George Repton's Pavilion Notebook: a catalogue raisonne

Temple, Nigel Hal Longdale

Abstract

The notebook kept between 1805 and 1818 by George Stanley Repton (1786-1858) when he was assistant to the architect John Nash (1752-1835) is the subject of this study. The book was bought py Brighton Art Gallery, Museums and Royal Pavilion in about 1970. To distinguish this i tern from earlier George Repton notebooks at the RIBA, it has been named here the Pavilion Notebook. Unlike its companion piece at the RIBA which has long been annotated in print and more recently detailed in the RIBA Catalogue, the Pavilion Notebook is little known and has not been the subject of detailed or sustained examination. Repton used 110 pages to record designs for forty-eight buildings - mainly minor ones covering a wide range of types, many of them in a rustic and perishable style - and two pages more for topographical drawings.
This study takes the form of a Catalogue Raisonne in two volumes: an examination of every subject in order of appearance in the Notebook. Some buildings depicted were already well known. But of maey, these drawings are the first, and sanetimes still the only, known record.
By means of documentary research and·fieldwork an attempt has been made to account for every design, and to throw new light on those buildings already familiar.
Volume I comprises mainly the illustrated Introduction, the illustrated Catalogue Raisonne, and Appendices, Bibliography, etc. Volmne 2 repro­ duces the Notebook to original size. Inscriptions appearing in it are transcribed in Appendix I.
A fuller understanding of Repton's professional upbringing has resulted; the relationship between himself, his father, his brothers and Nash been arrived at. Numerous new attributions and identifications have been made and smnmarised in Appendix 5. Much new resource material has been found and used, including a Red Book, documents and drawings, and H. Repton's recently disclosed Memoir.

Citation

Temple, N. H. L. (1985). George Repton's Pavilion Notebook: a catalogue raisonne