Variant designs, one dated 18 August 1809 (4)

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The drawings from the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Royal Hospital, Chelsea for the Board of Commissioners, 1807-1835 (226)
    - Infirmary, 1809-1818, August 1809 - November 1810, April - July 1818 and c.1833 (88)

image Image 1 for SM (43) 67/5/20 (44) 67/5/21 (45) volume 77/51 (46) volume 77/53

image Image 2 for SM (43) 67/5/20 (44) 67/5/21 (45) volume 77/51 (46) volume 77/53

image Image 3 for SM (43) 67/5/20 (44) 67/5/21 (45) volume 77/51 (46) volume 77/53

image Image 4 for SM (43) 67/5/20 (44) 67/5/21 (45) volume 77/51 (46) volume 77/53

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Reference number

SM (43) 67/5/20 (44) 67/5/21 (45) volume 77/51 (46) volume 77/53

Purpose

Variant designs, one dated 18 August 1809 (4)

Aspect

43 Elevation for part of the south front 44 Variant elevation for part of the south front, a small rough detail for dentilated cornice and a part-plan marking window spacing 45 Variant elevation, Chelsea Hospital / The Elevation of the Front / Next the River of a Design / for a New Infirmary 46 Elevation of the north front, facing Paradise Row

Scale

(43-44) bar scale

Inscribed

43 labelled Infirmary and some dimensions given 44 some dimensions and calculations given 45 as above

Signed and dated

(43) 18^th Aug^st: 1809

Hand

(43) Soane office (44) Soane office, Soane (45-46) Soane office

Notes

Drawing 44 shows a very similar elevation to drawing 32. The third bay from the left is surmounted by a pedimented attic with three short arched windows (drawing 32 shows the middle bay of the whole structure surmounted by a similar ornament). Drawing 43 shows a comparable arrangement, with no pedimented attic. Instead the middle portion is surmounted by a balustrade and pedestal (with illegible inscription) and the bays to the left are surmounted by four antefixae. Both show a rusticated basement - presumably providing exercise facilities for pensioners (as Soane noted in his report to the Board of Commissioners on 13 April 1809).

Drawing 45 is very similar to 44 but with sculpted bracket-figures, either side of the skyline pedestal. Drawing 46 shows the opposite elevation, with two entrances and without the rusticated basement of the south front.

The elevations all show what is presumably the 'foul ward' marked on drawing 31. It can be seen on the end, set apart (on the left for drawings 43 to 45 and on the right in drawing 46) - a single storey structure surmounted by a triangular pediment (with antifixae at the corners). It is connected to the main Infirmary by an arch only, in the belief that this would prevent infection spreading.

It seems likely that this design was intended to be built in the position indicated by the block plans of drawings 31 and 32.

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).