Record copies of domed design 'No 1' and of the 'as executed' design, ? 1783 (3)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Country houses, etc.
  - Letton Hall, Norfolk: (executed) house for Dillingham Brampton Gurdon Dillingham, 1783-1789 (74)

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Reference number

SM (10) 'Miscellaneous / Drawings / of / Architectural / Designs' volume 59/9 (two drawings on one page) (11) volume 41/36 verso (12) volume 41/37 recto

Purpose

Record copies of domed design 'No 1' and of the 'as executed' design, ? 1783 (3)

Aspect

10 Two copy elevations: Letton Hall Entrance Front N^o 1 with a two-storey, domed and bowed centre with a single-storey Greek Doric portico on a semicircular plan. The house is of two storeys with a basement. Copy elevation of Letton Hall Entrance Front as executedshowing a two-storey house with attic and basement. 11-12 Record copies of Plan of the Principal Floor of Letton Hall; Elevation of the Principal Front of Letton Hall to a larger scale but the same design as drawing 10 - 'Front N^o1'

Scale

(10) bar scale of 1/11 in to 1 ft (11-12) bar scales of 1/8 in to 1 ft

Inscribed

(10) as above, and (pencil, copy 1) omit 2 Steps (11-12) as above, (plan) dimensions given and (pencil) N S E W (elevation), Floor (3 times)

Signed and dated

later copies of designs made ? 1783

Medium and dimensions

(10) Pen, burnt umber, black and blue washes, shaded on laid paper mounted on p.9 of volume 59 (205 x 205, 218 x 211) (11) pen and sepia washes, pencil amendment on laid paper (364 x 243) (12) pen, sepia and blue washes, some watercolour technique, shaded on laid paper (364 x 243). Drawings 10a-10b bound into 'Precedents in Architecture' SM volume 41

Hand

(10-12) John Sanders, pupil 1784-90

Watermark

(11) T French (12) fleur-de-lis

Notes

The drawings were copied by John Sanders, articled as a pupil from 1 September 1784, so clearly the copies were made after that date but relate to earlier designs. Thus on drawing 10, the inscribed 'N^o1' presumably refers to the first of four alternative designs (thus designated by Soane) for a new Letton Hall. The elevation (drawing 12) is the same as the domed elevation of drawing 10 including the number of steps to the porch. The plan (drawing 11) does not, as do later designs, have a bow on the garden side; it is quite close to the ground floor plan seen on drawing 6 though the room dimensions are reduced and the porch has a different plan.
Regarding drawing 10 - comparison of the 'as executed' elevation with the entrance front published as plate 7 in Soane's Plans, elevations an sections of buildings executed in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk ..., 1788 (i.e.1789) shows them as the same though the published design is embellished with urns and the chimneys are fully drawn out. A 'Plan of the Principal Floor', drawing 11, is close to Plate 7 though without the coved ceiling shown in the publication. Similarly, comparison with the domed elevation here inscribed 'N^o1' (drawings 10 and 11) with the published 'Entrance front, as intended', plate 8, shows them as the same design.
See also drawing 21 for 'almost' as executed design for the entrance front.

Level

Drawing

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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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