Llandaff. Friday.
July 28th
My dear Father.
I received your letter this morning. I am very sorry Uncle Mundy <1> has not yet returned. I have sent Mr Nesbitts <2> letter to you ( enclosed to my Mothers <3> at Lacock. I have no doubt I shall leave Mr Prichard <4> at the period which the articles specify, and I wish to give him the longest notice I can which I will do by letter from Lacock or elsewhere. I am very glad you made the provisions which you did in the articles.
I have questioned Mr P’s clerk as to what is to be learned further in the office and he says cannot mention anything else. Knowing how architectural drawings are made all that is required further is practise. knowledge of construction to be picked up how it can. and designing to be picked up much in the same manner. how to lea practise drawing & pick up learn these subject [sic] there is no necessity to be in an office at all.
According to this clerk there would be nothing else to be learned in a London office. He may not be right perhaps in that respect.
But I believe that it is a fact that a person wishing to learn scientific construction cannot in general learn it from an architect. And taste and artistic treatment are not what I want to learn but actual practical knowledge of building.
I very much doubt therefore the advisablitiy of going into a London architect office, but what I propose to do is to make my headquarters in London, and travel about as far as my funds will allow, to sketch & measure buildings, and draw them out for study. To study construction by inspecting old buildings, and those in course of erection now, and also by reading treatises papers &c which one can obtain in London, and laying the foundation of an architectural library.
There are some things which Mr P’s clerk did not mention which should be known such as how to take out quantities of material, & make an estimate but I suspect that they may be learned quickly.
The sort of practise which I have mentioned is acknowledged to be very necessary, & yet I believe it is generally neglected by architects.
At any rate if I have anything to do with an architects office for the future, I will not be articled. If I want instruction from an architect I will get it without any such agreement or not at all.
I cannot see the good of the articles. If you find that you are learning nothing you are obliged to put up with it till the end of the time specified.
Now I can not see that I can can hardly name any single thing that Mr Prichard has taught me.
I find that he knows nothing about such a common rule in geometry as Euclids method of describing a circle through 3 points.
Sir Christopher Wren, <5> and architects at one time were well up in mathematics and construction. Whereas the architects of the present day seem to study nothing but appearance and the the ornamental arrangement of a building without having much of the instruction on which the ornamentation ought to depend.
They talk a great deal about the science of the middle ages though they do not know anything of the science of those days, & though the science of those days was by no means equal to the science of the present time.
Yet I should think the old masons knew how to describe a circle thought 3 points. I have learned a good deal about construction since I have been here chiefly from books. If I ask Mr Prichard about a point, not only can he throw li no light upon it, but he will deny the statements of modern writers right and left, & say that the mediæval builders must have known best what they were about.
I believe that what I propose is the best plan of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the subject. The expense of paying a London architect for a doubtful advantage is saved.
I know I can learn from books and from personal observation or calculation, and that things so learned are hardly forgotten, particularly as I make notes of everything, & keep them in a book.
I have not succeeded in finding yet a writer who gives an intelligible account of the construction of a Gothic wooden roof. I do not think many of the writers have at all a clear idea of the subject.
From what I have read at &c. It seems that the Gothic builders having attained to great excellence in masonry and having become enamoured of the forms of their masonry, tried to apply the same principles of construction, and the same forms to wooden roofing and that they either never knew or quite overlooked the principles upon which a wooden roof are is best constructed. The roof of the (dormitory as we call it) roun or loft round the courtyard of Lacock which I take to be of the time of Henry VIII or perhaps as late as Elizabeth but I think of the time of Henry VIII, is constructed upon correct good scientific principles. But the older roofs though very pleasing to the eye, were on a much more expensive and less safe principle.
I will make you a sketch. [illustration] That is intended to represent the roof of the dormitory round the court of Lacock, seen in section. The principals A. A. rest on the tie beam B. And the king post K. is wedge shaped at the top, resting on the end of the principals and holding up the centre of the tie beam. I am not sure how they are joined there. Perhaps by a metal stirrup. Many of the old Gothic roofs are less scientifically constructed owing to their having no tie beams. Some have only collar beams [illustration] Some rule a roof as this. Where C. is to a collar beam acting I suppose as a tie. S. S. are struts to support the principals, an, b. b. are curved braces put in to strengthen the work.
Evidently the idea of a stone arch existed in the mind of the designer. The roofs of the dormitory (proper) and refectory of Lacock have tie beams, without a king post to support them. so that those beams have to be very strong and cambered upwards so to prevent their sagging or bending. [illustration of the upwards camber] These roofs have collar beams higher up, and curved braces as in my figure above. Some of these timbers have been cut away. Yet owing to the strength of the walls the roofs have not got out of shape
Now according to the construction of king-post & tie beam, the pressure of the walls is entirely vertical. but on the other principal when there are no tie beams. There is an outward thrust at the foot of each principal which requires butressing to resist it as in the case of a stone arch.
Now whether or not you chuse to go to the expense of building expensively for beauty’s sake, or eve you ought to know what the most economical method of building is.
I have got some information upon construction from Willis’s <6> writings, (One of the Cambridge professors ), Jacksonian I think), and some from Viollet le Duc <7> the great French architect who seems to go deeply into moot things. Willis produces proofs of the use of mathematical method used by the Gothic architects, and that as early as Henry III and also of the time of the Perpendiculars, directly contrary to the theory maintained by most men of the present day, and I think John Ruskin <8> at the head of them who say that these builders did everything by a sort of inspiration and without mathematics in the early period. Though nobody ever I believe denied that mathematical methods were used by the late Gothic architects.
Another thing that the architects of the day who patronize Gothic will not see is that it is not perfect, and that it cannot sustain a claim to exclusive employment.
Your affect son
Charles
[envelope:]
H fox Talbot Esq
Athenæum Club
Pall Mall
London
Notes:
1. William Mundy (1801-1877), politician, WHFT’s brother-in-law.
2. Alexander Nesbitt (1817–1886), archaeologist & ancient glass collector.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
4. John Prichard, Welsh architect; Charles Henry Talbot apprenticed to.
5. Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), architect.
6. Robert Willis (1800–1875), professor of mechanism and archæologist; published Remarks on Architecture of Middle Ages (1835) and Architectural Nomenclature of Middle Ages (1843).
7. Eugène Emmanuel Viollet le Duc (1814–1879), French architect.
8. John Ruskin (1819–1900), author, artist and social reformer; in 1849 he published Seven Lamps of Architecture, which had considerable influence in encouraging the Gothic revival of the time.