Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> From its conception Spencer House was recognised as one of the most ambitious private palaces ever built in London and is today the city’s only great eighteenth-century town house to survive intact. It occupies a critical place in the history of architecture offering a unique insight into the development of English neo-classicism. The house was begun in 1756 by John First Earl Spencer the great-grandson of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough and grandson of the Third Earl of Sunderland both of whose fortunes he inherited while still a minor. On 20 December 1755 at a ball to mark his coming of age he secretly married the eighteen-year-old Georgiana Poyntz in the Oak Room at Althorp the Spencer seat. She had been his childhood sweetheart and was an acknowledged beauty. Their marriage was a love match. something of a rarity in the eighteenth century and Spencer House was the result. The young couple were exceedingly wealthy the diamond buckles on his honeymoon shoes alone were valued at ?30.000. They embarked immediately upon building a splendid new London house in St James’s overlooking Green Park intended to be a centre for tashionable entertainment as well as a setting for the young Earl’s art. collection which was partly imherited and partly augmented by his own purchases during and after his Grand Tour. (LL)