Tag: uxbridge

My Uxbridge Opus: Resurrecting a Fabulous Historic Site Unseen for Nearly 300 Years

In its time, the original Treaty House and grounds were far more grand (and dominant) than what remains today would suggest. My research has led me to believe that to say that “the negotiations took place in a part of the house that has since been taken down” is much akin to presenting a single tire as a bicycle with some parts missing!

It was a jarring realization that the Uxbridge Treaty House is only a single surviving wing of a much grander original structure. This takes nothing away from the lovely existing building–it is a treasure, and feels complete on its own. But perhaps because it feels complete and seems to have always been perceived in variations of its current form, there remains little room to comprehend the true scale of the “fine house” and grounds that hosted the Peace Treaty Negotiations there in 1645. We can be forgiven having difficulty imagining it since (as we learned in my last article), among the mountain of images of his historic structure, not one of the original structure seems to have survived.

Crown and Treaty, Uxbridge. Photo credit Wikipedia.

To better understand the historic event that took place there over nearly a month, I shifted my focus to sweeping together all the bits of clues I’d found and creating the best model I could of the original house.  To my surprise, I have been able to integrate these many shards into a remarkably cohesive and durable model, including a fair portion of its interior arrangements.

You see, in its time, the original Treaty House and grounds were far more grand (and dominant) than what remains today would suggest. My research has led me to believe that to say that “the negotiations took place in a part of the house that has since been taken down” is much akin to presenting a single tire as a bicycle with some parts missing!

The Mystery of the Original Treaty House

Perhaps the most useful aspect of my Uxbridge research has been reinforcement of the need to remain wary of falling in love with a particular theory. There are nearly always breadcrumbs of information to be discovered, but what should we make of them?  However, even chasing a theory that ultimately proves incorrect can be very useful. Nearly every time I have found myself officiating the frustrated funeral of an beloved theory, I’ve found the effort to validate it has led me to compelling insights I wouldn’t have come to any other way.

Although I do as much of my research online as possible, quite often I need to either borrow or buy books pointed to by footnotes to find the details I am looking for. My physical library has grown a whole new section of books related to my research into Uxbridge and the Treaty House.

My search for clues regarding the form of the original Treaty House led me to a few important sources. The first is a remarkable 1818 book of Uxbridge history called “The History of the Ancient Town and Borough of Uxbridge” by G. Redford and T.H. Riches.  This wonderful work contains the most significant (and well substantiated) record of the history of the house I have found. Captured by period historians in the early 1800’s, this book also includes many  fascinating notes about the state of the town at that time.  Reading this book two hundred years later, these glimpses into the early 1800’s Uxbridge inhabited by its authors were as interesting as the excellent historical research that was the focus of their work!

From the Riches/Redford book I have gathered the following important points:

  • The original house was likely built sometime in the latter 1500’s (1576?). For much of its early history, this house was the seat of the Bennett family.
  • The original house “which was then considerably larger than at present [i.e. 1818], stood in the centre of a large garden. The high road now [in 1818], passes through nearly the middle of the grounds.” Note: other sources I have found indicate the surviving building was roughly 1/3 of the original structure.
  • The property was apparently partitioned in 1724.
  • Following the death of the last Bennett (Leonora, Lady Bennett) in 1638, the property went through a handful of owners over the next century. At the time of the treaty negotiations in 1645, it was the property of a “Mr. Carr”.

The second source of critical information I added to my collection is one volume of a carefully written set analyzing the architectural history of the buildings of England. This particular volume is titled “The Buildings of England, London 3: North West” (1991). Amidst a sea of elaborately developed details about innumerable other important historic buildings, this remarkable book distills a history and architectural analysis of the Crown & Treaty into a single, un-illustrated paragraph at the bottom of page 363. I found this tiny account while following up on an obscure footnote from a different, modern architectural publication.

This is the architectural history book that yielded the critical, singular clue about the layout of the original Treaty House.

I laugh to myself at having had to purchase a book that is more than an inch thick (containing 804 pages) to access a single blurb of information that would almost fit on a business card.  But that concise little blurb was absolutely worth the trouble and expense! Among a number of other useful details, it contained a singular critical clue I needed about the layout of the original Treaty House.

And so, in a passage that could likely be read aloud in a few breaths, I found the following gems:

  • The Crown and Treaty was converted to an inn in 1802 after the property was purchased by the canal company to build a wharf for the Grand Canal. Note: the Grand Canal itself (which passes behind the Treaty House) was completed in 1793-4.
  • About the building’s history, the book states, “The present building consists of one wing of the formerly half-H shaped Treaty House…”
  • The rest of the building “was demolished in the 1750’s, and the road was later diverted across the forecourt.” From another source I learned the roadbed had been moved 52 yards from its original path.
Overhead schematic view of the relocated Oxford Road and the existing Treaty House, showing the probable locations of artist renderings from the Colne River and the hexagonal gatehouse.

The third great resource I found was a book  by John Rushworth which provides the following first hand account:

“This place being within the Parliament’s Quarters their Commissioners were the more civil and desirous to afford Accommodations to the King’s Commissioners, and they thought it fit to appoint Sir John Bennet’s House at the further end of the Town, to be fitted for the place of meeting for the Treaty.

The Fore-way into the House was appointed for the King’s Commissioners to come in at, and the Back-way for the Parliament’s Commissioners; in the middle of the House, was a fair great Chamber where they caused a large Table to be made like that heretofore in the Star-Chamber, almost square and without any upper or lower end of it. [note: another source indicates the negotiations room was on the upper floor].

