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Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren FRS ( – ) was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

The principal creative responsibility for a number of the churches is now more commonly attributed to others in his office, especially Nicholas Hawksmoor. Other notable buildings by Wren include the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and the south front of Hampton Court Palace.

Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a founder of the Royal Society and served as its president from 1680 to 1682. His scientific work was highly regarded by Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal.

Life and works
Wren was born in East Knoyle in Wiltshire, the only surviving son of Christopher Wren the Elder (1589–1658) and Mary Cox, the only child of the Wiltshire squire Robert Cox from Fonthill Bishop. Christopher Sr. was, at that time, the rector of East Knoyle and, later, Dean of Windsor. It was while they were living at East Knoyle that all their children were born; Mary, Catherine and Susan were all born by 1628, but then several children who were born died within a few weeks of their birth. Their son Christopher was born in 1632. Then, two years later, another daughter named Elizabeth was born. Mary must have died shortly after the birth of Elizabeth, although there does not appear to be any surviving record of the date. Through Mary Cox, however, the family became well off financially for, as the only heir, she had inherited her father's estate.

As a child Wren "seem'd consumptive". Although a sickly child, he would survive into robust old age. He was first taught at home by a private tutor and his father. After his father's royal appointment as Dean of Windsor in March 1635, his family spent part of each year there, but little is known about Wren's life at Windsor. He spent his first eight years at East Knoyle and was educated by the Rev. William Shepherd, a local clergyman.

Little is known of Wren's schooling thereafter, during dangerous times when his father's Royal associations would have required the family to keep a very low profile from the ruling Parliamentary authorities. It was a tough time in his life, but one which would go on to have a significant impact upon his later works. The story that he was at Westminster School between 1641 and 1646 is substantiated only by Parentalia, the biography compiled by his son, a fourth Christopher, which places him there "for some short time" before going up to Oxford (in 1650); however, it is entirely consistent with headmaster Doctor Busby's well-documented practice of educating the sons of impoverished Royalists and Puritans alike, irrespective of current politics or his own position.

Some of Wren's youthful exercises preserved or recorded (though few are datable) showed that he received a thorough grounding in Latin and also learned to draw. According to Parentalia, he was "initiated" in the principles of mathematics by William Holder, who married Wren's elder sister Susan (or Susanna) in 1643. His drawing was put to academic use in providing many of the anatomical drawings for the anatomy textbook of the brain, Cerebri Anatome (1664), published by Thomas Willis, who coined the term "neurology". During this time period, Wren became interested in the design and construction of mechanical instruments. It was probably through Holder that Wren met Sir Charles Scarburgh whom Wren assisted in his anatomical studies. Another sister Anne Brunsell, married a clergyman and is buried in Stretham.

On 25 June 1650, Wren entered Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied Latin and the works of Aristotle. It is anachronistic to imagine that he received scientific training in the modern sense. However, Wren became closely associated with John Wilkins, the Warden of Wadham. The Wilkins circle was a group whose activities led to the formation of the Royal Society, comprising a number of distinguished mathematicians, creative workers and experimental philosophers. This connection probably influenced Wren's studies of science and mathematics at Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1651, and two years later received M.A.

1653–1664
After receiving his M.A. in 1653, Wren was elected a fellow of All Souls' College in the same year and began an active period of research and experiment in Oxford. Among these were a number of physiological experiments on dogs, including one now recognized as the first injection of fluids into the bloodstream of a live animal under laboratory conditions. At Oxford he became part of the group around John Wilkins, he was key to the correspondence network known as the Invisible College, Within the arms of All Souls, the arms of Wren's friend Robert Boyle appear in the colonnade of the Great Quadrangle, opposite the arms of the Hill family of Shropshire, close by a sundial designed by Boyle's friend Wren.

His days as a fellow of All Souls ended when Wren was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, in 1657. He was there provided with a set of rooms and a stipend and required to give weekly lectures in both Latin and English. Wren took up this new work with enthusiasm. He continued to meet the men with whom he had frequent discussions in Oxford. They attended his London lectures and in 1660, initiated formal weekly meetings. It was from these meetings that the Royal Society, England's premier scientific body, was to develop. He undoubtedly played a major role in the early life of what would become the Royal Society; his great breadth of expertise in so many different subjects helped in the exchange of ideas between the various scientists. In fact, the report on one of these meetings reads:

"Memorandum November 28, 1660. These persons following according to the usual custom of most of them, met together at Gresham College to hear Mr Wren's lecture, viz. The Lord Brouncker, Mr Boyle, Mr Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paule Neile, Dr Wilkins, Dr Goddard, Dr Petty, Mr Ball, Mr Rooke, Mr Wren, Mr Hill. And after the lecture was ended they did according to the usual manner, withdraw for mutual converse."

In 1662, they proposed a society "for the promotion of Physico-Mathematicall Experimental Learning". This body received its Royal Charter from Charles II and "The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge" was formed. In addition to being a founder member of the Society, Wren was president of the Royal Society from 1680 to 1682.

In 1661, Wren was elected Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and in 1669 he was appointed Surveyor of Works to Charles II. From 1661 until 1668 Wren's life was based in Oxford, although his attendance at meetings of the Royal Society meant that he had to make periodic trips to London.

The main sources for Wren's scientific achievements are the records of the Royal Society. His scientific works ranged from astronomy, optics, the problem of finding longitude at sea, cosmology, mechanics, microscopy, surveying, medicine and meteorology. He observed, measured, dissected, built models and employed, invented and improved a variety of instruments.

1665–1723
It was probably around this time that Sir Christopher Wren was drawn into redesigning a battered St Paul's Cathedral. Making a trip to Paris in 1665, Wren studied architecture, which had reached a climax of creativity, and perused the drawings of Bernini, the great Italian sculptor and architect, who himself was visiting Paris at the time. Returning from Paris, he made his first design for St Paul's. A week later, however, the Great Fire destroyed two-thirds of the city. Wren submitted his plans for rebuilding the city to King Charles II, although they were never adopted. With his appointment as King's Surveyor of Works in 1669, he had a presence in the general process of rebuilding the city, but was not directly involved with the rebuilding of houses or companies' halls. Wren was personally responsible for the rebuilding of 51 churches; however, it is not necessarily true to say that each of them represented his own fully developed design.

Wren was knighted on 14 November 1673. This honour was bestowed on him after his resignation from the Savilian chair in Oxford, by which time he had already begun to make his mark as an architect, both in services to the Crown and in playing an important part in rebuilding London after the Great Fire.

Additionally, he was sufficiently active in public affairs to be returned as Member of Parliament on four occasions. Wren first stood for Parliament in a by-election in 1667 for the Cambridge University constituency, losing by six votes to Sir Charles Wheler. He was unsuccessful again in a by-election for the Oxford University constituency in 1674, losing to Thomas Thynne. At his third attempt Wren was successful, and he sat for Plympton Erle during the Loyal Parliament of 1685 to 1687. Wren was returned for New Windsor on 11 January 1689 in the general election, but his election was declared void on 14 May 1689. He was elected again for New Windsor on 6 March 1690, but this election was declared void on 17 May 1690. Over a decade later he was elected unopposed for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis at the November 1701 general election. He retired at the general election the following year.

Wren's career was well established by 1669, and it may have been his appointment as Surveyor of the King's Works early that year that persuaded him that he could finally afford to marry. In 1669, the 37-year-old Wren married his childhood neighbour, the 33-year-old Faith Coghill, daughter of Sir John Coghill of Bletchingdon. Little is known of Faith, but a love letter from Wren survives, which reads, in part:

"I have sent your Watch at last & envy the felicity of it, that it should be soe near your side & soe often enjoy your Eye. ... .but have a care for it, for I have put such a spell into it; that every Beating of the Balance will tell you 'tis the Pulse of my Heart, which labors as much to serve you and more trewly than the Watch; for the Watch I beleeve will sometimes lie, and sometimes be idle & unwilling ... but as for me you may be confident I shall never ..."

