The choice of architect had been considered as early as 1720-Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Thomas Archer, John James, Nicholas Hawksmoor, and James Gibbs were considered.

The pits are named after Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, who had a house nearby, adjacent to Greenwich Park, now called Vanbrugh Castle.

The Duchess blamed Vanbrugh entirely for the growing costs and extravagance of the palace, the design of which she had never liked.

Following a meeting with the Duchess, Vanbrugh left the building site in a rage, insisting that the new masons, carpenters and craftsmen, brought in by the Duchess, were inferior to those he had employed.

Born in London and baptised on 24 January 1664, Vanbrugh was the fourth child ( of 19 ), and eldest surviving son, of Giles Vanbrugh, a London cloth-merchant of Flemish-Protestant background, and his wife Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Barker ( by whom Vanbrugh's mother had the first of her twenty children, Vanbrugh's elder half-sister, Elizabeth ), and daughter of Sir Dudley Carleton, of Imber Court, Thames Ditton, Surrey.

The complex web of kinship Downes ' research shows that Vanbrugh had ties to many of England's leading mercantile, gentry, and noble families.

She had famous subsequent disagreements with many important people, including her daughter the second Duchess of Marlborough ; the architect of Blenheim Palace, John Vanbrugh ; prime minister Robert Walpole ; King George II ; and his wife, Queen Caroline.

Following the surprising success of this young cast, Vanbrugh and Rich had even greater difficulty in retaining the actors needed for The Relapse.

It is known from Cibber's autobiography that Vanbrugh had a decisive say in the ongoing casting changes made during these seven months ; it is not known whether he altered his text to accommodate them.

The Verbruggens were essential to the play, not least because Vanbrugh had customized the sprightly temptress Berinthia to Susanna's talents and reputation for witty, roguish, sexually enterprising characters, most recently Mrs Buxom in Thomas D ' Urfey's Don Quixote ( a success thanks to " the extraordinary well acting of Mrs Verbruggen ", wrote D ' Urfey ).

In spite of much effort, it was not till after the publication of Stuart's Athens, in 1761, and of Adam's Spalatro — a statistical description, with many plates, of the palace of Diocletian — in 1757, that the reign of pure and severe classicism began in England, although Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, and Sir John Vanbrugh had all done their best.

It was in 1705 acquired by the Duke of Newcastle ( whereupon it became known as Newcastle House ) who had it remodelled by Sir John Vanbrugh ( following earlier work by Sir Christopher Wren after a fire in 1684 ).

The two married the following year and had a daughter, Prudence Bourchier ( b. 1902 ), who also became an actress and took the stage name Vanbrugh.

He had a notable success as the title character in Henry VIII with Tree as Wolsey and Vanbrugh as Queen Katherine, followed by Tree's silent film of a shortened version of the play in February 1911.

By 1720, Vanbrugh's direct connection with the theatre had been terminated, but the leases and rents had been transferred to both his own family and that of his wife's through a series of trusts and benefices, with Vanbrugh himself building a new home in Greenwich.

Calling on the services of architect John Vanbrugh in 1718, the Admiral had originally wanted to modernise and enhance the existing mansion.

In this layout of state rooms, hall and staircase Castletown is similar to Blenheim Palace, which Pearce had studied while a student of Vanbrugh.

In 1705 Betterton transferred his company to the new theatre in the Haymarket, which had been planned by John Vanbrugh for opera during the previous year, but of which the projector had wearied.

One of those who felt so was Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, who thus chose John Vanbrugh, not Talman as his architect for Castle Howard ; ( Vanburgh had also been Talman's replacement as Comptroller of the Royal Works in May 1702.

When the park was being re-landscaped as a setting for the palace the 1st Duchess wanted the historic ruins demolished, while Vanbrugh, an early conservationist, wanted them restored and made into a landscape feature.

The site of old gravel workings, Vanbrugh Pits have long been reclaimed by nature and form one of the more attractive parts of the generally rather flat Blackheath.

To the east between the Vanbrugh and Maze Hill Gates is the site of a Roman villa or temple.

Following their final altercation Vanbrugh was banned from the site.

But upon viewing the site, Vanbrugh felt he could do nothing and advised complete demolition of all except the ancient chapel near to the mansion, which is now the parish church of Our Lady.

In 2009, when Goodricke College moved to the Heslington East development, the original Goodricke site was divided between Vanbrugh College and James College.

Dramatist and architect John Vanbrugh saw this as an opportunity to break the duopoly of the patent theatres, and in 1703 he acquired a former stable yard, at a cost of £ 2000, for the construction of a new theatre on the Haymarket.

Chettle House, the village manor, is a red brick Baroque mansion designed by Thomas Archer, a pupil of Vanbrugh, and built by the Bastard brothers of Blandford Forum during the reign of Queen Anne.

British architects whose drawings, and in some cases models of their buildings, in the collection, include: Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh, Nicholas Hawksmoor, William Kent, James Gibbs, Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, James Wyatt, Henry Holland, John Nash, Sir John Soane, Sir Charles Barry, Charles Robert Cockerell, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Sir George Gilbert Scott, John Loughborough Pearson, George Edmund Street, Richard Norman Shaw, Alfred Waterhouse, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Holden, Frank Hoar, Lord Richard Rogers, Lord Norman Foster, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Zaha Hadid and Alick Horsnell.

