed Plan’; and ‘No. III Details of Water Supply and Sewage Disposal’.

67 ERO, D/DBy 1109–1, lease to Howard de Walden, 1904.

68 ERO, F67, September 1902, ‘negotiations re letting inc. Prince of Wales’.

69 New York Times, 28 December 1911, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40615F8395517738DDDA10A94DA415B818DF1D3 (accessed 16 March 2013).

70 Margherita Scott-Ellis Howard de Walden, Pages from My Life, London, 1965, 89.

71 Swindon, English Heritage Archives, AEH0276, ‘Drainage of Audley End House, 1904’: ‘No. III Details of Water Supply and Sewage Disposal’.

72 Swindon, English Heritage Archives, AM 46205/4, Ministry of Works fortnightly report, 29 May 1954.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian West

Professor Marilyn Palmer and Dr Ian West are responsible for the Country House Technology Project, hosted by the Centre for Historical Archaeology, University of Leicester. They have catalogued and researched surviving technological items in over eighty historic properties throughout the UK and are working on a substantial book on the subject, to be published jointly by English Heritage and the National Trust.