[25] Design for the ground floor 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 (33)
    - Variant design for a castle-style bridewell scheme, 1791, unexecuted (4)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/32

Purpose

[25] Design for the ground floor of a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1791, unexecuted

Aspect

Ground plan of a group of prison buildings same as SM Adam volume 33/18 with the addition of labels for the enclosed yards including four gardens and yards for women, debtors, felons, convicts and a bridewell yard for men and youth, and a description of the retaining wall to prevent escape from within and attacks from outside

Scale

bar scale of 3/8 of an inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

From No. 1 to No. 17 are the Cells in the / Circular front of the Building on each of the / four Stories ~ / From No. 18 to No. 21 are the Cells in the / side Towers on each of the four Stories / No. 22 Staircase leading to the different / Stories of Cells – / No. 23 Passage between the Staircase and Inspection / Lodge / 24. Staircase to the Officers Apartments / 25. Fumigating room / 26. Governors Office / 27. Wash house / 28. Entrance Lobby / A Walk with a Wooden Pallisades[sic] / with Centinal Boxes / on the angles / for guarding / the outsides / of the Walls , to prevent attacks from without / or getting over the walls from within / Yard for Women / Yard for Debtors / Yard for Felons / Yard for Convicts / Bridewell yard for Men & Youth / Garden / Garden / Garden / Garden / 1 / 2/ 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / Chapel / Inspection / Lodge / 23 / 24 / Governor / Governess / 26 / 27 / Entrance / 28 / (verso) Bridewell Edin^h / 8/2 / (in another hand) reduced / Plans of Edin Bridewell various designs / (in pencil) Edinburgh / Bridewell / finished Plans of the Bridewell / to a [_ _ _ _] Seale

Signed and dated

1790-91
datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured wash including Payne’s grey, cerulean blue and Naples yellow, on laid paper within a ruled border (522x362)

Hand

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

Watermark

GR surmounted by a fleur de lis within a crowned cartouche

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.

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).