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Taylor designed the south and south-east Transfer Offices in 1765 and they were complete by 1768. His design was almost identical for each: 16 wooden columns supported a lath and plaster ceiling with 23 lanterns. The main difference between the two offices was that the south office’s longitudinal southern wall, which bordered Threadneedle Street, was not straight and inclined outwards from east to west. The south-east office had a similarly inclined southern wall, on the transverse side. The positions of doorways to access the Rotunda, vestibule and an access doorway between the two offices also indicate which the room shown is (though only if the plan shows the ground floor rather than the basement).
Taylor’s offices became unstable and in 1814 Soane submitted a report to the Committee of Building, informing them that ‘the timbers of the roof, and also the sky-lights over the Four and Five Per Cent Offices are so much decayed, and the pillars which support them so much out of an upright as makes it necessary to rebuild the same. It is proposed to rebuild these two rooms with incombustible materials and in every other respect like the Three Per Cent and Bank Stock Offices’ (ref SMA, Box 14.65).
When it came to rebuilding, Soane retained Taylor’s outer walls but completely rebuilt the interiors of the south and south-east Transfer Offices. The initial survey drawings show Taylor’s offices as they were. The following record drawings show the poor condition of the excavated basement (drawings 10 to 15). Soane added masonry reinforcement and stabilised the foundations, in order that they would provide support for his new layout above. A major reason for rebuilding was the fire risk that Taylor’s wooden column and ceiling structure posed. Therefore Soane’s ground floor design followed the Bank Stock Office prototype: a three aisle layout, with four monumental (fireproof) stone columns supporting a central domed lantern. The difference between the later Transfer Offices and the Bank Stock Office lay in the substitution of semicircular arches for the segmental arches of the earlier design. The roof was then constructed with barrel vaults composed of terracotta cones, for a lightweight, fire-proof roof.
Soane’s two Transfer Offices were remarkably similar to each other in most respects, just as Taylor's had been. The dimensions, plan and construction were almost identical across the later south and south-east Transfer offices. However, Soane introduced variant decorative schemes – most notably for the two lanterns: the south-east Transfer Office incorporated a central lantern with sixteen Ionic columns. The south Transfer Office had a central two-tier lantern with paired caryatids ornamenting the first tier. The general decorative schemes of the two offices also differed from each other: the later south Transfer Office had ‘sol’ and ‘lunar’ roundels and caducei in the spandrels of the canopy dome. The south-east Transfer Office dome spandrels bore simple flower-medallions with a lion's head in the centre of each.
It seems evident from the dates of progress and construction drawings (drawings 43, 92 and 93 in particular) that Soane rebuilt the south-east Transfer Office first (beginning work in 1817) and the south Transfer Office later (in 1821). Soane must have completed the two Transfer Offices by 1823 as there is a £403 bill for the south Transfer Office caryatids in the SM Archives, dated to October 1822 (MB.i.23).
There are three drawings that may be for the south-east Transfer Office in the V&A collection. These are included in P. Du Prey, Sir John Soane, 1985, in a series of 'Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum', catalogue 147-149.
Matilda Burn 2011
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 South and south-east Transfer Offices, 1817-23 (115)
- Survey drawings of Taylor's south and south-east Transfer Offices, September 1817 (3)
- Survey drawings of Taylor's south-east Transfer Office, one dated 6 September 1817 (2)
- Survey drawing of Taylor's south or south-east Transfer Office, 27 November 1817
- Survey drawings of Taylor's south or south-east Transfer Office, one dated 8 December 1817 (3)
- Site record drawings of Taylor's south-east Transfer Office, 8 December 1817 (2)
- Site record drawings of Taylor's south-east Transfer Office, one dated 8 December 1817 (2)
- Site record drawings of Taylor's south or south-east Transfer Office, one dated 24 December 1817 (2)
- Preliminary working drawings for the later south-east Transfer Office, 12 January 1818 (2)
- Working drawings for later south-east Transfer Office basement, 12,17 February and 13 June 1818 (4)
- Record drawing that reconstructs Taylor's south-east Transfer Office, after 1818
- Two working drawings and one copy of a working drawing the later south or south-east Transfer Office, February - 27 April 1818 (3)
- Working drawing and record of working drawing for the later south or south-east Transfer Office, 5-24 April 1818 (2)
- Site record and progress drawings of the later south or south-east Transfer Office, 25-27 April 1818 (3)
- Three working drawings and one record of working drawing for the later south-east Transfer Office, one dated 27 April 1818 (4)
- Site progress drawings showing the demolition of Taylor's south or south-east Transfer Offices, c. April 1818 (2)
- Site record drawings for the later south or south-east Transfer Office, 28 April - 14 May 1818 (2)
- Design for the later south-east Transfer Office, one dated 21 May 1818 (2)
- Site progress drawings for the later south or south-east Transfer Office, one dated 28 April 1818 (7)
- Two site record drawings and two (copy) working drawings for the later south or south-east Transfer Office, 16-23 May 1818 (4)
- Site record drawings, 14-20 May 1818 (4)
- Site progress drawings, c.June 1818 (6)
- Site record drawings for the later south or south-east Transfer Office, c.1818 (3)
- Site record and site progress drawings for the later south-east Transfer Office, one dated 9 June 1818 (3)
- Presentation drawings for the later south-east Transfer Office, one dated August 1818 (3)
- Record drawing of the later south-east Transfer Office, c.1819
- Record drawing made on site, c.1818
- Site record drawings of Taylor's south Transfer Office, one dated 2 December 1818 (2)
- Design for the later south-east Transfer Office, 1820
- Design for the later south-east Transfer Office lantern exterior, c.1820 (2)
- Record of preliminary design for the later south-east Transfer Office lantern, 30 January 1819
- Designs and working drawing (copy) for the later south-east Transfer Office lantern , 1820 (4)
- Design for ceiling and floor plan re-used as an aid to perspective (later south-east Transfer Office), 1820 (2)
- Presentation drawing (and copy) for the later south-east Transfer Office, c.1820-1821 (2)
- Design for furniture layout of the later south-east Transfer Office, c.1820-1821
- Preliminary designs and design for finishing the later south-east Transfer Office, one dated 1821 (3)
- Record of design for the later south-east Transfer Office, 1821
- Survey of Taylor's south Transfer Office, c.1820
- Record of preliminary design for heating Taylor's south Transfer Office, 17 January 1820
- Site progress drawings of demolition of Taylor's south Transfer Office, one dated 25 August 1821 (2)
- Designs for the foundations of the later south Transfer Office, one dated 15 November 1821 (2)
- Variant designs for the later south Transfer Office basement, one dated 31 August 1821 (3)
- Site record drawing of the later south Transfer Office, 23 November 1821
- Working drawing for the later south Transfer Office, 8 February 1822
- Working drawing for the later south Transfer Office, 1821
- Working drawings for the later south Transfer Office, c.1821 (2)
- Working drawings, one dated 1820 and one dated 14 February 1824 (2)
- Site-record drawings, early 1823 (2)
- Design for the later south Transfer Office, 1821 (3)
- Design for lantern for the later south Transfer Office, c.1821-1822
- Record drawing of lantern design for the later south Transfer Office, 1823
- Presentation drawing for the later south Transfer Office, 1818
- Unused lecture drawing for the later south-east Transfer Office, post 1822