A rare example: Rococo at Chandos Mausoleum

Chandos Mausoleum was built by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos in 1735, the year his second wife, Cassandra, died. It was added to St. Lawrence’s church, in the grounds of Brydges’ newly built estate Cannons Park, as a final resting place for the eccentric Duke and his family.

Thanks to Brydges’ personal taste, the mausoleum is a rare example of Rococo style in England. What first strikes you when you enter Chandos Mausoleum are the illusionistic wall paintings created by the Italian artist Gaetano Brunetti. The mausoleum wall paintings are outstanding examples of trompe l'oeil painting - highly illusionistic images intended to deceive the viewer into thinking they are seeing three-dimensional architectural features, for example, polished marble columns with ornate capitals, broad Roman arches and fictive sarcophagi. The ceiling is painted with a miniature copy of the dome of the Pantheon temple in Rome with its famous coffered vault. Gaetano Brunetti was famous for this style of painting and did much to popularise continental Rococo style in England.

All this lavish decoration is intended to complement the tomb of the Duke and two of his three wives. The monument was designed by Grinling Gibbons some twenty-seven years before the Duke died. It shows Brydges, in wig and Roman tunic, with his wives Mary Lake and Cassandra Willoughby kneeling on either side. Two other monuments were later placed in the mausoleum: an elegant monument by Sir Henry Cheere to Mary Bruce, first wife of the second Duke, and a plainer one to Margaret Nicholls, first wife of the third Duke. Many members of the Brydges family have found their final resting place here. Grinling Gibbons was an Anglo-Dutch wood carver and sculptor born to English parents in the Netherlands. Little is known about his early life, but in 1680, at the age of 32, he was already being referred to as “the King’s Carver” accepting commissions from the Royal family and important courtiers. He is widely regarded as one of the finest wood carvers in English history, due to his ability to make his carvings appear particularly life-like, aptly imitating the “disorder of nature”. The detailed, neo-classical sculptures of Brydges’ and his wives at Chandos are exquisite, but might not have been executed by Gibbons himself, because by this point, he was Master of a large workshop and approaching 70, and it is difficult to tell how many commissions he personally completed in later life.

But who was the man who commissioned this mausoleum, fired several architects in the process and chose to be depicted in Roman dress, with his wives on either side to quote Dr Jean Wilson MBE, former president of the Church Monuments Society, “in the position in which he liked them”?

Born on 6th January 1673 in Herefordshire as the eldest surviving son of the 8th Baron Chandos, James Brydges was certainly a colourful character. His father was briefly the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, although he wasn’t well regarded by Charles II and was soon recalled. Having been educated at a number of prestigious schools, the young James Brydges did not lack ambition. He was first elected as Member of Parliament for Hereford in 1698 at the age of 25, and thus began his journey through a series of illustrious offices, including in 1705 at the age of 32 paymaster-general of the forces abroad during the war of the Spanish succession. 

Possibly through his mothers’ influence, who was a member of a prominent merchant family, he also developed an interest in overseas business ventures. He was involved with the East India Company, as well as with the infamous South Sea Company. The South Sea Company was in simplified terms a large-scale 18th Century financial scam orchestrated by people in or close to the British government with the aim to reduce the cost of national debt. To compete with the Bank of England, which was at the time the most significant lender to the government, the South Sea Company was granted a monopoly to sell African slaves to the Spanish colonisers in South America. Even though prospects for actual profit from this business venture were low, the company did actively participate in the slave trade. The directors of the company oversold its profitability and attracted investors across all social classes in England, in what can only be described as a national frenzy for trading stocks. Many investors were ruined in the company’s eventual collapse, now known as the “South Sea Bubble” and a criminal investigation followed. Brydges was a commissioner for taking subscriptions to the South Sea Company in 1711 but ended up losing money in the South Sea Bubble. He later also served as Governor for the Royal African Company, which was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. 

Perhaps in an attempt to redeem himself, he also became one of the founding governors of the Foundling Hospital in 1739 towards the end of his life. His great wealth, amassed primarily through profiting from his public offices, allowed Brydges to build a magnificent house called “Cannons”, renovate St. Lawrence’s church to his taste and add the lavish mausoleum. It also allowed him to become a patron of the arts and sciences. Scientific projects he supported involved trying to make soap from potash, using steam power to raise water from the Thames to supply parts of London and trying to obtain gold from a variety of ores and minerals. None of these ventures were ever commercially viable. 

His patronage of the composer Handel was more fruitful. Before being made a duke, Brydges employed Handel, who came to live at his house for two years and composed the Chandos Anthems, which were first performed at St. Lawrence’s. Handel lived in England permanently from 1712 and from around 1717-18 he worked for the duke and lived for some time at Cannons as composer in residence. Besides the Chandos Anthems, Handel also composed the Chandos Te Deum and the masques “Acis and Galatea” and “Haman and Mordecai”; these works were almost certainly performed at St. Lawrence’s. It was “Haman and Mordecai”, adapted for performance without costumes or scenery and renamed “Esther”, which became the first English oratorio, a genre which might be said to reach a climax in “Messiah”, first performed in Dublin in 1742.

What then, is the legacy of a man like Brydges? When his son Henry, 2nd Duke of Chandos inherited the estate after his father’s death, the debt he inherited was so great a burden that most of the contents of Cannons were sold off and the house itself demolished just over 20 years after it was completed. You can therefore now find traces of Cannons in many English country houses. What remains are St. Lawrence’s and Chandos Mausoleum: beautiful memorials to a dubious legacy, art historically significant buildings financed by money from morally suspect sources; and Jane Austen.

Brydges’ second wife and one of the women commemorated at Chandos was writer, artist and historian Cassandra Willoughby. What survives of Cassandra’s writings today are her travel-journals, letters and histories of the Willoughby family. Before her marriage to Brydges at the age of 43, she lived with her brother at their ancestral seat of Wollaton House, acting as his housekeeper. She oversaw the restoration of Wollaton Hall, travelled extensively around Britain, catalogued her father’s botanical and zoological collections and worked on compiling her family history. After her marriage, she supported her husband’s building projects and oversaw renovation works at Cannons. Both Jane Austen’s mother and sister were named after Cassandra Brydges to emphasise their connection to the Brydges family.

It was James Brydges’ sister, Mary, who married Theophilus Leigh, and had a son called Thomas, who was the father of Cassandra Leigh, who was Jane Austen’s mother.