The drawings
This drawing is not from Dance's own collection but from Soane's. It is included here because it documents a key building for which there are no drawings by Dance at the Soane Museum. There are three elevations in the Corporation of London Records Office (Surveyor's City Lands Building Plan 81-83).

The Soane Museum drawing is in the style of the illustrations prepared for Soane's lectures at the Royal Academy though it was not used as such. Soane's opinion of Dance's Guildhall facade, published in the 'Appeal', a pamphlet privately printed by Soane in 1812 and circulated to his friends, was that (pp.43-4) 'Though this excellent artist (when left to his free imagination, and not tramelled) copies the beauties of the antique, and transfers them into his works; yet in the new front to Guildhall, we can no where trace any of that powerful mind, that sublime conception, that chaste and classical taste, which so successfully distinguished one of the early works of this truly great artist. The front of Guildhall is a medley, no doubt, "arising from a perfect chaos of confined circumstances, which fettered the genius and palsied the imagination".' The quoted portion is a parody on Dance's own words about 'architecture unshackled' (Farington 25 March 1804).

The building
In his official capacity as Clerk of the Works to the City of London, Dance was the architect responsible for the Guildhall and precinct that formed the centre of civic government in the City of London. On 30 April 1788 he was asked by the City Lands Committee to prepare a design for 'rebuilding the residue of the south front of the Guildhall conformable to the design for the front of the Comptroller's house [recently rebuilt by Dance] with such improvements as he shall think proper'. The visible part of the south front of the Guildhall consisted of a medieval porch and Dance's initial elevations (CLRO, Surveyor's City Lands Buildings Plans 81 and 82) kept much of the 'residue', that is the original fabric. But then the buttresses were found to need underpinning and, since this would have meant taking at least part of the porch down, he made another design embracing more of the front (CLRO, Surveyor's City Land Buildings Plan 83, dated 9 July 1788 and signed by William Norris and Daniel Pinder, the contractors). This contract drawing has some exotic details including finials with narwhal tusks but the design became more radical, that is Indian, in execution.

As built (and seen in the Soane Museum drawing) Dance's new front incorporated the medieval porch to the Guildhall as the central ground floor element. Nine bays wide and four storeys high, the front is divided into three parts by four fluted pilasters without capitals that rise into square turrets with octagonal pinnacles. The 30 windows, grouped in threes, all have cinquefoil heads and each given a strongly semicircular arc instead of the more pointed Gothic shape of the existing Perpendicular tracery. Interestingly, Dance used a multifoiled arch for the altar recess at the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less that he was remodelling at this time. The five horizontal bands of quatrefoils above the windows took their inspiration from the medieval front; Dance used that motif again, for example, on the executed porte-cochere at Ashburnham Place. The sources for the rest of the decorative detail are wider and many were to be re-used or at least tried out on paper for subsequent schemes. The fanciful turrets of the Guildhall with the pinnacles are in three diminishing stages; that is, a square base with antefixae embellished with anthemion (for a similar honeysuckle detail drawn full size see Stratton Park, London Lodge [SM D1/8/14] verso); supporting a panelled octagon with (on the central turrets) smaller antefixae; supporting a panelled hexagon with a cap and finial. They are paralleled by Dance's alternative designs for turret terminations for Coleorton, the London Lodge at Stratton Park, and unexecuted design for Norman Court, and Ashburnham Place. An unidentified design for a villa in a Gothic style as the same composition of nine bays divided into three parts with windows grouped in threes. Plainer and two to three storeys high, its semi-Indian character might not suggest itself were it not for its resemblance to the Guildhall facade.

INDIAN FORMS AND ELEMENTS
Sources
Though Dance's designs for the now demolished front of Ashburnham Place have an Indian quality it is less obviously exotic than the Guildhall front. Unfortunately, there is almost no record of Dance's ideas on Indian architecture. Farington noted in his diary (29 September 1798) that Dance thought 'the Greeks borrowed from the East' which suggests a wide and inclusive view of architecture. Dance's library contained three books on India. The first (as listed in the catalogue of the 'library of the late G. Dance Esq') was 'Capper's Voyage to India, 1785', that is, James Capper, Observations on the passage to India through Egypt also by Vienna through Constantinople to Aleppo, and from thence by Bagdad, and directly across the Great Desert, to Bassora ... The purpose of the book was 'to see revived a dormant plan of sending despatches to and from India, by the Red Sea' and this edition includes a journal by George Baldwin, agent to the East Indian Company at Cairo, three maps and an unarchitectural view of 'an ancient monument found in Natolia', Turkey. A second book on India was a post-Guildhall publication, 'Rennell's memoir of a map of Hindostan, 1793', that is, James Rennell, Memoir of a map of Hindoostan; or the Mogul's empire with an introduction illustrative of the geography and present condition of that country ... Rennell, a Fellow of the Royal Society and 'late Major of Engineers and Survey-General in Bengal', dedicated his book, which had maps but no other illustrations, to Sir Joseph Banks. The only other book on India listed in the sale catalogue of Dance's library was 'Daniell, Twenty-Four Views in Hindoostan ... (First Series), 1795', that is Oriental scenery. Twenty four views in Hindoostan, from the drawings of Thomas Daniell, engraved by himself and William Daniell (Taken in the Year 1792). Altogether 144 aquatints with text were published in six parts from 1795. Many of the plates published in the first series were of British buildings in Calcutta and Madras. Of the others, some views of the Palace of Madura include details such as multifoil arches, merlon battlements and a dome capped by a double-circle of lotus leaves (or tiles) that Dance would have found interesting but insufficient as the sole source for his Indian elements.

