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Addressed (verso) Earl of Londonderry / at Lord Castlereagh's / Cleveland Square / London and franked Free / Mar 6 / 1804
Dated: February 29 1804
Signed and dated
- 1803-04
Medium and dimensions
Hand
Notes
this morning I receaved your Letter and has the Pleasure to / tell you that the Mountsewart faimely are well and in good / Spirits owing to the good accounts receaved from your Lordship / and Lady by corse of her speedy Recovery which I trust in God / in a short time will be Completely Confirmed and she Established / in her own Dear Country & I have inclosed a Ruff Draft / of the north front with the necessary Dimensions Marked on it / Praise to observe to Mr Dance that notwithstanding that the / upper block course over the Cornice is higher than the plinth / it appears Quite in line with it as you approach the house / from the Most Conspicuous points from the turn all along Camden / Walk owing to the gentel Rise of the ground, Will be very / thank full for his oppinion also a Ruff Draft of what he may / Consider best. I do think that the Columns Must ^have baces as it / will in sum misure be a protection to the shaft from the / Rubb of a Carride wheel etc. I wish also that he would have / the goodness to give a Ruff Draught an Explanation of / the foulding Doors as we Irish are so apt to blunder - I also / beg you to get from Mr Dance a Ruff Draft of what kind of / Cornice and frize (if any) he would recomend with the orniments / suitable for such Rooms No1 Library bow end 40 by 25 feet 15 high / Dining Room 37 by 25 15 high Music Room 25 by 21 feet 15 high / and to Draw out Ruffly the kind of Marble Chimney Pieces / Suitable for these Rooms as we have Marble of the best / kind I can get them Dun here or if they should not / fall in I can have them in belfast Considerably Cheaper / and I believe Eaqualy as well. I also Mention to your / Lordship to Enquire at Mr Dance are thay ^any Improvements / Made on grates Rumfords others if they are to be so / good as to have them Explaind. The Weather has set in / very fine these 10 Days past your Lordship may Depend / that in general in all your Works here the peopel / seems to be tolerable buysey. I am Enjoyin it as much / as the Rest and at as Littel Expence as I possibly can / My Lord I conclude with my prayer to Almighty God for / your good health Safe and Speedy Return in the Sinceir / wish and prayer of your obident and Humble Servt / John Feguson / February 29 1804
Presumably the 'Ruff Draft of the north front' refers to drawing [SM D3/9/1], Ferguson's elevation of the entrance front with his design for a porte-cochere.
Level
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).