Only the ‘Ruins’ remain to mystify the present-day visitors
Virginia Water 1st January 1800

The Chinese Fishing Temple has gone. The Royal fleet of boats is no more. Only the ‘Ruins’ remain to mystify the present-day visitors who come to Virginia Water.

The onset of George III’s malady became more persistent after 1800. The final illness began in 1810 and for another ten years he lingered on, a pathetic and helpless figure, until death at long last released him. The King’s illness is now diagnosed as porphyria, a disease caused by an imbalance in the pigments in the cells of the human body which are known as porphyrins. It has many unpleasant symptoms and in acute stages, as with George III, can lead to delirium and delusions. Porphyria was, however, unknown to medical science at the beginning of the nineteenth century. So everyone at the time thought he was mad and his treatment accorded with this diagnosis.

George, Prince of Wales, assumed the Regency in February 1811 when it became clear that there was no hope of another Royal recovery and, when his father died in 1820, he succeeded to the throne as King George IV. He remained King until his own death at Windsor in 1830.

There could hardly have been a greater contrast of characters than that between father and son. Whatever his limitations and they were many — George III was often kindly and amiable in his private life. George IV, though he knew how to charm and how to entertain, was vain, volatile, extravagant, self-indulgent.

As long as he lived, Windsor Castle remained an asylum for George III and the home of Queen Charlotte and the ‘sisterhood’ of her five unmarried daughters. The Prince Regent decided therefore to make Cumberland Lodge his Windsor residence. He had hardly, however, made the decision when a fire caused such serious damage that the Lodge had to be extensively re-built. Sir Jeffrey Wyatville was the architect and, while the Prince Regent was waiting for the Lodge to be made habitable again, he decided to occupy the Lower Lodge, where Thomas Sandby had lived.

What was originally intended, however, to be a temporary makeshift lasted until 1830. Not that the Prince was satisfied with the Lower Lodge as it was. With the help of John Nash, it was transformed and fitted up in the sumptuous style which accorded with his lavish tastes. The gardens too were superb, with — ocourse — peacocks on the lawns. ‘His rage for alterations was boundless’, wrote one of George IV’s first biographers, Robert Huish, ‘and the only thing which he would not alter, or which he considered did not require altering, was himself’.’

The new Lower Lodge — the King’s Cottage or the Royal Lodge as it now came to be known — was bizarre. Most things associated with George IV were in fact magnificent or grotesque or both. The Royal Pavilion at Brighton, re-built between 1815 and 1822, was his most flamboyant fantasy, and he continued to use it as one of his principal residences until well on into the 1820s. But Windsor increasingly attracted him. He did not, however, move into the Castle after his father’s death. The Castle too had to be transformed. With Jeffrey Wyatville again as architect, the reconstruction of the Castle began in 1824. George IV was able to make use of the Castle at the very end of his reign and it was here that he died, but the creation of what was in effect a new Royal palace of romantic grandeur was not complete until 1836. It was in the luxurious Royal Lodge in the Park that he found the seclusion which enabled him to put the world of public affairs out of sight and, when he wished, out of mind. William Cobbett, that most determined of radicals, once tried to petition the King here. He did not get further than 400 yards from the Lodge. Sir Owen Morshead relates in his book, George IV and Royal Lodge, how the King had his own private way from the Castle to the Park and ‘had rides so arranged . . . that he had between 20 and 30 miles of neatly-planted avenues from which the public were wholly excluded. At certain points of these rides which open towards the public thoroughfares of the park there were always servants stationed on these occasions, to prevent the intrusion of strangers upon the King’s privacy’. Cobbett himself, passing through the Park in 1822 on one of his ‘rural rides’, commented: ‘A very large part of the park is covered with heath or rushes, sure sign of execrable soil. But the roads are such as might have been made by Solomon’.

There were extensions and improvements in every part of the Park. The Belvedere, the little triangular ‘fort’ on Shrubs Hill, was enlarged by Wyatville, who added turrets and additional rooms including an octagonal dining room. On the terrace the Duke of Cumberland’s cannon were deployed to make provision for the firing of salutes on suitable occasions. There was a menagerie at Sandpit with wapities and chamois and gazelles. Later, there was the huge equestrian statue of Ged Ill on Snow Hill at the southern end of the Long Walk. George IV did not live to see the erection of the statue, which took place in 1831, but he laid the foundation stone in August 1829. One would like to think that the inscription ‘GEORGIO TERTIO, PATRI OPTIMO, GEORGIUS REX’ was inspired by a contrite heart and a stricken conscience.

