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Purpose

Wycombe Abbey, Buckinghamshire: alterations to the house and outbuildings for William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and 1st Marquess of Landsdowne, 1798 (3)

Signed and dated

  • 1798
    Main Year

Notes

The only references in Soane's office records to Wycombe House appear in the Daybook for 1798-1799 and begin on Tuesday 28 August 1798 with 'Seward set off for High Wycombe / to take Plans of Wycombe House / by Birmingham Coach'. On the following Saturday Seward had returned 'from taking Plan of Wycombe' and on the following Tuesday and Saturday he was 'Drawing out Plans of Wycombe House with alterations'. After these four entries (the last on 8 September 1798) nothing more appears. Presumably the explanation is that, in 1798, the house was sold to Robert Smith, later 1st Lord Carrington, who commissioned James Wyatt to significantly alter the building in c. 1803-4.

Literature. N. Pevsner and E. Williamson, The Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire, 2nd edition, 1994, p. 391.

Madeleine Helmer/Jill Lever, April 2012

Level

Scheme

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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Contents of Wycombe Abbey, Buckinghamshire: alterations to the house and outbuildings for William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne and 1st Marquess of Landsdowne, 1798 (3)