Cover of Grotesque architecture; or, rural amusement consisting of plans, elevations, and sections, for huts, retreats, summer and winter hermitages, terminaries, Chinese, Gothic — A Closer Reading

Grotesque architecture; or, rural amusement consisting of plans, elevations, and sections, for huts, retreats, summer and winter hermitages, terminaries, Chinese, Gothic — A Closer Reading

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Authors: Wrighte, William Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2022 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Architecture, Domestic -- Designs and plans Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 5,608

Reading time 25 min

Text sections 1

This digital edition of Grotesque architecture; or, rural amusement consisting of plans, elevations, and sections, for huts, retreats, summer and winter hermitages, terminaries, Chinese, Gothic — A Closer Reading is described by source-level measurements including 5,608 words, 25 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 22.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Architecture, Domestic -- Designs and plans,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #69417

William Wrighte's 1815 pattern book presents 28 designs for follies and garden structures, using rough materials like roots, flints, and thatch. The descriptions shift from practical instructions to poetic evocations of setting, revealing an author attentive to both construction and atmosphere.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg69417

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_Where Severn, Trent, or Thames's Ouzy side Pours the smooth Current of their easy Tide, Each will require a sameneſs to the Spot, For this a Cell, a Cascade or a Grot; The Moſs, or gliding Streams productive Store, To grace the Building on the Verdant Shore, There the rough Tuscan, or the Rustic fix, Or Pebbles, Shells, or calcin'd Matter mix, The frozen Isicles resembled form, Or Sea-green Weed your Grotto must adorn._

Art of Architecture, _a Poem_.

GROTESQUE ARCHITECTURE;

CONSISTING OF PLANS, ELEVATIONS, AND SECTIONS, FOR HUTS, RETREATS, SUMMER AND WINTER HERMITAGES, TERMINARIES, _CHINESE, GOTHIC, AND NATURAL GROTTOS,_ CASCADES, BATHS, MOSQUES, MORESQUE PAVILIONS, GROTESQUE AND RUSTIC SEATS, GREEN-HOUSES, &c.

_Many of which may be executed with_ Flints, Irregular Stones, Rude Branches, and Roots of Trees.

THE WHOLE CONTAINING TWENTY-EIGHT NEW DESIGNS, WITH SCALES TO EACH.

TO WHICH IS ADDED, _AN EXPLANATION_, WITH THE METHOD OF EXECUTING THEM.

By WILLIAM WRIGHTE, Architect.

LONDON: _Printed by W. Stratford, Crown-Court, Temple-Bar; for_ J. TAYLOR, AT THE ARCHITECTURAL LIBRARY, NO. 59, HIGH HOLBORN.

GROTESQUE ARCHITECTURE.

Plan and elevation of a hut, to be built with trunks of trees and irregular timber. The inside walls may be lined with moss, and covered on the top with thatch. It is intended to represent the primitive state of the Doric Order, and is proper to be placed at the entrance of a wood, or on the top of a small eminence. The dimensions are figured on the plan.

Plan and elevation of an hermetic retreat, to be composed of roots and irregular branches of trees, cemented together with a strong binding clay, and may be thatched or covered with branches of trees twined round with ivy. The dimensions are figured on the plan.

Elevation of an hermit's cell, with rustic seats attached, eight feet square in the inside, which should be situated in a rising wood near some running water, to be built partly of large stones and trunks of trees, set round with ivy, and lined with rushes, &c. The roof should be covered with thatch, and the floor paved with small pebble stones or cockle shells. The seats attached are intended to be composed of large irregular stones, roots of trees, &c.

Plan and elevation for an hermitage, in the eastern style, supposed to be built round a tree which supports its roof; over the door is a tablet, with an Arabic inscription; the roof is covered with thatch, in the Chinese taste; the inside to be lined with billet wood and moss. It is lighted from the lanterns above. A. should be a couch; B. C. are seats of retirement. The dimensions are figured in the plan. The rustic seats on the side are intended to be composed of large rough stones and roots of pollard trees cemented together.

Plan and elevation of a winter hermitage, intended as a retirement from hunting, fowling, or any other winter amusement; the walls to be built of flints or rough stones, and lined with wood or other warm substance intermixed with moss, and should be situated on a rising ground planted with evergreens.

Plan and elevation of a summer hermitage, designed to be in a wilderness or thick wood; the walls to be composed of large stones, and the ends faced with flints; the roof covered with thatch, and an owl carved on the top; the floor should be paved with sheeps marrow-bones placed upright, or any other pretty devices intermixed with them. A. is for a couch; B. C. are seats of retirement.