George IV was passionately fond of angling. He was accustomed to fish in the Thames from the Home Park until in 1826 a scurrilous cartoon carrying the title ‘A King-Fisher’, and showing the King with his friend Lady Conyngham, angered him so much that he turned to Virginia Water. The lake provided him with the privacy he desired for his recreation. But ‘the simple pleasures of life’ had no meaning for him. Everything he did was ostentatious and Virginia Water became his ‘gilded toy’. He built a new Chinese Fishing Temple, bigger and more ornate than its eighteenth century predecessor on the Chinese Island. The vitriolic Robert Huish, describing the Temple, commented that for its building and decoration ‘thousands were extracted from the public purse to enable royalty and the paramour of royalty to angle for minnows and sticklebacks’.

The lake had been neglected during the illness of George Ill, so that in any case a great deal of work needed to be done. At the eastern end there were major repairs to the Cascade. The water had penetrated and washed away much of the earth, so that there was a danger of collapse. A new grating was placed above the Cascade ‘to prevent Fish going out of the Pond’. At the other end China Island was tidied up and the lake deepened and cleared of weeds. Five Arch Bridge, the stone bridge which had replaced the original wooden ‘High Bridge’ in 1790, was re-built in 1826 to create a bridge architecturally imposing and still able today to cope with the demands of modern traffic.

The new Chinese Temple, with three octagonal spires and dragon-crowned turrets, was the most colourful of George IV’s new follies at Virginia Water. This was on a small island on the northern shore of the lake, where the ancient manor lodge had been situated. One or more bridges connected it to the ‘mainland’. It was in fact a new China Island, although that name continued to be borne by the original eighteenth century island at the western end of the lake. The Temple is again attributed to Wyatville, although it is probably based on designs by an architect named Frederick Crace, who had earlier done work for the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. The Temple was set at the edge of the lake and a long gallery over the water extended the whole length of the building. The exterior was brilliantly coloured. Charles Greville, the diarist, who visited it soon after the King’s death, described it as ‘beautifully ornamented, with one large room and a dressing room on either side, a kitchen, offices etc, and in a garden full of flowers, shut out from everything’. A larger building, also in ‘the Chinese taste’, appears in the background in illustrations and Robert Huish, writing in 1830, probably had both buildings in mind when he commented on ‘the inharmonious introduction of these fantastical buildings, amidst the natural luxuriance of the spot’. Other accounts mention an aviary and a fountain stocked with golden and silver carp.

To the east of the Fishing Temple island was the wide creek which leads from Johnson’s Pond to the main lake. On the slopes above the opposite bank were a number of tents. Greville described them as ‘communicating together in separate compartments and forming a very good house, a dining room, drawing room, and several other small rooms, very well furnished’. In the summer the King used to dine every day either in the Temple or in the tents. These dinner parties often continued for three or four hours or more, for the King was capable of consuming gargantuan meals and could get through two or three bottles of claret before rising from the table.

The daily outings to Virginia Water were described by a number of those who took part in them. Lady Shelley, a member of the King’s entourage, recorded in her diary: ‘They meet at three o’clock, at which hour five or six phaetons come to the door, each to receive a lady and gentleman who drive about the country until five. At that hour the whole party dine on the shore of Virginia Water... The party sit at table until between 9 and 10 o’clock, then they return to the Cottage, dress presto, and go into the saloon where they play at ?cart? and other games until midnight. It is every day the same. Oh! monotony!’

