{"id":6208,"date":"2023-08-26T19:07:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T23:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/?p=6208"},"modified":"2024-04-05T16:16:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T20:16:46","slug":"the-regency-style-on-the-island-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/2023\/08\/26\/the-regency-style-on-the-island-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"THE REGENCY STYLE ON THE ISLAND \u2013 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Because of the length of this topic I have divided it into two parts. In this, the first, I will discuss Romanticism and the Regency and two Charlottetown houses, Holland Grove and the Carmichael House. There will be special emphasis on John Plaw<\/strong>. In the second part I will briefly discuss the kinds of furniture that went into these houses and conclude with an examination of Fairholm House.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a little tricky to write about the Regency style on the Island because those years, from 1811-1820, were not particularly productive and elegant times on the Island as those early British Colonists strived to establish themselves and make a home in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

But, here and there, persons of quality and wealth could build something better than the ubiquitous log cabin or framed central chimney house, inspired by fashionable pattern books they had brought with them and satisfied by the skills of builders and cabinetmakers who had emigrated to the Island with them.<\/p>\n

And it is most important to remember that the term \u201cRegency,\u201d so full of elegance and style, greatly influenced by the extraordinary personal taste of the Prince Regent, later George IV, carried on through the reign of his successor, William IV (1830-37), a man of the sea with no discernable taste and into the early years of the reign of the young Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Regency style only came to an end when the early Italian-inspired designs of John Nash and Sir Charles Barry were crowned with royal approval when Victoria and Albert showed a powerful interest in the style. They created, between 1845-51, following a design for an Italian palazzo devised by Prince Albert himself, and utilising the skills of their favoured architect, Thomas Cubitt, their beloved summer retreat of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. We will discuss this in a later post.<\/p>\n

Romanticism and the Regency<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Early Romantic Period in literature and the visual arts, architecture, and music, began to gain momentum in the last decades of the Eighteenth Century and by about 1840, had exhausted its freshness to take on heavier tones in all the arts, and become the careful yet comfortable way of life of the new conservative bourgeoisie that soon outnumbered the aristocracy in power and trend-setting. This corresponded with the late Victorian Period, from the death of Prince Albert in 1861 to Victoria\u2019s death in 1901.<\/p>\n

But before all these fascinating things happened there was the first youthful flush of Romantic sensibility in literature, when a group of new poets, celebrating nature, love, the Mediaeval past, and revolution, came to the fore. These were Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats \u2013 and riding the crest of this unstoppable wave, Lord Byron.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lord Byron, watercolour miniature, approx. 8×9 inches, circa 1815.
\nFormerly in the R. Porter Collection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Byron\u2019s life is better known than most because of the way he lived it, scandalising the gentle manners of Enlightenment Europe with his beauty, his wild sexual behaviour, his new style of writing, full of wit and informality, and in the end, his passionate efforts to free Greece from centuries of Turkish oppression.<\/p>\n

To hide a slight deformity in his foot he was the first to wear long pants at social events, and soon others imitated him, leaving an inheritance in dress that we still practice to this day. He was noted for his wit, and everybody \u2013 scandalised or not \u2013 sought to meet him, including the Prince Regent, who went so far as to have himself painted by Henry Bone (above), sporting the famous Byron haircut.<\/p>\n

The Prince Regent may have been a ridiculous figure to many, but he had impeccable taste, and was full of adventure. In those days it was fashionable for men and women to \u201ctake the waters,\u201d that is, drink and soak in natural mineral springs to clean out their system after overindulgence in unhealthy foods. The Prince Regent badly needed these medical attentions, first introduced to Britain by the Romans, and so at Brighton he hired the architect of the Picturesque, John Nash, to build him a bath house in what can only be described as a fantastical Indian style with domes and minarets and touches of Gothic here and there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo from the Internet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This desire for the fantastic became very popular and all the architects of the day, some famous, others now forgotten, wrote books with designs for rural cottages to which the wealthy could retreat to recover from the excesses of social life. These cottage designs were to be enormously influential in liberating Georgian architecture from the highly controlled strictures of classical architecture, with its dependence on the Three Orders and the central plan dominated by a pedimented porch. Now there were pretty log house designs, influenced by tales of settlement in the forest primeval sent back by settlers struggling in the new world, but there was also a great interest in oriental architecture with its ogival arches, domes, and extraordinary architectural details. Gothic architecture perhaps received the greatest amount of attention because of the Eighteenth-Century trend in novels set in the Middle Ages that sent readers into spasms on horror. You might have come across some of them such as The Castle of Otranto<\/em> (1764) by Horace Walpole, The Monk<\/em> (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis and Frankenstein<\/em> (1818) by Mary Shelley.<\/p>\n

Byron himself contributed greatly, in a macabre way, to the rise of the Gothic Revival when he moved into his ancestral home, the mediaeval Newstead Abbey, and there with his friends dressed as monks, cavorted wildly in alcoholic and sexual excesses. Byron even had a skull found in his garden trimmed and shaped into a drinking cup mounted in precious metals. Such a cup, with an inscription, is now for sale in Devon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/news\/devon-news\/human-skull-cup-used-byron-562426<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE REGENCY\u00a0<\/strong>ARRIVES IN CHARLOTTETOWN:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

JOHN PLAW (<\/strong>1745-1820<\/strong>)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If there is a moment when the Regency arrived in Charlottetown, and if there is a person who may be said to have brought it here, then it was the architect, John Plaw.<\/p>\n

