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Purpose
Signed and dated
- 1774
Notes
As evidenced by the surviving drawings within the Soane Museum, FitzRoy commissioned Robert Adam to make designs for an end-of-terrace house and its interior in 1774. The location of this house is unknown, and Adam’s designs are not thought to have been executed. One of the drawings for the house (Adam volume 45/10) was later inscribed as ‘near Southampton’ by William Adam, but according to King, the Southampton city archives have no record of such a house or such a client. It is suggested here, therefore, that this location may have been an accidental conflation by William Adam of FitzRoy’s title and house. King again notes that according to the Westminster City archives, FitzRoy lived on Grafton Street, although this house is unknown, and he died in 1797 in another townhouse in his possession on Stanhope Street. Further to this, FitzRoy was in possession of a property in Highgate, inherited from his mother in 1768, and known as Fitzroy Farm. An unknown building which came to be called Fitzroy House, on a piece of land neighbouring Fitzroy Farm, was purchased by FitzRoy, but not until 1782, and cannot therefore, be related to Adam’s designs.
Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index pp. 29, 71; T.F.T. Baker, and C.R. Elrington (eds), ‘Hornsey, including Highgate: Highgate’, A history of the county of Middlesex, Volume 6, 1980, pp. 122-135; D. King, The complete works of Robert & James Adam and unbuilt Adam, 2001, Volume II, p. 134; ‘FitzRoy, Hon. Charles (1737-97), of Highgate, Mdx.’, History of Parliament online; ‘FitzRoy, Charles, first Baron Southampton (1737-1797)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography online
Frances Sands, 2014
Level
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).
Contents of General Charles FitzRoy, 1st Baron Southampton: unexecuted designs for a house, 1774 (13)
- Designs for alterations to an end of terrace house, 1774, unexecuted (3)
- Preliminary design for the ceiling of the principal or great drawing room, 1774, unexecuted (1)
- Preliminary design and record drawing for the walls of the circular room, 1774, unexecuted (2)
- Alternative preliminary designs, finished drawing and record drawing for the ceiling of the circular room, 1774, unexecuted (4)
- Preliminary design, finished drawing and record drawing for the walls and ceiling of the private dressing room, 1774, unexecuted (3)