The King’s Commissioners had one end and one side of the Table for them, the other side was for the Parliament’s Commissioners, and the end appointed for the Scots Commissioners to fit by themselves. Behind the Chair of the Commissioners on both sides sate the Divines and Secretaries, and such of the Commissioners as had not room to fit next to the Table.

At each end of the great Chamber was a fair Withdrawing-Room and Inner-Chamber, one for the King’s, and the other for the Parliament’s Commissioners to retire unto, and consult when they pleased.”

John Rushworth, ‘Historical Collections: The Treaty at Uxbridge, 1645

A Quick Aside: The Table at the “Star Chamber“

Rushworth’s observations about the negotiation table was a particularly valuable clue. A large square table had been custom made for the treaty negotiations. And, this table was “like that heretofore in the Star-Chamber”. But what does that mean? I think many of us have heard of the Star Chamber.

Aside from being a contender for the most intriguing name ever, the Star Chamber was both an actual room at Westminster Palace and also a colloquialism for the medieval “Court of Star Chamber” that gathered there. This infamous court is a tale of well-intentioned ideas gone horribly wrong. Conceived as as something like a Supreme Court, the Star Chamber served as a court of appeals from lower courts. It also had a second, very important purpose. Composed of a combination of privy councillors and senior judges of the common law, the Star Chamber was also charged with the task of hearing cases against those so powerful they were unlikely to ever be convicted by lower courts. The Star Chamber was an important step in the transition from the medieval to modern institutions of governance.

Lauded in its first few decades for its efficiency, flexibility and fairness, this special court was weaponized in the reign of Henry VIII as a tool of political oppression. Unfortunately, once begun, the abuse of this court’s power continued for more than a hundred years–well into the reign of King Charles I. The Court of Star Chamber was finally abolished by the rising parliament led by John Pym in 1641–one year before the start of the English Civil War.

John Pym was a busy man in 1641. Perhaps you remember him from my recent articles analyzing the “Trial of Strafford” painting that hangs in the House of Lords at Westminster? In that painting, Pym is depicted illuminated in mid-oration as he himself (successfully) weaponizes the House of Commons as an instrument of the assassination of a key supporter of King Charles I: the Earl of Strafford, Thomas Wentworth. Although Pym was the architect of the Parliament’s effort to wrest power of the government from the crown in the English Civil War, he was not among the parliamentary commissioners present at Uxbridge in 1645. He had died of illness a year before.

This image shows the famous Star Chamber ceiling now preserved (with a cream background instead of blue) at Leasowe Castle. Photo Credit: Leasowe Castle Hotel.

Ironically, the Rushford clue about the large square negotiating table at Uxbridge may be the only real clue about the original furnishing of the Star Chamber itself (except for the dark blue ceiling with ornate gold stars the chamber is named for). When the chamber was demolished in the early 1800’s the ceiling and tapestries were salvaged and taken to the Leasowe Castle on the coast of the Irish Sea near Liverpool. You can see this ceiling today if you stay at the Leasowe Castle Hotel!

Looking at the drawing of the Star Chamber below, it seems that the room was rectangular, with the lesser dimension along the far wall. In this graphic, you can see the spatial analysis I used to estimate this room to be approximately 22 feet in width. Considering how large a table could occupy this space usably, I would estimate the table width could be as much as 16 feet on a side. Assuming humans have not dramatically changed their dimensions and allowing 2 feet per seated person, such a table would have seated as many as 8 people along each of its sides.

This is my spatial analysis of an image of the Star Chamber at Westminster and the table it once contained.

In Uxbridge, this would mean that roughly half of each side’s 32 commissioners (16 people) could have sat at the table, and at least this same number of seats behind the railings would have been required for the other half of the commissioners (and any other important attendees–the “Devines and Secretaries”). This is an important bit of information, as the size of this table and some idea of the minimum seating around it provides a defining bound on the minimum immediate space required to accommodate these negotiations.

First Model of the Original Layout of the Treaty House

 For awhile, I was convinced the “gatehouse” image discussed in my prior article could have been of the original Treaty House.  Given that the original house was described as a “half H”, the question is: how do you split that “H”? Assuming it was split vertically, the wings would have been aligned along the same axis on either side of a center structure of the house (see the graphics of my first overhead model, below).

First model of the original Treaty House. In this model, the two wings would have oriented along the same axis along opposite sides of a central structure.

Under this assumption, the view from the gatehouse image would have been looking at the far end of the “other” wing, and the surviving wing of the structure would have been almost entirely hidden from view. In my second graphic, this overhead model is laid onto satellite imagery. From this overlaid image, it is apparent that this model certainly meets the criteria that the relocated Oxford Road passes “through the center” of the original house!

The second graphic reflects my modeling of the second floor of this version of the original building. The second wing is a mirror image of the existing wing. In the center section of the building, I continued the Elizabethan “gallery” along the front windows. I added fireplaces in reasonable locations to provide the ability to heat those spaces during cold weather. Given the size of what might have been originally conceived as a ballroom space, I added fireplaces in opposing walls for heating. Then, I identified reasonable stairwell locations and antechambers while leaving withdrawing spaces through which attendees could access the main chamber without interrupting discussions in the private chambers.

When doing such modeling, it is important to keep in mind that the model must make sense for the purposes such a building might have been originally designed to accommodate. Certainly, given its location in an inn-stop town along such an important road would have made it a good candidate for hosting official functions (such as circuit court proceedings, government meetings, etc). Also, hosting large entertainment events (such as balls or masques) would have had political benefits to the building’s owner. But perhaps more interesting to its architect would have been the prospect of creating a Middlesex venue that could host royal visits or other important events of state. Such an ambition would have been a natural motivation for the investments in the park-like grounds and attractive architecture of the building. The design of the gatehouse is far from merely functional–it was meant to impress! And if that had been part of architectural vision for this property, those investments had certainly paid off in 1645.

