Sir James Thornhill 1675-1734

The present drawing depicts a design for the hall chimneypiece for Briggens Park, Stanstead Abbots, Hertfordshire. In 1719, Robert Chester, a director of the South Sea Company, commissioned the stone-mason Christopher Cass (1678-1734) to build the house. The following year the South Sea Bubble famously burst, and not only were the directors of the company arrested, but all their property was confiscated. Thornhill’s design for the hall chimneypiece at Briggens evidently predates the bursting of the Bubble and as a result Charles Hind has questioned whether the design was ever carried out.

The verso of this sheet depicts plans of the Great Parlour at Luxborough, a now demolished house at Chigwell, Essex. This was remodelled to Thornhill's designs 1716-19 for another South Sea Company director Richard Knight.