Photograph: courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of London, London

Paul Drury with Richard Simpson
Hill Hall: A Singular House Devised by a Tudor Intellectual

London: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 2009, 544 pp., 378 ill., £ 55.00
ISBN 978-0-85431-291-7


In April 1969 a devastating fire tore through Hill Hall in Essex, leaving little more than the shell of the building in its wake. This catastrophic event appeared to spell the end for this country house, as it lay derelict and abandoned for a number of years, the importance of its archaeology disregarded and its architectural significance forgotten. This was until the intervention of Paul Drury and the Chelmsford Archaeological Trust who began a thirty or so-year research project, which has seen Hill Hall investigated with forensic precision through its archaeology and its archives. The results of this research are revealed in both the impressive restoration of the house – now converted for private residences – and the publication of this two-volume monograph.

The major contributors to the text are Paul Drury and Richard Simpson, both of whom have had a long-standing involvement with Hill Hall. Alongside them, the book also presents the research of numerous specialists who have been brought in to lend their expertise to specific aspects of the building’s archaeology. For example, Martin Bridge authors a section on dendrochronology, while Hillary Cool provides a discussion of the historic window glass at the house. Fundamentally, however this book is the culmination of two careers’ worth of experience and scholarship, and Paul Drury and Richard Simpson have brought their considerable knowledge and experience to bear on a house with an extremely complicated building history. In Hill Hall: A Singular House Devised by a Tudor Intellectual, the authors seek to provide an accurate account of the building’s development from the thirteenth century until the present day. The focus of the book, however, lies, as the title suggests, in the mid-sixteenth century, when Hill Hall underwent a series of dramatic modifications instigated by Sir Thomas Smith (1512-1577), Secretary of State to Elizabeth I.

Smith was one of the prominent intellectuals of his day. At Cambridge University he was a leading advocate of humanist learning, championing the primacy of Greek authors and texts. Having entered into the service of Edward Seymour, Protector Somerset, Smith participated in a newly formed Reformation government that increasingly styled itself upon classical precedents. Combined with these influences at home, Smith also spent a considerable time in France on embassies in the 1560s, during which he followed the French Court on its extended tour of the country between 1564-66.
 
It is Smith’s adoption of French Classicism within the context of mid-sixteenth-century English building practice that makes Hill Hall such an important survival in the landscape of European architectural history, for there is no other house in England of this period that reflects such a forthright expression of this continental classical style. Nikolaus Pevsner was the first modern scholar to recognize the significance of the building (see his 1955 article on the house in Architectural Review 117) but it is only now, with the publication of this book, that we see the extent to which Hill Hall was designed to conform to Renaissance ideas of taste and decorum. This is especially apparent in the interior of the house, which contains an extremely rare series of decorative wall paintings, depicting both Classical and Old Testament subject matters. In his careful reconstruction of this cycle, Richard Simpson demonstrates how the paintings combined with features such as the majolica floor tiles to form a coherent decorative scheme. Through his analysis of the printed sources from which the frescoes were taken, Simpson has also been able to show the extent to which Thomas Smith himself was personally involved in the creation of the iconographic program. This establishes Smith as one of only a handful of English patrons who sought to replicate in their own homes the styles they had seen on the continent.

On occasion, the sheer volume of archaeological data in this publication threatens to overwhelm the coherence of the argument, and on a surface level at least may appear superfluous to the central thesis. This could be perceived as a weakness, but should prove a strength over the long term, as this volume will serve as a valuable compendium of archaeological data for future studies. At the same time Hill Hall: A Singular House Devised by a Tudor Intellectual is also a successful piece of scholarship on the subject of patron-led architecture in mid-sixteenth-century Britain, and is informed by a wealth of detail. In this respect, the book is a fitting reflection of Hill Hall, because like the house itself, it greatly enhances our understanding of both theory and practice of a period of English architecture for which much of the material evidence has now been lost.


Alden Gregory and Edward Town
University of Sussex / National Trust