So how did this interior model feel? How well did it meet the criteria defined by the evidence I’d gathered? I gave it a solid maybe. It met the criteria, but the center building seemed a bit wide, raising concerns about how it could be supported structurally. The “withdrawing ” areas feel more cramped than implied, and narrowing the building would have made them even smaller. The original interior arrangement might have been like this, but it feels a bit forced.

Eventually, I determined there were two inescapable problems with this model. First, although the depiction details seem a bit “muddy” in the original version of the image I was working with, the left-facing protrusions in the image don’t quite align with the model. If the center of the house did not protrude beyond the primary wall of the wings, you would have seen all four bay windows of the wings in that line of sight.  If it did protrude, the center section would have eclipsed the view of the two more distant bay columns, leaving three apparent protrusions from this viewpoint. The image only depicts two. In the end, I had to give the artist credit.  This is an excellent depiction, and the artist that did it would not have gotten that detail wrong.

The second realization was a more definite discrepancy. In this arrangement, the face of the building nearest the artist in the gatehouse image would have been approximately 120 feet closer to the artist than the current, Oxford Road face is today (accounting for the width of the center section of the building and the length of the nearer wing combined). So, if the roadbed was moved 52 yards (or 156 feet) from its original location to its current location next to face of the surviving wing, the visible face of the original eastern wing would only have been about 40 feet from the original roadbed–which lay outside the wall. Of course, the nearest face of the building in the depiction is much further away than this.

My Second Model of the Original Treaty House

After I got a good sulk out of my system, my curiosity rose again, and I retrieved my frustration-flung papers from the floor. The vertically bisected layout was a non-starter. So what did that leave? It was time to reconsider the other way to interpret “half H” as the description of a shape.  If the “H” were instead bisected horizontally, it produces a horseshoe-like shape.  I had thought of this earlier, but had dismissed it as a non-intuitive way to describe this shape. But there really was no other remaining way to form a “half H”.

So I began work on my second reconstruction model, this time with two parallel wings joined by a center span at one end–forming a horizontally-bisected “half H”.

Overhead layout of my second model of the original Treaty House.

In this model, the two wings lie parallel to one another, and are mirror images of one another. Because the house was at the “center of a large garden”, the windows would have looked outward onto gardens from either wing. In this arrangement, the chimney sides of the two wings would have faced each other. Similarly, the center span would have also featured chimneys along its back wall and featured significant windows looking out over the portion of the gardens directly in front of the house.

Note that the center span could not have been at the other end of the wings. This would have formed the classic “E” arrangement where the front door lies within the arms of the wings. Also, in such an arrangement, the relocated Oxford Road would not have passed through the center of the original building.

The semi-enclosed space between the wings would have been interesting. The artful chimneys would have made it quite striking from the few windows available. But given the logistical realities of the time, I suspect this would have been a largely utilitarian space. At a minimum, it likely would have included wagon delivery parking and service doors for access to the kitchen and storage areas, a protected well for water and and protected storage for firewood.

In the next graphic, you can see my interior model of the building. As indicated in the notes I’ve gathered, the negotiations chamber was in the center section of the building on the upper (second) floor, as illustrated.

The interior portion of my second reconstruction model of the original Treaty House.

In this model, the Royalist commissioners would have entered through the center door on the right (surviving) wing. Since it was closer to town this would have reasonably been described as the “Fore-way”. The parliamentary commissioners would have walked around the building and entered via the side door on the opposite wing (the “back-way”). Each would have turned toward the center of the building and ascended stairs to the second floor, where they could choose to enter their antechamber(s) or the large windowed “withdrawing room” for their side.

When ready to join the negotiations, the commissioners would pass through ornate double doors to enter the central “ballroom”. Arrangements of elegant chairs lined either side of a path to the central railing. Entering through gates in the railing, the commissioners made their way to their seats at the expansive table. Much as the mythical “round table” imagined by Chaucer for King Arthur and his knights, this brilliantly conceived table had no “head” and so placed all the commissioners on respectfully equal footing during these talks.

The ornate original panelling adorning the existing Treaty House today.

The surrounding walls of these spaces were likely fitted with the same famous rich panelling preserved in the surviving wing of the Treaty House. The walls were hung with many rich (likely official, state themed) tapestries to mark the occasion. Many-candled chandeliers above the table and sconces around the chamber provided most of the evening lighting, as the negotiations often did not end until after midnight. The rich, heavy drapes around the large windows were likely pulled closed as night fell, or as needed to trade away light for warmth during the bitter cold. When the drapes were open, the attendees could look out over the expansive gardens that lay between the house and high ornate wall standing more than 100 feet away. Within the chamber, the crackling of multiple fires provided islands of warmth to those gathered nearby.

Of course, there is some room for variance from this interior model, but perhaps not as much as you might think. With a gardens all around, and many windows facing them, the area nearest those windows would have generally been open in the Elizabethan gallery style. The pattern of fireplace placement with each room or space having at least one fireplace, plus orthogonally facing fireplaces at the boundaries of the large glassed in spaces) was taken from the existing structure and common practices with such galleries. The main “ballroom” would have been as large as possible, so this space would have been open completely between the outside walls (on the order of 30 feet wide).

Large closable doorways were probably situated between the central chamber and the large “withdrawing” areas on each side. This would have allowed flexibility in how the space was used. When open, these large doors would make the conjoined space space feel fairly continuous. When closed, such doors would allow the spaces to be isolated so they could be used separately and could be more effectively heated. Also, the wall structure such doors would have been built into was likely architecturally necessary to house fireplaces near the windows and load bearing columns to support the roof over such significant spans. Such columns needed to be placed somewhere, and the space in the middle of of the central room must have been unobstructed. Otherwise, it could not have accommodated the large table.