This brief marriage produced two children: Gilbert, born October 1672, who suffered from convulsions and died at about 18 months old, and Christopher, born February 1675. The younger Christopher was trained by his father to be an architect. It was this Christopher that supervised the topping out ceremony of St Paul's in 1710 and wrote the famous Parentalia, or, Memoirs of the family of the Wrens. Faith Wren died of smallpox on 3 September 1675. She was buried in the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields beside the infant Gilbert. A few days later Wren's mother-in-law, Lady Coghill, arrived to take the infant Christopher back with her to Oxfordshire to raise. In 1677, 17 months after the death of his first wife, Wren remarried, this time to Jane Fitzwilliam, daughter of William FitzWilliam, 2nd Baron FitzWilliam, and his wife Jane Perry, the daughter of a prosperous London merchant.

She was a mystery to Wren's friends and companions. Robert Hooke, who often saw Wren two or three times every week, had, as he recorded in his diary, never even heard of her, and was not to meet her till six weeks after the marriage. As with the first marriage, this too produced two children: a daughter Jane (1677–1702); and a son William, "Poor Billy" born June 1679, who was developmentally delayed.

Like the first, this second marriage was also brief. Jane Wren died of tuberculosis in September 1680. She was buried alongside Faith and Gilbert in the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Wren was never to marry again; he lived to be over 90 years old and of those years was married only nine.

Bletchingdon was the home of Wren's brother-in-law William Holder, who was rector of the local church. Holder had been a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. An intellectual of considerable ability, he is said to have been the figure who introduced Wren to arithmetic and geometry.

Wren's later life was not without criticisms and attacks on his competence and his taste. In 1712, the Letter Concerning Design of Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, circulated in manuscript. Proposing a new British style of architecture, Shaftesbury censured Wren's cathedral, his taste and his long-standing control of royal works. Although Wren was appointed to the Fifty New Churches Commission in 1711, he was left only with nominal charge of a board of works when the surveyorship started in 1715. On 26 April 1718, on the pretext of failing powers, he was dismissed in favour of William Benson.

In 1713, he bought the manor of Wroxall, Warwickshire, from the Burgoyne family, to which his son Christopher retired in 1716 after losing his post as Clerk of Works. Several of Wren's descendants would be buried there in the Church of St Leonard.

Death
The Wren family estate was at The Old Court House in the area of Hampton Court. He had been given a lease on the property by Queen Anne in lieu of salary arrears for building St Paul's. For convenience Wren also leased a house on St James's Street in London. According to a 19th-century legend, he would often go to London to pay unofficial visits to St Paul's, to check on the progress of "my greatest work". On one of these trips to London, at the age of ninety, he caught a cold and on 25 February 1723 a servant who tried to awaken Wren from his nap found that he had died in his sleep.

Wren was laid to rest on 5 March 1723. His body was placed in the southeast corner of the crypt of St Paul's. There is a memorial to him in the crypt at St Paul's Cathedral. beside those of his daughter Jane, his sister Susan Holder, and her husband William. The plain stone plaque was written by Wren's eldest son and heir, Christopher Wren the Younger The inscription, which is also inscribed in a circle of black marble on the main floor beneath the centre of the dome, reads: SUBTUS CONDITUR HUIUS ECCLESIÆ ET VRBIS CONDITOR CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, QUI VIXIT ANNOS ULTRA NONAGINTA, NON SIBI SED BONO PUBLICO. LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE Obijt XXV Feb: An°: MDCCXXIII Æt: XCI. which translates from Latin as: Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.

His obituary was published in the Post Boy No. 5244 London 2 March 1723:

Sir Christopher Wren who died on Monday last in the 91st year of his age, was the only son of Dr. Chr. Wren, Dean of Windsor & Wolverhampton, Registar of the Garter, younger brother of Dr. Mathew (sic) Wren Ld Bp of Ely, a branch of the ancient family of Wrens of Binchester in the Bishoprick [sic] of Durham 1653. Elected from Wadham into fellowship of All Souls 1657. Professor of Astronomy Gresham College London 1660. Savilian Professor. Oxford After 1666. Surveyor General for Rebuilding the Cathedral Church of St.Paul and the Parochial Churches & all other Public Buildings which he lived to finish 1669. Surveyor General till April 26. 1718 1680. President of the Royal Society 1698. Surveyor General & Sub Commissioner for Repairs to Westminster Abbey by Act of Parliament, continued till death. His body is to be deposited in the Great Vault under the Dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul.

"The Curious and Entire Libraries of Sir Christopher Wren", and of his son, were auctioned by Langford and Cock at Mr Cock's in Covent Garden on 24–27 October 1748.

Scientific career
One of Wren's friends, Robert Hooke, scientist and architect and a fellow Westminster Schoolboy, said of him "Since the time of Archimedes there scarce ever met in one man in so great perfection such a mechanical hand and so philosophical mind."

When a fellow of All Souls, Wren constructed a transparent beehive for scientific observation; he began observing the Moon, which was to lead to the invention of micrometers for the telescope. According to Parentalia (pp. 210–211), his solid model of the Moon attracted the attention of the King who commanded Wren to perfect it and present it to him. "He contrived an artificial Eye, truly and dioptrically made (as large as a Tennis-Ball) representing the Picture as Nature makes it: The Cornea, and Crystalline were Glass, the other Humours, Water." He experimented on terrestrial magnetism and had taken part in medical experiments while at Wadham College, performing the first successful injection of a substance into the bloodstream (of a dog). In Gresham College, he did experiments involving determining longitude through magnetic variation and through lunar observation to help with navigation, and helped construct a 35 ft telescope with Sir Paul Neile. Wren also studied and improved the microscope and telescope at this time. He had also been making observations of the planet Saturn from around 1652 with the aim of explaining its appearance. His hypothesis was written up in De corpore saturni but before the work was published, Huygens presented his theory of the rings of Saturn. Immediately Wren recognised this as a better hypothesis than his own and De corpore saturni was never published. In addition, he constructed an exquisitely detailed lunar model and presented it to the king. In 1658, he found the length of an arc of the cycloid using an exhaustion proof based on dissections to reduce the problem to summing segments of chords of a circle which are in geometric progression.

A year into Wren's appointment as a Savilian Professor in Oxford, the Royal Society was created and Wren became an active member. As Savilian Professor, Wren studied mechanics thoroughly, especially elastic collisions and pendulum motions. He also directed his far-ranging intelligence to the study of meteorology: in 1662, he invented the tipping bucket rain gauge and, in 1663, designed a "weather-clock" that would record temperature, humidity, rainfall and barometric pressure. A working weather clock based on Wren's design was completed by Robert Hooke in 1679.

In addition, Wren experimented on muscle functionality, hypothesizing that the swelling and shrinking of muscles might proceed from a fermentative motion arising from the mixture of two heterogeneous fluids. Although this is incorrect, it was at least founded upon observation and may mark a new outlook on medicine: specialisation.

Another topic to which Wren contributed was optics. He published a description of an engine to create perspective drawings and he discussed the grinding of conical lenses and mirrors. Out of this work came another of Wren's important mathematical results, namely that the hyperboloid of revolution is a ruled surface. These results were published in 1669. In subsequent years, Wren continued with his work with the Royal Society, although after the 1680s his scientific interests seem to have waned: no doubt his architectural and official duties absorbed more time.

