Somerset House

Old Somerset House

16th century

In the 16th century, the Strand, the north bank of the Thames between the City of London and the Palace of Westminster, was a favoured site for the mansions of bishops and aristocrats, who could commute from their own landing stages upriver to the court or downriver to the City and beyond. In 1539, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, obtained a grant of land at "Chester Place, outside Temple Bar, London" from his brother-in-law King Henry VIII. When his nephew the young Edward VI came to the throne in 1547, Seymour became Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector. In about 1549 he pulled down an old Inn of Chancery and other houses that stood on the site, and began to build himself a palatial residence, making liberal use of other nearby buildings, including some of the chantry chapels and cloisters at St Paul's Cathedral, which were demolished partly at his behest as part of the ongoing dissolution of the monasteries. It was a two-storey house built around a quadrangle, with a gateway rising to three storeys, and was one of the earliest examples of Renaissance architecture in England. It is not known who designed the building.

Before it was finished, however, the Duke of Somerset was overthrown, attainted by Parliament and in 1552 was executed on Tower Hill. Somerset Place, as the building was referred to, then came into the possession of the Crown. The duke's royal nephew's half-sister, the future Elizabeth I, lived there during the reign of her half-sister Mary I (1553–58). The process of completion and improvement was slow and costly. As late as 1598 John Stow refers to it as "yet unfinished".

17th and 18th centuries

In the summer of 1604, Somerset House was the location for the negotiations, known as the Somerset House Conference that culminated in the Treaty of London and concluded the nineteen-year Anglo-Spanish War. The treaty was signed on 28 August (New Style), at Whitehall Palace, by the Constable of Castile who was lodged at Somerset House. The conference was the subject of an oil-on-canvas painting depicting the 11 representatives of the governments of England, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, seated around a conference table, probably in Old Somerset House.

During the 17th century, the house was used as a residence by royal consorts. In the reign of James I, the building was the London residence of his wife, Anne of Denmark, and was renamed Denmark House. She commissioned a number of expensive additions and improvements, some to designs by Inigo Jones. In 1609, Simon Basil and William Goodrowse made steps and terraces in the garden. Anne of Denmark built an orangery and employed a French gardener and hydraulic engineer Salomon de Caus. He built a fountain named after Mount Parnassus with a grotto carved with sea-shells and a black marble female figure representing the River Thames. The fountain was topped by a statue of Pegasus. A surviving cistern for the fountain in nearby Strand Lane was misidentified as a Roman bath.

The refurbished palace was the setting for elaborate entertainments at the wedding of Anne's lady in waiting Jean Drummond on 3 February 1614, including a masque Hymen's Triumph written by Samuel Daniel. On 22 May 1614, Christian IV of Denmark paid a surprise visit to his sister. In 1619, King James granted the palace to Prince Charles. Frances Coke, Viscountess Purbeck was appointed keeper of Denmark House, and Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham frequently stayed there.

After the death of King James in April 1625, his body was brought from Theobalds to lie in state at Denmark House. The state rooms were hung with black cloth. At this period there was no chapel at Denmark House, and so the Great Hall was adapted, and the body moved there before the funeral at Westminster Abbey.

Between 1630 and 1635 Inigo Jones built a chapel where Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I, could exercise her Roman Catholic religion. This was in the care of the Capuchin Order and was on a site to the southwest of the Great Court. A small cemetery was attached and some of the tombstones are still to be seen built into one of the walls of a passage under the present quadrangle.

Somerset House (Sir William Chambers, 1776)

Since the middle of the 18th century there had been growing criticism that London had no great public buildings. Government departments and the learned societies were huddled away in small old buildings all over the city. Developing national pride found comparison with the capitals of continental Europe disquieting. Edmund Burke was the top proponent of the scheme for a "national building", and in 1775 Parliament passed an act, the Crown Lands Act 1775 (15 Geo. 3. c. 33), for the purpose of, inter alia, "erecting and establishing Publick Offices in Somerset House, and for embanking Parts of the River Thames lying within the bounds of the Manor of Savoy". The list of public offices mentioned in the act comprised "The Salt Office, The Stamp Office, The Tax Office, The Navy Office, The Navy Victualling Office, The Publick Lottery Office, The Hawkers and Pedlar Office, The Hackney Coach Office, The Surveyor General of the Crown Lands Office, The Auditors of the Imprest Office, The Pipe Office, The Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, The Office of the Duchy of Cornwall, The Office of Ordnance, The King's Bargemaster's House, The King's Bargehouses".

Somerset House was still technically a royal palace and therefore Crown property, with most work being done by the King's Master Mason, John Deval. The building had been placed in trust for the use of Queen Charlotte in the event that her husband George III predeceased her. Therefore, the 1775 act annulled this arrangement and instead provided for another property, Buckingham House, to be vested in trust for the Queen on the same terms. (Provision was made for the King, who had privately purchased Buckingham House some years earlier, to be duly compensated.) In due course, the King outlived the Queen and the property (later known as Buckingham Palace) reverted "to the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors". By virtue of the same act, Ely House in Holborn (which had itself been purchased just a few years earlier as a potential site for new public offices) was sold and the proceeds applied to the Somerset House project.