In my opinion, the most vulnerable details of this interior model are the placement of the stairs and the walls of the antechambers. For example, the staircases might reasonably have been located in the “withdrawing” areas and could have been implemented in any of several layouts. No matter where they were placed, these staircases would have been elegant. The more practical staff stairwells would have been located at the far end of the wings.

This overview of the grounds of the original Treaty House provides an estimate of the extent of its grounds. The famous gatehouse is included, but there certainly would have been additional gates.

The next graphic is my model of the estate itself. Although the boundaries of the property could easily have been any among a variety of irregular polygons, the building’s location mid-way between the beds of the Colne and Frays rivers and the hint of equidistance in the description of the house (lying “at the center” of a large gardens) led me to assume a roughly square boundary for the estate wall with its sides aligned to the walls of the existing structure. Of course, the size of this square was yielded by the fact that this estate was bisected by the road, which had been moved “52 yards” to align it with the bridges crossing the Colne and the Grand Junction Canal and then Mercer’s bridge across the Frays stream. Geometrically, this would have made the walled-in grounds approximately 300-350 feet on each side.

Recently, I got a gratifying confirmation of this speculation. I came across a pair of 1825 maps of Uxbridge showing road details and also the township boundaries. The first is a map (below) of the roadways and primary buildings present in Uxbridge at that time (1825). I have overlaid a properly scaled square of my estimated estate walls and registered it against the red outline of the Treaty House footprint at that time. In this map, there is a spur in the roadway from High Street just after it crosses the Frays stream. from High Street. This spur (which I believe was a vestige of the original bed of the Oxford Road, traces a path directly around the corner of my estimated estate wall!

Annotated detail view of an 1825 Map of Uxbridge in the collection of the Hillingdon Council. This view shows what appears to be a vestige of the original road around the Treaty House grounds, and even seems to show the location of the hexagonal gatehouse. Note: North is to the left.

Even more interesting–look closely at that corner of the property. Do you see that small red dot just inside the dotted line? I suspect this was the footprint of the hexagonal gatehouse, apparently still in existence at this time. Lying next to that gatehouse you can also see the end of a light blue canal leading back to the Grand Canal. If this scene seems familiar, it should. This is exactly the scene in the middle 1800’s gatehouse drawings which depict a canal passing directly in front of the elegantly dilapidated hexagonal gatehouse, with the surviving Treaty House building in the background.

One of several middle 1800s depictions of the hexagonal gatehouse in the foreground. Note the reinforced walls of the canal and the canal boat depicted passing by.

The next graphic is taken from a different 1825 map that illustrated the boundary of the Uxbridge township at that time. I had actually expected the property the Treaty House was built on to be much more elongated, extending to the South. I was a bit shocked to find the township boundary directly parallels the rear wall of the estate in my model of the grounds! This apparent extension of the township boundary (which otherwise lies to the east of the Frays stream) provides an interesting indicator of the footprint of the developed properties at that time.

Detail from an 1825 map of Hillingdon Parish that shows boundary of the Uxbridge township (which I have highlighted in yellow). Note this township boundary includes a rectangular shape that encompasses my estimated estate grounds of the original Treaty House.

To anyone who has ever owned and cared for horses for any period of time, leaving an apron of land beyond the walled-in part of the grounds wall makes perfect sense. Every time you “muck the stalls”, the cartload of horse manure and straw collected has to be dumped somewhere, and you would not want that inside the estate walls! Naturally, these estate walls would have included several utility gateways. Perhaps none was more utilized the one that would have been located near the outbuildings (and stables) at the rear of the walled-in estate. This “back-wall” gate would likely gotten significant use as manure carts, horses being grazed and wagons carrying firewood harvested from the commons passed through it.

That was a lot to cover, so if you made it this far, thanks for your interest in this work. Now, with the main course out of the way, it’s time for the dessert! In my next article, I will be presenting the wonderful, long sought image of the original Treaty House created by the talented artist helping me with this reconstruction.

It’s great to be writing again, and it will be wonderful to turn my attention back the queue of other articles that has been on hold for so long. I’m adding this section to my articles to share some of the other interesting things competing for my time. Most recently, this was our “bucket list” adventure at “Dry Tortugas”.

Dry Tortugas is America’s smallest national park. It is basically a large hexagonal brick fort from the 1700’s. This expansive fort almost completely covers a small spit of sand poking out of the Gulf of Mexico. fort Jefferson was a naval outpost built to support ships patrolling the gulf during the “golden age of pirates” of the late 1700’s. It lies 70 miles due West from Key West–the furthest island in the chain of “keys” at the very tip of Florida. A ferry boat makes a daily run to Dry Tortugas and provides the only services available there. Reservations on this ferry must generally be made a year in advance.

Along one side of the fortress walls there is a narrow strip of land you can camp on. After driving 2200 miles from Colorado (and dancing our way around hurricane Nicole) to get there, we camped and explored Dry Tortugas and a few neighboring keys for 3 fascinating days.