The principal published source for illustrations of Indian architecture in 1788, at the time the Guildhall was being designed, was William Hodges' Select Views in India ... (1785-8). Published with 48 plates (British Library copy), with English and French letter press and dedicated to the directors of the East India Company, it does not appear in the sale catalogue of Dance's books and yet it seems very likely that he had once owned a copy. In any case, he could have seen Hodges's Indian paintings at the Royal Academy where they were exhibited from 1785 to 1794 and, as friends and neighbours (Dance made a pencil portrait of him), they could have looked over drawings and discussed them, perhaps in the terms of Hodges's remark on the similarity of Indian and Gothic architecture (in a caption to a view of the 'Mosque of Chunar Gur', plate 19), namely, that with Indian and Gothic architecture 'The General Forms ... [and] the minuter ornaments are perfectly the same' and giving as examples of ornament 'the Lozenge Square filled with Roses ... the little pannelling, and their mouldings ....' In his Royal Academy Discourse of 11 December 1786 (published as Discourses on art, 1959) Sir Joshua Reynolds recommending Hodges's works said that 'the Barbaric splendour of those Asiatick Buildings ... may possibly ... furnish an Architect, not with Models to copy, but with hints of composition and general effects which would not otherwise have occurred'.

The first professional British landscape painter to visit India (he was there from 1780 to 1783), Hodges made sketches, oils and aquatint plates in the Picturesque tradition and they were not very accurate or informative on architectural detail. All the same, the ingredients of turrets with domed caps and finials, merlon battlements, machiolations, arched gateways and distinctive Indian domes were there. The riotous assemblage of domes and minarets in a view of the 'Mosque at Gazipor' (plate 31) offered much and the lotus leaf domed cap and finial seen in 'Tomb at Gazipoor' (plate 8) is reflected in Dance's details for three of his buildings. Stirred by the artist's discovery of India and the idea of cultural pluralism, Dance had to work out much of the decorative detail for himself. While his sophisticated elision and adaptation of Classical sources depended on his Roman studies and say, the plates of J. Stuart and N.Revett's Antiquities of Athens, Dance had not been to India and of course, published measured drawings of Indian buildings were not available. Dance's invented decorative details may explain the quasi-Indian quality of that part of his work though in any case his interest lay not in archaeological reproduction but in syntheticism and freedom.

Arched entrances with Indian proportions
Though Dance retained the medieval portal of the Guildhall, the scalloped parapet immediately above the head of the arch and the soaring flanking turrets give an impression of a gateway with Indian proportions. The Stratton Park gate displays these proportions more clearly since the space between the head of the arch and the parapet is small and the tightly flanking turrets or piers rise high. The several alternative designs for the new front to Ashburnham show the porte-cochere with the same sort of Indian proportions. The three-storey arched entrance of the Portugal Street elevation of the Royal College of Surgeons might arguably owe something to, say, the Gate of Victory at the Mosque, Fatehpur Sikr near Agra.

Although not in the form of an arched entrance, an alternative elevation for an unexecuted scheme for Norman Court ([SM D2/7/13]) is Indian in its proportions, arched openings, capped turrets with sketchy kalasha-finials (see below) and balconies with pierced fronts. Dance seems to have used an abstract Indian style to achieve a minimal Gothic one.

Turrets, pinnacles, finials
Decorative elements with an Indian flavour in Dance's architecture are few in type and of these, turrets are the most important. Though Dance labelled them on his drawings as such (or pilasters, if they took the form of a thin 'slice' of an octagon applied to a flat wall), they are not proper turrets or 'small towers', for even when hollow they are too small for anything except pipes and flues. If solid they cannot rightly be termed buttresses, since they are structurally superfluous. Neither turrets, buttresses or pilasters, their true function is to articulate the wall plane and decorate the skyline. Their Indian character lies in the octagonal plan, elongation and the fantastical details of the pinnacles and finials. Some of Dance's alternative designs for pinnacles for Ashburnham and Coleorton take the form of miniature castles, while others have specifically Gothic details such as crockets or Classical details such as festoons. However, there are executed turret terminations for Ashburnham ([SM D2/4/6]) and the London lodge at Stratton ([SM D1/8/18] the cap now gone) that are Indian. These consist of an octagonal base supporting a domed cap clad with narrow leaves (inverted patera, labelled by Dance 'bell' - an Indian form of ornament) topped by a finial. The Stratton example has antefixae-merlons as do the terminations at Coleorton that are a variant of the same theme. The finials to the Ashburnham and Stratton lodge pinnacles can, it was suggested by Dr Banmali Tandan (in conversation, 17 April 2000), be described as 'kalashas' or vases, an ornament found in Hindu temples. Dance's finial has a base with strongly moulded annulets that rises into a vase of inverted lotus leaves holding a half-spherical fruit with a tulip-like termination from which springs a tight posy of five-petalled flowers (see [SM D1/2/1], [SM D2/4/6]). Though small, these kalasha-finials are perhaps the most Indian of Dance's elements since they are unlike anything in Gothic or Classical architectural ornament.

