[7] Design for the principal front of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, February

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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 west front, St John's, Bethnal Green, London, 1825, 1827 [4]

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Reference number

SM 47/5/5

Purpose

[7] Design for the principal front of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, February–April 1827

Aspect

Elevation of the principal western front of the church with five bays, with transomed arch-topped windows in each end bay and three entrance doors, all divided by giant pilasters with accentuated capitals. Atop the roof is a wide base with a two-tiered tower: the first with pilasters on each corner and a shuttered louvre and clock face, and the second tier is topped with a dome surmounted by a weather vane. The roofline and tower are ornamented with caps with pinecone finials

Scale

to a scale of 1 inch to 5 feet (calculated from 0.2 inches to a foot from the 4 foot wide front bay window)

Inscribed

Bethnal Green Chapel IV/25 / Elevation of the West Front / Portland Plinth, York Steps, Bath Stone / The Ground Line / Portland Stone / Bath Stone / Portland Stone / A February 28th 1827. R. Streather / See Drawing No15 / Bath Stone / Portland Stone / B April 11th 1827 R. Streather / Portland Stone / C April 30th 1827 R. Streather and measurements given

Signed and dated

28 February 1827
February 28th.. 1827 / April 11th.. 1827 / April 30th 1827.
11 April 1827
30 April, 1827

Medium and dimensions

Pen, coloured washes of blue, Cerulean blue, stone and yellow, pricked for transfer, on wove paper (731 x 525)

Hand

Probably Soane Office, draughtsman

Watermark

SMITH & ALLNUTT / 1823

Notes

This somewhat faded design shows a fully truncated tower with windows from the 1826 revision whereby Soane used the designs from St Peter's Walworth. The differing dates on the tower level with Robert Streather's signature may well form a contract whereby Streather intended to complete the construction of that aspect of the tower.

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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