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The Temple Of The Four Winds
Early in 1724 Vanbrugh sent Lord Carlisle some designs for a pavilion for the south-east corner of Ray Wood, and shortly afterwards he was pleased to learn that the Earl had at last chosen the Temple with four Porticos.
Known originally as the Temple of Diana, the building – a cube with dome and porticos – is modelled in part on Andrea Palladio’s famous 16th century Villa Rotonda in Vicenza. By the time of Vanbrugh’s death in 1726, the Temple was unfinished and another ten years were to pass before the interiors were finally decorated with scagliola in 1738 by the stuccoist Francesco Vassalli.<
Beneath the temple is a cellar where servants would have stored and prepared food before serving it to polite company above. Used as a place for refreshment and reading, it commands impressive views, and to the north, a quarter of a mile away, is the site of Hawksmoor’s Temple of Venus.
This had been built in the 1730s in the form of an open rotunda of eight Tuscan columns under an octagonal entablature and dome, but it collapsed in the 1940s. Vanbrugh’s Temple narrowly avoided a similar fate before it was restored in 1955, one of the first of the major restoration projects undertaken by George Howard after the Second World War. In 2001 the Hon Simon Howard held his marriage ceremony with Rebecca Sieff in the Temple.
It is hoped that Hawksmoor’s lost temple can be rebuilt. In 2001 the base of the Temple of Venus was cleared revealing a low octagonal plinth and surrounding walkway. The original statue of Venus has survived and is today located in the Venus Rose Garden.