[43] Design for a weather vane atop the tower, St Peter's, Walworth, London, 24 May 1824

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Churches and chapels
  - London: St Peter's, Walworth, designs for construction and interiors, 1822-25 (66)
    - Designs and working drawing for the various elements of the tower, St Peter's, Walworth, London, 1823-24 (6)

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Reference number

SM 54/6/40

Purpose

[43] Design for a weather vane atop the tower, St Peter's, Walworth, London, 24 May 1824

Aspect

Elevation of the copper weather vane. The shaft is composed of a floral plinth, spirally fluted column, and band of stiff leaf. The vane has a crossed rod with south and north indicated. The upper portion of the shaft has a closed floral base, and vertical bar which is crossed by the wind guage. Atop is a pine cone finial

Scale

bar scale of 2 ¹/₂inches 1 foot

Inscribed

S^t. Peter's Church. Walworth / Elevation of Copper Vane

Signed and dated

1824
(Copied) / 24^th. May 1824

Medium and dimensions

Pen, coloured washes of Payne's grey and yellow, pricked for transfer on wove paper (724 x 519)

Hand

Probably Stephen Burchell (1806 - c.1843), draughtsman
The Office Day Book for the 24 May 1824 records Burchell as working on drawings for the weather vane at St Peter's

Notes

The weather vane was a feature noted by the architectural critic E. J. Carlos in 1826 as, 'not the most happy ornament that may have been selected' and questioned the large proportions of the arms in relation to the scale of the tower. Additionally, Carlos related that as the church was not on an exact east-west axis, it caused the vane to sway rather awkwardly. Despite this, the virtually identical weather vane design was eventually used to surmount the domes of both Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone (for example, SM 54/2/6; SM 54/4/4) and St. John's Church, Bethnal Green (for example, SM 45/7/53; SM 47/5/5).

Literature

Carlos, 1826, p. 201

Level

Drawing

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.

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