St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811

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George Dance office drawings: the drawings of George Dance the Elder and George Dance the Younger
- Prison, courts and a lunatic hospital (5)
  - St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London, 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811 Competition design (by an unidentified architect), preliminary design by James Peacock?, contract drawings, specification and drawings of building as executed (32)

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Reference number

SM D4/1/19

Purpose

St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811

Aspect

[20] Front (S) elevation without entrance

Scale

1/14 in to 1 ft

Inscribed

(on building) SAINT LUKES HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS, BY VOLUNTARY SUBSRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS and ERECTED AND COMPLETED AD 17 [blank]

Signed and dated

c.1794-1811

Medium and dimensions

Pen and sepia washes, pencil, shaded, within double-ruled border on laid paper (670 x 1000)

Hand

See note to [SM D4/1/16] and [SM D4/1/17]

Watermark

J Whatman 1811

Notes

The elevation shows the five-bay, five-storey end pavilion with the same types and arrangement of windows as the centre. The composition varies above the attic where instead of a pediment, the pavilions each have a balustrade that fronts an octagonal parapeted lantern that is 19 feet 6 inches at its widest point. The lantern lit all the floors through to the ground floor.

More finished than [SM D4/1/12], or any other of the drawings [SM D4/1/9], [SM D4/1/10], [SM D4/1/11], [SM D4/1/8], [SM D4/1/7], [SM D4/1/6], [SM D4/1/5], [SM D4/1/12], [SM D4/1/19], [SM D4/1/14], [SM D4/1/13], [SM D4/1/15], [SM D4/1/18], [SM D4/1/16], [SM D4/1/17], the design of the centre and wings does not vary except that the brick 'pilasters' of the second floor are slightly narrower than those below, a refinement not shown in the contract drawing [SM D4/2/4] nor in [SM D4/1/12]. The purpose of the drawing is not known but it may have been prepared for the engraver. There are two prints, in the collection of the Bank of England, that are similar but show only three floors. Neither is dated and one is signed 'Lodge' and the other 'Deeble'.

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.

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).