3/8 in to 10 ft

Finsbury / Square, North, South, East and West, streets labelled, S side labelled Lot 1 to Lot 11, W^m Rolfe (three times), W^m Lovering (twice), W^m Butler with W^m Fielder (twice), E side labelled Lot 14 to Lot 23, N side with Worship Street behind labelled Lot 1 to Lot 13, Let to Peter Banner 1^st July 1789, Let to W^m Rolfe 1^rst July 1789, Let to Ja^s Peacock 29t^h July 1789 (twice), Let to Ja^s Carr 29^th July 1789, Let to Anth^y Moorland 29^th July 1789 (five times), Let to Tho.Silk 29th July 1789, Let to W^m Robinson Esq. 29^th July 1789, Let to W^m Robinson Esq. 29^th July 1789, W Side (in front of the Artillery Ground) labelled unbuilt, M Jones, M^r Bailey, dimensions given and (verso) Finsbu (cut) Correct Plan for Setting each / Persons quota towards Bathurst &c / 30 Dated: 1^st July and 29^th July 1789 (as above)

• 1789

Pen, pink and yellow washes, pencil within double ruled border, partly pricked for transfer on laid paper (980 x 635)

office

J Whatman

The plan, the purpose of which is to document the assignation of leases on lots, shows the north, east and south side of the square with each lot to its full depth; the west side, in front of the Artillery Ground, has only the frontages marked. 'Worship Street' is marked to the north, the east side is interrupted by Christopher Street and Crown Street and the west side by Chiswell Street. In the centre of the Square is a garden on an elliptical plan measuring 271.6 by 357 feet 10 inches. James Peacock, the assignee of lots 3 and 4 and Dance's assistant, re-assigned one of the lots and kept the other for his own home (No.17 Finsbury Square).

In the Corporation of London Records Office are drawings for Finsbury Square made or copied for leasing purposes, that correspond to the plan catalogued above. These are a plan and elevations of the principal front and two flanking fronts of the east side of Finsbury Square, 1790, with the names of the lessees (Comptroller's City Lands Plan 361). There is also an elevation of the north side, 1789, with lots 1 to 13 marked and the signatures of W. Rolfe, Peter Banner, Anthony Morland, W. Robinson, Thomas Silk, James Carr and J. Peacock (Comptroller's City Lands Plan 475) and an elevation of the west side with a plan of that part let to William Rolfe, 17 March 1790 (Comptroller's City Lands Plan 465).

An elevation of the west side of Finsbury Square, as built, inscribed 'Moor Place or Square' and 'West Side Moorefields', is in the Dublin City Archives (Map 492). Edward McParland considered that this was probably obtained in 1792 when the Dublin Commissioners sought 'to obtain Elevations of such range Buildings or other in London as ... may ... be of advantage towards furnishing designs for the Streets and places in this City' ('The Wide Street Commissioners: their importance for Dublin architecture in the late 18th-early 19th century', Quarterly Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society, XV, No.1, 1972, p.22.

Drawing

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk