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  • image SM Adam volume 33/05
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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/05

Purpose

[1] Designs for additions to the ground floor of the College of Justice, 1790-91, unexecuted

Aspect

Plan of the ground floor of the College of Justice in Parliament House with a proposed adjoining wing. The existing college comprises an L-shaped building with one long room for the Outer House and two smaller rooms, the Inner House and hall, at one end. Adjoining the length of the Outer House and extending to the side of St Giles church is the proposed wing comprising a Writers' library, hall and Inner House with smaller rooms including clerks’ rooms, a robing room and Lords' retiring room. The library is divided into sections by bookshelves, with columns at either end. The Inner House also has columns at one end and an apsidal end at the other, with niches leading to store rooms and a corridor. The washes denote proposed (black) and existing (grey) fabric

Scale

bar scale of 3/4 of an inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

(In the hand of William Adam) Edinburgh / (in another hand) As the Goldsmiths Hall, The Baillie / and Sherriff Courts may all be got Commodiously / in the Story under this, Perhaps the shops & / present Goldsmiths hall may be given up in which / case an exceeding good additional room may be / got and for the use of the Writers library with / a Gallery, & one for the Advocates Library with / a Gallery which woud contain a vast number / of volumes – / Hall to council / chamber &c / Inner House to be / converted to a / Council Chamber / If the Baillie court / is to be below this / may serve as a / private room for the / Magistrates / Present Goldsmiths / Hall & Shops to / remain untouched / by this plan – / Outer parliament house in its present state / proposed to be cleared of the shops & courts & to be / Kept for the Lord ordinary & advocates – / Inner house / Robeing room / Lords retiring room / Clerks room / Hall / clerks room / Staircase / Writers Library / Part of St Giles Church. with most text underwritten in pencil / (in pencil) 5. (Verso) these Plans to go first in the Book / (in pencil) Advocates Library Edinr No 1 not to be shewn

Signed and dated

  • 1790-91
    datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash within a ruled border on laid paper (642x475)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison or John Robertson

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
Brown, 1989, p. 69
Kerr, 1998, pp. 4-7
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

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).