[2] Design for alterations, December 1790

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Country houses, etc.
  - Steephill, Isle of Wight: (not executed) alterations for Wilbraham Tollemache later 6th Earl of Dysart, 1790 (4)

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Reference number

SM 29/5E/1

Purpose

[2] Design for alterations, December 1790

Aspect

Elevation of Entrance Front

Scale

bar scale of 1/5 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

(upper case) as above, The Hon^bleWilbraham Tollemache

Signed and dated

1790
(upper case) Albion Place December MDCCXC

Medium and dimensions

Pen and coloured wash, including olive green, sepia and blue, within double-ruled black wash border on laid paper (581 x 461)

Hand

attributed to Thomas Chawner (1774-1851, pupil 1788-1794)

Watermark

J Whatman and fleur-de-lis over cartouche with ornate W below

Notes

The proposed entrance vestibule is in the primitive style Soane earlier exhibited in his dairy for Hamel's Park (q.v.). The vestibule is on a semicircular plan and attached to the front of the house. Soane's description of the dairy at Hamel's Park, as inscribed on a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum, may be useful in revealing his intentions for this building: 'The pillars are proposed to be of the Trunks of Elm Trees with the bark on / and Honey suckle & Woodbine / planted at their feet, forming / festoons &c / The Roof to be thatched & / the ends of the Rafters / to appear.'

The front and back elevations show a substantial wing of offices hidden behind a grove of trees. Erasure marks on SM 29/5E/2 show an alternative design for the back elevation, with additional windows and a lead roof. Erasure marks also occur on this drawing. The finished elevations show a three-storey house beneath a thatched roof. The attic storey is a proposed addition, as indicated in SM 50/1/18 verso.

A flier on the ground floor plan (SM 29/5E/3) has alternative arrangements for the water closet entry and the adjacent door into thouse. Both face the exterior. The design beneath the flier shows the entrances recessed, thus providing more privacy and protection to those communicating betwen the two doors.

Level

Drawing

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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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