Client
Sir George Howland Beaumont Bart (1753-1827) was born at Great Dunmow in Essex, far from Coleorton in Leicestershire and the coalfields owned by his family since 1424. Perhaps best known as a founder of the National Gallery, Beaumont was an amateur landscape painter (who was an Honorary Exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1779 to 1825) and a friend of Constable, Reynolds, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Humphrey Davy, Richard Payne Knight and Sir Uvedale Price. He was also a friend of Joseph Farington and of George Dance, whose portrait of Beaumont, drawn in 1807, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

Site
In 1797 Beaumont sacked his Coleorton agent Joseph Boultbee for defrauding him of revenue from his mines and neglecting the work people. Four years later Beaumont, in order to avoid a repetition of such abuse, decided to re-establish Coleorton as his principal country residence. Apparently, William Atkinson and the engraver S. W. Reynolds (who was to be encountered again at Ashburnham Place) were among those who rushed to submit plans for Coleorton to Beaumont (Owen & Brown, 1988, pp.111, 121). However, Dance was the chosen architect and from the evidence of the dated drawings for Coleorton and the relevant entries in Joseph Farington's diary, the sequence of design and construction can be roughly followed. Thus Farington recorded (11 July 1802) 'Dance told me Sir George Beaumont desired plans of a house of the value of £8,000 to be built in Leicestershire'. By 7 November 1802 Dance must have visited Coleorton for an entry of that date in Farington's diary notes, 'Dance I drank tea with. He has designed a House for Sir George Beaumont, but has advised him not to build at Coleorton which He says He intended to do on a rising ground, before which Coal pits and circumstances belonging to such works are principal objects - In addition to which the roads to it are heavy sand and difficult to get through.'

Survey drawings, dated 27 December 1802 and January 1803 ([SM D1/9/3], [SM D1/9/1]) made by John Mathews, a surveyor of Ashby de la Zouch, show a small, irregular 17th-century house with farmyard buildings as well as the parish church on its west side. The house was in a poor state having been in the hands of absentee landlords and tenants throughout the 18th century and when Beaumont decided to establish himself there, Coleorton was little more than a farmhouse. A letter ([SM D1/11/1A]) from Joseph Hodskinson, who was Beaumont's new agent, mentions that 'as the East wall of the Kitchen is very bad I expect you will be inclined to take that down - and to make the South & East front anew'.

Changes of mind
Beaumont, with contradictory advice from his friends including Richard Payne Knight and Sir Uvedale Price, vacillated between rebuilding and replacing Coleorton. Dance's first design (Design A), for which the finished drawings were made on 27 January 1803, retained a good deal of the original structure and the orientation of the house and location of the offices established in this scheme were retained in the built design. Design B also incorporated part of the existing building. Subsequent designs (C-G) were all for the replacement of Coleorton, in slightly different locations and, like the earlier designs, in a castle style. The most radical was on a rhombus plan (Design E) with compass-drawn room plans.

Towards the end of the year, the replacement of the old building was agreed for Farington recorded (17 October 1803) that Dance 'stopped with Sir George Beaumont at Cole-Orton, and the spot was fixed upon where the new House is to be built'. On 6 November, Farington wrote in his diary that Dance 'thinks... the situation chosen for the House, (the best they can fix upon) places one front that of the principal rooms to the North, North East, on which there will be little Sun'. As built (see [SM D1/1/30]) the library has windows on the east and north sides while the drawing room is lit from the east and south. On 25 March 1804 after dinner (shared with Coleridge) at Sir George Beaumont's, Dance told Farington that he wished 'Sir George would desist from building'. And Farington recorded (16 April 1804) 'Dance told me ... He dined at His Lordship's yesterday [Lord Lowther, see Lowther Castle]. Ld. St. Asaph [see Ashburnham Place], - Lord Maynard &c there & Sir George Beaumont who was not in spirits. - Lady Beaumont also. She brings everybody to see the Plans of Sir George's House, - among the rest T. Hope [Thomas Hope]'. From 21 May to 7 June 1804, Dance was at Coleorton (Farington, 20 May, 8 June 1804) having travelled there on the evening coach. During his visit, Dance made a survey plan ([SM D1/9/2]) more detailed than the earlier one by a local surveyor ([SM D1/9/3] and [SM D1/9/1]). This was necessary, for as Farington learnt (10 June 1804) 'Sir George Beaumont has at last determined to add two excellent rooms and Offices to the Old House at Coleorton. Mr. [Uvedale] Price recommended this Plan & Dance approved it'. However on 19 July Farington reported that 'Sir George has again altered His mind & proposes to build on a spot not before considered - Dance said he should rejoice to give £200 to have nothing more to do with it. He sd. He never wd. take another Commission of the building kind'. Dance returned to Coleorton in August, Farington writing (21 August 1804) that 'Miss Green told me that Dance went a fortnight ago to Sir George Beaumont's in Leicestershire to lay the foundation of His new house & was to stay 3 weeks.'