Plaw was born in London in the middle of the European Rococo period, but by the time he reached maturity that curved, delicate style had been replaced by the sterner stuff of Neoclassicism, which in England was known under the broad name of Georgian.<\/p>\n

The Georgian style developed subcategories known as Palladianism where the Italian Renaissance square symmetry of the architect Andrea Palladio (active 1550) dominated, and a new craze for country houses in this style was partly funded, not by aristocratic wealth, but the profits of the Industrial Revolution, the successes of commoners. Finally, the topographical part of this great movement, was the passion for the Picturesque, where vast landscapes surrounding these new Palladian houses were modified, often to an incredible extent, by the reshaping of the countryside to imitate landscape paintings by two Seventeenth Century painters called Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin. Baroque pictures were created in three dimensions in great private estates.<\/p>\n

It was in this world that John Plaw was born, and in time became a famous architect of the Picturesque, publishing three books on the subject in his lifetime – Rural Architecture; or Designs from the Simple Cottage to the Decorated Villa<\/em>, Ferme Orn\u00e9e or Rural Improvements<\/em>, and Sketches for Country Houses, Villas, and Rural Dwellings<\/em>. So popular were they that they are still in print, available in facsimile editions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The range of designs in these books is extremely broad and quite fantastical. Inspired by settlers\u2019 adventures in the New World, in Rural Architecture<\/em> Plaw produced this gabled \u201cGothick\u201d design for a gatehouse, or secluded retreat hidden away in a large estate. Seclusion from the constant insistent demands of social life led many to seek out secret places to hide away from life in the grand rooms. Elegant cottages, inspired by the cabins of New World settlers were called ferme orn\u00e9e, and built in a miniature landscape in a beautiful but remote corner of the larger estate. John Plaw catered to this new craze and his books are full of exotic ideas for houses big and small that departed in design from the Georgian norms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Plaw, Ferme Orn\u00e9e, Plate 16<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Plaw\u2019s vision was broad, perhaps truly imperial, when he designed \u201cBelle Isle\u201d on Lake Windemere in the English Lake District, the haunt of poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. The setting was glorious and had every feature desired and celebrated by the Romantic poets and artists. The island, formerly Longholme, was bought by Thomas English in the 1772 and Plaw built a three-story rotunda house, inspired by Hadrian\u2019s massive Pantheon in Rome. In 1781 English sold the site to Isabella Curwen, whose husband, John Christian Curwen, renamed the island \u201cBelle Isle\u201d. The island remained in the ownership of the Curwen family until 1992.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Winandermere Lake<\/em> [sic], Westmorland, painted by G Barrett, engraved, and published by
\nSamuel Middiman, 3 Grafton Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, 1784.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Plaw provided an illustration in his 1774 Rural Architecture<\/em> on plate XXVIII. The rotunda is immediately recognisable for what it is \u2013 a reduced rural copy of Hadrian\u2019s grand Pantheon in Rome. The sheer audacity of one who specialised in very modest cottages, or ferme orn\u00e9e as they were called, in reducing one of the world\u2019s greatest buildings to a three-storey cottage on a tiny island in the Lake District is arrogance in the extreme. Regardless, this small \u201cBelle Ilse\u201d has too taken its place in the history of world architecture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Plaw, John, Rural Architecture<\/em> \u2026\u201cBelle Isle\u201d on Lake Windemere in the English Lake District, 1774.
\nPlate XXVIII, from the 1802 edition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is an aerial photo (documentation unavailable) of Belle Isle after a major restoration made necessary by a disastrous fire in 1994 or \u201996.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Around 1759, when he was 14, John Plaw began an apprenticeship with a bricklaying firm. For his work he came to the notice of the Royal Society of Arts and received an award for the quality of his drawings. His subsequent career is uncertain but, by the time he was 30 he had designed the villa on Belle Isle and was exhibiting drawings \u2013 his ideas \u2013 at the Royal Academy of Arts. By 1788 he had designed a cruciform church on Paddington Green, and it is still standing.<\/p>\n

The 1790s were busy years in Southampton and the Isle of Wight where he designed military barracks. \u00a0The coming of the French Revolution in 1799 and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars in Europe may have produced circumstances where it was impossible for an architect of Plaw\u2019s talents and preferences to make a go of it, so that by 1807 he and his family, and some relatives, moved to Prince Edward Island. He designed two jails, two designs for a courthouse (one of which was built) and a store on the corner of Great George Street and Water Street.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

John Plaw, Second Plan for a Courthouse, 1811, PARO.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He had tried to make of go of it, with no success in Nova Scotia, where he designed a most elegant Admiralty House that was never built. Its two faces, as they survive in drawings, tell us where his vision lay. You can see in the Nova Scotia drawings that his basic ideas for paired columns attached to the building as pilasters first appeared in the second concept for the Charlottetown Courthouse in 1810.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By the next year, established in Charlottetown, Plaw produced a design for a retail store on the most socially prominent corner of Great George and Water Streets for the firm of Waters and Birnie (Rogers 1983, pp. 310-311).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Plaw, John, Plan for a Retail Store for Waters and Birnie, 1814,
\nPARO Acc 2333-3.<\/p>\n

We are not certain if this was ever built but there was a structure there which had a series of interesting lives. Occasionally one reads that this was a circular building, but the plan, in the provincial Archives, clearly indicates otherwise.<\/p>\n

