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88-562: The park formerly belonged to Tring Park Mansion , built in 1682 by Christopher Wren and altered externally in the nineteenth century. In the early eighteenth century Charles Bridgeman was employed to lay out the grounds, with a summerhouse and other buildings designed by James Gibbs . The park is Grade II listed by English Heritage in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England . The two areas of

176-457: A circle of lime trees at the 'rond point' and improving the vista over the park and town. In the northeast corner are two Grade II listed monuments: an obelisk known locally as Nell Gwynne's monument, and the summerhouse with a grand four-column temple-style portico. 51°47′01″N 0°39′22″W  /  51.7837°N 0.6561°W  / 51.7837; -0.6561 Tring Park Mansion Tring Park Mansion or Mansion House, Tring Park,

264-497: 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

352-470: 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

440-441: 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

528-802: A grandson of William the Conqueror. He later became King Stephen of England . In 1148 King Stephen and Queen Matilda founded the Cluniac order of St Saviour at Faversham in Kent and the Manor of Tring was presented to the abbey. It was later exchanged for other properties with the Archbishop of Canterbury . When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during the 1530s, the manor was confiscated and became Crown property and remained in Royalist hands up to

616-655: 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

704-478: 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

792-783: 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

880-432: A particularly serious disagreement – principally with regard to Walter's inability to control his finances concerning the museum – he disinherited his elder son. Whilst the title would pass to Walter, the house and estate were all left to his younger brother, Charles. Although disinherited, Walter had been by no means cut off without a penny: his father had given him a capital sum of a million pounds to live off. In 1908 this

968-416: 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

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1056-426: A result of Walter's zoological pursuits, Tring Park housed not only his well-known zebras but also emus, rheas and kangaroos, which roamed wild in the parklands. The kangaroos were a nightmare for the gardeners: at 6.30 in the morning, Lord Rothschild would often go riding before breakfast. The kangaroos, with total disregard for the ha-ha separating the park from the grounds, would jump up and spend time roaming around

1144-473: 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

1232-504: 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

1320-470: 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

1408-665: 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

1496-454: A tall brick wall from the same period. Other alterations to the house included the remodelling of the entrance (east) front where the portico, which had originally faced onto the former Aylesbury to Berkhamsted road through the park, was demolished and a new porte-cochère was built on the north front. The east front was rebuilt with a shallow bow window rising through all three floors and the former entrance hall enclosed by large glass doors at

1584-404: 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

1672-580: 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

1760-730: Is a large country house in Tring , Hertfordshire . The house, as "Tring Park", was used, and from 1872 owned, by members of the Rothschild family from 1838 to 1945. The mansion and its immediate grounds are now home to the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts . Tring Park now usually refers to that part of the original estate south of the A41. It is public open space, owned by Dacorum Borough Council and managed by

1848-418: 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 ,

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1936-465: 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

2024-519: The Church of St Leonard . 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

2112-596: 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

2200-740: The Natural History Museum at South Kensington. The final dissolution of the Tring Park estate came in October 1938 when the estate was broken up and sold piecemeal. It consisted of eleven farms, numerous smallholdings, allotments, cottages and shops in Tring, Aston Clinton , Bucklands, Drayton Beauchamp , Cholesbury , Wigginton , Marsworth and Long Marston as well as the stud farm in Akeman Street. During World War II

2288-584: The Woodland Trust . Originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1680s, the house was considerably expanded in the 1780s and again in the 1880s. The Manor of Tring is first mentioned in the Domesday Book where it is referred to as "Treunge" and was owned by Eustace III, Count of Boulogne , a countryman of William the Conqueror . The Count's daughter Matilda of Boulogne inherited it from her father and went on to marry Stephen of Blois,

2376-623: 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

2464-535: 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

2552-653: 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

2640-405: 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

2728-595: 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

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2816-580: 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

2904-545: 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

2992-481: 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

3080-922: 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. One of Wren's friends, Robert Hooke , scientist and architect and

3168-413: 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

3256-435: 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. It was probably around this time that Sir Christopher Wren was drawn into redesigning a battered St Paul's Cathedral . Making