It was a problem posed by Wren that serves as an ultimate source to the conception of Newton's Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis. Robert Hooke had theorised that planets, moving in vacuo, describe orbits around the Sun because of a rectilinear inertial motion by the tangent and an accelerated motion towards the Sun. Wren's challenge to Halley and Hooke, for the reward of a book worth thirty shillings, was to provide, within the context of Hooke's hypothesis, a mathematical theory linking Kepler's laws with a specific force law. Halley took the problem to Newton for advice, prompting the latter to write a nine-page answer, De motu corporum in gyrum, which was later to be expanded into the Principia.

Mentioned above are only a few of Wren's scientific works. He also studied other areas, ranging from agriculture, ballistics, water and freezing, light and refraction, to name only a few. Thomas Birch's History of the Royal Society (1756–57) is one of the most important sources of our knowledge not only of the origins of the Society, but also the day-to-day running of the Society. It is in these records that most of Wren's known scientific works are recorded.

Architectural career
Wren was a prominent man of science at the height of the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution seemed to promise a merger of the science of mechanics and the art of building. In Galileo Galilei's Two New Sciences the first science is not dynamics, for which the book is now better known, but rather the strength of materials, which Galileo had recognized 30 years earlier as a "science that is very necessary in making machines and buildings of all kinds." In 1624 Henry Wotton, the British ambassador to Venice, published a book on architecture in which he analyzed in a rudimentary way the structure of a stone arch. Moreover, in the 17th century, it was people who would now be called scientists who were awarded the commissions to design and build monumental structures. In Turin, Guarino Guarini, a mathematician, devised the plans for such celebrated buildings as the Royal Church of Saint Lawrence, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud and the Palazzo Carignano. In Paris, Claude Perrault, a physician and an anatomist, designed the façade of the Louvre and the observatory of the Académie Française. In London, it was Wren and Hooke who collaborated as chief architect and city surveyor after the city was devastated by the Great Fire of 1666.

In 1661, just months after taking his post at Oxford, Wren was invited by Charles II to oversee the construction of new harbour defences at Tangier—then-newly under British control. Wren ultimately excused himself from the King's offer. Letters dated to the end of 1661 note that in addition to the Tangier project, Charles II had also sought Wren for consultation regarding repairs to Old St Paul's Cathedral, the reconstruction of which would ultimately be the architect's magnum opus. Speaking of Wren's vocational transition from academic to architect-engineer, biographer Adrian Tinniswood writes "the use of mathematicians in military fortification was not unusual... Perhaps Wren also had experience of the business of fortification, more than we know."

Early architectural work
Wren's first known foray into architecture came after his uncle, Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, offered to finance a new chapel for Pembroke College, Cambridge. Matthew commissioned his nephew for the design, finding the architecturally inexperienced Christopher to be both ideologically sympathetic and stylistically deferential. Wren produced his design in the Winter of 1662 or 1663 and the chapel was completed in 1665.

Wren's second, similarly collegiate work followed soon after, when he was commissioned to design Oxford's "New Theatre", financed by Gilbert Sheldon. His design for the structure was met with lukewarm to negative reception, with even Wren's defenders admitting the young architect to have not yet been "capable of handling a large architectural composition with assurance". Adrian Tinniswood credits the building's flaws to "Sheldon's refusal to pay for an elaborate exterior, Wren's inability to find an adequate external expression for a building which was wholly conditioned by the functionality of its interior space and, ...his refusal to bend the knee to classical authority in the way that our experience of eighteenth-century architecture has conditioned us to believe is right." Prior to the theatre's 1669 completion, Wren had received further commissions for the Garden Quadrangle at Trinity College, Oxford, and the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Wren left for Paris in July 1665 on his first and only trip abroad. In France, the architect encountered an architectural milieu more closely linked to the ideals of the Italian Renaissance. Wren also met Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who was "widely acknowledged by contemporaries as the greatest artist of the century". Though Bernini's concrete influence on Wren's designs was transmitted via published plans and engravings, the encounter surely impacted the budding architect and his vocational trajectory.

St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral in London has always been the highlight of Wren's reputation. His association with it spans his whole architectural career, including the 36 years between the start of the new building and the declaration by parliament of its completion in 1711.Letters document Wren's involvement in St Paul as early as 1661, when he was consulted by Charles II regarding repairs to the medieval structure. In the spring of 1666, he made his first design for a dome for St Paul's. It was accepted in principle on 27 August 1666. One week later, however, the Great Fire of London reduced two-thirds of the City to a smoking desert and old St Paul's to ruin. Wren was most likely at Oxford at the time, but the news, so fantastically relevant to his future, drew him at once to London. Between 5 and 11 September, he ascertained the precise area of devastation, worked out a plan for rebuilding the City and submitted it to Charles II. Others also submitted plans. However, no new plan proceeded any further than the paper on which it was drawn. A Rebuilding of London Act which provided rebuilding of some essential buildings was passed in 1666. In 1669, the King's Surveyor of Works died and Wren was promptly installed.

It was not until 1670 that the pace of rebuilding started accelerating. A second rebuilding act was passed that year, raising the tax on coal and thus providing a source of funds for rebuilding of churches destroyed within the City of London. Wren presented his initial "First Model" for St Paul's. This plan was accepted, and demolition of the old cathedral began. By 1672, however, this design seemed too modest, and Wren met his critics by producing a design of spectacular grandeur. This modified design, called "Great Model", was accepted by the King and the construction started in November 1673. However, this design failed to satisfy the chapter and clerical opinion generally; moreover, it had an economic drawback. Wren was confined to a "cathedral form" desired by the clergy. In 1674 he produced the rather meagre Classical-Gothic compromise known as the Warrant Design. However, this design, called so from the royal warrant of 14 May 1675 attached to the drawings, is not the design upon which work had begun a few weeks before.

The cathedral that Wren started to build bears only a slight resemblance to the Warrant Design. In 1697, the first service was held in the cathedral when Wren was 65. There was still, however, no dome. Finally, in 1711 the cathedral was declared complete, and Wren was paid the half of his salary that, in the hope of accelerating progress, Parliament had withheld for 14 years since 1697. The cathedral had been built for 36 years under his direction, and the only disappointment he had about his masterpiece was the dome: against his wishes, the commission engaged Thornhill to paint the inner dome in false perspective and finally authorised a balustrade around the roof line. This diluted the hard edge Wren had intended for his cathedral, and elicited the apt parthian comment that "ladies think nothing well without an edging".

Later career
During the 1670s, Wren received significant secular commissions. Among many of his notable designs at this time, the monument (1671–76) commemorating the Great Fire also involved Robert Hooke, but Wren was in control of the final design, the Royal Observatory (1675–76), and the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge (1676–84) were the most important ones.

In 1682, Wren advised that the original statues of the King's Beasts on St George's Chapel, Windsor be removed. The pinnacles were left bare until 1925, when replica statues were installed.

By historical accident, all Wren's large-scale secular commissions dated from after the 1680s. At the age of 50 his personal development, as was that of English architecture, was ready for monumental but humane architecture, in which the scales of individual parts relate both to the whole and to the people who used them. The first large project Wren designed, the Chelsea Hospital (1682–92), does not entirely satisfy the eye in this respect, but met its brief with distinction and such success that even in the 21st century it fulfils its original function. The reconstruction of the stateroom at Windsor Castle was notable for the integration of architecture, sculpture and painting. This commission was in the hand of Hugh May, who died in February 1684, before the construction finished; Wren assumed his post and finalised the works. Between 1683 and 1685 he was much occupied in designing the King's House, Winchester, where Charles II had hoped to spend his declining years, but which was never completed. When Wren promised that it would be complete within a year the King, who was conscious of his mortality, replied that " a year is a great time in my life".After the death of Charles II in 1685, Wren's attention was directed mainly to Whitehall (1685–87). The new king, James II, required a new chapel and also ordered a new gallery, council chamber and a riverside apartment for the Queen. Later, when James II was removed from the throne, Wren took on architectural projects such as Kensington Palace (1689–96) and Hampton Court (1689–1700).

The erection of the present Windsor Guildhall was begun in 1687, under the direction of Sir Thomas Fitz (or Fiddes) but there is a story that on his death in 1689, the task was taken over by Sir Christopher Wren. It was completed at a cost of £2687 – 1s – 6d. The new building was supported around its perimeter by stone columns, providing a covered area beneath as a venue for corn markets.

The story is widely told that the borough Council demanded that Wren should insert additional columns within the covered area, in order to support the weight of the heavy building above; Wren, however, was adamant that these were not necessary. Eventually, the council insisted and, in due course, the extra supporting columns were built, but Wren made them slightly short, so that they do not quite touch the ceiling, hence proving his claim that they were not necessary. However, there is little evidence that Wren was ever involved in the design or construction of the Guildhall. It is now believed that the story grew out of Wren's connections with Windsor and that his son, also called Christopher Wren, who served as a Member of Parliament for Windsor, commissioned the statue of Prince George of Denmark in 1713 on the south end of the building and his name was engraved underneath. The pillars were probably moved into the corn market from the east side of the building when an extension was added in 1829. The gaps at the top of the pillars are now filled with tiles smaller than the capitals.

Wren did not pursue his work on architectural design as actively as he had before the 1690s, although he still played important roles in a number of royal commissions. In 1696 he was appointed Surveyor of Greenwich Naval Hospital, and in 1698 he was appointed Surveyor of Westminster Abbey. He resigned from the former role in 1716 but held the latter until his death, approving with a wavering signature Burlington's revisions of Wren's own earlier designs for the great Archway of Westminster School.

Freemasonry
Since at least the 18th century, the Lodge of Antiquity No. 2, one of the four founding Masonic Lodges of the Premier Grand Lodge of England in 1717, has claimed Christopher Wren to have been its Master at the Goose and Gridiron at St. Paul's churchyard. Whilst he was rebuilding the cathedral he is said to have been "adopted" on 18 May 1691 (that is, accepted as a sort of honorary member or patron, rather than an operative). Their 18th-century maul with its 1827 inscription claiming that it was used by Wren for the foundation stone of St. Paul's, belonging to the Lodge and on display in the Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London, corroborates the story. James Anderson made the claims in his widely circulated Constitutions while many of Wren's friends were still alive, but he made many highly creative claims as to the history or legends of Freemasonry. There is also a clear possibility of confusion between the operative workmen's lodges which might naturally have welcomed the boss, and the "speculative" or gentlemen's lodges which became highly fashionable just after Wren's death. By the standards of his time, a gentleman like Wren would not generally join an artisan body; however the workmen of St Paul's cathedral would naturally have sought the patronage or "interest" of their employer, and within Wren's lifetime there was a predominantly gentlemen's Lodge at the Rummer and Grapes, a mile upriver at Westminster (where Wren had been to School).

In 1788, the Lodge of Antiquity thought they were buying a portrait of Wren which now dominates Lodge Room 10, in the same building as the Museum; but it is now identified with William Talman, not Wren. Nevertheless, this recorded event and many old records attest to the fact that Antiquity thought that Wren had been its Master, at a time when it still held its minute books for the relevant years (which were lost by Preston at some date after 1778).

The evidence of whether Wren was a speculative freemason is the subject of the Prestonian Lecture of 2011, which concludes on the evidence of two obituaries and Aubrey's memoirs, with supporting materials, that he did indeed attend the closed meeting in 1691, probably of the Lodge of Antiquity, but that there is nothing to suggest that he was ever a Grand Officer as claimed by Anderson.

Achievement and legacy
Christopher Wren appeared on the reverse of the first British £50 banknote (Series D) issued in modern times. The notes were printed between 1981 and 1994, and were in circulation until 1996.

In 1997, UNESCO inscribed Wren's Greenwich Hospital on the World Heritage list, citing the complex's "outstanding architectural and artistic achievements".

title: Christopher Wren


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Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, 12 mi southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Opened to the public, the palace is managed by Historic Royal Palaces, a charity set up to preserve several unoccupied royal properties.

The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of Henry VIII. In 1529, as Wolsey fell from favour, the cardinal gave the palace to the king to check his disgrace. The palace went on to become one of Henry's most favoured residences; soon after acquiring the property, he arranged for it to be enlarged so it could accommodate his sizeable retinue of courtiers.

In the early 1690s, William III's massive rebuilding and expansion work, which was intended to rival the Palace of Versailles, destroyed much of the Tudor palace. His work ceased in 1694, leaving the palace in two distinct contrasting architectural styles, domestic Tudor and Baroque. While the palace's styles are an accident of fate, a unity exists due to the use of pink bricks and a symmetrical, if vague, balancing of successive low wings. George II was the last monarch to reside in the palace.

The palace is open to the public and a major tourist attraction, reached by train from Waterloo station in central London and served by Hampton Court railway station in East Molesey. Buses 111, 216, 411 and R68 stop outside the gates. The structure and grounds are cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the Government or the Crown. The palace displays many works of art from the Royal Collection.

Apart from the palace itself and its gardens, other points of interest for visitors include the celebrated maze, the historic royal tennis court (see below), and a huge grape vine, the world's largest. The palace's Home Park is the site of the annual Hampton Court Palace Festival and Hampton Court Garden Festival.

Tudor times
Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, chief minister to and a favourite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514. It had previously been a property of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Over the following seven years, Wolsey spent lavishly (200,000 crowns) to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court. Today, little of Wolsey's building work remains unchanged. The first courtyard, the Base Court, (B on plan), was his creation, as was the second, inner gatehouse (C) which leads to the Clock Court (D) (Wolsey's seal remains visible over the entrance arch of the clock tower ) which contained his private rooms (O on plan). The Base Court contained forty-four lodgings reserved for guests, while the second court (today, Clock Court) contained the very best rooms – the state apartments –  reserved for the King and his family. Henry VIII stayed in the state apartments as Wolsey's guest immediately after their completion in 1525.

In building his palace, Wolsey was attempting to create a Renaissance cardinal's palace of a rectilinear symmetrical plan with grand apartments on a raised piano nobile, all rendered with classical detailing. The historian Jonathan Foyle has suggested that it is likely that Wolsey had been inspired by Paolo Cortese's De Cardinalatu, a manual for cardinals that included advice on palatial architecture, published in 1510. The architectural historian Sir John Summerson asserts that the palace shows "the essence of Wolsey – the plain English churchman who nevertheless made his sovereign the arbiter of Europe and who built and furnished Hampton Court to show foreign embassies that Henry VIII's chief minister knew how to live as graciously as any cardinal in Rome." Whatever the concepts were, the architecture is an excellent and rare example of a thirty-year era when English architecture was in a harmonious transition from domestic Tudor, strongly influenced by perpendicular Gothic, to the Italian Renaissance classical style. Perpendicular Gothic owed nothing historically to the Renaissance style, yet harmonised well with it. This blending of styles was realised by a small group of Italian craftsmen working at the English court in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century. They specialised in the adding of Renaissance ornament to otherwise straightforward Tudor buildings. It was one of these, Giovanni da Maiano, who was responsible for the set of eight relief busts of Roman emperors which were set in the Tudor brickwork. Wolsey was only to enjoy his palace for a few years. In 1529, knowing that his enemies and the King were engineering his downfall, he passed the palace to the King as a gift. Wolsey died in 1530.

Within six months of coming into ownership, the King began his own rebuilding and expansion. Henry VIII's court consisted of over one thousand people, while the King owned over sixty houses and palaces. Few of these were large enough to hold the assembled court, and thus one of the first of the King's building works (in order to transform Hampton Court to a principal residence) was to build the vast kitchens. These were quadrupled in size in 1529, enabling the King to provide bouche of court (free food and drink) for his entire court. The architecture of King Henry's new palace followed the design precedent set by Wolsey: perpendicular Gothic-inspired Tudor with restrained Renaissance ornament. This hybrid architecture was to remain almost unchanged for nearly a century, until Inigo Jones introduced strong classical influences from Italy to the London palaces of the first Stuart kings.

Between 1532 and 1535 Henry added the Great Hall (the last medieval great hall built for the English monarchy) and the Royal Tennis Court. The Great Hall has a carved hammerbeam roof. During Tudor times, this was the most important room of the palace; here, the King would dine in state seated at a table upon a raised dais. The hall took five years to complete; so impatient was the King for completion that the masons were compelled to work throughout the night by candlelight.

The gatehouse to the second, inner court was adorned in 1540 with the Hampton Court astronomical clock, an early example of a pre-Copernican astronomical clock. Still functioning, the clock shows the time of day, the phases of the moon, the month, the quarter of the year, the date, the sun and star sign, and high water at London Bridge. The latter information was of great importance to those visiting this Thames-side palace from London, as the preferred method of transport at the time was by barge, and at low water London Bridge created dangerous rapids. This gatehouse is also known today as Anne Boleyn's gate, after Henry's second wife. Work was still underway on Anne Boleyn's apartments above the gate when Boleyn was beheaded.

During the Tudor period, the palace was the scene of many historic events. In 1537, the King's much desired male heir, the future Edward VI, was born at the palace and the child's mother, Jane Seymour, died there two weeks later. Four years afterwards, whilst attending Mass in the palace's chapel, the King was informed of the adultery of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. She was then confined to her room for a few days before being sent to Syon House and then on to the Tower of London. Legend claims she briefly escaped her guards and ran through The Haunted Gallery to beg Henry for her life but she was recaptured.

King Henry died in January 1547 and was succeeded by his son Edward VI, and then by both his daughters in turn. It was to Hampton Court that Queen Mary I (Henry's elder daughter) retreated with King Philip to spend her honeymoon, after their wedding at Winchester. Mary chose Hampton Court as the place for the birth of her first child, which turned out to be the first of two phantom pregnancies. Mary had initially wanted to give birth at Windsor Castle as it was a more secure location, and she was still fearful of rebellion. But Hampton Court was considerably larger and could accommodate the entire court and more besides. Mary stayed at the palace awaiting the birth of the "child" for over five months and only left because of the uninhabitable state of the palace with the court being kept in the one location for so long. Her court departed for the much smaller Oatlands Palace. Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I, and it was Elizabeth who had the eastern kitchen built; today, this is the palace's public tea room.

Stuarts and early Hanoverians
On the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the Tudor period came to an end. The Queen was succeeded by her first cousin-twice-removed, James I of the House of Stuart.

Two entertainments for the Stuart court were staged in the Great Hall in January 1604, The Masque of Indian and China Knights and The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. On 6 January, Scottish courtiers performed a sword dance for Anne of Denmark. Their dance was compared to a Spanish matachin. Later in 1604, the palace was the site of King James' meeting with representatives of the English Puritans, known as the Hampton Court Conference; while an agreement with the Puritans was not reached, the meeting led to James's commissioning of the King James Version of the Bible.

King James was succeeded in 1625 by his son, the ill-fated Charles I. Hampton Court was to become both his palace and his prison. It was also the setting for his honeymoon with his fifteen-year-old bride, Henrietta Maria in 1625. Following King Charles' execution in 1649, the palace became the property of the Commonwealth presided over by Oliver Cromwell. Unlike some other former royal properties, the palace escaped relatively unscathed. While the government auctioned much of the contents, the building was ignored.

After the Restoration, King Charles II and his successor James II visited Hampton Court but largely preferred to reside elsewhere. By current French court standards, Hampton Court now appeared old-fashioned. It was in 1689, shortly after Louis XIV's court had moved permanently to Versailles, that the palace's antiquated state was addressed. England had joint monarchs, William III and Mary II. Within months of their accession, they embarked on a massive rebuilding project at Hampton Court. The intention was to demolish the Tudor palace a section at a time while replacing it with a huge modern palace in the Baroque style retaining only Henry VIII's Great Hall.

The country's most eminent architect, Sir Christopher Wren, was called upon to draw the plans, while the master of works was to be William Talman. The plan was for a vast palace constructed around two courtyards at right angles to each other. Wren's design for a domed palace bore resemblances to the work of Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Louis Le Vau, both architects employed by Louis XIV at Versailles. It has been suggested, though, that the plans were abandoned because the resemblance to Versailles was too subtle and not strong enough; at this time, it was impossible for any sovereign to visualise a palace that did not emulate Versailles' repetitive Baroque form. However, the resemblances are there: while the façades are not so long as those of Versailles, they have similar, seemingly unstoppable repetitive rhythms beneath a long flat skyline. The monotony is even repeated as the façade turns the corner from the east to the south fronts. However, Hampton Court, unlike Versailles, is given an extra dimension by the contrast between the pink brick and the pale Portland stone quoins, frames and banding. Further diversion is added by the circular and decorated windows of the second-floor mezzanine. This theme is repeated in the inner Fountain Court, but the rhythm is faster and the windows, unpedimented on the outer façades, are given pointed pediments in the courtyard; this has led the courtyard to be described as "Startling, as of simultaneous exposure to a great many eyes with raised eyebrows."

During this work, half the Tudor palace was replaced and Henry VIII's staterooms and private apartments were both lost; the new wings around the Fountain Court contained new state apartments and private rooms, one set for the King and one for the Queen. Each suite of state rooms was accessed by a state staircase. The royal suites were of completely equal value in order to reflect William and Mary's unique status as joint sovereigns. The King's Apartments face south over the Privy Garden, the Queen's east over the Fountain Garden. The suites are linked by a gallery running the length of the east façade, another reference to Versailles, where the King and Queen's apartments are linked by the Hall of Mirrors. However, at Hampton Court, the linking gallery is of more modest proportions and decoration. The King's staircase was decorated with frescos by Antonio Verrio and delicate ironwork by Jean Tijou. Other artists commissioned to decorate the rooms included Grinling Gibbons, Sir James Thornhill and Jacques Rousseau; furnishings were designed by Daniel Marot.

After the death of Queen Mary, King William lost interest in the renovations, and work ceased. However, it was in Hampton Court Park in 1702 that he fell from his horse, later dying from his injuries at Kensington Palace. He was succeeded by his sister-in-law Queen Anne who continued the decoration and completion of the state apartments. On Queen Anne's death in 1714 the House of Stuart's rule came to an end.

Queen Anne's successor was George I; he and his son George II were the last monarchs to reside at Hampton Court. Under George I six rooms were completed in 1717 to the design of John Vanbrugh. Under George II and his wife, Caroline of Ansbach, further refurbishment took place, with the architect William Kent employed to design new furnishings and décor including the Queen's Staircase, (1733) and the Cumberland Suite (1737) for the Duke of Cumberland. Today, the Queen's Private Apartments are open to the public.

Later use
Since the reign of King George II, no monarch has resided at Hampton Court. In fact, George III, from the moment of his accession, never set foot in the palace: he associated the state apartments with a humiliating scene when his grandfather had once struck him following an innocent remark. He did however have the Great Vine planted here in 1763 and had the top two storeys of the Great Gatehouse removed in 1773.

