Description:Amongst Sir John’s personal papers is a document entitled ‘An Estimate for the workmanship of the Carcase of a building design’d for a Library and Servants Room for the Right Honourable Lord Gower at Trentham in Staffordshire’. The document tells us that Sir John commissioned architectural alterations to his family seat at Trentham during the first half of the eighteenth century, including the construction of a Library, which may have been for his own private use. The estimate indicates that the Building was functional but ornate with Italianate features and tables on which books could be studied.
The document above provides architectural detail, describing the design of the building which was to ‘be built with stone’ and ‘brick’. The Estimate states that builders were ‘to worke and sett a Venetian Window of stone’ and also ‘a cornice of stone along the two ends’ of the building. The Library was to have ‘a moulded Ground table along three sides of the building’. The building was Italianate in style, with Venetian features, including ‘Venetian Corridors’, and it was elaborately decorated, the Estimate stating that ‘all the said stoneworke’ was ‘to be handsomely wrought’. In addition, in contrast with ‘common glass’, the Venetian Windows would be fitted with ‘London Crown Glass’.
The document tells us that the building was to have two floors, the Library being housed on the ground floor, with the Servants Room above it. The estimate alludes to the construction of ‘a Cieling floor over the Liberary’. The Servants Room was to have ‘a good substantiall Roof’. The document also states that the builders were ‘to make a strong six panelld Oake door & case into the Liberary’.
Sir John personally financed the whole project, which it was estimated would cost ‘One Hundred and Three Pounds Tenn Shillings’.
To find out more about Sir John's library, click on the image on the left.