[12] Site plan showing the proposed position of Gordon House, before 9 March 1809

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Royal Hospital, Chelsea for the Board of Commissioners, 1807-1835 (226)
    - Site for the new Infirmary, December 1808 - August 1809 (17)

Drawing. SM volume 78/11. ©Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Photo: Hugh Kelly

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Reference number

SM volume 78/11

Purpose

[12] Site plan showing the proposed position of Gordon House, before 9 March 1809

Aspect

Block plan of the west side of the hospital, showing the original and an alternative site for Colonel Gordon's house

Scale

bar scale

Inscribed

labelled A, B and N^o. 5

Hand

Soane office

Notes

Soane's report of 9 March 1809 records his visit to Thomas Leverton when he asked to see the plans for Colonel Gordon's house. These could not be found but were brought around to Soane's house by Leverton later that day. SM volume 77/22 and SM volume 78/28 are evidently copies of an original in Leverton's possession and there is also a printed version accompanying Soane's report in Papers, presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Building of a New Infirmary, and the Leasing of Ground at Chelsea Hospital. The drawings show the proposed site for Gordon's house which would obstruct the circulation of air from the river to the proposed site for Soane's Infirmary (across the airing ground). Soane also notes an objection to the 30 feet wide access road (from Paradise Row to Colonel Gordon's property) which he had thought was to be only 24 feet wide. The constriction on the Infirmary site was deemed too great.

As a result of these objections, Soane drew up three alternative plans for the location of Colonel Gordon's house, this drawing, SM volume 77/6 and SM 67/2/16. This drawing and SM volume 77/6 show the original site proposed for the villa marked A and Soane's suggestion for another site, marked B. These plans are also printed along with Soane's report in Papers, presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Building of a New Infirmary, and the Leasing of Ground at Chelsea Hospital. SM volume 77/6 shows the altered position for the villa, shielded by 'a clump of trees'.

Literature

Papers, presented to the House of Commons, relating to the Building of a New Infirmary, and the Leasing of Ground at Chelsea Hospital (ordered by the House of Commons) to be Printed, 20^th April 1809

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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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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