Progress
It seems that the building programme for a new house on the site of the old and incorporating a small part of it may have been somewhat haphazard with work 'starting at several imperfectly determined points and, like mountain tunnellers, aim[ed] blindly towards a common meeting place' (Kalman, n.46, pp.355-6). Evidence for this comes from the drawings, especially [SM D1/10/28] which has instructions to the builder - including 'NB this wall may be any Thickness as it Turns out' and 'This Line to be paralell with Front Line whether or not Square to North End of Library' - that hint at a certain despondency.

From the evidence of drawings made at Coleorton rather than in London, Dance was there again 8-12 April ([SM D1/10/18], [SM D1/12/32], [SM D1/13/26], [SM D1/13/16], [SM D1/12/43], [SM D1/12/41]) and 15-25 July ([SM D1/12/30], [SM D1/12/33], [SM D1/12/41]) of 1805. Other drawings made by Dance, not necessarily at Coleorton are dated April and May 1806 and are for chimney-pieces ([SM D1/15/12], [SM D1/15/8], [SM D1/15/4]). He seems to have been there in September 1806 ([SM D1/12/53]) and in May 1807 ([SM D1/12/15], [SM D1/11/38]). The later drawings are working drawings and full-size details for the interior, that is, the 'finishings'.

On 6 January 1808, Farington wrote in his diary. 'Dance I dined with. Dance sd. He thought the House at Cole Orton which Sir G. Beaumont is finishing will cost Him with furniture, not less than £15,000. Sir George will not pay the least attention to the furnishing the house but leaves all to Lady Beaumont, who has shown a very bad taste in Her selection'. A month earlier (1 December 1807) Farington commented on Lady Beaumont: 'I came from the [Royal] Academy with... Dance, who told me He had engaged to pass the whole of tomorrow morning with a Lady in fixing upon furniture for a new House; He then proceeded to remark upon Her whims & caprice & sd. He wondered how the patience of any man cd. bear it'.

Dance was at Coleorton again in May 1808 for Farington wrote (30 May 1808) 'Dance called, having returned from Cole Orton yesterday. He sd. that He went down in the Telegraph & by travelling all night His legs were swelled "like Mill posts". He also suffered from sleeping in the House which was new painted, one night He was seized with vomiting, such an effect it had upon his stomach. He sd. Sir George ought not to go into it till August, but Lady Beaumont persists for end of June or July'. Dance's advice must have been accepted for a note on a drawing ([SM D1/10/30] verso) records an inscription carved for Beaumont - 'This House was erected on the site of the old House by Sir George Beaumont Bar^t and Dame Margaret his wife. The first stone was laid on the 21^st day of August 1804. It was inhabited for the first time on Friday 12^th day of Aug^st. 1808. The Architect was George Dance Esq^r. R.A. who manifested as much Friendship by his attention to the execution of the work as he has shewn good sense, taste and Genius in the Design.' Dance must have been relieved as well as pleased by this tribute for two months earlier Farington noted (6 June 1808) 'Dance I dined with. He spoke of Sir George being cold abt. his House at Cole Orton, not calling respecting it, & being cool ....' Dance made a record plan of the ground floor ([SM D1/10/23]) during the August visit; hatched lines suggest that the porte-cochere was still to be built and certainly the stables ([SM D1/11/40/]) came later.

Dance's estimate to Farington (18 March 1809) was that 'Sir George Beaumont's new House at Coleorton in Leicestershire will cost Him abt. £150000, & the furnishings &c will be abt. £5000 more.' By 16 October 1812, Farington could report that Beaumont 'spoke with much satisfaction of His having formed the resolution to re-establish His family at Coleorton, the residence of His Ancestors, by building the House which he has now finished'.

