Lot 173: THE KING'S WORKS

THE KING'S WORKS -- Sir Christopher WREN (1632-1723). Manuscript accounts of Wren as Surveyor of the King's Works, 1682-3, SIGNED 47 TIMES BY WREN, recording works at Whitehall, St James's, Westminster, Denmark House, Hampton Court, Greenwich, Newmarket, Winchester Castle and Audley End, as well as 'publick paving', the monthly accounts (occasionally two or three months are consolidated) in a single neat secretarial hand, each with a title page and each signed by Wren, the Master Mason John Oliver, the Master Carpenter Matthew Banckes and in many cases also by either Leonard Gammon, Thomas Rotherham or Henry Winstanley as Clerks of the Works, a few months annotated 'drawn' or 'entered' on title page, altogether 110 leaves, folio (373 x 250mm), some contemporary foliation in ink, later pencil foliation, occasional 18th-century pen trials (archival repairs to losses to upper left corner of ff.1-5, approx 120 x 50mm, and minor losses to lower right corners, some soiling to last page), the pages individually mounted on guards, 19th-century half-leather boards.

CONTENTS:

ff.1-36 Whitehall, October 1682-March 1682/3
ff.37-46 St James's, November 1682-March 1682/3
ff.47-50 Westminster, November 1682-March 1682/3 (lacking December)
ff.51-58 Denmark House [i.e. Somerset House] 'Reparac[i]ons', October 1682-March 1682/3
ff.59-69 Hampton Court 'Reparac[i]ons', October 1682-March 1682/3
ff.70-75 Greenwich 'Reparac[i]ons', October 1682-March 1682/3
ff.76-83 Newmarket, May 1682-February 1682-3 (title page only for March present)
ff.84-86 Allowances for the officers of the King's Works, November-December 1682 and March 1682/3
ff.87-97 Whitehall, 'the Kings new buildings', September 1682 and November-January 1682/3
ff.98-99 'Charges of publick paving done to the last of February 1682/3'
ff.100-101 'Hampton Court Booke For worke done in the Tilt y[a]rd and ab[ou]t the Wall in the Monthes of May June July and August 1682'
f.102 'Charges and Expences for surveying & measuring the Ground att Winchester Castle and prepareing for a New Building there by his Maj[es]ties Order October 1682'
ff.103-110 Audley End, 'Charges in doing diverse needfull Workes and Reparc[i]ons there', September 1682-March 1682/3 (September-November and February-March in summary)

Wren's accounts give a very considerable level of detail of the King's Works, describing for each month the precise tasks undertaken by each group of craftsmen -- at Whitehall for example there are a mason, carpenters, a bricklayer, joiners, plasterers, pavers, sawyers, 'Mazerscowrers', labourers and occasionally others -- as well as payments for provisions, in each case giving the name and (where applicable) the number of days worked by each craftsman. Much the most substantial works described are those for Whitehall, reflecting the complexity and constant state of flux of the principal royal residence in a giddying series of adjustments to chimneys, passages, cupboards, walls, gutters and roofs; for the 'new buildings' at Whitehall, treated in a separate set of accounts, the accounting is by task work rather than day work (an approach encouraged as more economical by the 1663 regulations for the Works). At most of the other palaces the works consist of nothing more than minor repairs or shoring up: in the case of the new Greenwich Palace, where the King's grandiose project of 1661 had ground to a halt by 1672, the works represent the last, fruitless effort to make something habitable out of the incomplete buildings, which were by now 'boarded up and fenced around, used increasingly as a storehouse' (H.M. Colvin, ed. The History of the King's Works, Vol. V (1976), p.151). The accounts also record the first stage of the new (and no less ill-fated) grand project that was to occupy the last years of Charles's reign: that of Winchester Palace, construction of which was to begin the following year to Wren's designs. A humbler, but more serviceable abode was the hunting seat at Newmarket to which minor alterations are made in the present account, including, appealingly, 'making a large box for a Bitch to lye in the King's Bedchamber'.

Wren was Surveyor of the King's Works for just under 50 years, from 1669 until 1718 (when he was 85) -- the longest surveyorship in the history of the Office of Works, suggesting that he was no less accomplished as a courtier and administrator than as an architect. The new regulations drawn up in 1663 give a clear picture of the accounting process at the Office of Works:

'All four of the officers [Surveyor, Comptroller, Master Mason and Master Carpenter] were ... to meet once a month to pass the accounts submitted by the respective Clerks of the Works, who were to "bee at the Office by eight of the Clock in the morning, and deliver in their books fairely written to the Comptroller, with their bills and Check books also, and then attend below [until] occasion require them to be called". Upstairs the Clerk Ingrosser went slowly through the books, reading out the entries, while the Comptroller examined the corresponding bills to see that they tallied ... Once every six months the accumulated books were to be signed by all four officers for submission to the auditor and an abstract was to be made for transmission to the Treasury' (H.M. Colvin, op. cot., p.13).

As was commonly the case during Charles II's reign, the accounts for 1682/3 were in fact prepared in a pair of duplicate sets: the present volume is listed in the National Archives list of Works records as Works 5/36.