Design for new Privy Council Offices, February 1825 (2)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, Whitehall & Downing Street: designs for new offices and scheme for the improvement of Downing Street, 1823-33 (284)
    - Designs for the Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices and preliminary designs for the new Home Office, January-September 1825 (60)

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Reference number

SM (137) 50/1/40 (138) 50/1/27

Purpose

Design for new Privy Council Offices, February 1825 (2)

Aspect

137 Plan of the One Pair or Principal Floor 138 General Plan of the proposed New Council Offices &^c

Scale

(137) bar scale of 1/6 inch to 1 foot (138) bar scale of 1/12 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

137 as above, (in David Mocatta's hand) New Council Offices &^c, labelled: (pencil) Robing Room / 10'0'' by 17'0'', (pencil) Barristers Room / 23'0'' by 17'0'', (pencil) M^r Greville / 24'0'' by 17'0'', (pencil) M^r Buller / 24'0'' by 17'0'', The / Principal / Staircase, The Lord Presidents Room / 19'0'' by 21'9'', Committee Room / 30'0'' by 21'9'', Staircase, (pencil) 10'0'' by 14'0'', (pencil) Retiring Room / 13'6'' by 17'0'', Water / Closet (twice), Ante Room / 25'0'' by 14'0'', Council Chamber / 34'9'' by 40'0'', (in George Bailey's hand) Downing Street March 1^st 1825 // This Plan submitted to the Right Hon^be / The Chancellor of the Exchequer and approved / by him to the end of the Council Office in / Downing Street when he directed me to / carry the plan into immediate execution 138 as above, labelled: Downing Street, (pencil) Barrister, (pencil) M^r Greville, (pencil) M^r Buller, Principal / Staircase, The Lord President's / Room, Committee Room, Staircase, Retiring Room, Water / Closet (twice), Lobby, Ante Room, Council Chamber, M^r Lushington's Stables &^c, The Chancellor of the / Exchequer's Stables &^c, Part of the Chancellor of the / Exchequer's House and some dimensions given, Downing Street March 1^st 1825 // This Plan submitted to the Right Hon^be the Chancellor of / the Exchequer and approved by him to the end of / the Council Office in Downing Street when he directed / the Plan to be carried into immediate execution, Present / M^r Herries M^r Geo Harrison / Surveyor General, Mem[orandum] - The End of the Balustrade / to the Area next the Treasury Passage / to be made square by order of the / Right Hon^b The Chancellor of the Exchequer / March 1825

Signed and dated

(137) L. I. Fields / Feb^y 1825 and as above ('March 1^st 1825') (138) Lincolns Inn Fields / February 1825 and as above ('March 1^st 1825' and 'March 1825')

Medium and dimensions

(137) Pen, pink and yellow washes, (138) pen, pink, yellow, grey and burnt umber washes, (137, 138) pricked for transfer on wove paper (528 x 721, 719 x 529)

Hand

(137, 138) Stephen Burchell (1806-?, pupil 1823-28)

Watermark

(137, 138) Smith & Allnutt 1820

Notes

Drawings 137 and 138, similarly to drawings 134-136, show the Privy Council Chamber in line with the Downing Street frontage. An ante-room has been added before the Chamber, as in drawing 136, and is flanked by two short corridors on the approved designs. The building extends further into Downing Street than before so that on drawing 138 the Downing Street frontage is around 228 feet wide and the Chamber is wider than in previous drawings (see drawings 126-130 for comparison). Clearly Soane's intention was to provide Downing Street with a symmetrical frontage with a hexastyle projection at the west end of the building to match that at the east (q.v. drawing 132). Further to this, drawing 138 has an entirely new building on the south side of Downing Street which mirrors the Privy Council Offices, seen previously on drawings 131-133. Drawings 137 and 138 were presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ordered to be carried into execution 'to the end of the Council Office' on 1 March 1825.
Stephen Lushington (1776-1868), Secretary to the Treasury, lived at No. 11 Downing Street, which Soane made alterations to in 1825-6 (q.v. Office of Works: London: 10-12 Downing Street: designs for alterations, 1825). George Harrison (1767-1841) was both Assistant Secretary and Auditor of the Treasury until 1826.

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.

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