[20] Finished drawing for the section of a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1791, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Public buildings
  - Bridewell, Edinburgh: designs for a group of prison buildings, 1790-91, executed in part (32)
    - Design for a castle-style bridewell scheme, 1791, unexecuted (11)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/16

Purpose

[20] Finished drawing for the section of a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1791, unexecuted

Aspect

Flier closed: Axial section through a group of prison buildings. At the north end is a two-storey lodge over a basement. The central building has a two-storey front over a half-sunk basement which then rises to five storeys in the centre comprising a stairwell and inspector’s lodge with a belfry and water cistern above. Encircling the tower is a four-storey domed chamber, over a basement, with openings into individual cells, and another water cistern in the attic. The ground storey comprises a continuous arcade with four rows of pews, whilst the upper storeys are supported by Tuscan columns, all with railings. There is a basement fireplace with a flue leading to below the floor of the chamber. At the south end is a single-storey inspector’s lodge with a pitched roof and beyond the boundary wall is a small hut and bastion. The different colour washes denote the building materials. Flier open: Section of the stairwell next to the inspector’s lodge with arched openings on one side, showing a wider section of the cells in the central chamber

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/2 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Section from North to South through the center[sic] of the New Invented Bridewell proposed to be built on the Caltoun Hill ~ / (and in the hand of William Adam) Edinburgh / (verso) No 3

Signed and dated

1790-91
datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured wash including lemon yellow and pink within a ruled border on laid paper (1180x475)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison, John Robertson, or John Paterson

Watermark

Footed P

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
King, Vol. 2, 2001, p. 54
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.

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