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  • image Image 1 for SM (15) 56/5/1A
  • image Image 2 for SM (15) 56/5/1A
  • image Image 1 for SM (15) 56/5/1A
  • image Image 2 for SM (15) 56/5/1A

Reference number

SM (15) 56/5/1A

Purpose

Letter with drawing, Temple Street

Aspect

15 Letter and section of strong room

Scale

to a scale

Inscribed

(verso): Branch Bank Swansea / 20th Nov 1826 // Mr Bailey Sir I received your Letter / Dated the 16 but could not answer it by / return of post as there is but one Stover / in Swansea that is Likely to Answer the purpose / Mr Wilkins think it will do as to the pipes / can be made pair and Mr Wilkins proposed / to place the Stove in best Staircase and / the pipes to be carried Down the Long / Passage and to Turn thru Butlers pantry / thru the Book room in to the flue it will / the 90 feet of pipeing (sic) and I think in that / Distance there will be but little heat / from a smoke pipe and the intenchion (sic) / of the Stove is to warm the Staircase and / the pipe to warm the Passage if the Stove / and pipe is to be had fair plese (sic) to send / word is the pipe to be Iron or to be Copper / the Ironmonger said he will lend us the / Stove that we may Try the Efect (sic) of it and / if it will not -- ansure (sic) he will take it / again as the pipe will do for a Longer / Stove ---- Mr Wilkins has wrote to you / about the Carpet he will take the Turkey / Carpet ---- Mr Gibbins has no servants / in the House Mr Wilkins has two of / Mr Gibbins servants Living with him / but the (sic) are Servants to Mr Wilkins / at this Time; (recto): the raison I did not say aney (sic) thing about the / Strong Room was I understood Mr Wilkins / wrote to London to say the strong room it is / quite safe and very Convainiant (sic) / Mr Wilkins and Mr Morris said the (sic) hope / it will not be altered this section is as it now / stands, dimensions given; (reverse): Sir the Repairs of the house is nairly (sic) finished / and the Adishnal (sic) improvements I shall send a / List of all that have been dun (sic) to the House / and Bank apartments Mr Wilkins wish to / have a Chees (sic) House built in the Stable yard / the water closet in Bank office cannot be used / I have had no orders about the cistern there is / wanted in Bank kitchen a new led (sic) sink under / copper cistern the copper cistern is in a very / bad state looses its watter (sic) and there is no water / but Rain water to the house ---- // Mr Wilkins said if there is a new iron safe / sent down he do not think the one that is hair (sic) / will be wanten. I think there will not be / room for two in the Strong Room as the / Doors is (sic) to open at Each End that Safe / will require more room then (sic) the present // Your humble Servant // Thos Champion (pencil) There are Iron Guards / to the Windows of / Book Room and / likewise to the Private / Office; two stamps on verso: SWANSEA / NO20 / 1826 and G / 22NO22 / 1826

Signed and dated

  • as above ('20th Nov 1826')

Medium and dimensions

Pen on laid secretary paper with five fold marks (280 x 380)

Hand

Thomas Champion, clerk of works

Watermark

JL 1823, Britannia holding lance, shield and olive branch within crowned oval

Notes

Wilkins, the bank's agent, appears to have been quite involved with the processes of acquiring and altering the Old Bank on Temple Street judging from this letter.

Level

Drawing

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

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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.

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