20 feet to 1 inch

In graphite by Hawksmoor at top left, in space to right of corridor and to left of wall line that joins with a small canted corner feature, Buildings -- ; and to right at top centre, Court -- ; and on the plan in small rectangular room adjoining a round staircase, Area; and with inscribed dimensions on plan, some in red chalk; and in ink by Dance at top left, Gd, and to right in C19 hand, (22)

• Undated, but datable March-April 1689

Graphite, with some red chalk (on the plan), the elevation with grey wash; on laid paper, laid down; staining across left third of sheet; some paper erosion near right edge and two small backing repairs at bottom of sheet; 262 x 448

Hawksmoor

None visible (faint CDG IHS?)

Drawn at the same time as 2 below (110/5), the plan and elevation present a tentative scheme for the king’s apartments, conceived as an addition to a part-retained Privy Court, or ‘Green Cloister Court’, to the west. Hawksmoor has marked the retained range on the east side of the Fountain Court, Buildings, and the open court to the right, Court. The unsatisfactory disposition of the pavilion and window bays of the elevation arose from the need to fit the frontage to the retained courtyard behind. A canted inner corner bay of the courtyard – part of Henry VIII’s ‘Baynes Tower’, built 1529-30 (see Thurley 2003, Fig. 42) – is drawn in graphite and denotes the western end of the existing courtyard, beyond a two- or three-storey gallery that ran across the courtyard to form the western range of the Cloister Court proper. The two building lines that define the inner and outer enclosure of the whole courtyard space are clearly marked on Hawksmoor’s survey plans (Geraghty 2007, Nos. 204, 205; AS IV.4, 5). It is clear from these drawings that Wren and Hawksmoor regarded the outermost building line as the western limit of the courtyard area. It is this line that Hawksmoor marks on the plan, for only the westernmost side of the court had a canted corner. The corresponding corner projection of the cross-gallery was square, not canted.The longer west-east courtyard dimension was 150 feet. At this stage in the design the intention seems to have been to demolish the cross gallery to create a longer Privy Court, the southern side of which would have connected with the Privy Garden through a 150-feet-long ground-floor loggia. This dimension of 150 feet corresponds on the elevation with the width between the outer sides of the outermost of the eleven arched openings across the ground-floor. Thus the narrow, three-window bays with segmental pediments serve to bridge the gap between the zone occupied by the retained courtyard and the end pavilions, which otherwise would be too wide for the balance of the elevation as a whole. In an effort to give central emphasis to his long-drawn-out façade, Wren enlarged the dimensions of all the elements of his central pavilion: windows, storey-height and pediment. However, the effect is ungainly, as the pediment is too steep and the higher window lintels confuse the lines of the façade.The continuous north wall of the south range that defines a corridor running along the south side of the inner courtyard appears to follow the the line of the south wall of Henry VIII’s Long Gallery (1537-47). This new gallery returns along the north side, presumably to link with the retained Drawing Room, Privy Chamber and Presence Chamber on the east side of the Fountain Court. The distance between the west side of the inner courtyard and the west end of the proposed new frontage is about 82 feet. This is roughly the distance between the same two points on Hawksmoor’s second survey plan (Geraghty 2007, No. 205; AS, IV.5). It confirms the link between this scheme and the initial proposal on that survey plan to marry two new frontages to the existing courtyard, the westernmost line being the western side of the easternmost bay of the Great Hall. This would suggest that the corridor on this plan was meant to form part of a north-south axis on the line of the eastern bay of the Great Hall, a bay which itself served as a lobby to the Great Hall. The same corridor is shown on the first-floor plan of Grand Project 2 (Geraghty 2007, No. 208; AS I.10).

The canted staircase bay drawn in graphite alongside the two-flight staircase on the west side of the new frontage would have provided separate access to the Tudor ‘Princess Mary apartments’ in the area of the turreted square corner pavilion drawn on Hawksmoor’s second survey plan (AS, IV.5; Fig. 00). The overlaid Privy Garden range on this survey corresponds closely in overall length with this frontage (310 feet compared with 307 feet) but does not show the intermediate pavilions within the outer pavilions. Hawksmoor’s hand is indicated by the handwriting of the notes, in particular the 5 with its incomplete lower loop and the ‘S’-shaped 1, both characteristic of his handwriting in the late 1680s and 1690s.

The frontage scales at 307 feet, an enlargement of the 260 feet length of the Privy Garden front adopted for Grand Project 2 and just five feet short of the executed dimension (312 feet). The extra 42 feet from Grand Project 2 was achieved by extending the frontage west and east of the centre line of the Privy Garden (see the survey plan in Thurley 2003, pl. 140). As noted above, this meant that the west range of the new Privy Court would have overlapped part of the Great Hall.The lengthening of the Privy Garden front was the result of a need to accommodate all the king’s apartments in one range. The plan shows the bed in dotted outline in the fifth room from the west end of the block. Preceding it, from west to east, would have been the Guard Chamber, the Ante Room, the Presence Chamber and the Withdrawing Room. Beyond lay his closets and an undimensioned room, possibly intended as as a Council chamber, with shared access to the queen’s apartments.The elevation indicates a loggia at ground floor level across eleven arched bays. This compares with the fifteen-bay loggia on the elevation in Grand Project 2 (section 2, 2; 110/7) and the thirteen-bay loggia on the near final elevation (section 4, 1; 110/9). The height of the first floor above ground level is 12 feet 6 inches, a foot less than in the other preliminary elevation from this phase in the design (4; 110/14). The latter is closer to the executed height and may indicate its later date.

Thurley 1997, pp. 11-13; Thurley 2003, pp. 156-63, WS, IV, pl.14

Drawing

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