Another unwilling participant was the Duke of Wellington, who echoed Lady Shelley’s sentiments about what he called this perpetual ‘junkething’ which lasted ‘from morning till night’. He wrote to his friend, Mrs Arbuthnot, one summer day in 1824: ‘We embarked yesterday at three, and were upon the lake of Como, either in the boat or dining, till nine. We then returned, dressed as quickly as possible and passed the night at Ecart? and supper from which we broke up about one, thus passing ten hours in company! In my life I never heard so much nonsense or folly or so many lies in the same space of time. . . We are to have a repetition of the same today, as I see that unfortunately it is a fine day’

The Duke of Cumberland had put his hand deeply into his own pocket to find the money for the works carried out in the Park in the mid-eighteenth century. There are no indications that George IV ever demeaned himself by emulating his great-uncle’s example.There is a pertinent comment, for instance, that relates to the tents. Thomas Creevy, as Treasurer of the Ordnance, wrote to a friend on 30 June 1831: ‘I have been given a curious receipt upon a curious subject. The Duke of Wellington and Sir William Knighton have this day paid me ?3,170 as executors of his late Majesty. The money is for tents erected upon that part ofWindsor Park called Virginia Water. The canvas comprising the tents is from Ordnance Stores, and as His Majesty was pleased to imagine that whenever he took the field his Ordnance Department must supply him with tents, he never meant topay for these articles.

What think you of the payment of the artificers who put up these tents — four large and four small ones — being upwards of 12000 out of the ?3,170? If such a sum can have been spent upon a few tents what think you of the whole expenditure of the Virginia Water Cottage etc, etc?’

A small fleet of boats was gradually assembled on the lake. The Windsor Express for 18 March 1828 reported that ‘Captain Charles Inglis’s beautiful miniature man-of-war, ?The Victorine?, the gem of all aquatic picturesque amusements, is to be brought from the Thames at Greenwich, to Virginia Water, for the service of our most gracious Sovereign. Lieut Inglis, son of Captain Inglis, is now at Greenwich arranging for the man-of-war to be brought to Virginia Water. This magnificent craft will prove a valuable and most attractive addition to the Virginia Water Fleet of His Majesty’.

Already there was a ‘superb yacht’ and a ‘royal barge’. The latter seems to have been on the lake since 1823. Illustrations show it with a canopied compartment in the poop for the King and those with him, the ‘silken flag of royalty’ at the stern, and as many as twenty oarsmen, seated in pairs with their long oars swinging in unison as the vessel traversed the lake. Clearly, there was also a smaller barge (this appears in the illustration of the Duchess of Kent’s birthday celebrations in 1842), which was used for the band. This boat was often moored at the lakeside and, when the King went aboard the Royal Barge, he was greeted with the strains of God Save the King. It is easy to imagine the Royal pleasure in being rowed on summer evenings on the placid water of the lake in its setting of woodland and gentle hills.

The ‘Ruins’ by the lakeside also date from the time of George IV. There are two lines of columns facing each other and at right angles to the lake. Some are surmounted by broken entablatures, while scattered around are parts of columns and shafts. Almost all of these are of granite. The more impressive section of the ‘Ruins’ lies in the grounds of Fort Belvedere, beyond the rather incongruous brick road bridge (this was built in George IV’s time to provide him with a carriage drive beneath the existing road). The columns here are of capallino, a white-and-green marble. They are again broken and in some cases only the base and a fragmented section of the shaft remain, but they are formed into a semi-circular apse which has some claim to be called picturesque. In the spring, clumps of primroses add a touch of colour to the rather sombre setting. There were originally also statues and inscribed stones, but most or all of these have disappeared over the years.

The presence of the ‘Ruins’ here is entirely in accord with George IV’s other follies at Virginia Water. They came from the Roman-built port and city of Lepcis Magna, some seventy miles to the east of the city of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. In the second and third centuries AD Lepcis was a place of considerable size. It declined with the decline of the Roman Empire itself and much of it disappeared beneath the sand. The very sand, however, which overwhelns’ by the lakeside also date from the time of George IV. There are two lines of columns facing each other and at right angles to the lake. Some are surmounted by broken entablatures, while scattered around are parts of columns and shafts. Almost all of these are of granite. The more impressive section of the ‘Ruins’ lies in the grounds of Fort Belvedere, beyond the rather incongruous brick road bridge (this was built in George IV’s time to provide him with a carriage drive beneath the existing road). The columns here are of capallino, a white-and-green marble. They are again broken and in some cases only the base and a fragmented section of the shaft remain, but they are formed into a semi-circular apse which has some claim to be called picturesque. In the spring, clumps of primroses add a touch of colour to the rather sombre setting. There were originally also statues and inscribed stones, but most or af columns, sculptures and entablatures.

