A Fountain Fragment from Nonsuch Palace
By Josh Nash
A sculptural fragment from Nonsuch Palace has recently been identified at Berkeley Castle. Professor Martin Biddle, Hertford College, Oxford, has authenticated the plinth as part of the Diana Fountain which once stood in the garden of Nonsuch Palace.
“On the top of this tiny mound is set a shining column which carries a high-standing statue of a snow-white nymph, perhaps Venus, from whose tender breasts flow jets of water into the ivory-coloured marble, and from there the water falls down through narrow pipes into marble basins.”
Anthony Watson, Rector of Cheam describing the Diana Fountain (misidentified as Venus) circa 1582
The construction of Nonsuch Palace was begun by Henry VIII in 1538, the works were not completed in Henry’s lifetime and the unfinished palace was sold by his daughter Mary I to Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel in 1556. Fitzalan continued the works to the buildings and garden aided by his son-in-law and one of the greatest collectors of art and books of his age, John, Lord Lumley. The completed Nonsuch Palace was bequeathed to Lumley upon the death of Fitzalan in 1580 and it was during this period of ownership that the Diana Fountain was constructed.
The image of the Diana Fountain is taken from the Lumley Inventory of 1590, known as the Red Velvet Book, and in this document are drawings of seven monuments within the gardens of Nonsuch, one of which is the Diana Fountain. Lumley sold Nonsuch Palace back to the Crown in 1592 and over the next 70 years the property changed hands several times but was back in royal ownership when Charles II granted it to one of his many mistresses Barbara Villers, Countess of Castlemaine, in 1671. Villiers, who never actually lived at the Palace, allowed the property to slide into a state of ‘great decay and ruine’ and in 1682 the demolition rights and the subsequent building materials of the palace, outbuildings and gardens were sold to George, 1st Earl of Berkeley for £1800, approximately £390,000 in todays money. George Berkeley, who had been Keeper of Nonsuch Palace and Park since 1660, set about dismantling the property and either repurposing the salvaged building materials or selling them on. The majority of the property had been demolished by 1688 which is when Berkeley received his last payment as Keeper of Nonsuch Palace and Park.
It is worth noting that Berkeley’s employment at Nonsuch may help to explain the somewhat ‘domestic’ perspective of the painting of Nonsuch Palace, by Henrick Danckerts, which hangs in the Larders at Berkeley Castle. The Danckerts picture, painted from the north east, centres on the Kitchen Block of the Palace and it’s associated enclosed garden, rather than the grand stuccoed towers of the palace’s southern elevation depicted by Joris Hoefnegal in 1568.
Much of the salvaged building material was used to remodel the Berkeley home, The Durdans, approximately 17 miles to the south of Nonsuch. This remodelling is highlighted by the two paintings of The Durdans which also hang in the Larders at Berkeley Castle. The earlier picture, painted by Jacob Knyff in 1673, depicts the house before the demolition of Nonsuch and the later picture, by Jacob Smits, shows The Durdans in 1689 when the demolition was complete. The difference in the building is striking although the avenue of trees is still extant in the later picture. Neither painting shows the Diana Fountain at The Durdans.
The earliest documentary evidence of the fountain in the possession of the Berkeleys is a photograph of Cranford House, another Berkeley home, taken around 1900, the plinth, now at Berkeley, is standing on the lawn to the south of the house. It is believed that the salvaged Diana Fountain was taken to The Durdans as part of the remodelling and then when the property was sold off and emptied in 1702 the fountain was removed, along with the rest of the contents, to Cranford Park, another Berkeley home.
Randal, 8th Earl of Berkeley, inherited Berkeley Castle and Estates in 1916 and in 1917 he emptied Cranford Park and brought the contents and effects to Berkeley Castle. Much of this was sold in a phase of chattels consolidation but the plinth from the Diana Fountain was kept, first standing at the west end of the Gun Terrace, then moving to above the newly built Tennis Court Changing Rooms, where it remains to this day.
The 8th Earl of Berkeley sold Cranford Estate to Heston and Isleworth Council in 1932 and in 1936 a report was prepared for the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments of England and the inspector describes an abandoned rubbish pile/rockery
“which contains among other fragments four bays 2'. 6” long by 1'. 6” high, of a white marble parapet which may have served for an ornamental basin for a fountain or fishpond. One has a shield charged with a (fesse?) between three birds (popinjays?), and a terminal figure at one end. Another has a shield charged with three pierced cinquefoils”.
A shield charged with a fesse between three popinjays, is a description of the Lumley Arms, and surely describes the piece of stone from the front of the basin of the Diana Fountain illustrated in the Red Velvet Book.
As Lumley’s second wife was Elizabeth Darcy, it is safe to assume the “shield charged with three pierced cinquefoils” describes the Darcy Arms, and they would have been carved onto part of the basin not visible in the drawing in the Red Velvet Book. It is worth asking why these pieces of stone were not taken back to Berkeley with the plinth, did the 8th Earl realise they were part of the fountain but felt they were not important enough to remain with the plinth? Or was it known that the plinth was part of the Diana Fountain at all? Had the stone lost its story? There may still be fragments of fountains or other garden ornaments from Nonsuch Palace somewhere waiting to be found.