Combe Bank, northwest of Sundridge in Kent, was built in about 1725 by Roger Morris (1695-1749) for Colonel John Campbell, later 4th Duke of Argyll, who was succeeded by his eldest son in 1770. Morris's house is described by John Newman (1976, p.554) as 'The best expression of second-generation Palladianism in the country.... Square, two-storeyed block, three by three bays, with square angle turrets rising half a storey higher, pyramidally roofed. Low pyramidal main roof and an octagonal lantern.... Rusticated quoins. Top balustrade, Gibbs surrounds and pediments to the ground floor windows.... Only the W front breaks the all-round symmetry, for here the main block pushes forward past the turrets, and has a pediment.'

Robert Adam's designs for enlarging the house (drawings at the Soane Museum, plans and elevations, dated 1775-7, SM, Adam vol.42, 1-6) for the Duke's third son, Lord Frederick Campbell (1729-1816), consisted of two low wings added to the north side. Dance's unexecuted scheme was for enlarging the house by the addition of a second floor and a full attic storey and by three-bay additions to the south and east. An entrance hall and porte-cochere on the north side and a re-ordering of stairs were included in Dance's proposals for a commission that, on the evidence of the watermark of Basire's prints, must have been received in 1808 or after. Joseph Farington recorded in his diary (18 October 1811) that 'a few years ago [Lady Frederick Campbell] was unhappily burnt to death owing to Her Cloaths having caught fire.' That was in 1807 but Dance's commission is unlikely to have been connected with the fire. Farington noted (31 October 1813) that 'Lord Frederick Campbell had sold His House & Estate, Coombe Bank near Sevenoaks to Mr Manning, the West India Merchant, and Member of Parliament, for £40,000. It had been valued at £52,000 for Lord Frederick & He is thought to have sold it cheap. About 400 acres of land is attached to the House.' And again (19 January 1814) 'He assigned a reason for selling Coombank, saying "He chose to be his own Executor", he was then [in 1813] 85 or 86 years old.'

William Manning (1763-1835), whom Joseph Farington first records meeting on 26 June 1800 - 'to Mr Mannings, the West India Merchant in Finsbury St.' - seems to be the likely client. Dorothy Stroud in her list of works (Stroud p.244) has an entry 'Manning's House, Mr. This name appears on a blank sheet used as a title page to Stratton drawings [not traced]'. In any case, it seems that Dance did not carry out his scheme for alterations and additions and there have been subsequent additions by a number of architects, among them D. A. Alexander and George Legg in 1835-9. 'In the 1870s came Walter Crane's spectacular interior decorations, and early this century work by Walter Cave for the Mond family. Finally, a large modern wing was added when the house became a convent and school' (Cosh 1972, p.723).

As with Combe Bank, Dance's schemes for alterations and additions to country houses almost invariably provided a better circulation with a new staircase and entrance hall fronted by a porte-cochere. Here, he is sympathetic to Roger Morris's architecture, adopting the earlier quoined and pedimented windows (though he flattened the raised voissoirs) and wall quoining, and designing a rusticated and pedimented porte-cochere.

LITERATURE. J. Wolfe & J. Gandon, Vitruvius Brittanicus, vol.IV, 1767, pls 75-7; Stroud p.165; J. Newman, West Kent and the Weald, 1976, pp.554-6, fig.68; M. Cosh, 'Two Dukes and their Houses', Country Life, CLII, 1972, pp.78-81, correspondence p.723; Colvin.

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