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Martin's Bank, 68 Lombard Street, City of London, 1791-2
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Reference number
SM D3/10/1
Purpose
Martin's Bank, 68 Lombard Street, City of London, 1791-2
Aspect
[5] Principal elevation of four bays and five storeys with basement
Scale
2/5 in to 1 ft approximately
Signed and dated
- 1791-2
Medium and dimensions
Pen and watercolour technique, partly pricked for transfer on laid paper (695 x 565)
Hand
Dance
Watermark
J Whatman
Notes
This presentation drawing, with its streaky watercolour technique conveying the character of rain-washed masonry, shows a design with four storeys of brickwork above an ashlar-stone ground floor and basement. Square-headed casement windows (those of the first and second floors having lattice window guards) reduce in height as they rise and are centred over four tall semi-circular arched openings, three glazed and one the entrance to Change Alley. Two figures are shown stepping up, presumably into a door, on the left-hand side of the alley. The stonework is finished by a string-course composed of a coffer-like motif punctuated by circular bosses on a square. Under the right-hand window, a railing fronts a square-headed basement entrance.
Comparison with a watercolour view by Valentine Davis (1784-1869) of 'Messrs Martin, Stone & Copy, 68 Lombard Street', c.1810 (Guildhall Library, Prints & Maps Department, Record: 4138) shows that, as built, Dance modified the revised design so that the front was organised with five bays with sash and not casement windows; the top storey became an attic with a parapet and dormer windows. At ground floor level were five bays with semicircular-headed openings that, from the left, read: door, two windows, entrance to Change Alley and another window.
Much of the accommodation was domestic. James Martin II, the senior partner between 1775 and 1807, lived in Downing Street, Westminster but junior partners as well as clerks would have resided in Lombard Street in the floors above the 'shop' and in the two eastern bays.
REPRODUCED. Stroud fig.53a.
Comparison with a watercolour view by Valentine Davis (1784-1869) of 'Messrs Martin, Stone & Copy, 68 Lombard Street', c.1810 (Guildhall Library, Prints & Maps Department, Record: 4138) shows that, as built, Dance modified the revised design so that the front was organised with five bays with sash and not casement windows; the top storey became an attic with a parapet and dormer windows. At ground floor level were five bays with semicircular-headed openings that, from the left, read: door, two windows, entrance to Change Alley and another window.
Much of the accommodation was domestic. James Martin II, the senior partner between 1775 and 1807, lived in Downing Street, Westminster but junior partners as well as clerks would have resided in Lombard Street in the floors above the 'shop' and in the two eastern bays.
REPRODUCED. Stroud fig.53a.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk