Designs for new Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, March 1825 (3)

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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 (140) 50/1/24 (141) 50/1/25 (142) 50/1/26

Purpose

Designs for new Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, March 1825 (3)

Aspect

140 General Plan of the Council Offices & Board of Trade; (verso) unfinished elevation of a triumphal arch 141 General Plan of the Principal Floor of the New Council Offices, Board of Trade &^c 142 General Plan of the Principal Floor of the New Board of Trade and Council Offices

Scale

(140 recto, 141, 142) bar scales of 1/12 inch to 1 foot (140 verso) bar scale of 1/3 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

140 as above, labelled: Downing Street, Line of Old Building (twice), Area (3 times), Hall, Passage, Staircase (3 times), Entrance Hall, Principal Staircase, Clerk (4 times), Waiting / Room (twice), Stable, Court Yard, Coach Houses and / Stabling, Mr Lushington's / Stable, The Chancellor / of the Exchequer's / Stable, The Chancellor / of the Exchequer's / Coach House, Store Rooms &c, Treasury Passage, Passage leading to the Park, Stable Yard, Private Houses, Part of the Chancellor of the / Exchequer's House (twice) 141 as above, labelled: Downing Street, Line of the Old Buildings (twice), Barristers / Room / 23.0 by 11.0, Staircase, Robing / Room / 11.0 by 8.6, M^r Greville / 23.0 by 17.0, 11'6'' by 17'0'', M^r Buller / 23'9'' by 17'0'', Passage of Communication, Waiting Room / 13.9 by 20.0, Lords Retiring / Room / 13.0 by 16.0, Staircase, Committee Room / 30.0 by 21.9, The Lord Presidents / Room / 19'0'' by 21'9'', The / Principal Staircase, Water / Closet (twice), Lobby, Ante Room / 22.0 by 16.0, Ch[imne]^y, Council Chamber / 34'9'' by 40'0'', M^r Lushington's Stable & Coach Houses, The Chancellor of the / Exchequer's Stables & / Coach Houses, Passage leading to the Treasury &^c, Staircase, Passage leading to the Park &^c, Stable Yard, Part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's House 142 as above, labelled: Downing Street, The Line of the Old Building, Line of the Old Building, Barristers Room, Mr Greville, Mr Buller, Staircase, The Principal / Staircase, The Lord / President's Room / 19'0'' by 21'9'', Committee Room / 30'0'' by 21'9'', Staircase, Ante Room, Council Chamber / 34'9'' by 40'0'', Area, Treasury Passage, Stable Yard, Passage leading to the Park

Signed and dated

(140) Lincolns Inn Fields / February 1825 and 12 March 1825 (141, 142) Lincolns Inn Fields / March 1825

Medium and dimensions

(140) Pen, pink, yellow, blue and grey washes, (141, 142) pen, pink, yellow ochre, grey and sepia washes, (140-142) pricked for transfer on wove paper (734 x 530, 738 x 526, 722 x 526)

Hand

(140) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) (141) George Bailey (1792-1860, pupil then assistant 1806-37, curator 1837-60) (142) David Mocatta (1806-82, pupil 1821-27)

Watermark

(140-142) Smith & Allnutt 1820

Notes

At the end of February or beginning of March 1825 a change was made to the design of the new Privy Council Offices. At the eastern end of Downing Street, instead of having three bays, from drawing 140 onwards there are five bays divided by six evenly-spaced columns. Drawings 140 and 141 form a pair. The front to Downing Street is 194 feet wide. As indicated by the drawings, extending the building so far into Downing Street would have required the demolition of several private houses on the north side of the street.
On both drawings 141 and 142 the Board of Trade Offices are coloured in a darker shade of yellow wash, probably to delineate that part of the building from the Privy Council Offices. The layout of the Board of Trade Offices is the same on both drawings.
The verso of drawing 140 has an unfinished elevation of a triumphal arch drawn to scale. This was, no doubt, the monument that Soane designed to link the new buildings on either side of Downing Street (q.v. drawing 133).

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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