[119] Design for a winch to lower coffins into the vaults at Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, 10 June 1828

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Churches and chapels
  - London: Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, designs for construction and interiors, 1820-34 (120)
    - Design for a cadaver winch mechanism, Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, June 1828 (1)

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Reference number

SM 54/4/29

Purpose

[119] Design for a winch to lower coffins into the vaults at Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London, 10 June 1828

Aspect

Plan and elevation of a winch system to lower bodies into the vaults. On the left-hand side, there is an elevation consisting of wooden post arranged vertically with a cross beam at the top strengthened by brackets at each corner, and another cross beam is towards the bottom. On the sides near the top are brass fittings with rope attached to each, which hang down and run under two brass wheels, one on each side of the bottom cross beam. The cross beam has two cogs attached to the centre. The rope winds around the central cog. To the right-hand side is a plan showing the wooden outer frame attached to masonry on four corners, and the inner frame has wooden beams with the platform or tray to lay the coffin. Between the inner and outer frames are two winches with handles, and the cross bar running under the platform

Scale

bar scale of 1 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Drawing of Apparatus for lowering the Coffins into the Vaults. / Trinity Church, St Marylebone. / York Paving in the Vaults / Oak 8 x 8 / Brass / Oak 9 x 5 / Brass / . / Rope or fold 1 inch diameter / Portland Stone / Deal / Screw bolt / Yellow Deal 2 ½ thick jointed and strongly put together by screws / N / Portland / N at the top of these oak Posts / 8 x 8 it will be [_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _] to frame / a Rail into Ditto..the length 7 feet 6 in / by 3 feet wide the size of the [_ _ _ _] / Commercial Road Lambeth 10h June 1828 / I agree to perform the whole of the Carpenters, and Smiths, work in Erecting / the Platform for lowering the Bodies into the Vaults at Trinity Church / St Marylebone in a Workmanlike manner and to the entire satisfaction / of Mr Soane the Archt. Agreeable to this Drawing in every respect and to answer / the purpose intended / Carpenters Estimate…£41” / Smiths - - (&c?)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ £36”-/ 77 / George Bird / [_ _ _ _] / A Oak fillits_1 ½ square are properly secured with screws / and two castors let into each leg. / Brick / 8 x8 Oak / Oak / 8 x 6 Deal / (in pencil) Deal / A / Oak 9 x 5 / Deal / This Flap or Door 2 (in pencil) ½ thick to be strongly put together / with Dowels and Iron screws – 3 feet long / Cylinders to be covered with 1 inch / Boarding / Brick / 8 x 6 Deal . / Oak and measurements given

Signed and dated

June 1828
June 1828. / 10^th June 1828

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen wash, coloured washes of cerulean blue, brown, orange and pink, on wove paper (739 x 533)

Hand

Mocatta, David Alfred (1806--1882), draughtsman
Many of the letter types conform to Mocatta’s hand; the date of 1828 however, is strange, as Mocatta finished as Soane’s pupil in 1827. However, there are instances of students staying on and producing works for Soane after their pupillage

Watermark

J WHATMAN / TURKEY MILL / 1827

Notes

John argued this was virtually the last drawing produced for Holy Trinity Church Marylebone (although it depends on how SM 54/3/1 is dated). Furthermore, John suggested a possible location for the lift shaft as being against an iron gate at the rear of the church (SM 54/4/10). However, this drawing dates from 1825, the iron gate is a metal guard rail placed at right angles to a rear side door. Therefore, the exact location of the shaft and the winch is not amongst the corpus of drawings.

Literature

John, 2003, p. 62 fig. 61, p. 64

Level

Drawing

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).