3344-573: The SSSI are grassland on chalk scarp which have a diverse flora including rare species. Much of the parkland is managed by grazing, but ungrazed scrub on sloping areas provides habitat for invertebrates and breeding birds. In the wooded Chiltern escarpment are former carriage rides. One of these, King Charles Ride or the King's Ride, forms part of the Ridgeway National Trail . In 2013 work started to restore King Charles Ride by replanting

3432-659: 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

3520-451: 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

3608-525: 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

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3696-512: 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

3784-463: 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

3872-470: 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

3960-452: The buildings were razed and replaced with a mock-Tudor cottage ( 51°47'40.58"N 0°39'26.21"W ) designed by Tring architect William Huckvale who rebuilt many of the estate's properties in and around Tring. The cupola from one of the Wren pavilions was removed and mounted on the stable block designed by James Gibbs . The cottage still stands today and is partially visible from London Road, beyond

4048-416: 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 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

4136-490: The course of what has now become Tring High Street. The property passed through two further generations of the Gore family before being sold to Sir Drummond Smith, a London banker, in 1786. He made extensive changes both to the park and the house, which until that time had remained unaltered from Wren's original design. The contours of the parklands were smoothed and flattened to present a more naturalistic outlook in keeping with

4224-464: 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

4312-600: The estate was sold to William Kay, a Manchester textile magnate for £90,000. Two years later, Kay's brother built the silk-throwing mill in Brook Street, providing employment for over six hundred people. William Kay's son inherited the house in 1838 and it was from this time that Lionel de Rothschild began renting it as a summer home. When the Kays decided to sell in 1872, Baron Lionel de Rothschild bought Tring Park and its 3,643 acres (14.74 km ), which also included

4400-506: The family moved to Tring with their son Walter Rothschild , aged four; their daughter Evelina and second son Charles Rothschild were both born at Tring. The family divided their time between their London home at 148 Piccadilly and Tring Park. Lady Rothschild preferred to remain at Tring with her children throughout much of the year and quite often her husband would be on his own at the sprawling London residence, surrounded by dust-sheeted furniture. Sir Nathaniel became Lord Rothschild in 1885,

4488-533: The first Jewish peer raised to the House of Lords , just as his father, Lionel, had been the first Jewish Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons . Lionel was first elected in 1847 but was unable to take his seat in the Commons for another eleven years until the discriminatory legislation against Jews was removed . During the late 1880s Lord Rothschild began making significant structural alterations to

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4576-523: The first set of columns to form another reception room. This room, the Morning Room, originally had a double-height ceiling but was given a massive barrel-vault in order to reduce the visible height of the room. By the time Walter Rothschild had become a young man, it was clear that he had no interest in the family's banking business. His passion was zoology and it was to this end that he devoted his life's work. The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum

4664-427: 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-foot (11 m) telescope with Sir Paul Neile. Wren also studied and improved the microscope and telescope at this time. He had also been making observations of

4752-509: The house was used by the N M Rothschild & Sons bank, as a repository for the safe-keeping of documents and valuables outside London. The Tring Home Guard also used the park grounds for exercises and training. After the end of the war, the bank had no further use for the house and the new Lord Rothschild had no desire to reinstate the estate. The mansion was leased by the Prudential Assurance Company and in 1945

4840-460: The house: in 1889 work began on the Smoking Room extension to designs by George Devey and the whole house was refaced in red brick with white ashlar dressing. The conservatory and orangery were demolished (thereby removing the last tenuous link with Nell Gwynne) and the foundations used for the base of the new Smoking Room. In the same year the whole roof was lifted and a full-height top floor

4928-479: 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

5016-513: 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

5104-405: The lawns, digging up and eating the flowers in the formal beds around the drawing room terrace. The gardeners, who had been up since 5am, then had to quickly replant these before Lord Rothschild appeared at the stables. Walter assumed the title of 2nd Lord Rothschild of Tring in 1915. Three years later, after the end of World War I , the family donated the house's lily pond and immediate grounds to

5192-458: 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

5280-459: The manors of Miswell, Hastoe, Dunsley and Willstone for £ 230,000 – this equates to about £8,000,000 in today's money. Lionel gave the property to his son, Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild as an overdue wedding gift. The location was very convenient since he had been Member of Parliament for Aylesbury since 1865 and the Rothschild family had also acquired a number of estates in the area. In 1872

5368-481: 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. 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

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5456-469: 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