From the 1760s, the palace was used to house grace and favour residents. Many of the palace rooms were adapted to be rent-free apartments, with vacant ones allocated by the Lord Chamberlain to applicants to reward past services rendered to the Crown. From 1862 to his death in 1867, the scientist and pioneer of electricity Michael Faraday lived here. From the 1960s the number of new residents declined, with the last admitted in the 1980s. However existing residents could continue to live there. In 2005 three remained, with none by 2017.

In 1796, the Great Hall was restored and in 1838, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the restoration was completed and the palace opened to the public. The heavy-handed restoration plan at this time reduced the Great Gatehouse (A), the palace's principal entrance, by two storeys and removed the lead cupolas adorning its four towers. Once opened, the palace soon became a major tourist attraction and, by 1881, over ten million visits had been recorded. Visitors arrived both by boat from London and via Hampton Court railway station, opened in February 1849.

On 2 September 1952, the palace was given statutory protection by being Grade I listed. Other buildings and structures within the grounds are separately Grade I listed, including the early 16th-century tilt yard tower (the only surviving example of the five original towers); Christopher Wren's Lion gate built for Anne and George I; and the Tudor and 17th-century perimeter walls.

In 1986, the palace was damaged by a major fire, which spread to the King's Apartments. The fire claimed the life of Lady Daphne Gale, widow of General Sir Richard Gale, who resided in a grace and favour apartment. She was in the habit of taking a lighted candle to her bedroom at night, which is thought to have started the fire. The Hampton Court fire led to a new programme of restoration work which was completed in 1990. The Royal School of Needlework moved to premises within the palace from Princes Gate in Kensington 1987, and the palace also houses the headquarters of Historic Royal Palaces, a charitable foundation.

21st century
The location was used for a performance of The Six Wives of Henry VIII by rock keyboardist Rick Wakeman in 2009.

The palace was the venue for the Road Cycling Time Trial of the 2012 Summer Olympics and temporary structures for the event, including a set of thrones for time trialists in the medal positions, were installed in the grounds.

In 2015, Hampton Court celebrated the 500th anniversary of the groundbreaking of construction of the palace. The celebrations included daily dramatised historical scenes. The palace's construction began on 12 February 1515.

On 9 February the following year, Vincent Nichols, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, celebrated vespers in the Chapel Royal. This was the first Catholic service held at the palace for 450 years, and the first since the Elizabethan Religious Settlement established Protestantism as the national denomination.

Contents

The palace houses many works of art and furnishings from the Royal Collection, mainly dating from the two principal periods of the palace's construction, the early Tudor (Renaissance) and the late Stuart to the early Georgian period. In September 2015, the Royal Collection recorded 542 works (only those with images) as being located at Hampton Court, mostly paintings and furniture, but also ceramics and sculpture. The full current list can be obtained from their website. The single most important work is Andrea Mantegna's Triumphs of Caesar housed in the Lower Orangery. The palace once housed the Raphael Cartoons, now kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Their former home, the Cartoon Gallery on the south side of the Fountain Court, was designed by Christopher Wren; copies painted in the 1690s by a minor artist, Henry Cooke, are now displayed in their place. Also on display are important collections of ceramics, including numerous pieces of blue and white porcelain collected by Queen Mary II, both Chinese imports and Delftware.

Much of the original furniture dates from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including tables by Jean Pelletier, "India back" walnut chairs by Thomas Roberts and clocks and a barometer by Thomas Tompion. Several state beds are still in their original positions, as is the Throne Canopy in the King's Privy Chamber. This room contains a crystal chandelier of c. 1700, possibly the first such in the country.

The King's Guard Chamber contains a large quantity of arms: muskets, pistols, swords, daggers, powder horns and pieces of armour arranged on the walls in decorative patterns. Bills exist for payment to a John Harris, dated 1699, for an arrangement believed to be that still seen today.

In addition, Hampton Court holds the majority of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, with a smaller amount being held at Kensington Palace. The collection of over 10,000 items includes clothing, sketches, letters, prints, photographs, diaries and scrapbooks. The dress collection has designated status from Arts Council England.

The Chapel
The timber and plaster ceiling of the chapel is considered the "most important and magnificent in Britain", but is all that remains of the Tudor decoration, after redecoration supervised by Sir Christopher Wren. The altar is framed by a massive but plain oak reredos with garlands carved by Grinling Gibbons during the reign of Queen Anne. Opposite the altar, at first-floor level, is the royal pew where the royal family would attend services apart from the general congregation seated below.

The clergy, musicians and other ecclesiastical officers employed by the monarch at Hampton Court, as in other English royal premises, are known collectively as the Chapel Royal; properly used the term does not refer to a building.

Grounds
The grounds as they appear today were laid out in grand style in the late 17th century. There are no authentic remains of Henry VIII's gardens, merely a small knot garden, planted in 1924, which hints at the gardens' 16th-century appearance. Today, the dominating feature of the grounds is the great landscaping scheme constructed for Sir Christopher Wren's intended new palace. From a water-bounded semicircular parterre, the length of the east front, three avenues radiate in a crow's foot pattern. The central avenue, containing not a walk or a drive, but the great canal known as the Long Water, was excavated during the reign of Charles II, in 1662. The design, radical at the time, is another immediately recognizable influence from Versailles and was indeed laid out by pupils of André Le Nôtre, Louis XIV's landscape gardener.

On the south side of the palace is the Privy Garden bounded by semi-circular wrought iron gates by Jean Tijou. This garden, originally William III's private garden, was replanted in 1992 in period style with manicured hollies and yews along a geometric system of paths.

On a raised site overlooking the Thames is a small pavilion, the Banqueting House. This was built c. 1700, for informal meals and entertainments in the gardens rather than for the larger state dinners which would have taken place inside the palace itself. A nearby conservatory houses the "Great Vine", planted in 1769; by 1968 it had a trunk 81 in thick and has a length of 100 ft. It still produces an annual crop of grapes.

The palace included apartments for the use of favoured royal friends. One such apartment is described as being in "The Pavilion and situated on the Home Park" of Hampton Court Palace. This privilege was first extended about 1817 by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, to his friend, Lieutenant General James Moore, and his new bride, Cecilia Watson. George IV continued this arrangement following the death of Prince Edward on 23 January 1820. The Queen continued the arrangement for the widow of General Moore, following his death on 24 April 1838. This particular apartment was used for 21 years or more and spanned three different sponsors.

A well-known curiosity of the palace's grounds is Hampton Court Maze; planted in the 1690s by George London and Henry Wise for William III. It was originally planted with hornbeam; it has been repaired latterly using many different types of hedge. There is a 3D simulation of the maze, see the external links section.

Inspired by narrow views of a Tudor garden that can be seen through doorways in a painting, The Family of Henry VIII, hanging in the palace's Haunted Gallery, a new garden in the style of Henry VIII's 16th-century Privy Gardens, has been designed to celebrate the anniversary of that King's accession to the throne. Sited on the former Chapel Court Garden, it has been planted with flowers and herbs from the 16th century and is completed by gilded heraldic beasts and bold green and white painted fences. The garden's architect was Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

The formal gardens and park are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

King's Beasts

There are ten statues of heraldic animals, called the King's Beasts, that stand on the bridge over the moat leading to the great gatehouse. Unlike the Queen's Beasts in Kew Gardens, these statues represent the ancestry of King Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour. The animals are: the lion of England, the Seymour lion, the royal dragon, the black bull of Clarence, the yale of Beaufort, the white lion of Mortimer, the White Greyhound of Richmond, the Tudor dragon, the Seymour panther, and the Seymour unicorn. The set of Queen's Beasts at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II replaced the three Seymour items and one of the dragons by the gryphon of Edward III, the horse of Hanover, the falcon of the Plantagenets, and the unicorn of Scotland.