* Hampton Court, west London: Palace of Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, converted by Christopher Wren, Vanbrugh and William Kent.

Sir John Vanbrugh designed the Orangery for her in 1704, and a magnificent baroque parterre 30 acre ( 121, 000 m < sup > 2 </ sup >) garden was laid out by Henry Wise, whose nursery was nearby at Brompton ( illustration, left ).

Bourchier and Vanbrugh appeared in command performances before King Edward VII in November 1902 in Dr Johnson at Sandringham with Henry Irving's company, and in November 1905 in The Merchant of Venice at Windsor.

He was chiefly concern'd in designing and building a great number of magnificent Nobleman's Houses, and particularly ( with Sir John Vanbrugh ) those of Blenheim and Castle-Howard, at the latter of which he was at his Death, carrying on a Mausoleum in the most elegant and grand Stile ( sic ), not to mention many others: But one of the most surprising of his undertakings, was the repairing of Beverley Minster, where the stone wall on the north-side was near three Foot out of the perpendicular, which he mov'd at once to its upright by means of a machine of his own invention.

However, it soon became the subject of political infighting, which led to Marlborough's exile, the fall from power of his duchess, and irreparable damage to the reputation of the architect Sir John Vanbrugh.

Vanbrugh also liked to employ what he called his " castle air ", which he achieved by placing a low tower at each corner of the central block and crowning the towers with vast belvederes of massed stone, decorated with curious finials ( disguising the chimneys ).

Blenheim Palace remains the tribute to the 1st Duke which both his wife and the architect Sir John Vanbrugh envisaged.

In 1840 he wrote introductory notices to the work of Sheridan and to Edward Moxon's edition of the works of William Wycherley, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh and George Farquhar, a work which furnished the occasion of Macaulay's essay on the Dramatists of the Restoration.

Vanbrugh planned The Relapse, too, round these limited casting resources and minor talents, which Peter Holland has argued explains the robust, farcical character of the play ; Vanbrugh's second comedy, The Provoked Wife ( 1697 ), written for the better actors of the cooperative company, is a much subtler piece.

However, there are three public houses around the periphery of the Westcombe Park area: the Royal Standard ( from which the ' Blackheath Standard ' area takes its name ) on the corner of Vanbrugh Park and Stratheden Road, the Angerstein Hotel on Woolwich Road, and the Vanbrugh Tavern on Colomb Street.

Among historical landmarks in the town are a free-standing 17th-century clock tower, a grand town hall originally designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, Collingwood House the Georgian home of Admiral Lord Collingwood, and a 13th-century chapel called The Chantry which is now the tourist information centre and houses such cultural institutions as the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum.

In 1895, Bourchier became lessee of the Royalty Theatre, and Violet Vanbrugh became his leading lady in many productions, including The Chili Widow ( an adaptation of his own, which ran for over 300 nights ), Mr and Mrs, Monsieur de Paris and The Queen's Proctor.

Returning to England, Vanbrugh played the title role in Teresa, which he produced at the Metropole.

< p > To recover them is, Thomas Betterton's company, therefore, to their due Estimation, a new Project was form'd of building them a stately theatre in the Hay-Market, by Sir John Vanbrugh, for which he raised a Subscription of thirty Persons of Quality, at one hundred Pounds each, in Consideration whereof every Subscriber, for his own Life, was to be admitted to whatever Entertainments should be publickly perform'd there, without farther Payment for his Entrance .</ p >< p >— John Vanbrugh's notice of subscription for the new theatre </ p > He was joined in the enterprise by his principal associate and manager William Congreve and an actors ' co-operative led by Thomas Betterton.

In that same year Vanbrugh was beginning work on his first great architectural commission of Castle Howard which was the first truly baroque house in England, ironically Vanbrugh's new cousin was to be one of the leading architects whose designs were to overthrow the baroque fashion less than 28 years later.

He then toured with Violet Vanbrugh as Hugo in The Flame, and appeared at the London Playhouse in May 1924 as Langford in Leon Gordon's White Cargo, in which he played all through 1924-25.

In addition, social space located in an extension off the teaching block includes a large dining hall, bar, JCR, SCR, a Porter's Lodge and a wide corridor known as Vanbrugh Stalls, which takes its name from the frequent society and ticket-selling stalls that are set up there.

Vanbrugh students also can apply for off-campus accommodation at Fairfax House which is situated on Heslington Road, approximately 10 minutes walk from the main college building, housing approximately 90 students, in addition to around 30 Vanbrugh residents in the hall of residence on Fulford Road, Fulford House.

While James College got the old Goodricke nucleus and Cell Block C ( Now N Block ), Vanbrugh College got Blocks A and B, which were renamed Eric Milner-White court after the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White who died in 1963.

Following Vanbrugh B and C block's conversion to offices, the uprooted residents moved to the newly made P and Q blocks ( which were built on time ) and referred to themselves as Valcuin members.

" I walked the length of the Elmes, and with great pleasure saw some gallant ladies and people come with their bottles, and basket, and chairs, and form, to sup under the trees, by the water-side, which was mighty pleasant " When Barn Elms was in the possession of the bookseller Jacob Tonson, the Kit-Cat Club met at Barn Elms for many years ; here the " Kit-Kat portraits " hung ; Tonson's extensions to the house, c1703, seem to have been made under the general advice of John Vanbrugh, a Kit-Kat member.