scale of ¼ inch to 1 foot

The Bank of England, Design for the Bank Stock Office, (clockwise from the upper-right) As in the Governors Waitg Room / making the flutes / broad, make the flutes / very shallow not more / than one inch in deepest parts, Line the Walls with stone rust: / to the first fascia, let the fret be cut in the solid, a key A. The same as used in the Vestibule / B. The Temple of the Winds with / Variations / C. Pal. p. 51 and pl. 25 / D. / E. Pal. pl. 15 fret & pl. 19 fret, I wish the / column to / be only 3 feet: diam: & to range with / the fascia D, Raise Column, Plaistering, Plaister Cornice like that in / unclaimed dividend office, The large flutes as in the Vestibule, dimensions given and (verso) Query Tube of Copper or Iron & / Iron Pillar in Cent / Perhaps the Tubes to wind / instead of being - - - - - - [illegible], dimensions given

• datable to January 1792

Pen, pencil, pale red ink and sepia wash on wove paper with three fold marks (517 x 648)

Soane office

This drawing is a preliminary column-flue design incorporating Soane's revisions from SM volume 74/17 and, similarly he uses this drawing to continue working out the hall's decorative scheme. In pen Soane sketches motifs for various mouldings and identifies their sources in the marginal inscriptions. Though few of the decorative ideas explored here were actually used in the built hall (the principle exception being the Greek-key frieze), the drawing nevertheless very significantly shows Soane's desire to blend motifs already present in Taylor's Bank with some of his own favourite sources from Greek and Roman architecture. In all cases, lightness and elegance are emphasized for the low-profile plaster decoration, as is an insistent horizontality that balances the composition's verticality.

The key refers to important features. A is for the fascia at the springing of the lower arches, a copy of the wave-scroll moulding from the adjacent vestibule to the Bank's east wing built by Taylor in 1765-68 (not realised in the built design). B is for the frieze running through the level of the pilaster caps, a variation of the fret moulding from the first-century Athenian Tower of the Winds (mis-called a Temple here) that Soane greatly admired (realised). C is for the four arch soffits, a vine moulding derived from plates 51 and 23 of Robert Wood's The Ruins of Palmyra (1753) another much admired source (not realised). D is for around the oculus beneath the lantern, a fret moulding as in Taylor's Bank Governor's Waiting Room (not realised). E is for the lantern cornice's modillions derived again from Wood's Palmyra, here plates 15 and 19 (not realised).

D. Abramson, Building the Bank of England: money, architecture, society 1694-1942, 2005, p. 111
E. Schumann-Bacia, John Soane and the Bank of England, 1991, pp. 52-53, ill. 38
J. Summerson, 'The evolution of Soane's Bank Stock Office in the Bank of England', The unromantic castle, 1990, pp. 151 & 153-154, ill. 130

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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