The unusual history and sea kayaking were as wonderful as we’d hoped, but we hadn’t expected to see migrant boats arriving from Cuba. It was moving. Nothing will make you appreciate what you have more than seeing someone fling themselves down to kiss the sand after a daring 100 mile open water crossing in an overcrowded, rickety boat–just for a chance of having it also…

A stock photo from the air showing just how small the “key” (island) is.
I was shocked to have captured this by moonlight with my new Pixel phone. This was one of 5 migrant boats that arrived while we were at Dry Tortugas. Each boat held between 14 and 23 people. Image copyright © Greg Sherwood, 2022

The “Crown and Treaty”: Home of the 1645 Uxbridge Treaty Negotiations

If time and circumstance have rendered the “Crown and Treaty” a diminished but still graceful woman of age, my work over the last many months has revealed that it wasn’t always so. Nearly 400 years ago, when the newly appointed Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Court, Sir Richard Lane, and the other peace commissioners walked through her doors, she was the spectacular and defiant diva who “owned” that end of town…

As we got off the plane at Heathrow, I couldn’t have imagined the article about our first quick stop in England would eventually require many months to complete.

We had an important appointment at Windsor Castle later the afternoon we arrived. But the plane had arrived on time, leaving us just enough time to swing by Uxbridge on the way. There was something in Uxbridge I really wanted to see for myself!

Hemmed in by a phalanx of glass-sheathed office buildings, and utterly out of place in a modern technology park, the “Crown and Treaty” is a gorgeous 500 year-old building perched precariously upon a bare vestige of its former ground. If time and circumstance have rendered this building a diminished but still graceful woman of age, my work over the last many months has revealed that it wasn’t always so. Nearly 400 years ago, when the newly appointed Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Court, Sir Richard Lane, and the other peace commissioners walked through her doors, she was the spectacular and defiant diva who “owned” that end of town…

The Peace Treaty Negotiations of 1645

In the late Fall of 1644, Sir Richard Lane had been living in the packed royalist enclave of Oxford for two years while the English Civil war raged. This struggle to decide the fate of the “divine right of kings” versus representative government in England had recently begun to trend poorly for King Charles I. When the peace faction within the rebellious Parliament was able to win support for an attempt at a peace treaty, a truce was struck and treaty negotiations were planned. For a few months, both sides enjoyed a respite while arrangements were set to hold the treaty negotiations in the town of Uxbridge, partway along the road connecting the opposing war capitals of London and Oxford.

This sign, emplaced over an entrance to the Crown and Treaty commemorates the event that has become this building’s namesake. It reads: ANCIENT TREATY HOUSE — Where the ill fated CHARLES THE FIRST held the memorable, but unsuccessful treaty with his Parliament in January 1645.

A large mansion on one end of that road-inn town was chosen as the negotiations site. Quickly provisioned, furnished and decorated to accommodate the gravitas of the occasion (and the large number of participants), this mansion would be afterwards known as the “Treaty House”. The historic importance of the treaty negotiations held there was remarked upon in an 1850 article appearing in “Gentlemen’s Magazine”:

By far the most memorable treaty on English ground, made or attempted to be made between a king and his people (Runnymede not excepted) was attempted at Uxbridge in the winter of 1644-5…

Peter Cunningham, Gentlemen’s Magazine, April 10 1850

For me, a chance to visit the “Crown and Treaty” (as it is known today) was a chance to walk in the place Sir Richard Lane and his fellow commissioners met as they struggled to find terms their warring masters could accept. I was curious to learn whatever I could about their experience. Where did everyone stay for the month the negotiations continued? What did they eat? How well did their accommodations keep out the February cold? How did both sides receive those close friends and former colleagues they found seated on the opposite side of the negotiating table?

But I soon discovered that details about the “Crown and Treaty” are frustratingly sparse once you get past the few existing summary articles and exterior photographs. I was unable to locate a floor plan or any description of the building’s historic layout. Excepting only a few grainy vintage photographs of an upstairs room referred to as the “presence chamber”, the scant interior photographs I was able to find were anecdotal shots of pub tables on the modern main floor. In 2018, the enigmatic 500-year-old Crown and Treaty had become the stately but beleaguered home of a struggling local pub and small band venue. 

Of course, a good pub and small band venue is one of my favorite things!  If we could make time to stop by the Crown and Treaty—and if they were open—I would love to sip a pint of their best local ale while absorbing everything about the building around me.  And if I was lucky, perhaps the proprietor would be willing to give me a brief walk-through of the building! 

Unfortunately, this was not to be…

Visit to the Crown and Treaty

Arriving at the Crown and Treaty straight from Heathrow, it didn’t take us long to discover the building was locked, and no one was around. Making the best of it, we set about photographing and studying the exterior of the building.

A short while later, we noticed a small group of people gathered at the front door. We introduced ourselves and discovered we were talking to the new owner of the building and a group of young people planning to assist in an upcoming restoration. Despite my rising hopes, it soon became evident that the previous owner (who was supposed to arrive with the key) was not going to show up that day. Ah, well! We enjoyed meeting them, and perhaps someday we will be able to return and have that pint and a meal amid their handiwork.  I recently read that the Crown and Treaty has since re-opened as a fine new restaurant.

Mary and I, fresh off the airplane in April 2018, posing with the pending new owner of the Crown and Treaty and a group of young worker set to refurbish the property.

Later, as my research into the building’s history progressed, I realized it wouldn’t have made much difference if we had been allowed in.  Although it would have been fascinating to see in any case, I now believe the room where the negotiations were held has not existed for more than three centuries.

Unraveling the Enigmatic History of the Crown and Treaty

The existing accounts consistently indicate that today’s “Crown and Treaty” was originally part of a larger house. Regrettably, those accounts consistently suggest that the room in which the 1645 peace negotiations were held was likely in a portion of the house that no longer exists.

Of course, someone less obsessed would have let it go at that. But I became intrigued by a scattering of clues I’ve encountered in my research on the treaty negotiations. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle strewn across a table, I had the sense that much more of the seemingly lost history of this English historical landmark was within reach, if I could just figure out how these scattered clues fit together! How could I resist that? So, I clicked on my headlamp and dove headfirst into this latest “rabbit-hole”!