The chief problem arose from the sheer bulk and weight of the stones and it was some little while before arrangements could be made for the necessary transport. In the meantime the local inhabitants, alerted to the impending loss of their supply of building materials, removed parts of the columns. In particular they cut away the necking and base mouldings of some of the columns to provide millstones to grind olives.

Eventually, in October 1817, the storeship Weymouth arrived and such columns and other fragments as could be fitted into the hold of the ‘ship were loaded. Smyth reported: ‘I had the satisfaction to perceive the mighty masses embarked and stowed away at the rate of at least 60 tons a day’. Three marble columns proved to be too large and had to be left lying on the beach. The Weymouth reached Malta on 19 November, but there were then further delays and England was not reached until March 1818. At some point what was intended as a personal gift to the Prince Regent was now to be accepted as a present to the British Government. However, neither the Foreign Office nor the Admiralty showed much interest; nor for that matter did the Prince Regent himself at this stage. So the columns ended up in the courtyard of the British Museum, where they remained for some six years.

The next chapter of the story began in August 1824 when a letter from Sir Charles Long, friend of the Prince Regent (now George IV) and also a Trustee of the British Museum, communicated ‘His Majesty’s commands that the Columns and Fragments deposited in the Courtyard of the Museum should be placed at the disposal of his architect, Mr Jeffrey Wyatt, to whom His Majesty had given further instructions concerning them’.

Another two years of obscurity followed, but then in its issue of 2 September 1826 the Windsor Express reported that on the previous Monday morning at 5 o’clock (this would be 28 August) ‘a detachment of the Royal Engineers left Woolwich for the British Museum for the purpose of removing the magnificent remains of the capitals, columns etc which for so long have lain neglected in the Museum Court Yard. The ruins are being taken to Virginia Water and re-erected on a site near the Falls at the express wish of His Majesty. On Monday the Engineers, 40 strong, succeeded in removing three columns, one of which alone weighed eight tons. Twelve horses were needed to haul the huge wagons from the Museum to Virginia Water. It will take more than six weeks to complete the operation’.

The removal and re-erection of the columns was completed by mid-October. There was obviously considerable public interest and much speculation. There were rumours that the ruins formed part of the Elgin marbles, but the Windsor Express of 14 October gave reasonably accurate details of their origin. Mock classical ruins were fashionable features of the landscape architecture of this period and what Jeffry Wyatt (now Sir Jeffry Wyatville) did was to use the material to represent a ruined antique temple. The ‘Ruins’ were in fact graced by the name of A Temple of Augustus, but this was merely a ‘pretty conceit’. The lay-out was clearly arranged with much care, but it had no relation to any original arrangement at Lepcis Magna.

For additional embellishments a number of statues and other architectural fragments, said to have been captured in a French ship during the wars against Napoleon, were brought from the Wolsey (now the Albert Memorial) Chapel in Windsor Castle, where they had been for some years.

So Virginia Water, with its Chinese Fishing Temple at one end and the Roman Ruins at the other, acquired an aroma of fantasy which expressed the eccentric tastes and the expensive habits of ‘the Prince of Pleasure’. As men of the next generation looked back, however, criticism mounted. Charles Knight, the celebrated Windsor journalist, for instance, in his Journey Book of Berkshire, published in 1840, commented acidly: ‘Real ruins, removed from the sites to which they belong, are the worst species of exotics. The tale which they tell of their old grandeur is quite out of harmony with their modern appropriation. The ruins here are prettily put together; but they are merely picturesque’.’?

Two books, also published in the 1840s, had much the same sort of thing to say about the Fishing Temple. Edward Jesse, Surveyor of HM Parks and Palaces, wrote in A Summer’s Day at Windsor: ‘It is impossible not to regret that a more appropriate fishing-house than the present temple was not built. It appears more suitable for a Chinese mandarin than for an English king. A Waltonian cottage would have been more in character with the place, and would have added to the effect of the scenery’.? Finally, in Windsor Castle and its Environs, Leith Ritchie summed up his description of the Fishing Temple by concluding: ‘There are gay and gaudy colours, and a proftision of brass and gilding, which present themselves in mortal antagonism with the assumed naturalness of the lake’.’

The Chinese Fishing Temple has gone. The Royal fleet of boats is no more. Only the ‘Ruins’ remain to mystify the present-day visitors who come to Virginia Water.