Plaw did design, and begin to build, a circular building in the centre of Queen\u2019s Square, not far from the Courthouse. This was the round Market House, a circular core surrounded by a colonnade of Tuscan Doric columns and topped by an elegant cupola. Plaw died in 1820 before it could be completed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What was the Architectural Atmosphere
\nin Plaw\u2019s Charlottetown?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As we have seen again and again in previous posts carpenters and joiners created the first face of Charlottetown by building houses, small and big, that were based on the principles of Georgian architecture, whether brought over by settlers who came after the American Revolution of 1776 or who brought with them ubiquitous handbooks for builders like those published, in many editions, by William Halfpenny. This 1749 edition, which I was allowed to examine, was owned by two great names of the inception of the British Colony of Saint John\u2019s Island, Samuel Holland and Frederick Haldiman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In it are to be found many engraved plates filled with designs for suitable country houses. The most familiar and much-used one was the central plan Palladian house as interpreted by Georgian architects.<\/p>\n

\"\"From Plate 16, following page 8.<\/p>\n

This house in Georgetown (location not available) is derived from this sort of design.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not everybody could afford such a house and the small central plan and central chimney cottage at 222 Sydney in Charlottetown would have been much more typical of what could fulfill the needs of early settlers. There is reason to speculate that this may have been a Plaw design, with its highly individualistic corner boards and eaves brackets. This was discussed at some length in previous posts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

222 Sydney Street, circa 1810<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This row house at 55 Dorchester Street predates Plaw\u2019s arrival and is a splendid example of urban architecture of the Georgian period. It even has a mews entrance so that a horse and perhaps a carriage could be kept in the yard behind the house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

McGhee House \u2013 55 Dorchester, c 1800<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What we know of Plaw\u2019s architectural work in Charlottetown.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This composite photograph of Queen\u2019s Square made up from several photographs taken in August of 1862 by Lieutenant Trotter on a Royal Navy ship that was visiting Charlottetown, shows us the two Plaw designs that we know were built.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Plaw\u2019s Courthouse and Market, Queen\u2019s Square, 1862.
\nComposite photo by David Webber and reworked by Reg Porter<\/p>\n

On the right, originally located where the entrance to the Confederation Centre Theatre is now located, is the Courthouse. It is very much a Regency building with its eccentric shape and details in the ornamentation. Plaw had already built a church in England with that cruciform plan. To the left of it, and originally placed in the centre of the square \u2013 a very old English tradition \u2013 is Plaw\u2019s market building. The round form is very old, going back to the Middle Ages, but it is also a favourite shape of the Regency Period. So soon after his arrival Plaw placed the stamp of his Regency style right at the heart of the capital.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What other Regency buildings might Plaw have designed, and which are unrecorded?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There are two buildings in Charlottetown which bear the stamp of Regency style and delicacy. One, Holland Grove, only survived from 1815 to the 1860s, and the other, now known as the Carmichael house, at 238 Pownal Street, is still standing in its original grounds. We will look at both of them and present them as possible creations by John Plaw if only for their elegance and unusual design in the context of what we know was being built in before Plaw\u2019s death in 1820.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Frederick Holland <\/strong>(ca 1764 \u2013 December 17, 1845) was an army officer, surveyor and political figure in Prince Edward Island and represented Charlottetown in the Legislative Assembly from 1803 to 1812. He was the son of Samuel Holland, the great surveyor, and was born at his father\u2019s base in Holland Cove from which the crews went out to survey Saint John\u2019s Island. He had a varied career in the Navy, took part in crucial surveys in Ontario and worked as establishing the New Brunswick\/Quebec border. He became a lieutenant in Prince Edward\u2019s Regiment, married and worked on building the Citadel in Halifax.<\/p>\n

In time he became so tiresome that he was sent to Saint John\u2019s Island\/Prince Edward Island where his interfering behaviour caused much unhappiness. In Charlottetown in 1815 he managed to obtain for his city estate the entire block, running east below Euston Street from Great George Street. The estate was called Holland Grove.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There around 1815, next to the public gallows across Euston Street, he built a quite elegant, even fantastical city house surrounded by gardens and trees. Although he lived from time to time in Charlottetown until his death in 1845, financial difficulties caused him to move out of the house in 1826 and rent it out. The house itself only stood to about the time of Confederation where it appears on the Lake map of the city, but not in those that followed soon after. Thus, it was never photographed except as a rooftop in an early amateur photo of a city view. You can see it top, left of centre in this detail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Henry Cundall (attr.), Detail of View from Smarden\u2019s Corner,
\ntaken from the roof of Province House, c. 1860, PARO.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The only surviving view of what we believe to be Holland Grove was painted, perhaps before Holland\u2019s death, by an itinerant artist called S. W. Martin who was active in Charlottetown in 1840. Judging from the evidence in the 1860 photograph detail above, the fa\u00e7ade of the house that Martin painted faced south.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Holland House from the South, S. W. Martin, c. 1840
\nConfederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum<\/p>\n

From what we can see from the painting, the ground floor was brightly illuminated by three bays of Palladian windows, with the extended centre sashes raised by flat tops. This arrangement seems to have prevailed on the first (second) floor which was capped by a hip roof. This is how Elizabeth MacDonald, writing in 1901, described it from memory:<\/p>\n

