[3] Preliminary design for the north-east extension, 1794

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1356)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (431)
      - Acquiring property for the north-east extension, 1792-94; and improvements to streets, 1797 (7)

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Reference number

SM 9/3/3

Purpose

[3] Preliminary design for the north-east extension, 1794

Aspect

Ground plan of the Bank and a straightened Bartholomew Lane, showing proposed bank buildings and rental properties and preliminary design for north-east offices; rough (pencil) elevation and part-plan of Lothbury Street screen wall

Scale

bar scale

Inscribed

Court, House Porters, Lodge (twice), Gate Porters, Strong Room, Vestibule, Stock Room, Vestibule, Great Hall, Treasury, M^rNewland / Room, Cashiers Office, Lobby, Court, Bullion Office, Accountants Office, Passage, Watchmans Lodge, Coffee Room, Library, Deputy Acct^s/ Office, Drawing Office, Court, Dividend Warrant Office, Cheque Office, Reduced Annuity Office, Committee Room, Court Room, Waiting Room (four times), Yard, Officers Room, Bedroom, Servants Room, Barracks, Engine House, Strong Room (twice), Chancery Office, and plan of proposed building labelled: Passage of separation, Court (twice), Court / to / N^o 3, Court / to / N^o 1, Gate, holdings numbered 1 to 10 with some dimensions, and dwellings 6 and 7 named: M^r Edwards and M^r Walton, rough plan labelled: Transfer and with dimensions given, (Bailey) The Bank of England, General Plan in the Year

Signed and dated

(pencil) 1794

Medium and dimensions

Pen, grey and orange washes, and pencil, within double ruled, grey and orange wash border, on laid paper (578 x 501)

Hand

Soane office

Watermark

I Taylor and GR below a fleur-de-lis and crown

Notes

This plan and SM 9/3/4 are very similar yet SM 9/3/4 shows an earlier plan of the Bank, probably before 1791. This drawing shows all buildings erected before 1794, including the Bank Stock Office, the string of offices behind the screen wall on Princes Street and the rebuilt vestibule leading from the front court to the Rotunda. SM 9/3/4 shows the offices behind the Princes Street screen wall in red wash, indicating their unbuilt state. These buildings include the Discount Office, Accountants Office and Governor's Room. Both drawings show virtually the same design for the proposed houses on Lothbury Street, suggesting that those parts of the drawings are contemporary to one another. This drawing, therefore, could be a modified copy of SM 9/3/4.

Rough plans show a preliminary design for the Consols Transfer Office. The Office's long axis runs parallel to Bartholomew Lane, with one end aligned with the Four Per Cent Office. As shown in the Consols Transfer Office and Lothbury Court schemes, the Office was reoriented on an east-west axis.

The drawing has cross-hatching to show the ceiling plans of the rooms. Interestingly, a starfish ceiling is in the recess of one of the offices. The corridors also have a series of vaulted ceilings that appear to be groin-vaults supporting lanterns or starfish ceilings. These corridors were not built by Soane, however; they were built by Robert Taylor from 1780 to 1782. Soane built a starfish ceiling at his home in 12 Lincolns Inn Fields in 1792.

Level

Drawing

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

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).