3W 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[Nov. 



luperabundant ceremonial of the church of Uome which he witnessed in 

 this very heart of popery, the profligate manners and Hves of its professors, 

 »nd the unceremonious style of worship of his own church, perhaps led to 

 that contempt which Milne always impatiently exhibited, even at the decent 

 ceremonies and more simple garb of the church of England. Before he had 

 eomplcted his studies in Rome, he sent over in competition, and conquered 

 all his opponents, for his Blackfriars'-bridge, a work of skill and some 

 originality. Milne's style was too decidedly Roman for the day ; but, to his 

 honour be it spoken, his love and affection for our great metropolitan struc 

 tare, St. Paul's, of which he long held the place of surveyor, was such, that 

 he never would see it defaced or altered, or spoiled in any way ; and scarcely 

 a week of his long life passed without him giving it a personal survey. 



Milne never did anything better than his Roman design, which was in 

 every way worthy of one of the best disciples of one of the best architec- 

 tural schools the world has ever produced. It formed a becoming ornament 

 of his study or sanction sanclorum, at his residence at the New River head, 

 Clerkenwell. I have often admired it in my youthful days, with its Italian 

 inscription—" Prima premio Roberto Milne, Sco::ese, Roma," with its date 

 and something else which I have forgotten, or perhaps never understood,— 

 Italian being in those days as great a stumbling-block to me as St. Paul's 

 doctrine was to the Greeks ; and I feared even to ask this architectural 

 Aristarchus anything more than the mere subject before us. He was a man 

 of austere manners, of violent temper, and appeared to have a contempt for 

 every art but his own and for every person but himself. In some of his 

 ebullitions of temper, he has been known to kick the clothes and tools of 

 workmen, who have dared to reply to him, out of windows and into holes 

 iT the streets, and has been obliged to fly from the effects of their excited 

 wrath. One of these, an Irishman, said that " Mr. MiUen," as he called 

 him, " was a rale jintleman, but as hot as pepper and as proud as a Lucifer." 

 Peace be to bis remains, which quietly repose by the side of his great pre- 

 decessor, in that noble cathedral which was built by the one and sustained 

 by the other. _ 



This architect is not known for many other works than his Blackfriars - 

 bridge ; a few bridges, and perhaps one or two mansions, in Scotland ; the 

 buildings and machinery of the New River company; and a very common- 

 place elevation to the east front of Stationers'-hall, Ludgate-hill. The 

 principal employment of his latter years was that of architectural curator to 

 St. Paul's cathedral, architect and surveyor of buildings to the Stationers' 

 company, and engineer to the New River company; dividing his time 

 betweeti his two ofiicial residences at either end of that river— its spring or 

 source at Arawell, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, and its other end at Clerken- 

 well, erroneously called the New River head,— it being the reservoir which 

 supplies, by steam machinery, such parts of the metropolis that are served 

 by the company. 



Sir Robert Taylor, a man of great capacity, occupied a distinguished sta- 

 tion in Tertio-Georgian era. He was one of the chief architects to the 

 crown, and architect to that opulent body the Governor and Company of the 

 Bank 'of England, when it began to expand its buildings to the right and to 

 the left of that comparatively small edifice which was more than adequate to 

 its necessities on its establishment in the reign of William III. He had much 

 private practice, and was known for three-fourths of a century to every 

 architect, surveyor, builder, and lawyer in the metropolis, for bis celebrated, 

 incomprehensible, and contradictory Building Act, which is only surpassed 

 in litigious absurdities by its successor. He educated many pupils, to whom 

 he gave either districts under the Building Act, or appointments in the office 

 of the Board of Works. It is true, that none of them proved to be men of 

 taste; but they were all thoroughly men of businf.ss, high honour, and 

 ntegrity. It is probable that he intended his son to be a great artist, for be 

 gave him the powerful name of Michael Angelo; as did another more recent 

 architect name his scion Christopher Wren. Poor little Christopher, how- 

 ever, died young, and destroyed all hopes of his rivalling his namesake : but 

 Michael Angelo Taylor lived to be a respectable whig member of parliament 

 — tlie best tempered whig that perhaps ever lived, and the giver of the best 

 dinners that ever did honour to Spring-gardens. 



