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Preliminary designs for the extension were first presented in April 1802. Soane presented more designs on January 19th and 25th 1803, eventually receiving approval for a general plan. The approved design shows the essential layout of the wing, organized around an east-west corridor that runs between a Princes Street entrance and the pre-existing Chief Cashier's Office. A court to the south of the corridor (Waiting Room Court, or Governor's Court) is overlooked by offices, including the pre-existing Directors' parlours on its south side. An Accountants Office is situated to the north of the corridor and on an east-west axis. A long courtyard lies along the west side of the offices. The Princes Street entrance (Doric Vestibule) joins the offices and Princes Street. Also included in the presentation drawings are alterations to a few of the existing offices, including the Bullion Vault and several rooms adjacent to the Pay Hall.
After the basic general plan was approved, Soane refined the design until July, focusing on the layout of the Accountants Office, loggia, Doric Vestibule and flanking offices. The Doric Vestibule was enlarged from the January design, forming a domed hall on a cruciform plan. To its north and south were included small passages linking to stair wells and (to the north) a Porter's Lodge. The corridor extending east from the Doric Vestibule passed through a loggia on the north side of the Waiting Room Court. The loggia was a symbolic bridge between the Doric Vestibule and the private banking offices to the east, articulated with a design resembling Soane's own Triumphal Bridge design of 1777. As late as September 1803, designs for the loggia have a screen of Ionic columns. The final design (October) has the columns exchanged for piers, with a sequence of arches on the interior. The Waiting Room Court was simultaneously developing, with the final design having Corinthian columns in antis raised on rusticated arches.
The Waiting Room Court was built in 1805 and the offices to the west of the court were built in 1805. The Accountants Office was built simultaneously (see separate scheme 3:7) as was the Doric Vestibule (3:6) and the Screen Wall on Princes Street (3:4). The second phase of the north-west extension is shown in scheme 3:9.
Three drawings for the Waiting Room Court are among a collection of Soane's drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The drawings are views of the Court from the north and south, showing variant designs for the attic and loggia.
Literature: P. du Prey, Sir John Soane, 1985, in series of 'Catalogues of architectural drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum', catalogue 206-208.
Madeleine Helmer, 2010
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 First phase of north-west extension: Waiting Room Court, Accountants Office and Doric Vestibule, 1801-1804 (111)
- Preliminary designs, in Soane's hand, one dated 26 April 1801 (2)
- Presentation drawing of the Bank, including the proposed extension, April 1802
- Preliminary design and presentation drawings of the Bank including the proposed wing and showing screen wall designs, January 1803 (4)
- Preliminary working drawings, April 1803 (2)
- Alternative designs, two dated April 1803 (3)
- Working drawings, May 1803 (2)
- Preliminary designs for the north side of the Waiting Room Court, April 1803 (4)
- Working drawings for the basement and foundations, April and May 1803 (3)
- Preliminary working drawings, one altered in August 1803 (2)
- Alternative designs, early 1803 (2)
- Designs for the basement of the Princes Street Vestibule and adjacent rooms, one dated July 1803 (3)
- Working drawings for the first phase of the north-west extension, two dated July 1803 (4)
- Preliminary designs for the loggia (2)
- Variant designs for the loggia and Princes Street Vestibule, May to July 1803 (3)
- Working drawing for the loggia, in Soane's hand, 14 July 1803
- Working drawings for the loggia and its basement, 16 July 1803 (2)
- Alternative preliminary designs and working drawings for the west side of the Waiting Room Court, July to August 1803 (7)
- Designs for the north side of the Waiting Room Court, July 1803 (3)
- Working drawings for part of the loggia, one dated 20 July 1803 (2)
- Working drawings, 13, 14 and 29 July 1803
- Working drawings for ornament, two dated 29 July 1803 (5)
- Variant designs for the Waiting Room Court, July and August 1803 (2)
- Presentation drawings of alternative designs for the Waiting Room Court, August and November 1803 (3)
- Alternative designs for the north side of the Waiting Room Court, July to September 1803 (4)
- Alternative designs, record drawing and working drawing for the west side of the Waiting Room Court, some dated August to September 1803 and January 1804 (9)
- Working drawing for the basement of the Waiting Room Court, 18 August 1803
- Record drawing reused as a design for the Corinthian pilasters in the Waiting Room Court, September 1803
- Designs for the loggia, including executed design, 4 and 5 September 1803 (2)
- Design and record drawing of the loggia, September 1803 (2)
- Alternative designs for the south side of the Waiting Room Court, including executed design, September to October 1803 (3)
- Record drawing of the Waiting Room Court, September 1803
- Working drawing for the loggia, in Soane's hand, 29 September 1803
- Design for the loggia, copied 13 September 1803
- Working drawings for the loggia, 5 October 1803
- Working drawing and record drawing of the Waiting Room Court and Accountants Office, one dated October 1803 (2)
- Variant designs for the offices facing the Printing Office Court, July 1803 and modified 2 October 1803 (3)
- Designs for the floors above the Princes Street Vestibule, one copied 4 October 1803 (2)
- Working drawing for the court and offices just north of the Doric Vestibule, one copied 5 October 1803 (2)
- Working and record drawings, October 1803 (3)
- Working drawing for the exterior wall of the Waiting Room Court basement, 24 December 1803
- Designs for the basement west of the Waiting Room Court, one dated May 1804 (2)
- Variant designs for the lobby at the east end of the loggia, one dated August 1804 (4)
- Survey of the Waiting Room Court
- Drawing for exhibtion of the Waiting Room Court, as built 1805