Plan and elevation of an hermitage in the Augustine style; the front is ornamented with a portico of palm trees; in the pediment is a scull, and a tablet with an inscription. A. A. are passages of evergreens leading to the two circular retreats, one of which is intended as a library, and the other a bath; the tops of them are intended to be thatched; b b b. are niches for seats cut in the evergreens. This design is calculated to be built on a small verdant amphitheatre, near a murmuring stream, and as a proper retreat from the fatigues of a sultry day.

A plan, half an elevation, and half a section, of a rural circular hermitage, designed for an open situation near some rivulet, planted with weeping willows, &c. The inside is lighted by a gazebo, supported by eight trunks of trees twined about with ivy. The dimensions are figured on the plan.

Plan, elevation, and section, of a grotto in a modern architectonic style, ornamented with jet d'eaux, sea weeds, looking-glass, fountains, and other grotesque decorations. The dimensions may be known by the scale and the figures on the plan.

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William Wrighte's Grotesque Architecture; or, Rural Amusement (1815) is a pattern book of twenty-eight designs for garden structures—huts, hermitages, grottos, baths, and pavilions—intended to be built from rough, natural materials such as “trunks of trees,” “irregular stones,” and “roots of trees.” The title page promises plans, elevations, and sections, and the text delivers concise descriptions for each plate. Yet the voice is not purely technical: Wrighte often pauses to specify a structure’s ideal setting—a “rising wood near some running water” or “the entrance of a wood”—and to recommend interior finishes like moss, rushes, or cockle shells. This blend of builder’s instruction and picturesque sensibility gives the work a distinctive double character.

From Practical Instruction to Poetic Setting

The descriptions in Grotesque Architecture move between two registers. On one hand, Wrighte supplies precise dimensions and materials: the hermit’s cell is “eight feet square in the inside,” to be built “partly of large stones and trunks of trees, set round with ivy.” On the other, he frequently adds a situational note that evokes a landscape. The hermetic retreat should be placed “in a rising wood near some running water”; the hut is “proper to be placed at the entrance of a wood, or on the top of a small eminence.” These asides are not functional—they do not affect the plan—but they reveal an author who imagines each structure as part of a composed view. The frontispiece poem reinforces this, advising that each site “will require a sameness to the Spot” and naming rivers—Severn, Trent, Thames—as if to anchor the designs in real English countryside.

Materials as Design Vocabulary

Wrighte’s material palette is deliberately rustic and varied. He recommends “trunks of trees and irregular timber” for a hut meant to evoke “the primitive state of the Doric Order,” and “roots and irregular branches of trees, cemented together with a strong binding clay” for an hermetic retreat. For the hermit’s cell, the floor should be “paved with small pebble stones or cockle shells.” The grottos and cascades call for “Pebbles, Shells, or calcin’d Matter” and “Sea-green Weed.” This emphasis on found or salvaged materials—flints, irregular stones, rude branches—gives the designs a makeshift, organic quality. Wrighte does not simply specify materials; he treats them as a design vocabulary, one that can be varied to produce different effects: the frozen icicle form, the rustic seat, the Chinese-style thatch.

The Pace of Description and the Role of the Plate

The text’s pace is uniform but not monotonous. Each plate description follows a pattern: identify the structure, list materials, note dimensions, suggest a setting, and occasionally add a decorative detail. Yet within this template, Wrighte varies the emphasis. Some entries are almost entirely material-focused (Plate I: “to be built with trunks of trees and irregular timber”), while others dwell on atmosphere (Plate III: “should be situated in a rising wood near some running water”). The longest descriptions include interior features—a couch, seats of retirement, an Arabic inscription—that hint at a narrative use for the building. Because the plates themselves are not reproduced in this text, the reader must infer the visual from the verbal, which gives the descriptions an oddly speculative quality. The transcriber’s note about inconsistent spelling (“icicles/isicles,” “pavilion/pavillion”) reminds us that this is a printed document with its own material history.

Wrighte’s book is best approached as a hybrid: part builder’s manual, part landscape architect’s sketchbook. Readers interested in the history of the picturesque or in eighteenth-century garden follies will find here a compact catalogue of types. Those looking for practical construction details will need to supply their own plates, but the verbal descriptions are precise enough to guide a model-maker. The work rewards attention to its small variations in tone—from the terse to the evocative—and to the way it imagines architecture as a dialogue between rough materials and refined setting.

What struck me most about Wrighte’s follies was how he treated rough roots and flints as if they whispered their own story. That quiet patience for the overlooked—I felt it again browsing Lincoln in Caricature — A Reader’s Guide, where every sketch holds a mood more than a fact. Neither book shouts. They just wait, and you linger.