[10] Design for the ground floor of Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, 18 September 1820

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
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  - London: Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, designs for construction and interiors, 1820-34 (120)
    - Designs for the earliest variants of Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, September 1820 (5)

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Reference number

SM 54/1/10

Purpose

[10] Design for the ground floor of Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, 18 September 1820

Aspect

Plan showing a five-by-seven-bay church. On the entrance front, the central three bays are recessed behind a colonnade of four columns accessed by an external staircase. There are two sets of free-standing columns across the first and seventh bays on the right-hand front, and two sets of engaged columns across the first and seventh bays on the left-hand front. The interior is divided into a nave and two side aisles articulated by free standing columns. Running parallel to the left-hand wall there is an alternative given with rounded corners. Rough emendations in pen are given to show a rear staircase and details of the compartmental ceiling

Scale

bar scale of 1⁷/₁₀ to 10 feet

Inscribed

Design for a Church to be erected in the Eastern division of the Parish of St.Marylebone. / Front Extends / Domi[_ _ d] / Iron Gate / Iron Gate / Iron Gate / This side / [_ _ _ _] of the organ [_ _ _ _] / Sept. 26 – 1820 / Front Extends / Superficial [_] / did / R[_ _ _ _ _]at East end of Church / (Squares) of buildings-/ Triglyph / Metope many measurements and calculations

Signed and dated

18 September 1820
L. I. F. / September 18th. 1820

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen, coloured washes of orange, light pink and yellow, and pricked for transfer on wove paper (734 x 528)

Hand

Soane Office, draughtsman

Verso

Some faint pencil sketches, of which one is half of a pediment with a cap

Notes

This was the first ground plan produced for the Church as part of the series of designs in late 1820. This shows a church which is five-by-seven bays. Carr noticed the faint outline on the right-hand side between the first and second bays as showing two recessed three-quarter columns, which he argued showed Soane was thinking of adding an extra bay. This would be mirrored at the other end too, and indicated that Soane was thinking of extending the lengths to nine bays. A notable change is the removal of the flank entrances. We also see the arrangement of the vestibule behind the columned portico, the internal separation of the nave with two side aisles demarcated by columns. The rear shows quite a shallow chancel area, and one idea of a curved internal staircase to gallery level. The aforementioned three-quarter engaged columns in-antis appear for the first time on the last bay on the left-hand side, but on the right-hand side, they are still free-standing.

The extreme left-hand shows an alternative pattern for the arrangement of the flanks with the both the first and last bays consisting of pairs of three-quarter engaged columns, but is still seven-bays. This may represent an extension of the width of the church on the north side, but this would make it totally assymetrical unless the principal entrance was also centred accordingly, although this is not indicated on the plan.

Literature

Carr, 1976, Vol. I, p. 347-9, 352-3, Vol. III, p. 823 figs. 136-7
John, 2003, p. 44, fig. 31, p. 52

Level

Drawing

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Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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