[385] First design, Westminster Hall and the New Law Courts, 9 April 1824

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Palace of Westminster: The New Law Courts, surveys and designs, 1820-32 (507)
    - New Law Courts - Second Scheme, 1821-29 (345)
      - Northern Range - Court of King's Bench, 1823-29 (207)
        Select Committee Revisions, 1824-29 (79)
        Alternative Number Three: Polygonal Corner Turret, April 1824 (8)

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Reference number

SM 53/3/58

Purpose

[385] First design, Westminster Hall and the New Law Courts, 9 April 1824

Aspect

Plan of Westminster Hall and the main (ground) floor of the New Law Courts, with the original groundplan to New Palace Yard shown (in grey) and proposed reductions in the building's footprint and revisions to ancillary accommodation indicated (in pink), with an octagonal corner turret, unexecuted

Scale

bar scale of ¹/₁₀ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Plan of the New Courts at Westminster altered / agreeably to the directions of the Select Committee / 25^th. Match 1824 / N^o. 1 (x 2) / Select Com[mittee]. / 12 April. N^o. 3 / 20 March / 5 / 12 / ·WESTMINSTER·HALL· / ·COVRT·OF· / COMMON·PLEAS· / ·THE ·IVDGES·RETIRING / ·ROOM· / WATER. / CLOSET. (x 2) / ·AREA· (x 2) / CORRIDOR. (x 2) / ·COVRT·OF·KINGS·BENCH· / ·BAIL·COVRT· /·ATTENDANTS-/ ON·THE· / LORD·CHIEF·BARON· / ·LORD·CHIEF·BARON’S· / ·RETIRING·ROOM· / ATTENDANTS ON· / THE·LORD·CHIEF·IVSTICE· / ·LOBBY· / ·LORD·CHIEF·IVSTICE’S. / ·RETIRING·ROOM· / ·COVRT·OF· / EXCHEQUER· / ·COVRT·OF·EQVITY· dimensions given

Signed and dated

09/04/1824
John Soane Arc[hitec]^t / Lincolns. Inn. Fields. / 9^th. April. 1824.

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen, grey pen, wash, coloured washes of buff, pink and blue, within triple ruled wash border pricked for transfer on wove paper (558 x 443)

Hand

Sir John Soane RA (1753 - 1837), architect
Soane Office, draughtsman

Watermark

Weatherley & Lane / 1818

Notes

This drawing is annotated in Soane's hand. As a proposal, it offers a variant treatment accommodating the radical reduction of the New Law Court's footprint to New Palace Yard. The junction between the façade to the latter and the pavilion tower of the Stone Building is handled by a polygonal turret, which recalls that belonging to the Elizabethan Exchequer range on this site, demolished in 1823. Originally this was drawn with a square groundplan, but erased and made octagonal during the drawing process.

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation. This catalogue of Soane’s designs for the New Law Courts was generously funded by The Worshipful Company of Mercers and The Pilgrim Trust.

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).