“Reconstruction” of the original Crown and Treaty Floorplan

Using a combination of photographs I had taken and overhead imagery from Google Earth, I was first able to construct an overhead building plan of the Crown and Treaty (below). From this, I obtained a rough measurement for the existing building: 80 feet long and 30 feet wide (approximately 24.5 by 9 meters).  The existing windows make it clear that the building has 3 floors of usable space: 2 regular floors and an attic/dormer floor.

Roof plan of the Crown and Treaty derived from street level and overhead (satellite) images

Chimney Analysis

Among the most striking features of the Treaty House are the majestic array of chimneys along the building’s back side, and the equally beautiful array of windows across its front. As I contemplated what could be deduced about the interior of this building, I realized there are some timeless rules of construction that could tell me a great deal about the interior based on these features:

  • Windows that face the South are best for gathering heat and light into the rooms behind them
  • Where they exist, interior partitioning walls connect to exterior walls between windows
  • enclosed spaces are easier to heat selectively
  • generally, every significant space in the living area of the house will have at least one source of direct heat (and in the middle 1600s, the only reasonable source of heat was a fireplace)
  • each fireplace will (generally) have its own chimney flue
  • chimney flues do not follow complicated paths—they generally rise directly (or nearly so) above the fireplaces they service
  • in a space large enough to require more than one fireplace, the fireplaces will generally not be located together

Looking at the pictures of the Crown and Treaty, it’s clear the majority of the flues (11 of them) lie along the back wall of the house. By the rules above, this means that all of the 11 related fireplaces must lie along the back wall as well. Given how tightly grouped these flues are, it became fairly clear that the eastern half of the building’s back wall must have been dedicated to a row of bedroom-width spaces on the first two floors, leaving a couple of flues for fireplaces in the attic level.

With a building depth of 30 feet and following the (incorrect) mindset that the house had been built as an inn (with lots of rooms–a purpose it served in later centuries), I assumed the back rooms extended to just less than half the depth of the house. But this left me with a problem: where were the flues for the fireplaces needed to heat the opposing set of rooms I imagined lay along the front of the house? It was clear there was an important architectural design consideration I did not yet understand.

A lesson in Elizabethan Manor Design

So, I threw myself into researching Elizabethan manor design. Eventually, I uncovered the floor plans of other Elizabethan manor houses which had similar chimney arrangements. And there was the answer! What I hadn’t realized is that the front of the building (with all of the windows) contained a single, long gallery lined with the ranks of windows along its length. At Hardwick Hall, the house’s chimneys were aligned along the centerline of the house (to provide symmetry of the house), but such “long galleries” could also be heated by fireplaces located in the walls at the ends of the space. These long galleries were pure opulence: high back walls resplendent with tapestries and artwork opposing a rank of great windows gathering sunshine and looking out over fabulous Elizabethan gardens. Such spaces were perfect for entertaining and also served as a winter exercise space.

Floor plan of the upper floor of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (ca 1590 design)

Analysis of the chimney flues available at the front of the Crown and Treaty’s second floor is perfectly consistent with a long gallery with fireplaces at the ends. Along the back wall of this gallery lie the doorways into the private rooms on that floor (each with their own fireplaces). At least some of these rooms have connecting doorways allowing them to be used as shared, adjoined spaces.  The view from this long gallery must have been spectacular, looking out across the house’s large gardens and directly down High Street from a elevated vantage point. Perhaps it was more the point that the citizens of 1600s Uxbridge glancing up the street would find their view drawn to the distant face of this stylish mansion.

This was my first awakening that the building known as the Crown and Treaty wasn’t conceived as one of Uxbridge’s many inns–this house had been built to impress.

Armed with this new insight and an accounting of all of the fireplaces and windows, I created a set of speculative floor plans (see picture below).  Of course, there is room for some variation in the placement of interior staircases and interior spaces on the western end of this building. But I believe the durable design themes of this structure are:

  • the building itself was placed to dominate the view from downtown Uxbridge, and to make an impression on all the travelers of the High Road between London and Oxford.
  • the main floor contained some receiving/parlor spaces and a handful of private rooms. It also included significant utility (storage and kitchen) spaces located towards the western end of the building (nearest the octagonal storage annex)
  • the rooms on the second floor are slightly larger and better appointed than those on the main floor
  • the long gallery on the second floor may have a significantly vaulted ceiling.  I believe the rooms behind it do not.
  • I suspect the center room on the second floor (with the square section projecting through the back wall) was used as a library or study (taking advantage of the extra light from those windows, and allowing its occupant to observe activities in the grounds and liveries which almost certainly existed behind the mansion)
  • the attic space on the third floor is composed of larger spaces (and probably served as a bunkhouse-like living quarters for the live-in household staff)
  • the stairway for the existing building is located toward the western end of the building and probably allows access to all 3 floors.
Speculative interior model of the existing Crown and Treaty’s original floor plan

The Missing Part of the Original Treaty House

The front and rear of the existing structure appear to be original, so the rest of the original Treaty House must have adjoined one of its two existing ends. Although the end containing the octagonal storage structure has been most obviously modified, I found earlier drawings of the existing house in the 1800’s with large trees adjacent to that end of the house.  Assuming that very large trees generally require the better part of a century to reach such maturity, it suggests that no structure existed on that end of the house as early as the middle 1700s. But what of the obvious (and amateurish) repairs on that end of the building? They (along with the octagonal storage annex) could well be the result of the result of structural repairs and modifications made to the building through the centuries.