5544-503: 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

5632-665: The reign of Charles I . In 1650 Charles I arranged to have the manor transferred to his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria , only to have it confiscated by Parliamentary Forces during the English Civil War . When Charles II was re-established as monarch in the English Restoration in 1660, he gave the house to his Groom of the Bedchamber , Sir Henry Guy in 1680. Guy became Secretary to the Treasury and it

5720-481: The reign of Queen Anne . Sir William died after two years and his son William inherited the estate, passing it in 1739 to his son Charles . It was Charles Gore who was responsible for diverting the main Aylesbury to Berkhamsted road from its existing course through the park, which took it straight past the front door of the mansion, to its present route, following considerably flatter terrain further north along

5808-417: 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

5896-442: The style of Capability Brown that was in vogue at the time and the interior of the house was extensively remodelled along the entire south range of reception rooms with the exception of the library, which retained its seventeenth century ceiling. The drawing room and sitting rooms were given moulded and carved plaster ceilings in the rococo style, complete with cherubs and garlands. Sir Drummond Smith died in 1816 without an heir and

5984-464: 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

6072-492: The terms of his father's will, Walter was now obliged to move out of Tring Park and the house and estate now passed to his brother Charles's branch of the family. Just two years later the 2nd Baron Rothschild of Tring died in his sleep on 27 August 1937 and the following year Victor, Charles's son – now the 3rd Lord – offered the museum and its collections to the British Museum . Walter's private museum now became part of

6160-490: The townspeople of Tring and it became the Memorial Gardens. Once it became evident that Walter would not marry, Lady Rothschild sold her dower house, Champneys near Wigginton (a little over 1 mile/1.7 km east of Tring Park Mansion), in 1923. Walter lived with his mother for the rest of her life and after living at Tring for more than sixty years, Lady Rothschild died peacefully on 8 January 1935 aged 91. Under

6248-641: 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. After receiving his M.A. in 1653, Wren

6336-584: 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

6424-493: Was an indescribably large amount and by the time of his father's death in 1915, Walter's finances were well in hand and he was able to mount overseas expeditions to locate new and exotic specimens as well as to purchase existing collections wholesale. The museum's displays included two-and-a-half million butterflies, set under glass, over three hundred thousand bird skins and copious specimens of mammals and reptiles. These remain to this day supreme examples of Victorian taxidermy. As

6512-704: Was built in the grounds in 1889 as a twenty-first birthday present. This housed his massive collection of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects. In 1892 the museum opened to the public and three new wings were added between 1906 and 1912 – the Bird Wing, the Library and the Lepidoptera Hall – in order to accommodate the huge numbers of specimens, amassed by Walter personally and the collectors he employed on his behalf. Walter's father had always disapproved of his son's consuming interest in zoology and after

6600-465: 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,

6688-431: 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

6776-759: Was highly regarded by Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal . 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

6864-568: Was inserted, replacing the mezzanine, with a slate Mansard roof complete with its French-style finials and a ten-foot gilded weathervane. Lord Rothschild continued to make alterations to Tring Park and these included the controversial rebuilding of the London Lodge in 1895 when two pavilions, believed to be part of Wren's original design and which originally stood on either side of the London Road, were demolished. Despite local protests,

6952-778: Was leased and subsequently purchased by the Cone-Ripman School which, in turn, became the Arts Educational School, Tring Park, which became the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts . In 1975 the A41 Tring Bypass was opened, splitting the former parklands in two. 51°47′30″N 0°39′27″W  /  51.79176°N 0.65751°W  / 51.79176; -0.65751 Sir Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren FRS ( / r ɛ n / ; 30 October 1632 [ O.S. 20 October] – 8 March 1723 [ O.S. 25 February])

7040-479: 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

7128-407: 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

7216-481: 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

7304-471: Was not unusual... Perhaps Wren also had experience of the business of fortification, more than we know." 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

7392-574: 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

7480-466: 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

7568-579: 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

7656-526: Was widely believed that he used this position to subsidise the construction of a new manor house to a design by Sir Christopher Wren . Guy was sent to the Tower of London soon after William III and Mary II acceded to the throne in the Glorious Revolution in 1688 on account of his misappropriation of Treasury funds. Tring Park was sold in 1705 to William Gore , Lord Mayor of London during

7744-540: 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

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