Initially a certain William Robinson, Secretary to the Board of Works, was commissioned to design and build the new Somerset House, but he died in 1775 shortly after being appointed. So Sir William Chambers, Comptroller of the King's Works, (who had in any case been vying for the commission) was appointed in his stead, at a salary of £2,000 per year. He spent the last two decades of his life, beginning in 1775, in several phases of building at the present Somerset House. Thomas Telford, then a stonemason, but later an eminent civil engineer, was among those who worked on its construction. One of Chambers's most famous pupils, Thomas Hardwick Jnr, helped build parts of the building during his period of training and later wrote a short biography of Chambers. The design influenced other great buildings: Charles Bulfinch's Massachusetts State House, begun in 1795, has been described as a work "frankly derivative" of Somerset House.

Design

Chambers' own influences stemmed from Palladianism, the principles of which were applied throughout Somerset House, inside and outside, both in its large-scale conception and in its small-scale details. The footprint of the building was that of the old palace, ranging from its gateway block in the Strand across what was originally a gently sloping site down to the river. Chambers experimented with at least four different configurations of buildings and courtyards in drawing up his designs; his final version provided a single courtyard, 300 ft (91 m) by 200 ft (61 m), flanked by a pair of terraces, the whole presenting a unified frontage to the river, 500 feet (150 m) wide. Around the courtyard, each block consisted of six storeys: cellar, basement, ground, principal, attic and garret. The public offices and learned societies which were accommodated around the courtyard varied greatly in size, but each occupied all six floors of its allotted area, the upper floors often providing living space for a secretary or other official. Large vaults for storing public documents were provided, extending under the entire northern section of the courtyard.

The North Wing, fronting the Strand, was the first part of the complex to be built; its design was based on Inigo Jones's drawings for the riverfront of the former palace. By 1780 the North Wing was finished and occupied, and Chambers reported to Parliament that the rest of the quadrangle was complete up to a height of two storeys. Construction of the riverside wing followed; it was finished in 1786. At the time of construction, the Thames was not embanked and the river lapped the South Wing, where a great arch allowed boats and barges to penetrate to landing places within the building. Meanwhile, work continued on the East and West Wings, which began to be occupied from 1788; by 1790 the main quadrangle was complete.

It was originally envisaged that the main quadrangle would be flanked by two terraces of houses, one to the east and one to the west, providing accommodation for several of the Commissioners whose offices were based there. It is not certain at what pace the rest of the construction progressed, but it is clear that the outbreak of war with France in 1793 caused delays through lack of money. Chambers died in 1796, whereupon James Wyatt took over as architect. In the end, only the western terrace was built and by 1801 the building was deemed to be complete, at a cost of £462,323.

In 1815 Sir Robert Smirke was appointed as Attached Architect to Somerset House; in 1817 he added the Legacy Duty Office to the north-west corner of the quadrangle, its design in keeping with Chambers's adjacent façade. Even as late as 1819, decorative work to the exterior of the North Wing was still being completed.

Accommodation

A key reason for rebuilding Somerset House was to provide accommodation for a diverse variety of learned societies, public offices and naval administrators.

The North Wing of Somerset House was initially fitted out to house the Royal Academy, the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. The Royal Academy took up residence first, in 1779, followed by the other two institutions the following year. The Royal Academy occupied the western half of the wing and the Royal Society the eastern half; their main entrances faced each other across the central vestibule leading from the Strand to the courtyard, topped by busts (of Michelangelo and Isaac Newton respectively) which are still in place today. The Society of Antiquaries was also accommodated in the eastern half of the wing, though its premises were limited to a first-floor meeting room, a ground-floor library, an apartment in the attic and a kitchen in the basement.

The Geological Society was also accommodated in the Somerset House from 1828, as was the Royal Astronomical Society from 1834.

The annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition was held in Somerset House from 1780 onwards, until the academy moved out in 1837 (initially to rooms in the new National Gallery, then to Burlington House, Piccadilly). Its former accommodation was given over to a newly established Government School of Design (which was much later to become the Royal College of Art); it remained in the complex from 1837 until, in 1853, the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths needed to expand its office space. The School relocated to Marlborough House, leading to intense public backlash.

In 1857, the Royal Society moved out of Somerset House, followed in 1874 by the Society of Antiquaries, the Geological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society; they were all provided with new purpose-built accommodation in Burlington House.

In 1789 the Navy Board moved into grand riverside rooms in the western half of the newly completed South Wing. It was soon followed by its subsidiary Boards, the Victualling Commissioners and the Sick and Hurt Commissioners, which (along with the autonomous Navy Pay Office) occupied the West Wing; they had all hitherto been based in the City of London. Thus the various Navy offices occupied around a third of Chambers' completed building. In addition, the terrace to the west of the quadrangle provided dwelling-houses for the Comptroller of the Navy, the Secretary to the Board and three Commissioners of the Navy, along with the chairman, Secretary and two Commissioners of Victualling, with the Treasurer of the Navy allotted the 'mansion' at the river end of the terrace (which included a coach house and stables for ten horses in the vaults under the terrace). As well as providing office space and accommodation, Somerset House was the place where examinations for promotion to the rank of lieutenant took place, sat by several hundred midshipmen each year. The Admiralty Museum (a precursor to the National Maritime Museum) was also accommodated there, in the central room above the south portico.

