[1] Design for the site of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, 1825

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Churches and chapels
  - London: Church of St John on Bethnal Green, London 1824-28 (66)
    - Designs for the site, St John's, Bethnal Green, London, 1825-26 [3]

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Reference number

SM 47/5/1

Purpose

[1] Design for the site of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, 1825

Aspect

Plan for the site of the church, which is on the south-west corner of a green space which also includes a building and water feature on the top right. Footpaths cross the space vertically and horizontally. The church is at the junction of two roads, one from Hackney to Mile End, and the other named Globe Street. On this side a wall divides the road from the church

Scale

to a scale

Inscribed

Bethnal Green Road / Road from Hackney to Mile End / Bethnal Green North / the Green / foot path / Globe Street / Bethnal Green East

Signed and dated

May-June 1825
Murray John stated this plan is dated to 26 June 1825. There is no indication of this date on the plan but as the first drawings start in May and continue to June, it is plausible to posit a date for the site plan to these months, especially as Bethnal Green Road had replaced the name Camden Road in the same year

Medium and dimensions

Pen, wash, coloured washes of cerulean blue, green, pink and yellow, and pricked for transfer on laid paper (377 x 238)

Hand

Probably Soane Office, draughtsman

Watermark

a crown with a shield below

Notes

The lack of rear projections on the church in this drawing may indicate this was very early in the design process. When the site was finallised in 1824, there was little controversy. As a result, this may well be the first drawing for Bethnal Green

Literature

John, 2003, p. 41, 42 fig. 28

Level

Drawing

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.

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