[35] Design for a folly, 1783, unexecuted

Explore Collections

You are here: CollectionsOnline / [35] Design for a folly, 1783, unexecuted

Browse

Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Country houses
  - Alnwick Castle, Northumberland: designs for interior decoration and buildings in the park for the 1st Duke of Northumberland, 1769-83 (36)
    - Alternative preliminary design and designs for a folly, 1783, unexecuted (3)

Use of images and copyright
Enlarge this Image

Print this image in A4 view

Reference number

SM Adam volume 39/20

Purpose

[35] Design for a folly, 1783, unexecuted

Aspect

Plan and elevation of a folly; with a central block composed of four circular towers with slit windows, between which is a carriage arch; and this is surmounted by a single-storey, crenellated square tower, with an arched window within a relieving arch; and surmounted by a small pepper pot turret. The central block is flanked by a one-and-a-half-storey, three-bay crenellated, arcaded link wall, beyond which are two-storey, single-bay circular towers, with arched windows and weather vanes; beyond which are single-storey, five-bay link walls with slit windows; and beyond are tripartite gates flanked by single-bay circular towers, with an arch in each bay, and the central arch flanked by canted buttresses, and surmounted by a crenellated attic containing three arched windows

Scale

bar scale of ¾ inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

Elevation of a Building proposed to be erected upon the top of a Rock near Alnwick Castle, One of the Seats / of His Grace the Duke of Northumberland / Plan of the Building and some measurements given

Signed and dated

21/11/1783
Adelphi 21 November / 1783

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash on laid paper (605 x 423)

Hand

Adam office hand, possibly Robert Adam or Robert Morison

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 1
King, 2001, Volume 2, p. 243
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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).