On the west side of Great George Street, the land was low and boggy, with occasional dry ground extending from Grafton Street past Kent, and Fitzroy to Euston or the middle of the block, out through what is now called Chestnut Street. The high ground of Holland Grove was a lovely spot, thickly wooded with forest and ornamental trees. A large and quaint-looking house, with an observatory on the top, showing above the trees, was situated on the centre or highest part of the ground; it had been built and occupied by the first Colonel Holland; was Government House for a short time, and in 1844 was occupied by John Grubb, Esq., who had come to Charlottetown from England a few years previously. (p. 62)<\/p>\n

The detail about the astronomical observatory is of the greatest interest because, in those days, before the advent of modern optical surveying instruments, longitude, essential for producing accurate maps, had, in part, to be determined by nocturnal observations of the stars, Earth’s moon and those of Saturn. Holland\u2019s father, Samuel, had such an observatory on top of his house in Quebec, and so it is not surprising that his son would have one too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is not possible to make out much detail of this roof structure, but if we look at this (blurred) enlargement of the detail in the painting we can see that it was a substantial room that could contain all of Holland\u2019s astronomical instruments, tables of the sky and other reference material required for observations. There is a balcony enclosed by what appears to be an iron railing with a stair leading down from it. In the centre is another platform, this time raised and supported by Ionic columns backed by a round-headed glass door which may have been the actual observation platform itself. This, of course, was painted long after Holland had moved out of the house and is closer in time to his death in 1845, but these elements seem to have been left in place by the subsequent owner.<\/p>\n

As a final word and clincher on our speculations that this may be a John Plaw house is the eccentricity and elegance of design in this roof pavilion but also the extremely broad corner boards or pilasters that had first appeared on the 1810 courthouse design and which would continue as the dominant Greek Revival style until his architectural heir and successor, Isaac Smith, left the island in the late 1840s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Carmichael House, 1815-1820<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I remember clearly, in the summer of 1982, walking along Pownal Street with Charlottetown Architectural Historian Irene Rogers, and coming upon a vision from a Picturesque pattern book. Here, in full Regency splendour, was an extraordinary house still sitting in its original grounds, which were generous for a city lot. It was known as the Carmichael House and is still to be seen, looking just the same, at 238 Pownal Street!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Carmichael House, 238 Pownal Street, circa 1820<\/p>\n

In time, with more observation and study, it brought powerfully to mind this sort of building such as this Plate XV from John Plaw\u2019s Rural Architecture<\/em>. Even though it is a full storey house with hipped attic it speaks the same language and says the same message.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Plaw – Rural Architecture, Plate XV, May 10, 1785.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The soul of each design is the Palladian door and window framed by pairs of broad pilasters. There is also a circular element in the round pediment window in the Carmichael house and the round headed recessed niches for the placement of the first-floor window in the Plaw design. It all connects powerfully.<\/p>\n

The Carmichael house is very dramatic to look at, and its fa\u00e7ade is full of movement. You are struck first by the temple front placed on top of the broad veranda. The pediment is supported by pairs of modified Tuscan Doric pilasters which enclose the usual Palladian window. The pediment is given great drama by the roundel, which is quite substantial. The corner fill-ins are a modern addition to keep out the wet and they harm the design. They would have been less distracting if they had been painted the same colour as the walls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The first floor resting on the broad veranda with its Italianate railings reminds us of the first floor of Holland grove, with its very broad windows flanking the Palladian door. Here the door does not have sidelights, perhaps because of the narrowness of the entrance hall (see plan below).<\/p>\n

It is believed that the house was built in 1820 by the Colonial Secretary, John Edward Carmichael (c.1790 – 1828), who was a man of taste and substance. There are very good accounts of the history of the ownership of the house to be found at this site: https:\/\/www.historicplaces.ca\/en\/rep-reg\/place-lieu.aspx?id=3770<\/a>, and on pages 194-196 in Rogers\u2019 1983 book on Charlottetown buildings.<\/p>\n

A Special Drafting Project<\/h3>\n

In 1991 Paul Moore, Michele LeBlanc, Andrew Burgoyne, and others, all students in architectural drawing at Holland College, prepared a series of drawings of the house, under the direction of their instructor Ken MacKinnon, as part of a larger programme to record in this fashion the architectural heritage of the Island. The full-scale drawings of about half a dozen houses were given to the Heritage Foundation for study and safekeeping until the Foundation refused to accept any more drawings or take part in such a programme. Things ground to a halt before the work on Fairholm could be completed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The drawing of the fa\u00e7ade tells us much about the house immediately, and the details we notice relate strongly to the practices of Plaw in his designs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is the Doric temple hovering over the broad veranda, which is attached to a house that has powerfully rusticated corners, give muscle to the softer design imposed by the veranda.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this side view drawing of the house, we see how it was all put together with a tall central second storey mass fronted by a temple and capped by a cupola. One is reminded of the observatory on the Holland Grove house of just a few years before, and of course, the small cupola on the Plaw Courthouse of 1810-11. We note also that once again there appears a cruciform plan, beloved of Plaw and present in the Courthouse, and now here, five or so years later. Remember that Carmichael, in other roles, had been in Charlottetown since the Courthouse was built in 1811. In 1814 he married the Governor\u2019s daughter and what better time to build a house of such suitable social stature in the very heart of the city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The plans of the two floors are included here so that you can ponder on the kind of planning that went into the construction of a town house, with the requisite rooms for public entertainment, but also quite fantastical spaces, like the upstairs hall with its cupola or belvedere to allow light to pour in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is generally not possible in the architectural discussions in this blog to speak of interior design, but in the early 1980s when the Carmichael house was completely restored\/renovated, after may layers of wallpaper had been stripped the original decoration was discovered! It consisted of eggshell blue walls articulated highly ornamental gold brackets the corners!<\/strong> Aside from several photographers the contractors reluctantly allowed me to take, there is no other record of this very grand and elegant Regency colour scheme.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The delicate pastels with their gilt accents combine with the cupola to give this fantastical urban dwelling a sense of what the Regency style in the City was like.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Carmichael House still stands where it was built, and news owners have planned and planted new gardens. It is perhaps the only place in Charlottetown where you can go and stand, and contemplate the elegance and delicacy of a Regency house. Could it be John Plaw’s last building project in town before he died?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Part 2 of this essay<\/strong> on the Regency in Charlottetown I will begin by discussing the kinds of furniture that were found in these Island houses<\/strong>, using examples from my own small collection that I assembled over the years. Then I will conclude with an examination of Fairholm House at 230 Prince Street, built in 1838-39<\/strong>. To whet your appetites here is how it looked right after being built in an engraving by George Thresher.<\/p>\n

