[1-3] Preliminary unfinished alternative designs by Soane, one dated 24 July 1794 (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: Palace of Westminster: designs for alterations and additions, 1793-1828 (499)
    - London: House of Lords, Palace of Westminster: official (mostly domeless) designs, July 1794 - February 1795 (134)

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Reference number

SM (1) 16/4/22 (2) 16/4/24 (3) 16/4/21

Purpose

[1-3] Preliminary unfinished alternative designs by Soane, one dated 24 July 1794 (3)

Aspect

1 Plan of ground floor with two rough pencil elevations and two part-plans 2 Plan of ground floor with extensions mostly southwards 3 Plan of ground floor with rough domed elevation and part-plans

Scale

(1-3) bar scales of 1/10 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

(1) N^o2, labelled: Bishops, Archbishops, Anti Room, Doorkeeper, Lord Chancellor, Kings Robing Room, Doorkeeper, Anti Room, Coals / & / Wood, House of Lords, Corridor, M^rRose, Anti Room, M^rCowper, Gentleman / Ushers, Lobby, Doorkeeper, Black Rod, Wood & Coals, The Kings Entrance, Painted Chamber, Corridor, Privy Seal, Lord G^tChamber[lain], Earl Marshall, Committee / Room, Hall, Vestibule and Lords Entrance (2) N^o3, Doorkeeper / 1, Bishops / 2, Archbishops / 3, L^dChancellor / 4, Anti Room / 5, M^rRose / 6, M^rCowper / 7, M^rCowper / 8, Committee / Room / 9, Witnesses / 10, Privy Seal / 11, Lord G^t/ Chamberlain / 12, Court, Staircase, Princes / Room / 13, Kings Robing / Room / 14, Anti Room / 15, House of / Lords, Committee / Room / 16, Witnesses / 17, doorkeeper / 18, (pencil) R--- R illegible / 20, Black Rod / 21, (pencil) doorkeeper (twice), Hall and Entrance / for / His Majesty (3) Closet, Court, Arcade below, Gallery round this / Passage, Wood (twice), Coals, (pencil) Anti Room, Robing Room, doorkeeper, entrance and ? Regent

Signed and dated

(3) July 24 1794

Medium and dimensions

(1) Pen, pencil, sepia and pink washes, partly pricked for transfer on thin laid paper (757 x 556) (2) pencil, pen and sepia wash, partly pricked for transfer on thin laid paper (795 x 552) (3) pencil and pen, partly pricked for transfer on thin laid paper (708 x 559)

Hand

(1-3) Soane and Soane office hand for the survey parts

Notes

Drawing 1 has the King's Entrance (later called the 'Scala Regia') placed on the south side, re-using the old House of Lords and the Prince's Chamber. The new House of Lords lies to the east towards the river and is contiguous with the Painted Chamber that reaches into part of the Court of Requests to make a ? domed vestibule and Lords entrance on the west or Old Palace Yard side of the building.
Drawing 2 has cancellations and amendments made by Soane and seems generally unresolved. The House of Lords now occupies the Painted Chamber while the old House of Lords contains the King's Robing Room and an anteroom. The King's Entrance and the Lords' Entrance are next to each other on the west side.
Drawing 3 is closer to drawing 2 than to drawing 1. But here, the Court of Requests is re-modelled with an apsidal screen and two domes, and to the south an entrance with a quarter-circle stair on each side. Drawing 1 relates, in some aspects, to the scheme that follows while drawings 2 and 3, on the whole, seem unrelated to further drawings.
On each drawing, the unfinished pencil plan to the left is a survey drawing that includes the House of Commons and part of Westminster Hall.

S. Sawyer, 'Soane at Westminster'. PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1999, pp. 162-3 puts drawing 1 (with 6 and 8) as scheme 'A1' in Soane's sequence of designs for the House of Lords. Sawyer (pp. 166-7) also writes that drawing 2 (with 10 and 28) is attributed to scheme 'B' while (pp. 165-6) drawing 3 (with 12, 13 and 22) comprises scheme 'C'.

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).