Rural Residences

London: J.Diggens for R. Ackermann, 1818. Papworth's Rural Residences
First Edition in the Original Boards Uncut

PAPWORTH, John Buonarotti. Rural Residences, Consisting of A Series of Designs for Cottages, Decorated Cottages, Small Villas, and Other Ornamental Buildings, Accompanied by Hints on Situation, Construction, Arrangement and Decoration, In the Theory & Practice of Rural Architecture; Interspersed with Some Observations on Landscape Gardening. London: J.Diggens for R. Ackermann, 1818.

First edition. Imperial octavo (11 x 7 1/2 inches; 278 x 192 mm.). viii, [9]-106, [2, index], [1, list of plates], [1, publisher's imprint] pp. Twenty-seven hand colored aquatint plates after Papworth. Text watermarked 1816 & 1817.

Original drab boards uncut, neatly rebacked to style, endpapers renewed. Small light stain on pp.26/27, neat early ink signature dated 1822 at top of title-page. A spectacular, fine and fresh copy. Chemised in a later quarter green morocco slipcase, lerttered in gilt on spine.

The genesis of this important work is explained in the introduction: "the following designs for rural buildings, accompanied by some practical observations, were presented to the public in the "Repository of Arts," under the title Architectural Hints, during successive months of the years 1816 and 1817. The proprietor of that work having received such applications for the series of designs in a separated form, as induces him to re-publish them; further observations have been added to supply, in part, the many deficiencies which necessarily occurred from so desultory a manner of publication."

"A happy by-product of the designs having been published periodically is that they cover a large range of design: from small cottages for estate workers (including a garden, so that the uncultivated mind of the husbandman is kept occupied and out of the local village alehouse), through various cottage orné, a vicarage, a dairy, a fishing lodge, to perhaps the height of luxury: an ice house "calculated for an embellishment to the grounds of a nobleman, and contain[ing] in its plan and section all the requisites to the construction of an ice-well" (p.99).

The fine hand colored plates include designs for various buildings including "Steward's Cottage", "A Bailiff's Cottage", "Gothic Cottage", several "Cottage Orné" plates, "A Vicarage House", several "Villas", "A Park Entrance", "A Gothic Conservatory", "A Dairy", "Fishing Lodge", "An Ice House", "Garden Seats", "A Verandah" and "A Domestic Chapel".

A second edition was published in 1832.

John Buonarotti Papworth (1775-1847) was an architect, artist, and founding member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was described by John Summerson as "one of the most versatile architects and decorative artists of the period". He contributed designs to Ackermann's Repository of the Arts for almost twenty years, and published some of his designs for houses as Designs for Rural Residences in 1818. In London, he designed shop fronts (one, for a tea merchant in Ludgate Hill, was in a "Chinese" style) and warehouses, and built or remodeled many villas for middle-class clients in the countryside. At Cheltenham he laid out the Montpellier Estate, and extended the Montpellier Pump Room (1825-26), with a domed rotunda inspired by the Pantheon. He popularized the rustic "cottage ornée" style.

Abbey Life 45; Archer 246.2; Brunet IV, 9814; Prideaux p. 347; Martin-Hardie, pp, 112,129, 312; Tooley 359.