Crenallation, cresting
A Venetian crenellation with half-paterae rather than balls used on the parapet and over the porch at the Guildhall was used again for Schemes F and G for Ashburnham Place and on the heads of the turrets to the gate at Stratton Park where a variant, in the form of a Vitruvian scroll cresting, decorates the parapet. Both the Venetian crenellation and the Vitruvian scroll cresting are an allusion to the pointed merlons of Indian battlements though probably taken from J. Stuart and N. Revett's drawings of the Choragic monument of Lysicrates (Antiquities of Athens, volume 1, 1762, chapter IV, plates III, VI, VIII).

Arched corbel-table frieze or machiolation, other elements
At Ashburnham Place, the arched frieze below a cornice or machiolation could have an Indian source such as the Qurb Minar, Delhi illustrated in Thomas and William Daniell's Oriental scenery, series 5 (1799). Again, the pierced parapet and pierced balcony fronts supported on brackets could be read as 'jali' - a pierced screen in Indian architecture - and the emphatic labels with stops are reminiscent of 'chujja' (chajja, chadya) or eaves over windows. Internal pilasters flanking French windows at Stratton ([SM D1/4/53]) have lotus-like leaves at their base. These are wider than the narrow leaves used to decorate the domed cappings to turrets and less feathery than those used for capitals at the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less in the City of London. The Church was described in a contemporary account as an 'attempt to imitate the Saracenic, Gothic, style' (Malcolm, 1803, p.303) but later rebuilding has removed Dance's details. The hunt for clues to Dance's use of Indian sources also extends to domes; for example the dome shown on a drawing for Ashburnham Place ([SM D2/1/10]) can be described as Bengali (Banmali Tandan, in conversation, 17 April 2000).

Choice of the Indian style
The appropriateness of Indian elements for the unbuilt Norman Court and for the London Lodge at Stratton Park might relate to the important part their owners played in the East India Company, though no particular connection can be associated with the owners of Coleorton or Ashburnham. The commercial interests of the City of London certainly included the East Indies but the City's Aldermen had asked for their building to stay in keeping with the design of the Comptroller's house. Except perhaps for Alderman John Boydell for whom Dance designed the Shakespeare Gallery they luckily did not recognise the exoticism of Dance's new front or it might not have become the earliest example of Indian influence in English architecture. The second example was by Dance's friend S. P. Cockerell, who in September 1788 (only weeks after Dance's Guildhall contract drawing) began his designs for Warren Hastings's Dayleford House and later went on to design Sezincote House. Some of Dance's contempories recognised the Guildhall's Indian connection. Farington's diary (2 January 1795) states that James Wyatt 'thought Dance in some instances has quitted grammatical art for fancies. - He said that in the new front of Guildhall, Dance had substituted for true Gothic, something taken from the prints of India [sic] Buildings, published by Hodges.'

The builders for the Guildhall front, William Norris and Daniel Pinder, received £2,242.13.4, the final certificate being signed on 14 July 1790. The eastern part of Dance's facade was rebuilt in 1909-10 by the then City of London architect, Sidney Perks and has in 2000 been cleaned and restored.

LITERATURE. J. P. Malcolm, Londinium redivivum, 1803; Catalogue of the architectural and miscellaneous library of the late G. Dance Esq. R.A. F.S.A., 1837, published in Sale catalogues of libraries and eminent persons, vol.4, Architects, D. J. Watkin (ed.), 1972, and a manuscript 'catalogue of architectural books of the late George Dance Esq. RA' (SM, AL Soane Case 132); J. Reynolds, Discourses on art, R. R. Wark (ed.), 1959; D. Stroud, 'The Novelty of the Guildhall facade', Country Life, CXXXV, 1964, pp.770-71; N Cooper, 'Indian architecture in England, 1780-1830', Apollo, XCII, 1970, pp.124-33'; Stroud pp.118-121; Kalman pp.127-32; P. Conner, Oriental architecture in the West, 1980, pp.114-17; R. Head, The Indian style, 1986, pp.23-4, 36-7; A. Ginger, 'Daylesford House and Warren Hastings', Georgian Group Report and Journal, 1989, pp.80-101; The Oriental obsession, Islamic inspiration in British and American art and architecture, 1500-1920, Cambridge, 1991, pp.98,
250.

OTHER SOURCES. Corporation of London Records Office