Working drawings for the construction of the dome, with some preliminary details of ornament, one dated 15 July 1795 (2)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1352)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (430)
      - Rotunda, 1794-95 (30)

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Reference number

SM (16) volume 74/96 (17) volume 74/105

Purpose

Working drawings for the construction of the dome, with some preliminary details of ornament, one dated 15 July 1795 (2)

Aspect

16 Section of the Rotunda showing (pencil) alterations to the interior ornament; pencil detail of ornament; (Soane) detail of dome ornament; and alterations to the construction of the dome 17 Part-section of dome with alterations in pencil; (verso) section, elevation and plan of lunette

Scale

(16) bar scale (17) to a scale

Inscribed

16 (Soane) July 15. 1795. / J. Bayley one week to turn / the Cones & plaister / upper / Begin on Stone Band / with 3 Course of / Paving Brick, then 4 Course / of Cones &c or 3 Bricks & 4 Cones altern., 4 Co: / of Cones, Pav., 3 courses / of / Paving Bricks, (Bailey) The Bank of England, Section of the Rotunda shewing the mode of Construction of Dome; (verso) doom (sic) of the / Rotunda 17 dimensions given; (verso) Section, External, Internal Plan, Elevation of Semi Window for the Rotunda, A, B, N^o 8 / The Center Part A and B hung / Centers open inwards

Signed and dated

(16) as above and 1795

Hand

Soane office and Soane

Notes

Drawings 16 and 17, as in drawing 15, show the use of paving brick, hollow cones and stone in the construction of the Rotunda. Just above the voussoired heads of the lunettes, a ring of stones encircled the dome, bound together by a square-sectioned iron tie-rod embedded within the stones. Six courses of jointed stone steps rose to form the sprining point of the dome. The stones were secured together by lead running into a cavity formed by opposing vee-grooves. As the inscription in drawing 16 reads, alternating layers of 4 courses of cones and 3 courses of brick work were built up from the stone springing point to the oculus of the dome (see drawing 15). The external surface of the dome, from the lantern to the lunettes, was covered with cement in 1795, due in part to a suggestion from George Dance and the poor results of the Bank Stock Office's roof. The cement casing was reported to have failed in 1827, at which point the dome was covered with nine-pound lead. It was also ordered that a lantern be added to the centre, amounting in total to a cost of £1350.

John Bayley (d.1812) was a plasterer and principal tradesman employed at the Bank of England.

Literature

J. Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) and of George Dance the Elder (1695-1768) from the collection of Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2003, p. 356, cat. 101; H. Rooksby Steele and F.R. Yerbury, The Old Bank of England, London, 1930, pp.17-19.

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).