Thin accounts of the history of the house indicate that at some point, the center of the house was demolished to accommodate a rerouting of High Street. Looking at overhead imagery, it can be seen that the main street through town passes naturally past the easternmost end of the Crown and Treaty.  So, it seems quite reasonable to consider that the narrow end of the building facing onto the current street was originally an interior wall which adjoined the center of the original house.

This is an interesting fact to consider. Observe the overhead image below and notice how naturally the Oxford Road leads into the path of the original High Street (Uxbridge’s historic main street). Since the ancient 5-arch bridge across the Colne River (just beyond the left of this image) and the historic High Road through town are aligned, it means the original Treaty House sat directly in the way of this road. The only way this seems possible is if the road had been redirected to flow around the grounds of the Treaty House when the house was originally built! As fantastic as this conclusion may sound, in the next article I will present evidence that this was precisely the state of affairs early in the house’s history.

Overhead view of the Crown and Treaty showing how the roadbed of the Oxford Road and High Street pass naturally through the place where the center of the original Treaty House used to be.

Regarding the room where the treaty negotiations took place, accounts of the negotiations indicate this large room was located in the center of the house on the second floor. Given the density of fireplace flues on that end of the existing structure it seems clear there is no space in that part of the existing structure that could have accommodated the approximately 50 people (16 commissioners for each side plus support staff and attending VIPs) who would have been directly involved in the negotiations. Thus, it seems fairly certain the negotiation room was indeed in the adjacent part of the building (that no longer exists).

Mary, standing behind the easternmost end of the existing Crown and Treaty. The center of the original Treaty House (where the 1645 Treaty Negotiations took place) would have included the place she is standing. The actual negotiations room was one floor above the roadway just off her right shoulder.

The “Presence Chamber” Goes for a Visit to New York City

Modern historical summaries of the Treaty House describe that the second floor rooms were lined with a sumptuous carved paneling (as seen in the photographs below). One of the surviving rooms lined with this paneling is billed as the “presence chamber”, where the king might have conducted business while staying there. Although there is no record that the king actually stayed at the Crown and Treaty (recall that during the Civil War the Crown and Treaty was behind enemy lines), it is entirely possible the house was designed to facilitate such an occasion.

Shockingly, in the 1920s, this beautiful historic paneling was apparently removed by the building’s owner and sold to an American businessman to adorn a new office in New York City’s Empire State Building.  I cringed to think that someone could be so careless with such a historic feature, and more so when I read that it was an American who bought it. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending!

Photographs from the “Presence Chamber”, Crown and Treaty, Uxbridge

Apparently (30 years later), this elaborately carved paneling was removed from the Empire State Building and returned to Queen Elizabeth II as a coronation present. Although re-installed in the Crown and Treaty shortly thereafter, this paneling has been retained as the property of the Queen. This arrangement ensures this irreplaceable bit of Uxbridge’s heritage will never be so recklessly disposed of again. I can only imagine the fascinating restrictions regarding stewardship of this paneling that must be written into the agreements for anyone owning this building. In the end, I breathed a sigh of gratitude for the class the American owner exhibited in ensuring this minor treasure made its way back to Uxbridge where it belongs.

Of course, I couldn’t help wondering: could my model help me work out which of the existing upstairs rooms might be the “presence chamber”?  I decided to give it a try.

Looking carefully at the photograph of this room (on the right, above), I noted a sharply defined shadow on the floor made by the visible leg of the side table on the right of the scene. That sort of shadow would be consistent with sunlight through an open door in an otherwise closed room (i.e. no other windows). Ray tracing of that shadow implies a doorway roughly in the center of the wall opposite the fireplace. The sharpness of this shadow also implies a brightly sunlit window situated a fair distance beyond that doorway. Noting the offset fireplace location and the rough dimensions of that end of the room, I checked my model to see if any of the second floor rooms seemed to uniquely match it.  And one did!

The key was that I was independently able to locate a drawing of the room at the easternmost end of the second floor that confirmed my model’s estimate of that room’s fireplace placement. Assuming the other fireplace offsets are similarly correct, there is only one room on my model of the second floor that is consistent with the lighting, room dimension and fireplace offset seen in the presence chamber photograph. That room lies in front of the westernmost chimney set (as shown in the figure below). It would be interesting to find out someday how close this prediction was to being correct!

Speculative location of the Presence Chamber in the existing Crown and Treaty

If this room really had been intended to be a presence chamber, it might explain what seems to be a large space adjacent to it. If this space had been a VIP accommodation (as I’ve assumed in my model), it would have provided a generous bedchamber with four windows and two fireplaces. In this configuration, it would have had its own stairwell access with a small room toward the front of the house where members of the king’s guard could have been quartered just outside his room. Of course, given the options of space and fireplace placement, this end of the house could easily have been in a different configuration to serve alternate design goals.

In my next article, I extend this research to provide an unprecedented reconstruction of the entire original Treaty House (including a detailed model of the negotiations room) as it existed during the 1645 peace negotiations!

—-—

Your comments and corrections are always appreciated. I admire great writing, but have little choice but to approach this task as one of grinding a workable edge onto a rough blade – with my thanks for your generosity of spirit and firm critique in the meantime! 

–-Greg Sherwood

The Backhanded but Exhilarating Power of Mortality

Life is short. Whatever you’re going to do, either get on with it or be ready to accept that perhaps you never will.

The backhanded power of mortality is the focus it gives you. When you’ve only got so many breaths to take, it becomes far more important how you spend them.  For most of my life, I’ve felt the presence of a rocking chair somewhere in my future–waiting for me. When I get to the point where the best I can do is collapse into it and enjoy the company of those I’ve shared my time with, I don’t want to look back and wish I’d been bolder about how I’ve lived my life. 