Design
Beaumont spent only a small part of each year at Coleorton and, though he dithered a great deal at the start, was always clear about not being over-housed; Dance's compact, eight-compartment plan with service wing answered the purpose. A generous allocation of space was given to circulation and the arrangement on a central axis of porte-cochere, entrance hall and polygonal hall with the staircase to one side has precedents, more or less, in Henry Holland's Carlton House, c.1783-96 as well as Soane's Tyringham for W. M. Praed, 1792-7. On 2 August 1802, Dance had written to Soane You would do me a great favour & a great service / if you wou'd let me look at your Plan of M^r / Praed's house I want to steal from it ... I am over head and ears and I have got / a house to build in the country w^ch plagues / me to death tho' I am excessively eager about / it but cannot do anything to please myself (SM Priv.Corr. III.D.5.14). Dance had visited Tyringham six years before with Soane (Stroud p.197) and it is generally assumed that it was Soane's circulation plan with vestibule, top-lit tribune and stair to one side that interested Dance. And since Coleorton was the only country house commission that he is known to have received in 1802, the 'house to build in the country' must refer to that for Sir George Beaumont.

While the flat planes of the four interconnecting reception rooms of Coleorton are lit by very large square-headed windows opening on to broad terraces with distant views and the decorative treatment of these rooms was kept plain so as to provide a restrained background for Beaumont's picture collection, the circulation spaces are much more complex. The core of Coleorton is the three-storey, 12-sided Polygon Hall; the first example of its use by Dance and the only executed one. It is revealed by a controlled play of daylight that begins with a glimpse through the glazed entrance door from under the vaulted roof of the porte-cochere supported on buttressed piers. The lancet-arched front door and flanking tall lancet windows are set in a projecting bay from which three steps lead to the body of the entrance hall which is without windows and from which, across a dim passage, the Polygon Hall is reached. This is lit from above by a lantern with 12 pointed-arch windows with stained-glass borders and by a plainly top-lit stair on the north side. On the south side, seen through free-standing piers, is the shadowy curved wall of the exedra. The lighting of this complex centre changes by the hour as the sun moves around the 12 Gothic-arched openings, framed by smoothly continuous mouldings, supporting a first floor circular gallery leading to the bedrooms. The choice of a 12-sided space was perhaps to symbolise the hours of the day and the sundial-like quality of the Polygon Hall.

The idea of a 'tribune' in the sense of 'a central inner vestibule open to the roof... (generally) placed in the centre of the plan, ris[ing] the full height of the house, hav[ing] a gallery round at first floor level' has been discussed by Sandra Millikin (1970) who traces its manifestations in Britain to Colen Campbell's unbuilt design published in Vitruvius Britannicus (1715, volume I, plate 28) followed by Robert Adam's unexecuted design for Luton Hoo made c.1767 and published in his Works in architecture (1778). Millikin gives the earliest built example as Henry Holland's Benham Park, Berkshire, 1773-5. The link between Holland and Soane (who worked in Holland's office from 1772) and Dance is intriguing.

The elevations of Coleorton are each one different from the other. The main (west) front is Gothic and the most picturesquely composed with lancet-arched windows set in a two-storey blind lancet arch either side of the porte-cochere which fronts a higher canted central bay. The medieval parish church of St Mary the Virgin with its tall spire is only a hundred yards from Coleorton's front door and Dance must have found its handsome exterior and proximity, as well as the historical connection with the Beaumonts, a stimulus to his design for the entrance front as well as for the Gothic details of the Polygon Hall.

The south elevation fronts the dining, breakfast and drawing rooms (and bedrooms above), each lit by tall three-part windows that open out on to a wide terrace beyond which lies a partly wooded valley. The flat planes and proportion of window to wall bring to mind Hardwick Hall which, if accepted, makes Coleorton a very early example of the Elizabethan Revival that is more generally associated with the 1820s. The back (east) elevation, fronting the library and the long side of the drawing room and bedrooms above, is plain with four single tall windows on each floor and turrets only at the corners. These turrets and their terminations have an Indian character related to the same features in other of Dance's work (see notes on the Guildhall, London and Dance's use of Indian elements).