\"\"George Thresher, Fairholm House,<\/em> 1841. Location unknown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Patrons<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Kind persons have provided support for the expenses incurred in producing this blog. I wish to express my deep gratitude to these individuals who have helped me cover the costs of archival scans, photographs, learned journals, books and professional services, and to those who have shared photographs and documents in their collections. I also would like to thank persons who have accompanied me in the field, to safeguard my explorations and to assist me in taking measurements and photographs. This year (Summer 2023) Manny Davidson introduced me to the documenting of buildings and landscape with his drone. It was a revelation!<\/p>\n

Marcel Carpenter
\nManny Davidson
\nScott Davidson
\nTrevor Gillingwater
\nHenry Kliner
\nEarle Lockerby
\nChristopher Lunt
\nDr. Edward and Sheila MacDonald
\nRobert L. Scobie
\nDr. Douglas Sobey<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/h2>\n

__________ The United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada, Loyalists of the Maritimes, IV – LOYALIST SETTLEMENT ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND<\/em>, pp. 21-26, https:\/\/www.uelac.org\/education\/MaritimesResource\/Maritimes-04.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Ackerman, James S., The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses, The A. W Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts 1985<\/em>, Princeton University Press, Princeton N. J., 1990.<\/p>\n

Alberti, Leon Battista,\u00a0On the Art of Building in Ten Books\u00a0(c. 1450), translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Taverner, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1988, 1996.<\/p>\n

Aslet, Clive, The Story of the Country House<\/em>, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2021.<\/p>\n

Batey, Mavis, Alexander Pope: The Poet and the Landscape<\/em>, Barn Elms Publishing, London, 1999.<\/p>\n

Brown, Jane, Lancelot \u2018Capability\u2019 Brown \u2013 The Omnipotent Magician, 1716-1783<\/em>, Pimlico, London, 2012.<\/p>\n

Bumstead, J. M., \u201cThe Patterson Regime and the Impact of the American Revolution on the Island of St. John, 1775-1786\u201d, Acadiensis<\/em>, 13(1), 47, 1983.<\/p>\n

Chambers, Douglas D. C., The Planters of the English Landscape Garden: Botany, Trees and the Georgics<\/u><\/em>, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993.<\/p>\n

Chambers, Sir William, A Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture, Third Edition<\/em>, Joseph Smeeton in St. Martin\u2019s Lane, Charing Cross, 1791.<\/p>\n

Chitham, Robert, The Classical Orders of Architecture<\/em>, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, 1985.<\/p>\n

Clerk, Nathalie, Palladian Style in Canadian Architecture<\/em>, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Ottawa, 1984.<\/p>\n

Curl, James Stevens, Classical Architecture \u2013 An Introduction to its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms<\/em>, W. W. Norton & Company, New York London, 2003.<\/p>\n

Downing, A. J., Cottage Residences \u2026,<\/em> Part 1, Third Edition, Wiley and Putnam, New York, 1847.<\/p>\n

Downing, A. J., The Architecture of Country Houses<\/em> (1850), reprint by Dover Publications, New York, 1969.<\/p>\n

ELM \u2013 see MacDonald.<\/p>\n

Georgian Group, The, and various authors, Georgian Arcadia: Architecture for the Park and Garden<\/em>, exhibition catalogue, Colnaghi, London, 1987.<\/p>\n

Gowans, Alan, Looking at Architecture in Canada<\/em>, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 1958.<\/p>\n

Halfpenny, William, A New and Compleat System of Architecture Delineated, in a Variety of Plans and Elevations of Designs for Convenient and Decorated Houses<\/em> \u2026, John Brindle, London, 1749.<\/p>\n

Harris, John, The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick,<\/em> Exhibition Catalogue, Yale University Press, 1995.<\/p>\n

Hennessey, Catherine, \u201cPainting a History: The Story of Holland Grove,\u201d The Island Magazine, Issue 46, Fall\/Winter 1999. The Prince Edward Island Heritage Foundation. (Because of poor editing, paragraphs with vital information were omitted from the article.)<\/p>\n

Humphreys, Barbara A and Meredith Sykes, The Buildings of Canada: A Guide to pre-20th<\/sup> Century Styles in Houses, Churches and other Structures<\/em>, distributed for free by Parks Canada, reprinted from Explore Canada, The Reader\u2019s Digest Association (Canada), Montreal, 1974.<\/p>\n

