[179] Revised design, New Law Courts, 17 October 1822

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Palace of Westminster: The New Law Courts, surveys and designs, 1820-32 (507)
    - New Law Courts - Second Scheme, 1821-29 (345)
      - Southern Range - Vice Chancellor's Court, Court of Chancery & Lord Chancellor's Room, 1822-29 (82)
        First Phase - Site, 1822-23 (19)

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Reference number

SM 53/2/79

Purpose

[179] Revised design, New Law Courts, 17 October 1822

Aspect

Plan of the main (ground) floor of the New Law Courts, showing the area between Westminster Hall and The Stone Building, including the Vice Chancellor’s Court, The Court of Chancery, accommodation for the Lord Chancellor, and ancillary offices, not as executed

Scale

bar scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Design for part of the New Law Courts at Westminster – / The Vice. Chancellor’s Court. / Attendants. / Retiring Room for / the Vice-Chancellor / Water / Closet (x 3) / The Court of Chancery. / The Lord Chancellor’s / Retiring Room. / Attendants on the / Lord Chancellor. / Law Library (x 2) / Hall dimensions given

Signed and dated

17/10/1822
17 Oct[ober]: 1822

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, wash, coloured washes of pink and blue, pen, pricked for transfer on wove paper (915 x 640)

Hand

Sir John Soane RA (1753 - 1837), architect
This drawing is annotated in Soane's hand.
Possibly Arthur Patrick Mee (1802 - 1868), draughtsman
The Day Book entry for 17 October 1822 records that Arthur Mee was About drawings of the New Courts at Westminster.
Possibly David Alfred Mocatta (1806 - 1882), draughtsman
The Day Book entry for 17 October 1822 records that David Mocatta was About drawings of the New Courts at Westminster.
Possibly Charles Edward Papendiek (1801 - 1835), draughtsman
The Day Book entry for 17 October 1822 records that Charles Papendiek was About drawings of the New Courts at Westminster.

Watermark

J Whatman / 1821

Notes

The drawing has numerous erasures overdrawn in pen, which appear to be in Soane’s hand. These concentrate on the ancillary spaces around the Vice Chancellor’s Court and the Lord Chancellor’s accommodation. The ceilings of the latter are indicated in dashed line, while the oculi for the Court of Chancery and the Vice Chancellor’s Court are sketched in pencil. Skylights are also shown in the Public Corridor, whose length is subdivided by projecting alcoves. The passageway to the south of the Lord Chancellor’s accommodation is also shown in a colonnade, and shelves or presses are indicated around the walls of the two rooms labelled Law Library.

Literature

Swayer, 1999: p 530, footnote 1564

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation. This catalogue of Soane’s designs for the New Law Courts was generously funded by The Worshipful Company of Mercers and The Pilgrim Trust.

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).