The style of Sir Robert Taylor was founded upon the best Roman exam- 

 ples, resembling in its finest points those of his colemporary. Sir William 

 Chambers ; but he far excelled him in scientific construction and sound 

 building. He found a pretty design for a tetrastyle portico and pediment, 

 with lateral columns of a very elegantly-proportioned Corinthian order raised 

 upon pedestals, mi Cbamhers's work on " Civil Architecture," confessedly 

 borrowed from an anonymous Italian architect. These he repeated on either 

 »ide of the coarse Ionic centtt of the Bank of England in a very pretty but 



unconnected manner. The whole of this front, which extended from the 

 corner of Princes-street to Bartbolomew-lane, has been replaced by the 

 massive and masterly composition of Soane, of which more will be said 

 hereafter. In another part of this building is a quadrangle on the western 

 side, which is still preserved in almost its original freshness, a very cholc« 

 example of Taylor's skilful adaptation of this tasteful precedent of the 

 Corinthian order. In the centre is a pleasant city garden, with a few 

 verdant lime trees that give variety to the picture. The former fafade, next 

 Threadneedle street, being a screen wall to the internal edifices, had no 

 apertures, and was more a copy from Chambers's work than the one in 

 question ; which, being an interior court, and giving light to the director*' 

 parlour and other important rooms in that edifice, is decorated by a series of 

 exquisitely-proportioned Venetian windows, which adds a charm to the com- 

 position that the original design is much in want of. There is not an eie- 

 cuted building of the decorative Greco-Romano style in Europe, that more 

 deserves the titles of tasteful and elegant than does this pretty compositioi 

 of Sir Robert Taylor. 



The two islands of houses that stood between Threadneedle-street and 

 Cornhill, called Bank-buildings, that were taken down to make way for the 

 Royal Exchange and the open area on its western front, and which were 

 occupied by some banking-houses and insurance companies, were a master- 

 piece of street architecture, putting situation aside, not surpassed by any in 

 Europe. Upon a massive stylovate, that gave height and light to the base- 

 ment stories, was raised an attached colonnade of as elegant a Roman-Dorie 

 as ever emanated from the pencil of a modern architect. The intercolum- 

 niations were filled with doors and windows as necessity and internal con- 

 venience required, deeply recessed and with bold reveals that served for 

 every purpose of office or shop. The upper part consisted of a lofty 

 elevation of well-proportioned windows with architectural stone dressing*, 

 with that breadth between them which characterise all this architect'» 

 works. This peculiar characteristic is particularly noticeable in the lofty 

 mansion on the western side of Tower-hill, in which the proportions of the 

 windows show the loftiness of the stories within. This character, which 

 gives such harmony and grandeur to the elevations of Sir Robert Taylor, 

 was so perplexing to the architect (?) of Phillimore-place, Kensington, that 

 he filled the interval between the one and two-pair stories windows with 

 little panels, which, if left open, might have intimated that they were 

 windows to that bungling Italian contrivance, a mezzanine story ; but which 

 he rather chose to fill with ornaments (!) of sculptured swags, representing 

 wet cloths hung upon pegs ; — he would doubtlessly have filled Sir Robert's 

 broad spaces with similar imitations. King George the Third, who often 

 passed through Kensington in his route from London to Windsor, named 

 that specimen of Kensingtonian architecture, Dishclout-row. 



Another fine specimen of Sir Robert's tasteful design is almost lost in the 

 narrow hut wealthy way of Lombard-street. It was originally erected for a 

 banking-house, but is now occupied by the Pelican Life .\ssurance company, 

 and is situated on the north side of the street, nearly opposite Abchurch- 

 lane. The basement story is formed of a solid stylovate, which serves for a 

 base to the Doric order of the lofty ground story. It is of the same classical 

 Roman-Doric that he used in the Bank-buildings. The one-pair story i< 

 lighted by three well-proportioned semicircular-headed windows; and above, 

 a row of attic windows, at such a distance from those below them as would 

 have induced the Kensington architect to have hung out his flags of distres4. 

 Every admirer of architecture should take a view of this excellent design, 

 before the genius of wide streets takes it away. The well designed group of 

 sculpture by De Veare, which designates the nature of the office, and dis- 

 figures the design, must not be taken into consideration in the estimation of 

 the architectural beauties of the edifice, to which it does not belong, and 

 can only be considered as a good thing ill applied. 



A smaller, but not less tasteful, example of this architect's peculiar skill 

 is to be found in the pretty villa which he erected for Sir Charles .-Vsgill, on 

 the margin of the Thames at Richmond. Without a column, without a 

 pilaster, without anything appertaining to the five orders, — with nothing 

 that can be strictly called architectural but the cantalived cornice, such as 

 used by Inigo Jones in Covent-garden church — he has composed an edifice 

 so picturesque in form, and playful in light and shade, that may defy compe- 

 tition from such simple materials. The centre stands forward and rises 

 higher than the two attached wings ; a three-windowed bow projecis from 

 the centre and rises the entire height ; the ground story is rusticated and 

 surmounted by a stringcourse and dadoed moulding, upon vibicb rests the 

 windows of the one-pair story ; square attic windows mark the upper story 

 of the centre, and the projecting cornice crowns it in front and sides ; the 



