(7-8) bar scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot

8 The Bank, Section of a Design for the Bank Stock Office, The beads will hide the jointing of / the Stone soffits & the plaistering / on the Cones, Plaister / flutes very shallow, Portl^d Stone, Cones (twice), 1 ½ (twice), Co: (twice), Con:, Cone, finishing and (verso) The Bank / Section of the Bank Stock / Office

• (7) datable to beginning of 1792 (8) (Soane) March 18 1792

(7) Pen, pencil, pale red ink, sepia and blue washes on wove paper with three fold marks (506 x 620) (8) pen, pencil, sepia and blue washes on wove paper with six fold marks (527 x 647)

Soane office

In drawing 7 Soane's particular interest is in studying various unrealised possibilities for decorating the lights of the lantern and lunettes. He sketches alternative arched and circular decorations for the lunettes, as well as alternative fluted and panelled decoration for the spandrels below. More lightly, in pencil, Soane has sketched in a spiraling motif for the central column-flue and paneling for the soffits. Related pencil sketches are in the margins.
The drawing differs from the other column-flue schemes in drawings 5 and 6 in as much as the stove has only a single fireplace, the central arch is semicircular, and the pilasters have been shortened to the springing of the lower arches. Again, none of these ideas were realised; the drawing shows Soane exploring possibilities of proportion and ornamentation.
The primary significance of drawing 8 is the erased segmental side arch, which is replaced with a sketch of a semi-circular arch on the left (as realised). However, most of the sketches, particularly in the margins, explores the structural jointing and plaster finishing of the central arch. Soane wanted to use a bead moulding to disguise the structural joint between the Portland stone soffits and the hollow-cone voussoirs, as he notes in the inscription. In the finished hall, this bead moulding did not appear (though it did in the later Consols Transfer Office), nor did the serpentine spandrel decoration, fluted pendentives, clerestory fan-light, and small oculus sketched in pencil on the left bay. But the high vertical fluting sketched with sepia wash on the left piers was realised.
The lower arch in the crossing also relates this drawing to the preliminary designs for the upper-room scheme, drawings 9-12. But on the left-hand side of the sheet the arch is erased, suggesting that by this date, 18 March 1792, Soane had abandoned the idea.

(7-8) J. Summerson, 'The evolution of Soane's Bank Stock Office in the Bank of England', The unromantic castle, 1990, pp. 148-153 (7) ill. 131; (8) ill. 132

Drawing

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

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