106 THE BLENDING OF JACOBEAN AND CLASSIC 



style of the ordinary designer and that of the learned student ; 

 and yet Swakeleys was less than twenty miles from London f 

 where the new methods were being sedulously cultivated. 



Perhaps the most remarkable attempt to weld Jacobean and 

 classic design into one consistent whole is to be found in the 

 charming chapel attached to Burford Priory, in Oxfordshire 

 (Fig. 62). There is much more here than a mixture of separate 

 features, some in one style, and some in the other. The general 

 treatment is reminiscent of Jacobean. There is a lofty story 

 crowned with a cornice and an attic above it. There are shafts 

 at the angles round which the cornice breaks, and they are 

 terminated at the top with obelisks as pinnacles ; there are also 

 curved gables. But the shafts are fashioned into classic pilasters ; 

 the cornice not only breaks round them, but jumps up to make 

 way for a door. The traceried windows have a novel disposition 

 of curves, and the rose window is not a mere travesty of ancient 

 methods, but has a vigorous individuality of its own, and is set 

 in a classic framework. The whole work is consistent through- 

 out, and the detail is refined and carefully handled. It is the 

 successful attempt of a clever designer to solve old problems in 

 new ways, and it is a pity that neither his name nor any other 

 work from his hand is known. The chapel, as well as the house 

 to which it is attached, was built by Speaker Lenthall, subsequent 

 to his acquiring the property in 1634. 



The chapel and library of Brasenose College, Oxford, have 

 escaped the full amount of attention which they deserve, probably 

 because they lie outside the range of books dealing with the 

 accepted division of architecture into Gothic and classic. But 

 for that very reason they are of interest to the present inquiry. 

 The detail on the whole is more classic than Gothic, but it is dealt 

 with in a manner reminiscent of Gothic ; the cornices break 

 forward over the pilasters, and round the slight projections 

 caused by the advancing of alternate windows ; the windows 

 have Gothic tracery ; pilasters are used in the place of buttresses- 

 (Fig. 63). Indeed the general design is Gothic in its arrange- 

 ment, but classic detail has been applied to it, which in its turn 

 has modified the Gothic handling. The whole effect is interest- 

 ing. The designer has not merely made a Gothic design carrying 

 it out with classic detail, nor has he made a classic design, giving 

 his windows Gothic tracery. But each style has influenced the 

 other. The Gothic treatment has modified the classic detail, the 



