[3] Preliminary design for the cellar

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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)
      - Consols Transfer Office, 1797-1799 (75)

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Reference number

SM 10/6/10

Purpose

[3] Preliminary design for the cellar

Aspect

Plan for cellar under new Transfer Office

Scale

to scale

Inscribed

as above, dimensions given

Signed and dated

datable to 1798-99

Hand

Soane office

Notes

This drawing, SM volume 74/64 and SM volume 74/73 are preliminary designs for the cellar. This drawing shows the cellar was to be built of eight cross-vaulted bays by four cross-vaulted bays. This corresponds to the hall above with three bays across under the central dome, two bays under the end-bays and one bay under the eastern recess. This is more clearly shown in the section of SM volume 74/73.

Four main piers, corresponding to the four main piers in the hall above, and eight smaller piers, for additional support, form segmental arches supporting the foundations of the hall. SM volume 74/64 shows the structure of the piers, made of stone and iron tie-rods with a column-flue running through the centre. SM volume 74/73 indicates doors at the north end under the central dome of the hall, suggesting that perhaps the cellar was used for storage.

SM volume 74/73 also shows an alternative design scheme for the Consols Transfer Office without a central lantern or clerestory windows, reducing the height of the end-bays.

Bailey (1792-1860) was an office assistant between 1806 and 1837 and then from 1837 to 1860 he was the curator. He took on a role of inscriber within the office adding dates and locations to drawings at a later date for referencing. This could possibly have led to inaccuracies, especially if he added the information after Soane's demise in 1837 and so one should consider these inscriptions with caution.

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).