40 feet to 1 inch

On verso, by Fort, in pen and brown ink, at top left, Hampton Court / Pallace --- / Basem:^t Storey; and on recto, beneath scale bar in pencil in C18-19 hand, Hampton Court Palace

• c.1716

Pen and light brown ink with light grey-brown wash over fine graphite under-drawing Laid paper, laid down on modern backing paper; old tear beneath scale bar 540 x 455

Thomas Fort

Strasbourg Bend (crest with triple-line band) / LVG; IV

The scale bar with its arrow-head marker, the fine pen lines and the pale brown wash are characteristics of Thomas Fort's hand. A folio of his drawings from c.1714 to c.1724 survives at the National Archives (TNA WORK 34/1838) and several of these are reproduced in Thurley 2003 (e.g. fig. 258). One distinct trait is his use of a tapering line to show a break in the line of a wall.

The plan post-dates the conversion of the north-east corner range, adjoining the east front, for the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, beginning in late 1716. This work involved the creation of a symmetrical group of rooms either side of a ground-floor entry hall in the second bay east from the return wall of the main east range. Two survey plans at All Souls College show the proposed arrangement of rooms in this range in December 1714 (shaded in yellow), before the conversion works (Geraghty 2007, Nos 212, 213; AS IV.10 and 11). The completed scheme at first-floor level is shown in a drawing of c.1716 in the Royal Library at Windsor (Thurley 2003, fig. 245). The new arrangements of walls, staircases and chimney pieces in these two sets of plans correspond closely to the arrangements at ground-floor level in the present plan, and should be compared with the pre-existing plan at ground-floor level in c.1699 at 1, above (111/41).

Another change on the earlier arrangement of c.1711 (111/39 and 40) and c.1699 (111/41) is the infilling of the central rear wall of the 'grotto' space in the middle of the Privy Garden range. Like 111/39 and 111/40, the plan shows the space behind the Communication Gallery between the north and south sides of the new Privy Court infilled with rooms and small courts.

Drawing

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

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