In 2009 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the accession to the throne of King Henry VIII, a new "Tudor Garden" was created in Chapel Court, Hampton Court, designed by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan. To decorate the garden eight small wooden King's Beasts were carved and painted in bright colours, each sitting atop a 6-foot-high painted wooden column. The heraldic beasts, carved by Ben Harms and Ray Gonzalez of G&H Studios, include the golden lion of England, the white greyhound of Richmond, the red dragon of Wales, and the white hart of Richard II, all carved from English oak. The historically correct colours were researched by Patrick Baty, paint/colour consultant at Hampton Court. The beasts are of a different design to those on the bridge, based on period drawings in the College of Arms.

Transport links
The palace is served by Hampton Court railway station which is immediately to the south of Hampton Court Bridge in East Molesey, and by London bus routes 111, 216, 411 and R68 from Kingston and Richmond.

Florham, United States

Inspired by Wren's work at Hampton Court, the American Vanderbilt family modelled their estate known as Florham, in Madison, New Jersey, US, after it. Florham was commissioned by Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly and Hamilton McKown Twombly from McKim, Mead & White. It was built in 1893.

Film location
The palace has been used as a location for filming film and television shows, including The Private Life of Henry VIII, Three Men In A Boat, A Man For All Seasons, Vanity Fair, Little Dorrit, John Adams (2008), The Young Victoria, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Theory of Everything, Cinderella, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!, The Favourite, Belgravia, The Great, and Bridgerton. Some scenes of the spin-off series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, were also filmed at the palace.

General and cited references

 * Williams, Neville (1971). Royal Homes. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.
 * Williams, Neville (1971). Royal Homes. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.
 * Williams, Neville (1971). Royal Homes. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.
 * Williams, Neville (1971). Royal Homes. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.
 * Williams, Neville (1971). Royal Homes. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0-7188-0803-7.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hampton Court Palace


text:
Berry

A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples of berries in the culinary sense are strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, white currants, blackcurrants, and redcurrants. In Britain, soft fruit is a horticultural term for such fruits.

The common usage of the term "berry" is different from the scientific or botanical definition of a berry, which refers to a fruit produced from the ovary of a single flower where the outer layer of the ovary wall develops into an edible fleshy portion (pericarp). The botanical definition includes many fruits that are not commonly known or referred to as berries, such as grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, bananas, and chili peppers. Fruits commonly considered berries but excluded by the botanical definition include strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, which are aggregate fruits, and mulberries, which are multiple fruits. Watermelons and pumpkins are giant berries that fall into the category "pepos". A plant bearing berries is said to be bacciferous or baccate.

Berries are eaten worldwide and often used in jams, preserves, cakes, or pies. Some berries are commercially important. The berry industry varies from country to country as do types of berries cultivated or growing in the wild. Some berries such as raspberries and strawberries have been bred for hundreds of years and are distinct from their wild counterparts, while other berries, such as lingonberries and cloudberries, grow almost exclusively in the wild.

While many berries are edible, some are poisonous to humans, such as deadly nightshade and pokeweed. Others, such as the white mulberry, red mulberry, and elderberry, are poisonous when unripe, but are edible when ripe.

History
Berries have been valuable as a food source for humans since before the start of agriculture, and remain among the primary food sources of other primates. They were a seasonal staple for early hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, and wild berry gathering remains a popular activity in Europe and North America today. In time, humans learned to store berries so that they could be used in the winter. They may be made into fruit preserves, and among Native Americans, mixed with meat and fats as pemmican.

Berries also began to be cultivated in Europe and other countries. Some species of blackberries and raspberries of the genus Rubus have been cultivated since the 17th century, while smooth-skinned blueberries and cranberries of the genus Vaccinium have been cultivated in the United States for over a century. In Japan, between the 10th and 18th centuries, the terms ichibigo and ichigo referred to many berry crops. The most widely cultivated berry of modern times, however, is the strawberry, which is produced globally at twice the amount of all other berry crops combined.

The strawberry was mentioned by ancient Romans, who thought it had medicinal properties, but it was then not a staple of agriculture. Woodland strawberries began to be grown in French gardens in the 14th century. The musk strawberry (F. moschata), also known as the hautbois strawberry, began to be grown in European gardens in the late 16th century. Later, the Virginia strawberry was grown in Europe and the United States. The most commonly consumed strawberry, the garden strawberry (F. ananassa), is an accidental hybrid of the Virginia strawberry and a Chilean variety Fragaria chiloensis. It was first noted by a French gardener around the mid 18th century that, when F. moschata and F. virginiana were planted in between rows of F. chiloensis, the Chilean strawberry would bear abundant and unusually large fruits. Soon after, Antoine Nicolas Duchesne began to study the breeding of strawberries and made several discoveries crucial to the science of plant breeding, such as the sexual reproduction of strawberry. Later, in the early 1800s, English breeders of strawberry made varieties of F. ananassa which were important in strawberry breeding in Europe, and hundreds of cultivars have since been produced through the breeding of strawberries.

Etymology
The Old English word berie ("berry, grape,") comes from Proto-Germanic *basjom (source also of Old Norse ber, Middle Dutch bere, German Beere "berry;" Old Saxon winberi, Gothic weinabasi "grape"), which is of unknown origin. This and apple are the only native fruit names.

Botanical definition
In botanical terminology, a berry is a simple fruit with seeds and pulp produced from the ovary of a single flower. It is fleshy throughout, except for the seeds. It does not have a special "line of weakness" along which it splits to release the seeds when ripe (i.e. it is indehiscent). A berry may develop from an ovary with one or more carpels (the female reproductive structures of a flower). The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy examples such as peppers, with air rather than pulp around their seeds. The differences between the everyday and botanical uses of "berry" results in three categories: those fruits that are berries under both definitions; those fruits that are botanical berries but not commonly known as berries; and those parts of plants commonly known as berries that are not botanical berries, and may not even be fruits.

Berries under both definitions include blueberries, cranberries, lingonberries, and the fruits of many other members of the heather family, as well as gooseberries, goji berries and elderberries. The fruits of some "currants" (Ribes species), such as blackcurrants, red currants and white currants, are botanical berries, and are treated as horticultural berries (or as soft fruit in the UK), even though their most commonly used names do not include the word "berry".

Botanical berries not commonly known as berries include bananas,  tomatoes, grapes, eggplants (aubergines), persimmons, watermelons, and pumpkins.

There are several different kinds of fruits which are commonly called berries, but are not botanical berries. Blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries are kinds of aggregate fruit; they contain seeds from different ovaries of a single flower. In aggregate fruits like blackberries, the individual "fruitlets" making up the fruit can be clearly seen. The fruits of blackthorn may be called "sloe berries", but botanically are small stone fruits or drupes, like plums or apricots. Junipers and yews are commonly said to have berries, but these differ from botanical berries and are instead highly modified seed-bearing cones. In juniper berries, used to flavour gin, the cone scales, which are hard and woody in most conifers, are instead soft and fleshy when ripe. The bright red berries of yews consist of a fleshy outgrowth (aril) almost enclosing the poisonous seed.

Cultivation

Strawberries have been grown in gardens in Europe since the 14th century. Blueberries were domesticated starting in 1911, with the first commercial crop in 1916. Huckleberries of all varieties are not fully domesticated, but domestication was attempted from 1994 to 2010 for the economically significant western huckleberry. Many other varieties of Vaccinium are likewise not domesticated, with some being of commercial importance.