Locally, it is said that the source for Coleorton was nearby Donington Hall designed by William Wilkins senior (1751-1815) for the 2nd Earl of Moira, c.1790-7. Wilkins was a plasterer and architect whose antiquarian interests account for the 'Gothick fancies' (Colvin) of Donington Hall. Illustrated by G. Richardson (New Vitruvius Britannicus, vol.II, pl. 31-5), Donington is externally in a symmetrical, Georgian Gothic style. There are some superficial similarities with Coleorton such as the use of labels over tall, plain windows; the thin octagonal buttresses (with crenellated tops) that punctuate the main fronts; and an arched front door flanked by arched windows. A vaulted porte-cochere lies in the centre of the main front rising to the level of the two-storey house and crowned by a lantern with two-light Perpendicular windows. The thirteen-by-seven bay plan consisting of four ranges around a courtyard is quite unlike Coleorton except that, concealed behind a chapel projecting east from the northeast corner, lies the asymmetrically sited service wing.

Offices
The north elevation of Coleorton consists mostly of the service wing, plain and set low and at an angle to the main house. It was not meant to be noticed. The idea of siting the offices symmetrically to one side was a recent practice; John Nash's Foley House, Goat Street, Haverfordwest of 1794 is an early example. Dance's unexecuted design for offices planned around a semicircular courtyard and to one side for Freefolk was made in about 1794 and a later unexecuted design for Norman Court, 1810 used the same idea. His design for Wilderness Park, c.1811 also included the addition of a kitchen court on one side.

Jill Franklin (1981, p.85) wrote that 'it was the invariable Victorian practice to group all the service rooms together on one side of the house .... The service wing might bulk almost as large as the house and cover an even greater ground area and yet it had to be "invisible", just as much as the servants themselves.' Thus at Coleorton, Dance had built in a way that was later to become an established practice. There he sank the office wing below the level of the main house and the external details were carefully graded so that, for example, the offices have unassuming, square-headed windows that, unlike the windows to the main house, are neither large nor Gothic. However, in order to reduce the bulk of the service wing and to augment the picturesque composition of the west front, it was planned in three parts rather than as a single block, so that the servants' hall and butler's room and water closet were in an extension to the north side of the main house and joined to the kitchen offices by a link wing set in an angle (seen most clearly in drawing [SM D1/10/30]).

Heating
Dance designed a warm-air system at Coleorton that was not successful - perhaps because the furnace was too small. In any case, installed only under the Polygonal Hall and stair, it was a partial and not a complete central-heating system. A great deal of heat would have been lost to the lanterns of both Hall and stair and it would hardly have affected the large, tall reception rooms, externally 'more glass than wall', which with a single chimney-piece each would have been chilly in the winter (ironic, considering that Coleorton was surrounded by coalfields owned by Sir George Beaumont). He told Farington (21 March 1820), that 'much ... had been successfully done to give warmth to Coleorton Hall'. The ducts underneath the Polygon Hall, reached by liftable stone slabs, and the small brass outlets still survive (1999).

Later history
Enlargements to Coleorton by Frederick Pepys Cockerell (1833-78) from 1862 have changed its proportions and scale but are not unsympathetic. Another storey was added and the 'oriental' octagonal turrets were heightened - their finials removed and then re-used. The entrance front had two Jacobean gables and a bellcote added and that part of the service wing nearest to the house had two storeys added and was made more important with a gable and two turrets flanking a four-centred, three-storey arced recess. In 1873 Cockerell also added a ballroom next to a picture gallery on the north side built some years after Dance had left the scene.

Coleorton was leased out after the death of the 11th Baronet in 1933 and in 1948 was bought by the National Coal Board and well maintained. with the privatisation of the coal industry, new owners were sought and Coleorton was eventually bought by developers in 1998.

LITERATURE. S. Millikin, 'The Tribune in English architecture', Burlington Magazine, CXII, 1970, pp.442-6; Stroud pp.196-200; Kalman pp.164-75; E. M. Howe, 'Coal, art and the Beaumonts', History Today, April 1974; J. Franklin, The Gentleman's country house and its plans, 1835-1914, 1981; F. Owen & D. B. Brown, Collector of genius: a life of Sir George Beaumont, New Haven, 1988, chapters VIII, IX.

OTHER SOURCES. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York: Department of Literary & Historical Manuscripts. Information from John Crocker, Loughborough; Jeremy Winter (estate manager).

Group

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