Hunt, John Dixon and Willis, Peter, The Genius of the Place \u2013 The English Landscape Garden 1620-1820<\/em>, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988.<\/p>\n

Jackson-Stops, Gervase, An English Arcadia 1600 \u2013 1990: Designs for Gardens and Garden Buildings in the Care of the National Trust<\/em>, The American Institute of Architects press, Washington, 1991.<\/p>\n

Jackson-Stops, Gervase, The English Country House in Perspective<\/em>, with illustrations by Brian Delf, Peter Morter and Mel Wright, Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1990.<\/p>\n

Jacques, David, Georgian Gardens \u2013 The Reign of Nature<\/em>, BT Batsford Ltd., London, 1983.<\/p>\n

Kalman, Harold, A Concise History of Canadian Architecture<\/em>, Oxford University Press Canada, 2000.<\/p>\n

Lawson, Helen A., Colonel John Hamilton Gray and Inkerman House<\/em>, Centennial \u201973 Project of the Charlottetown Branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women, P.E.I. Offset Inc., Charlottetown [1973].<\/p>\n

Laugier, le P\u00e8re, S.J., Essai sur L\u2019Architecture. Nouvelle Edition, Revie, corrig<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>e, & augmentee; avec un Dictionnaire des Termes \u2026,<\/em> Chez Duchesne, Librarie, rue S. Jacques, Paris, 1755.<\/p>\n

Leard, George A., Historic Bedeque \u2013 The Loyalist Work and Worship in Prince Edward Island,<\/em> Bedeque United Church, Bedeque, P.E.I., 1948, amended in 1973.<\/p>\n

MacDonald, Elizabeth L. (ELM), \u201cCharlottetown Fifty Years Ago,\u201d The Prince Edward Island Magazine,<\/em> Charlottetown 1901. Digitised, re-formatted and illustrated by Reg Porter, 1989 \u2013 2019. P. 62.<\/p>\n

MacRae, Marion and Anthony Adamson, The Ancestral Roof- Domestic Architecture in Upper Canada<\/em>, Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, Toronto, 1963.<\/p>\n

Maitland, Leslie, Neoclassical Architecture in Canada<\/em>, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Ottawa, 1984.<\/p>\n

Maitland Leslie, Jacqueline Hucker and Shannon Ricketts, A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles<\/em>, Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ontario, 1992.<\/p>\n

Mowl, Timothy, Gentlemen & Players \u2013 Gardeners of the English Landscape<\/em>, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2004.<\/p>\n

Naftel, William D., Prince Edward\u2019s Legacy: The Duke of Kent in Halifax: Romance and Beautiful Buildings<\/em>, Formac Publishing Company Limited, Halifax, 2005.<\/p>\n

Naismith, Robert J., Buildings of the Scottish Countryside<\/em>, Victor Gollancz Ltd in association with Paul Crawley, London, 1989.<\/p>\n

Plaw, John, Dictionary of Canadian Biography<\/em>, Volume 5 – http:\/\/www.biographi.ca\/en\/bio\/plaw_john_5E.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Plaw, John \u2013 Historic Places in Prince Edward Island<\/em> – http:\/\/www.gov.pe.ca\/hpo\/index.php3?number=1019796&lang=E<\/a><\/p>\n

Porter, Reginald,\u00a0Government House and the Fanningbank Estate: A Guidebook<\/em>, in-house report available as a pdf file on this blog, The Friends of the Gatehouse Cooperative, Charlottetown, 2015.<\/p>\n

Rayburn, Alan, Geographical names of Prince Edward Island, Toponomy Study 1<\/em>, Surveys and Mapping Branch, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Ottawa, 1973.<\/p>\n

Redford, Bruce, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England<\/em>, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2008.<\/p>\n

Richardson, Tim, The Arcadian Friends \u2013 Inventing the English Landscape Garden,<\/em> Bantam Press, London, 2007.<\/p>\n

Rifkind, Carole,\u00a0A Field Guide to American Architecture<\/em>, New American Library, Times Mirror, 1980.<\/p>\n

Robinson, Sidney K., Inquiry into the Picturesque<\/em>, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.<\/p>\n

Rogers, Irene L., Charlottetown the Life in its Buildings, The Prince Edward Island Museum and heritage Foundation, Charlottetown, 1963.<\/p>\n

Rogers, Irene, Reports on Selected Buildings in Charlottetown, P.E.I<\/em>., Manuscript Report Series, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1974, 1976. Pp. 124-125.<\/p>\n

Smith, H. M. Scott, The Historic Houses of Prince Edward Island<\/em>, The Boston Mills Press, Erin, Ontario, 1990.<\/p>\n

Smith, Thomas Gordon, Vitruvius on Architecture<\/em>, The Monacelli Press, New York, 2003.<\/p>\n

Strong, Roy, Visions of England, or Why We Still Dream of a Place in the Country<\/em>, Vintage Books, London, 2012.<\/p>\n

Symes, Michael, The English Rococo Garden<\/em>, Shire Publications, Oxford, 2011.<\/p>\n

Thornton, Peter, Authentic D\u00e9cor \u2013 The Domestic Interior 1620-1920<\/em>, Crescent Books, Random House, New York, 1985.<\/p>\n

Thresher, George -artist<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.biographi.ca\/en\/bio\/thresher_george_godsell_8E.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Vitruvius, the Thayer translation:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/penelope.uchicago.edu\/Thayer\/e\/roman\/texts\/vitruvius\/1*.html<\/a><\/p>\n

