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  • image SM 53/1/21

Reference number

SM 53/1/21

Purpose

[156] Presentation drawing, New Law Courts, 1822

Aspect

Plan of the main (ground) floor of the New Law Courts, retaining only part of the existing walls of the Court of Common Pleas, with ceilings and skylight oculi for the Court of Commons Pleas' Retiring Room, The Lord Chancellor's Retiring Room and corridors shown, as part executed

Scale

bar scale of 1/10 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

A Design for the New Courts at Westminster. / Scale of Feet / Westminster Hall. / Staircase. (x 4) / The Bail. Court. / Counsel. (x 3) / The Court of King's Bench. / Entrance (x 2) / Passage. (x 2) / Entrance for / The Lord Chief / Justice. / the Lord Chief Justice's / Retiring Room. / Water / Closet (x 6) / Corridor leading into Westminster Hall. / The Court of Equity. / The Court of Exchequer. / Vestibule. / Entrance into the / Court of Exchequer &c: / The Lord Chief / Baron's Retiring / Room. / Entrance / Hall. (x 2) / Corridor. (x 3) / The Court of Common Pleas. / Judges Retiring Room / Court of Common Pleas. / Area. (x 3) / The Vice-Chancellor's Court. / Attendants on / the Vice-Chancellor. / The Vice-Chancellor's / Retiring Room. / Entrance into / the Vice-Chancellor's / Court. &c: / The High Court of Chancery. / The Lord Chancellor's / Retiring Room. / Attendants on the / Lord Chancellor. Entrance into / the High Court of / Chancery &c. / Passage to the House of Lords & the House / of Commons. / Entrance into the High / Court of Chancery. / for the Lord Chancellor / Began laying Bricks / 30th. August. 1823. / Began laying bricks 28th. July 1823. / Began laying Bricks 24th. July 1823. / Began laying Bricks 1st. July 1823 / 15 March 1823 / This drawing was ap[prove]d. by Mr. Robinson, Sir Rich[ard] Giffard / Sir C[harles]. Long & Mr [Harries?] - app[rove]d / They afterwards went to the Kings Gal[lery]. / & the two new Courts - Sir R[ichard]. Giffard [_] the plan at the [_] & app[rove]d. / No. 14. (pencil) Jury. / The Kings Remembrancer / Attendants / on the / Lord Chief Baron / Custos Brevium / Court Keeper / Masters / in Chancery.

Signed and dated

  • 1822
    Lincolns Inn Fields. / 1822

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, wash, coloured washes of buff, pink and blue, pen within triple ruled wash border pricked for tansfer on wove paper (945 x 615)

Hand

Sir John Soane RA (1753 - 1837), architect
This drawing is annotated in Soane's hand.
Soane Office, draughtsman

Watermark

J Whatman / 1821

Notes

The drawing is endorsed in Soane's hand, recording its approval at a meeting held at the Treasury on 15 March 1823. The drawing also records the phased construction campaign of the northern half of the New Law Courts.

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).