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Alternative designs for speculative housing, 1794 (2)
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Reference number
SM (1) 2/6/2 (2) 2/6/1
Purpose
Alternative designs for speculative housing, 1794 (2)
Aspect
1-2 Plans and elevations of ten houses with three, four and three houses in each of three blocks
Scale
1-2 1/17 inch to 1 foot
Inscribed
1-2 Design for London Place and W.B.Simonds
Signed and dated
- 1-2 Copy Great Scotland Yard January 1st 1794
Medium and dimensions
1-2 Pen and sepia washes on thin wove paper (332 x 575, 335 x 567)
Hand
Soane office
Notes
Soane's office 'Journal No 2' records that '2 Plans & 2 Elevations of 2 Designs' for London Place were sent on 31 December 1793, more drawings including a perspective on 7 January 1794 and twelve working drawings for the workmen on 31 May 1793. 'Ledger C' notes that a bill that including £15.15.0 for the drawings made in 1793 and 1795 was sent to Simonds on 6 April 1797 and paid on 20 November 1798.
An e-mail to this cataloguer (26 January 2012) from Ann Smith (Reading Local Studies Library) states: 'I have checked our early maps of Reading and street directories, and can find no mention of a London Place. You are aware of London Street, and there was also a London Road built in the 1830s with large villas and the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Some of the villas were in groups with names like Albion Place, Portland Place and Clarence Place. I suspect that London Place was intended for a road like this, but never built. In "A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Reading" by Sidney Gold, the author writes about the brewery and house designed for W S simonds [q.v.] and says "In 1794 Soane added a brewhouse and in 1803 some further offices were made. Between these years, Soane executed designs for terraces in London Place and a house in Castle Street [q.v.] which do not appear to have been carried out, or if they were no longer exist. All the brewery buildings were demolished in the 1970s and the house about 1900. Pevsner in his Buildings of England series for Berkshire states that Linden House, a privately owned early 19th century property also facing Bridge Street and next door to the brewery but separated by Gas Lane and subsequently taken over by Simons as an office and social club and known as Seven Bridges House, was the house that Soane buiilt, and this has often proved misleading and is entirely wrong". Mr Gold is a local historian who spent years researching architects in Reading and is a trustworthy source'.
Jill Lever, January 2012
An e-mail to this cataloguer (26 January 2012) from Ann Smith (Reading Local Studies Library) states: 'I have checked our early maps of Reading and street directories, and can find no mention of a London Place. You are aware of London Street, and there was also a London Road built in the 1830s with large villas and the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Some of the villas were in groups with names like Albion Place, Portland Place and Clarence Place. I suspect that London Place was intended for a road like this, but never built. In "A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Reading" by Sidney Gold, the author writes about the brewery and house designed for W S simonds [q.v.] and says "In 1794 Soane added a brewhouse and in 1803 some further offices were made. Between these years, Soane executed designs for terraces in London Place and a house in Castle Street [q.v.] which do not appear to have been carried out, or if they were no longer exist. All the brewery buildings were demolished in the 1970s and the house about 1900. Pevsner in his Buildings of England series for Berkshire states that Linden House, a privately owned early 19th century property also facing Bridge Street and next door to the brewery but separated by Gas Lane and subsequently taken over by Simons as an office and social club and known as Seven Bridges House, was the house that Soane buiilt, and this has often proved misleading and is entirely wrong". Mr Gold is a local historian who spent years researching architects in Reading and is a trustworthy source'.
Jill Lever, January 2012
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk