Designs for the new buildings and Triumphal Arch on Downing Street, December 1825 (5)

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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 new government buildings on Whitehall and the completion of Downing Street with a Triumphal Arch, December 1825-May 1833 (100)

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Reference number

SM (187) 49/5/30 (188) 49/5/28 (189) 49/5/29 (190) 49/5/31 (191) 49/5/32

Purpose

Designs for the new buildings and Triumphal Arch on Downing Street, December 1825 (5)

Aspect

187-191 Site plan

Scale

(187, 189-191) bar scales of 1/5 inch to 10 feet (188) bar scale of 4/5 inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

187 labelled: Whitehall, Council Offices, Board of Trade, Hall (4 times), Staircase, Area (4 times), Melbourne House, Treasury Passage (twice), Court, Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, S^t James's Park (twice), M^r Canning, Downing Square, Foreign / Office, Downing Street, State Paper Office, King Street, Private Houses (3 times), Mews Stabling &^c, Crown Street 188 labelled: Stabling &^c (twice), Areas &^c, Private Houses (twice), 17'0'', About 25'0'', About 35'0'', Fludyer Street, Downing Square, Area (4 times), Treasury Gardens, S^t James's Park, Treasury Passage (twice), Hall (3 times), Staircase, (pencil): Kitchen Store / Room, Staircase, Book, Store Room, WC, Stairs, House / Keeper / Appartm[en]^t (sic) 189 labelled: Whitehall, Board of Trade (twice), Hall (5 times), Council Offices, Staircase (3 times), Treasury Passage (twice), Melbourne House, Court, Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, S^t James's Park (twice), Gardens, Areas &^c, M^r Lushington, M^r Canning, Foreign Office, Fludyer Street, Private Houses (3 times), Mews Stabling &^c, Crown Street, King Street 190 labelled: Whitehall, Hall, Principal / Staircase, Board of Trade &^c, Home Department, Melbourne House, Area (4 times), Staircase (3 times), Treasury Passage, Court, Council Offices &^c, Treasury, Passage leading to the Park, The Chancellor of the / Exchequer, S^t James's Park (twice), Garden, M^r Lushington, M^r Canning, Foreign Office, Fludyer Street, Downing Street, State Paper / Office, King Street, Private Houses (twice), Stabling &^c, Crown Street

Signed and dated

(187) Lincolns Inn Fields / 22^nd Dec^r 1825 (188) Lincolns Inn Fields / 24^th Dec^r 1825 (189) Lincolns Inn Fields / Dec^r 24^th 1825 (190) Lincolns Inn Fields / 30^th December 1825

Medium and dimensions

(187, 189, 190) Pen, sepia, pink, yellow and blue washes, pricked for transfer with six ruled, sepia and black wash border on laid secretary paper with one fold mark (486 x 591, 484 x 591, 479 x 588) (188) pen, sepia, pink and blue washes, pricked for transfer with five ruled, sepia and black wash border on stout wove paper with one fold mark (550 x 738) (191) pen, pink, grey and blue washes, pricked for transfer on laid secretary paper with one fold mark (487 x 600)

Hand

(187-189) Stephen Burchell (1806-?, pupil 1823-28) (190) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) (191) Soane office

Watermark

(187, 189-191) W Weatherley 1822 and fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate JW (188) James Whatman

Notes

Five site plans show different designs for the new State Paper Office on the south side of Downing Street, the Triumphal Arch and the old Foreign Office (q.v. Soane: Office of Works: London: Old Foreign Office, Downing Street, 1825). In each case the State Paper Office has a frontage that is to the same size and proportion as the south pavilion of the Privy Council Offices. On drawings 187 and 189 the centre of this frontage is set back. The Triumphal Arch is located at the end of the Privy Council Offices. On drawings 190 and 191 the west end of Downing Square is open to St James's Park.
George Canning (1770-1827) was the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1807-9 and 1822-27.

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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).