[12] Working drawing of section based on the plan of SM volume 74/52, 7 February 1799

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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 volume 74/55

Purpose

[12] Working drawing of section based on the plan of SM volume 74/52, 7 February 1799

Aspect

Longitudinal Section of [half] the Transfer Office No 3, looking south

Scale

bar scale

Inscribed

as above, The Bank of England, chain barr, Iron tye (twice), Stone course (three times), cross wall, stone springer (three times), stone (twice), solid spandril (twice), paving brick on edge, 2 coats of composition (twice), cross wall of common stocks 9" thick (twice), paving bricks (nine times), cones (eight times), solid spandril / of common / stocks, yorkshire paving, stone arch, Rib of second stocks, arch of paving bricks, dimensions given

Signed and dated

Lincolns Inn Fields Feb^ry 7 1799

Hand

Soane office

Notes

This detailed drawing shows how the Consols Transfer Hall was built entirely of fireproof materials; Portland stone, terracotta hollow-cone pots, Yorkshire paving and stock brick, and therefore no timber. Soane drew particular attention to the use of such fireproof material for vaulting in his Royal Academy lectures.

The lightweight hollow pots were square and closed at one end, but basically circular in cross-section, with the other end domical and containing a small opening. Soane had also employed them in the vaulting of the Bank Stock Office. It was an ancient technique that was rediscovered at the end of the eighteenth century and it was the first time such construction had been employed in an English public building. For an example of a hollow-cone pot see M. Richardson & M. Stevens (ed.), John Soane architect: master of space and light, Royal Academy of Arts, 1999, p. 237, cat. 145-146.

The outline of the lantern above the central dome is sketched in pencil.

The Groined arch refers to the transverse arches of the groined-vaulted end-bays and the Trunk arch refers to the two longitudinal arches in the central barrel vault of the side-aisles, of which only the inner curve of the arch is seen. In W. Papworth [ed], The Dictionary of architecture, published in parts 1848-1892, volume VIII, the definition of Trunk arch is 'one of which only the intrados, and not the face is seen'.

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).