bar scale

as above, labelled Pulpit, Reading desk, Clerk's / desk and some dimensions given

• (pencil) 1817

Soane office

In 1818 Soane began making repairs to Wren's chapel, which is located in Wren's main hospital building (in the eastern half of the central wing, bordering the Figure Court). The chapel measures 113 by 38 feet and originally seated about 500 people.

Soane's alterations are described by C.G.T. Dean: 'The long benches were sawn into four, fitted with backs, and then rearranged so as to face the altar... He also dismantled the old "three-decker"; placing the pulpit in its present position, and the Chaplain's desk, with the Clerk's pew attached, on the opposite side of the aisle. Finally he removed the sounding board over the pulpit...'. (A 'sounding board' is a structure placed above, or sometimes behind, the pulpit which helps to project the voice of the speaker into the congregation.) The 'three-decker' refers to the original pulpit 'that stood against the middle of the south wall... This interesting piece of Church furniture comprised, firstly, the present pulpit, over which was a sounding board of inlaid wood, carried on four slender supports. Secondly, the present Reading Desk, or Lectern, originally the Chaplain's Desk, which was set at an intermediate level. Thirdly, a pew for the Clerk, placed immediately in front of the Chaplain's Desk, at floor level. A narrow stair in two short flights gave access to the reading desk and pulpit; the entry under the pulpit being concealed by a curtain'.

This drawing shows a plan of the east end, with a design for alterations to the 'three-decker' pulpit - shown divided into two parts, as C.G.T. Dean describes. There is also a section of the pulpit in the margin which shows a shallow domed 'cap' with a finial, above the main body. This must be the 'sounding board' referred to above, which had not yet been removed at the date of the drawing.

The alterations to the pulpit were also recorded in the Board of Commissioners' minute notes for 10 December 1817: Soane was given orders 'that the Pulpit and Reading Desk be removed to the end of the Chapel and placed on each side of the Communion table, and that the space occupied by the present Pulpit and Reading Desk be formed into two Pews corresponding with the Chaplains Pew opposite'. The new pulpit was to be of the 'moveable' type.

Royal Hospital Chelsea: Board Minutes and Papers, January 1816-September 1818 (National Archives WO 250/377)
C.G.T. Dean, The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, 1950, p.54-55

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