White, Roger, Cottages Orn<\/em>\u00e9s: The Charms of the Simple Life,<\/em> Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017.<\/p>\n

Williams, Henry Lionel and Ottalie K. Williams, Old American Houses 1700-1850 \u2013 How to Restore, Remodel, and Reproduce Them<\/em>, Bonanza Books, New York, 1957.<\/p>\n

Woodforde, John, Georgian Houses for All<\/em>, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1985.<\/p>\n

Wright, Janet, Architecture of the Picturesque in Canada<\/em>, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Ottawa, 1984.<\/p>\n

Young, Arthur, A Description of Duncombe Park, Rivalx Abbey, And Helmsley Castle, With Notices of Byland Abbey, Kirkdale Church \u2026, (Taken chiefly from Mr. Young\u2019s Northern Tour), Second Edition<\/em>, British Library 1821 (modern reprint, n.d.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Because of the length of this topic I have divided it into two parts. In this, the first, I will discuss Romanticism and the Regency and two Charlottetown houses, Holland Grove and the Carmichael House. There will be special emphasis on John Plaw. In the second part I will briefly discuss the kinds of furniture that went into these houses and conclude with an examination of Fairholm House.)   It is a little tricky to write about the Regency style on the Island because those years, from 1811-1820, were not particularly productive and elegant times on the Island as those early British Colonists strived to establish themselves and make a home in the wilderness. But, here and there, persons of quality and wealth could build something better than the ubiquitous log cabin or framed central chimney house, inspired by fashionable pattern books they had brought with them and satisfied by the skills of builders and cabinetmakers who had emigrated to the Island with them. And it is most important to remember that the term \u201cRegency,\u201d so full of elegance and style, greatly influenced by the extraordinary personal taste of the Prince Regent, later George IV, carried on through the reign of his successor, William IV (1830-37), a man of the sea with no discernable taste and into the early years of the reign of the young Queen Victoria. The Regency style only came to an end when the early Italian-inspired designs of John Nash and Sir Charles Barry were crowned with royal approval when Victoria and Albert showed a powerful interest in the style. They created, between 1845-51, following a design for an Italian palazzo devised by Prince Albert himself, and utilising the skills of their favoured architect, Thomas Cubitt, their beloved summer retreat of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. We will discuss this in a later post. Romanticism and the Regency The Early Romantic Period in literature and the visual arts, architecture, and music, began to gain momentum in the last decades of the Eighteenth Century and by about 1840, had exhausted its freshness to take on heavier tones in all the arts, and become the careful yet comfortable way of life of the new conservative bourgeoisie that soon outnumbered the aristocracy in power and trend-setting. This corresponded with the late Victorian Period, from the death of Prince Albert in 1861 to Victoria\u2019s death in 1901. But before all these fascinating things happened there was the first youthful flush of Romantic sensibility in literature, when a group of new poets, celebrating nature, love, the Mediaeval past, and revolution, came to the fore. These were Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats \u2013 and riding the crest of this unstoppable wave, Lord Byron. Lord Byron, watercolour miniature, approx. 8×9 inches, circa 1815. Formerly in the R. Porter Collection.   Byron\u2019s life is better known than most because of the way he lived it, scandalising the gentle manners of Enlightenment Europe with his beauty, his wild sexual behaviour, his new style of writing, full of wit and informality, and in the end, his passionate efforts to free Greece from centuries of Turkish oppression. To hide a slight deformity in his foot he was the first to wear long pants at social events, and soon others imitated him, leaving an inheritance in dress that we still practice to this day. He was noted for his wit, and everybody \u2013 scandalised or not \u2013 sought to meet him, including the Prince Regent, who went so far as to have himself painted by Henry Bone (above), sporting the famous Byron haircut. The Prince Regent may have been a ridiculous figure to many, but he had impeccable taste, and was full of adventure. In those days it was fashionable for men and women to \u201ctake the waters,\u201d that is, drink and soak in natural mineral springs to clean out their system after overindulgence in unhealthy foods. The Prince Regent badly needed these medical attentions, first introduced to Britain by the Romans, and so at Brighton he hired the architect of the Picturesque, John Nash, to build him a bath house in what can only be described as a fantastical Indian style with domes and minarets and touches of Gothic here and there.   Photo from the Internet.   This desire for the fantastic became very popular and all the architects of the day, some famous, others now forgotten, wrote books with designs for rural cottages to which the wealthy could retreat to recover from the excesses of social life. These cottage designs were to be enormously influential in liberating Georgian architecture from the highly controlled strictures of classical architecture, with its dependence on the Three Orders and the central plan dominated by a pedimented porch. Now there were pretty log house designs, influenced by tales of settlement in the forest primeval sent back by settlers struggling in the new world, but there was also a great interest in oriental architecture with its ogival arches, domes, and extraordinary architectural details. Gothic architecture perhaps received the greatest amount of attention because of the Eighteenth-Century trend in novels set in the Middle Ages that sent readers into spasms on horror. You might have come across some of them such as The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole, The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis and Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley. Byron himself contributed greatly, in a macabre way, to the rise of the Gothic Revival when he moved into his ancestral home, the mediaeval Newstead Abbey, and there with his friends dressed as monks, cavorted wildly in alcoholic and sexual excesses. Byron even had a skull found in his garden trimmed and shaped into a drinking cup mounted in precious metals. Such