[23] Design for the basement of a prison building 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 (33)
    - Variant design for a castle-style bridewell scheme, 1791, unexecuted (4)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/17

Purpose

[23] Design for the basement of a prison building for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1791, unexecuted

Aspect

Basement plan of a prison building comprising a central heating room flanked by links with stairs, and cells. At one end of the heating room are three long passages leading to the central inspector tower and divided yard areas. The plan also shows the outline of the yards and bastions

Scale

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

Inscribed

Plan of the Sunk Passages from the Bridewell to the different Yards with the Stairs from the Story above ~ / at Edinburgh / Passage to the different Yards for exercise / Passage for the Inspector / Passage to the different Yards for exercise / Heating room / Cell / or Refectory / Cell / Women / Stairs / Coal cellar / Stairs / Cell / /or Refectory / Cell / Men with some room dimensions / (verso) (in pencil) Plans of Bridewell / (in pen) Bridewell finish’d Fronts, Sections & miniature [_ _ _ _] / 6 Pieces

Signed and dated

1790-91
datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen and pencil on laid paper within a ruled border (781x584)

Hand

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

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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