19th-century expansion

Magnificent as the new building was, it was something short of what Chambers had intended, for he had planned for an additional terrace of houses to the east, as well as to the west of the quadrangle; work had stopped short, however, cost being the inhibiting factor. Eventually King's College London was erected to the east (the government granting the land on condition that the design conformed to Chambers' original design) by subscription between 1829 and 1834; the architect was Sir Robert Smirke. At the same time, as part of Smirke's scheme, the eastern third of the river frontage was completed, following Chambers's original design.

Then, increasing demand for space led to another and last step. The western edge of the site was occupied by a row of houses used as dwellings for Admiralty officials who worked in the South Wing. Between 1851 and 1856, this terrace was substantially expanded and remodelled to provide the Inland Revenue with an entire new wing of additional office accommodation. As part of this development, its architect James Pennethorne created a monumental new façade alongside the approach road to Waterloo Bridge (which had not been in existence when Chambers was alive). 150 years later this part of the building is still known as the "New Wing".

In 1891 a headquarters building was constructed in the West Court (between the West Wing and the New Wing) for the Civil Service Rifles, a Rifle Volunteer Corps.

20th-century modifications

By the start of the First World War the Civil Service Rifles, by then renamed the 15th (Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles) Battalion, The London Regiment, had its own Morris tube firing range (where the calibre of the rifle is reduced for indoor operation by a use of a tube) fitted with vanishing and running targets at Somerset House.

Somerset House had its share of trials and tribulations during the London blitz in the Second World War. Apart from comparatively minor blast effects at various times, sixteen rooms and the handsome rotunda staircase (the Nelson Stair) were completely destroyed in the South Wing, and a further 27 damaged in the West Wing by a direct hit in October 1940.

Still more windows were shattered and balustrades toppled, but the worst was over by the end of May 1941. It was not until the 1950s that this damage to the South Wing was repaired. The work required skilled masons, whose services were hard to come by in the early post-war years. Sir Albert Richardson was appointed architect for the reconstruction. He skillfully recreated the Nelson Room and rebuilt the Nelson Stair. The work was completed in 1952 at a cost of (then) £84,000.

In 1984 the Somerset House Act 1984 (c. 21), an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, was passed, legislating the way for Somerset House to be redeveloped as a centre for the arts.

In 1997 the Somerset House Trust was established as a registered charity to maintain the building and develop it as a centre for arts.

In the late 20th century the building began to be reinvigorated as a centre for the visual arts. The first institution to move in (in 1989) was the Courtauld Institute of Art, including the Courtauld Gallery, which has an important collection of old master and impressionist paintings. The Courtauld occupies the North Wing.

21st-century redevelopment

The main courtyard, which had been used as a Civil Service car park, and the main terrace overlooking the Thames were refurbished and opened to the public, these alterations being overseen by the conservation architects Donald Insall & Associates. Grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund financed the conversion of the South Wing between 1999 and 2003: a visitor centre featuring audio-visual displays on the history of the building, the gilded state barge of the Lord Mayor of the City of London and a shop and café were opened, overlooking the river. The Gilbert Collection of decorative arts, and the Hermitage Rooms, which staged exhibitions of items loaned from the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, moved into the same area. The last Hermitage exhibition took place in 2007 and the Gilbert Collection galleries closed in 2008; the collection moved into new galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2009. Somerset House now puts on a programme of art exhibitions, drawing on various sources.

In stages from 2009 to 2013, HM Revenue and Customs withdrew from the other parts of the building; since March 2013 the Somerset House Trust has had oversight of the entire complex. Its management policy has been to rent out the upper floors at a commercial rate to "creative businesses", while devoting the ground floor to "public realm" activities. The trust receives no public subsidy and relies on income from rent and private hire to fund the upkeep of the estate and relies on ticket sales, merchandising and sponsorship to fund its artistic and cultural programme.

In 2014, Jonathan Reekie was appointed director of Somerset House Trust. Under the directorship of Jonathan Reekie, Somerset House Studios was launched in 2016 in the New Wing as a scheme of affordable studios, residencies and commissions for artists, designers, musicians and filmmakers working across disciplines, occupying 36,000 square feet of redeveloped space in the New Wing for more than 100 artists and makers. The programme was established in response to the declining availability of affordable artist workspace in London. The Somerset House Studios programme has since hosted notable resident artists including Christian Marclay, Gareth Pugh, Katie Paterson, Jasleen Kaur, Charles Jeffrey and Tai Shani.

In the winter the central courtyard is home to a popular open-air ice rink, as seen during the opening credits of the 2003 Christmas-themed film Love Actually. At other times, 55 vertical jets of water rise to random heights from an array of fountains.