1 inch to 27 feet (approximately)

In pen and brown ink in C18-19 hand, at top left, 1

• Undated but datable 1695

Pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite under-drawing, on laid paper, trimmed to the edges of the design and laid down; 147 x 656

Hawksmoor

No watermark visible

Hawksmoor must have intended this sheet to join with [3/3] as a single long elevation but there is no sign that he ever pasted them together. On [3/3] he drew pediments in graphite over the blank balustrading above the doors between the wards, but did not draw a pediment between the first and second wards on this elevation. Had the two sheets been joined at the time he sketched his revision to [3/3] Hawksmoor would surely have added a pediment above this door. The sheets were probably left unjoined because this version of the design was found to be unworkable.

The elevation of the hall block combines features from both sides of the front elevation drawing [3/1]. The dome has the wider drum and the more deeply projecting attic consoles of the left-hand version of the dome, while the portico and north-side basement enclosure follow the scheme on the right side of the same drawing. Hawksmoor has left the drum, attic storey and pediments almost blank on the elevation, suggesting hesitation over the implications of the wider drum for the portico below. In elevation, the drum extends to the edges of the cornices of the front portico. A narrower attic storey, extending no further than the friezes of the entablature, would have been needed if the portico was not to appear overwhelmed by the mass of masonry above. This may be the solution that Wren and Hawksmoor were working towards, as Hawksmoor has drawn the side of the attic in graphite in line with the left-hand edge of the frieze. However, this solution was abandoned at the next stage in the working out of the design, for in the alternative long elevation of the west side of the west range, a simpler solution is adopted [3/4]: the north and south porticoes project from the walls at the base of the dome without a re-entrant corner articulated by pilasters.

The bottom edge of the drawing has been trimmed on a sloping line from the right side of the portico steps up to the first of the ward blocks. This line indicates the rising ground level from north to south, but although the rise in the ground from the north to the south ends of the colonnade is reasonably accurate, no further rise in level is indicated on drawing [3/3] between the middle of the colonnade and the Queen's House. In fact the ground continues to rise gently along the southern half of the axis between the hall and chapel blocks and the Queen's House, the overall difference being some 6 to 8 feet between the ground level beneath the north terrace of Inigo Jones's building and the ground level of the colonnades in front of the hall and chapel.

Viktor Furst, The Architecture of Sir Christopher Wren, pp. 89-95; fig. 110; Geraghty 2007, pp. 131-32.

Drawing

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