Last week I attended Historic Buildings and Places’ annual lecture at the Alan Baxter Gallery in Farringdon, where I was awarded the Stephen Croad Essay Prize 2023 for my paper on Balthazar Gerbier and Hamstead Marshall.
Gerbier is perhaps best know to seventeenth century historians as a Dutch courtier who helped the Duke of Buckingham develop his art collection, but Gerbier also designed buildings. The drawings for one of these, Hamstead Marshall, survive in the Bodleian Library. The house was somewhat unusual for its time (construction began in 1662), and my article fills in some gaps about its construction, discusses some possible problems encountered, and suggests what Gerbier was ultimately trying to achieve by building what I call a ‘proto-Baroque’ house for his patron, the 1st Earl of Craven.
After receiving my certificate, I gave a short talk on why the topic is of interest to me and my key findings. The essay will be published in Historic Buildings and Places’ journal next year.
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