a cup, with an inscription, is now for sale in Devon. https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/news\/devon-news\/human-skull-cup-used-byron-562426     THE REGENCY\u00a0ARRIVES IN CHARLOTTETOWN: JOHN PLAW (1745-1820) If there is a moment when the Regency arrived in Charlottetown, and if there is a person who may be said to have brought it here, then it was the architect, John Plaw. Plaw was born in London in the middle of the European Rococo period, but by the time he reached maturity that curved, delicate style had been replaced by the sterner stuff of Neoclassicism, which in England was known under the broad name of Georgian. The Georgian style developed subcategories known as Palladianism where the Italian Renaissance square symmetry of the architect Andrea Palladio (active 1550) dominated, and a new craze for country houses in this style was partly funded, not by aristocratic wealth, but the profits of the Industrial Revolution, the successes of commoners. Finally, the topographical part of this great movement, was the passion for the Picturesque, where vast landscapes surrounding these new Palladian houses were modified, often to an incredible extent, by the reshaping of the countryside to imitate landscape paintings by two Seventeenth Century painters called Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin. Baroque pictures were created in three dimensions in great private estates. It was in this world that John Plaw was born, and in time became a famous architect of the Picturesque, publishing three books on the subject in his lifetime – Rural Architecture; or Designs from the Simple Cottage to the Decorated Villa, Ferme Orn\u00e9e or Rural Improvements, and Sketches for Country Houses, Villas, and Rural Dwellings. So popular were they that they are still in print, available in facsimile editions. The range of designs in these books is extremely broad and quite fantastical. Inspired by settlers\u2019 adventures in the New World, in Rural Architecture Plaw produced this gabled \u201cGothick\u201d design for a gatehouse, or secluded retreat hidden away in a large estate. Seclusion from the constant insistent demands of social life led many to seek out secret places to hide away from life in the grand rooms. Elegant cottages, inspired by the cabins of New World settlers were called ferme orn\u00e9e, and built in a miniature landscape in a beautiful but remote corner of the larger estate. John Plaw catered to this new craze and his books are full of exotic ideas for houses big and small that departed in design from the Georgian norms. Plaw, Ferme Orn\u00e9e, Plate 16   But Plaw\u2019s vision was broad, perhaps truly imperial, when he designed \u201cBelle Isle\u201d on Lake Windemere in the English Lake District, the haunt of poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. The setting was glorious and had every feature desired and celebrated by the Romantic poets and artists. The island, formerly Longholme, was bought by Thomas English in the 1772 and Plaw built a three-story rotunda house, inspired by Hadrian\u2019s massive Pantheon in Rome. In 1781 English sold the site to Isabella Curwen, whose husband, John Christian Curwen, renamed the island \u201cBelle Isle\u201d. The island remained in the ownership of the Curwen family until 1992. Winandermere Lake [sic], Westmorland, painted by G Barrett, engraved, and published by Samuel Middiman, 3 Grafton Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, 1784.   Plaw provided an illustration in his 1774 Rural Architecture on plate XXVIII. The rotunda is immediately recognisable for what it is \u2013 a reduced rural copy of Hadrian\u2019s grand Pantheon in Rome. The sheer audacity of one who specialised in very modest cottages, or ferme orn\u00e9e as they were called, in reducing one of the world\u2019s greatest buildings to a three-storey cottage on a tiny island in the Lake District is arrogance in the extreme. Regardless, this small \u201cBelle Ilse\u201d has too taken its place in the history of world architecture. Plaw, John, Rural Architecture \u2026\u201cBelle Isle\u201d on Lake Windemere in the English Lake District, 1774. Plate XXVIII, from the 1802 edition.   Here is an aerial photo (documentation unavailable) of Belle Isle after a major restoration made necessary by a disastrous fire in 1994 or \u201996. Around 1759, when he was 14, John Plaw began an apprenticeship with a bricklaying firm. For his work he came to the notice of the Royal Society of Arts and received an award for the quality of his drawings. His subsequent career is uncertain but, by the time he was 30 he had designed the villa on Belle Isle and was exhibiting drawings \u2013 his ideas \u2013 at the Royal Academy of Arts. By 1788 he had designed a cruciform church on Paddington Green, and it is still standing. The 1790s were busy years in Southampton and the Isle of Wight where he designed military barracks. \u00a0The coming of the French Revolution in 1799 and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars in Europe may have produced circumstances where it was impossible for an architect of Plaw\u2019s talents and preferences to make a go of it, so that by 1807 he and his family, and some relatives, moved to Prince Edward Island. He designed two jails, two designs for a courthouse (one of which was built) and a store on the corner of Great George Street and Water Street. John Plaw, Second Plan for a Courthouse, 1811, PARO.   He had tried to make of go of it, with no success in Nova Scotia, where he designed a most elegant Admiralty House that was never built. Its two faces, as they survive in drawings, tell us where his vision lay. You can see in the Nova Scotia drawings that his basic ideas for paired columns attached to the building as pilasters first appeared in the second concept for the Charlottetown Courthouse in 1810. By the next year, established in Charlottetown, Plaw produced a design for a retail store on the most socially prominent corner of Great George and Water Streets for the firm of Waters and Birnie (Rogers 1983, pp. 310-311). Plaw, John, Plan for a Retail Store for Waters and Birnie, 1814, PARO Acc 2333-3. We are not certain if this was ever built but there was a structure there which had a series of interesting lives. Occasionally one reads that this was a circular building, but the plan, in the provincial Archives, clearly indicates otherwise. Plaw did design, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6208"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6416,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208\/revisions\/6416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}