Although its been months since I’ve published an article, it definitely wasn’t because I ran out of material! In fact, there are several articles that have been sitting nearly complete for months. What’s occupied my time is making an important “gut check” about my commitment to a personal matra that’s been growing in importance in my thoughts:

Life is short. Whatever you’re going to do, either get on with it or be ready to accept that perhaps you never will.

So, I’ve decided its time to get on with it. 

For the last three months, I’ve been busy rewriting the trajectory of my life. My houseful of possessions has been cut down by much more than half. And the house?  Someone new owns it and lives there now. I’ve subsequently paid off all my bills. I’ve changed to a new job.  And the woman I’ve ridden across the state of Iowa with, and ridden through the 5 boroughs of New York City with, and climbed two of Colorado’s 14,000+ foot high mountains with this year? Last weekend, I asked her to marry me (and, for a surprisingly small bribe, she even agreed!).

Mary and I atop Torrey’s Peak, one of Colorado’s 14,000+ foot high mountains.

But that’s only where it starts. I am saving all I can now, because I have decided to find a way to retire in the not-too-distant future, and do some things I yearn to do while I’m still physically able.

In short, we are trading our housefuls of stuff (and the houses) for the chance to see the world from the seat of a bicycle and from the working end of trekking poles. Although we are still about two years from actually boarding the plane, we are preparing to largely uproot ourselves and live overseas for as much as five years.  It takes my breath away to think of it.

This conversation began with how we might be able live in England long enough to finish the research necessary to complete my book on the “Lost Lord Keeper”. Although my last trip to the UK was wonderful, I was jet lagged half the time, and there was a surprisingly long list of things that simply couldn’t be packed into a two week visit.  To get this done is really going to require living there.

It was a chilly day of drizzle when we visited the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Courteenhall, England (Sir Richard Lane’s boyhood home, and home to the tomb of his parents)

So we sorted out what it would take, and the changes we’d have to make to pull it off. It required some sobering sacrifices…but it was doable. Once we got our heads around that much, we realized there was no reason to stop there.  Once we could accept being uprooted for awhile, why not live for a season or two in all the interesting places we’ve longed to see? If we are able to find affordable but well connected places in which to make a temporary home, we could make day trips to all the nearby places we’d love to spend time in. What would it be like if we were able to live in each place long enough to really explore, to make friends, to learn some local cooking, to find some great local pubs, and to learn some basic fluency in the language? While there, we could bike and hike our way to countless quiet places we could only rush past any other way.

Map of key sites of interest in the Richard Lane story in southern England, Jersey and France.

Our initial plans for a post-England “world tour” will likely include successive months-long stays in Czechoslovakia, France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, Australia, Paraguay and Panama. While in each of these places, we hope to make many short trips to visit all around each region. All the while, I can write from wherever I am, and especially if we are still in Western Europe, it would be easy enough to “pop over” to the UK should I need to follow up on research (or visit friends). Who knows, I might even find my next research project somewhere along the way…

The hard part about this plan is being away from places we know as home, and those we love. Thankfully, we live in a time in which technology has made it easier than ever to remain in meaningful touch with those you care about while you are away from them.  But we also plan to fly home for a couple of months at least once a year so we can spend real time with the friends and family we have been blessed with.

And this is where a really intriguing possibility occurred to us: while we are overseas, why not invite our friends and family to come spend time with us? All we have to do is rent a flat with an extra bedroom and (with a little coordination) we can host them and share the magic of wherever we are with them too—with their housing, meals and transportation taken care of.

And at the end of it all, when we finally return home?  We will absolutely invite our new overseas friends to come stay with us in America. How fun would it be to repay hospitality by sharing the magic of Colorado with friends who might never see it any other way?

Basic means aside, all of this only requires that we be willing to live more simply, and to travel light.

No doubt, there will be challenges. But I have a great partner and cohort to solve them with. And, if we are somehow able to do (and share) all this, we might just giggle ourselves to sleep in those rocking chairs!

So, with apologies about being “offline” for so long, please stay tuned! I’m settled into my new job. The heavy lifting of selling my house and moving is over. All of my research materials have finally been found and unpacked.  Shortly, I will be back into my writing rhythm again!

So what’s next? 

Up next is an entirely new topic—an interesting set of articles looking into Richard Lane’s experiences as one of the King’s Commissioners in the 1645 Peace Treaty Negotiations at the “Crown and Treaty” in Uxbridge. If you google “Crown and Treaty Uxbridge” you will find Wikipedia has a good overview article about this beautiful venue and the peace negotiations that were held there nearly 400 years ago.

The 500-year-old Crown and Treaty, Uxbridge. Photo credit Wikipedia.

I’m looking forward to local reactions in Uxbridge regarding the novel reconstruction I’ve done of this historic site. Drawing on various bits of historical evidence and the timeless practicalities of civil design, I’ve managed a reconstruction includes not only the structure of the original building and its long vanished grounds, but also a significant portion of its original interior. Included in this reconstruction is the very room that was once packed with the “commissioners” as they tried desperately to find a way to stop the Civil War (spoiler alert: Unfortunately, I’ve determined this room no longer exists).  This was a challenge…although I’ve visited the Crown and Treaty, it was between owners and locked up at the time. I’ve never been inside…

Note: I just noticed that the Crown and Treaty has recently been re-opened (and looks wonderful–can’t wait to have dinner there someday!). There are now lots of interior pictures which were not available when I did my reconstruction. It will be fun to match them up with my model to see how I did working in the blind!