[2] Finished drawing for the ground floor of a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1790-91, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Public buildings
  - Bridewell, Edinburgh: designs for a group of prison buildings, 1790-91, executed in part (32)
    - Designs for a classical-style bridewell scheme, 1790-91, unexecuted (9)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/27

Purpose

[2] Finished drawing for the ground floor of a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1790-91, unexecuted

Aspect

Ground floor plan of a group of prison buildings comprising a central block flanked by two courtyards enclosed on each side by cells, with an infirmary at one end and a bedlam at the other, and at the top by a D-shaped range of cells with a central division to form two courts for women and idle youth. There is a chapel and managers room at the bottom, flanked by a block for the chaplain and surgeon which are linked by a connecting wall. Rooms, other than individual cells, include a kitchen larder, coal cellar, apothecary shop, nurses room, black hole, and offices for the work mistresses and head keeper

Scale

bar scale of 1/2 an inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

Ground Plan of the Bridewell for Edinburgh proposed to be built on the Calton hill / Court with Cells / for Idle Youth / Court with Cells / for Women / Court with Cells / for / Small Crimes / Court with Cells / for / Debtors / Black / hole / Privy / Keeper / Privy / Keeper / Scullery / Kitchen / Coal Cellar / Larder / Larder / Scullery / Apothecarys Shop / Water / Closet / Infirmary / Water / Closet / Nurses / room / Bedlam / Head / Keeper / Head / Keeper / Office / Work / Mistress / Work / Mistress / Closet / Managers room / & / Chapel / Surgeon / Chaplains with some room dimensions / (verso) 10

Signed and dated

1790-91
datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured wash including verdigris, cerulean blue and Payne’s grey on laid paper (635x478)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison, John Robertson, or John Paterson

Watermark

Footed P

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
King, Vol. 2, 2001, p. 54
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

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.

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