Agricultural methods
Like most other food crops, berries are commercially grown, with both conventional pest management and integrated pest management (IPM) practices. Organically certified berries are becoming more widely available. :5

Many soft fruit berries require a period of temperatures between 0 and 10 C for breaking dormancy. In general, strawberries require 200–300 hours, blueberries 650–850 hours, blackberries 700 hours, raspberries 800–1700 hours, currants and gooseberries 800–1500 hours, and cranberries 2000 hours. However, too low a temperature will kill the crops: blueberries do not tolerate temperatures below −29 C, raspberries, depending on variety, may tolerate as low as −31 C, and blackberries are injured below −20 C. Spring frosts are, however, much more damaging to berry crops than low winter temperatures. Sites with moderate slopes (3–5%), facing north or east, in the northern hemisphere, near large bodies of water, which regulate spring temperature, are considered ideal in preventing spring frost injury to the new leaves and flowers. All berry crops have shallow root systems. Many land-grant university extension offices suggest that strawberries should not be planted more than five years on the same site, due to the danger of black root rot (though many other illnesses go by the same name), which in the past has been controlled in major commercial production by annual methyl bromide fumigation      but is largely prohibited now. Besides the number of years in production, soil compaction, the frequency of fumigation, and herbicide usages increase the appearance of black root rot in strawberries. Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and many other berries are susceptible to verticillium wilt. Blueberries and cranberries grow poorly if the clay or silt content of the soil is more than 20%, while most other berries tolerate a wide range of soil types. For most berry crops, the ideal soil is well drained sandy loam, with a pH of 6.2–6.8 and a moderate to high organic content; however, blueberries have an ideal pH of 4.2–4.8 and can be grown on muck soils, while blueberries and cranberries prefer poorer soils with lower cation exchange, lower calcium, and lower levels of phosphorus.

Growing most berries organically requires the use of proper crop rotation, the right mix of cover crops, and the cultivation of the correct beneficial microorganisms in the soil. As blueberries and cranberries thrive in soils that are not hospitable to most other plants, and conventional fertilizers are toxic to them, the primary concern when growing them organically is bird management.

Postharvest small fruit berries are generally stored at 90–95% relative humidity and 0 C. Cranberries, however, are frost sensitive, and should be stored at 3 C. Blueberries are the only berries that respond to ethylene, but flavor does not improve after harvest, so they require the same treatment as other berries. Removal of ethylene may reduce disease and spoilage in all berries. Precooling within one to two hours post-harvest to storage temperature, generally 0 C, via forced air cooling increases the storage life of berries by about a third. Under optimum storage conditions, raspberries and blackberries last for two to five days, strawberries 7–10 days, blueberries two to four weeks, and cranberries two to four months. Berries can be shipped under high carbon dioxide or modified atmosphere of 10–15% carbon dioxide for high carbon dioxide or 15–20% carbon dioxide and 5–10% oxygen for a modified atmosphere container to increase shelf life and prevent grey mold rot.

Breeding
Several discoveries in the science of breeding berries were made in the 18th century by Antoine Nicolas Duchesne in his work on strawberries. In the traditional technique of plant breeding, berries with specific desirable characteristics were chosen and allowed to sexually reproduce with other berries, and offspring with improved traits could then be selected and used for further crossing. Plants may be hybridized with different species within the same genus; hybridization between different genus may also be possible, but more difficult. Breeding may seek to increase the size and yield of the fruit, improve the flavor and quality of its nutrient content, such as antioxidants, expand the harvest season, and produce cultivars with resistance to diseases, tolerance of hot or cold conditions, and other desirable traits. Advancements in molecular biology and genetic engineering allow for a more efficient and better targeted approach in the selection for a desirable genotype, via marker-assisted selection, for example. Genetic modification techniques can also be used for breeding berries.

Horticultural soft fruit berries
Some fruit not commonly referred to as berries and not always botanically berries are included by land-grant university extension offices in their guides for berry cultivation, or in guides for identifying local wild edible and non-edible berries. Examples include beach plums, American persimmons, pawpaws, Pacific crabapples, and prickly pears.

Commercial production
In the year 2005, there were 1.8 e6acre of land worldwide cultivating berries, with 6.3 e6ST produced. :4

Economics
In certain regions, berrypicking can be a large part of the economy, and it is becoming increasingly common for western European countries such as Sweden and Finland to import cheap labor from Thailand or Bulgaria to do the berry picking. This practice has come under scrutiny in the past years because of the low wages and poor living standard for the "berry-pickers", as well as the lack of worker safety.

In the late 2010s in the US, reduced migration from Mexico and increased minimum wage standards have made finding "stoop-work" labourers to pick the strawberry crop difficult and costly.

Phytochemicals and color
Once ripened, berries have a contrasting color to their background (often of green leaves), making them visible and attractive to frugivorous animals and birds. This assists the wide dispersal of the plants' seeds.

Berry colors are due to natural phytochemicals, including plant pigments, such as anthocyanins, together with other flavonoids localized mainly in berry skins, seeds and leaves. Although berry pigments have antioxidant properties in vitro, there is no physiological evidence established to date that berry pigments have actual antioxidant or any other functions within the human body. Consequently, it is not permitted to claim that foods containing polyphenols have antioxidant health value on product labels in the United States or Europe.

Use in baked goods

Berries are commonly used in pies or tarts, such as blueberry pie, blackberry pie, and strawberry pie.

Berries are often used in baking, such as blueberry muffins, blackberry muffins, berry cobblers, berry crisps, berry cakes, berry buckles, berry crumb cakes, berry tea cakes, and berry cookies. Berries are commonly incorporated whole into the batter for baking, and care is often taken so as to not burst the berries. Frozen or dried berries may be preferable for some baked berry products. Fresh berries are also often incorporated into baked berry desserts, sometimes with cream, either as a filling to the dessert or as a topping.

Beverages
Berries are often added to water and/or juiced, as in cranberry juice, which accounts for 95% of cranberry crop usage, blueberry juice, raspberry juice, goji berry juice, acai juice, aronia berry juice, and strawberry juice. Wine is the principal fermented beverage made from berries (grapes). Fruit wines are commonly made out of other berries. In most cases, sugars must be added to the berry juices in the process of Chaptalization to increase the alcohol content of the wine. Examples of fruit wines made from berries include: elderberry wine, strawberry wine, blueberry wine, blackberry wine, redcurrant wine, huckleberry wine, goji wine and cranberry wine. Berries are used in some styles of beer, particularly framboise (made with raspberry) and other fruit lambics.

Dried
Currants, raisins and sultanas are examples of dried grape berries, and many other commercially important berries are available in dried form.

Fruit preserves
Berries are perishable fruits with a short shelf life, and are often preserved by drying, freezing, pickling or making fruit preserves. Berries such as blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, lingonberry, loganberry, raspberry, and strawberry are often used in jams and jellies. In the United States, Native Americans were "the first to make preserves from blueberries".

Other usages
Chefs have created quick pickled soft fruit, such as blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Strawberries can be battered and quickly fried in a deep fryer. Sauces made from berries, such as cranberry sauce, can be frozen until hard, battered, and deep fried. Cranberry sauce is a traditional food item for Thanksgiving, and similar sauces can be made from many other berries such as blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and huckleberries.

Dyeing
Berries have been used in some cultures for dyeing. Many berries contain juices that can easily stain, affording use as a natural dye. For example, blackberries are useful for making dyes, especially when ripe berries can easily release juice to produce a colorfast effect. Rubus berries, such as blackberry, raspberry, black raspberry, dewberry, loganberry, and thimbleberry all produce dye colors. These were once used by Native Americans. In Hawaii, the native raspberry called 'akala' was used to dye tapa cloth with lavender and pink hues, whereas berries from the dianella lily were used for blue coloration, and berries from the black nightshade were used to produce green coloration.

Research
Berry consumption is under preliminary research for the potential to improve nutrition and affect chronic diseases. A 2016 review found that berry consumption can significantly lower body mass index, low density lipoprotein (LDL) and systolic blood pressure.

title: Berry