114 labelled: N^o 1, Plan made by the / Architect to the Bank 1800, The Bank, N^o 2, City Plan 1802, Coleman Street, Old Jewry, Princes Street, The Bank, The / Royal / Exchange, Cornhill, N^o 5, Plan for improving the entrance to Coleman Street from / Lothbury submitted by the Architect of the Bank 1825, Coleman Street, Lothbury, New Bank Buildings, Old Jewry, National / Debt Office, Part of the / Bank of / England, Princes Street, Grocers Hall, N^o 3, Coleman Street, Old Jewry, National / Debt / Redemption / Office, "New Bank Buildings", Princes Street, Plan of "New Bank Buildings" &^c / as built in 1807, N^o 4, Coleman Street, Lothbury, Present line of / Building, Old Jewry, Princes Street, Sam^l Acton / Sewers Office / Guildhall, M^r Actons & M^r Mountagues Plan 115 labelled: City Architecture / The Second Stage of Improvement by Mess^rs Acton & C^o, To be written to / in this style but / as small as / practicable, City Architecture / The First Stage of Improvement of New Bank Buildings by Mess^rs Acton & C^o Architects, View of New Bank Buildings in Princes Street as completed in 1810 / John Soane Architect

(114) Pen, sepia, pink, yellow, green and blue washes on laid paper (328 x 244) (115) pen, sepia, raw umber and burnt Sienna washes on three sheets of wove paper (64 x 160, 80 x 160, 69 x 160) affixed to a sheet of laid paper with two fold marks (327 x 238) (114, 115) bound into volume 90 between leaves 34 and 35

(114, 115) ?C. J. Richardson

(114, 115) fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate CA

Drawings 114 and 115 are the original drawings made for the proof copy of Soane's Memoirs of the Professional Life of an Architect, privately published in 1835. The drawings accompany Soane's account of the enlargement of the Bank of England and improvements to the surrounding streets (pp. 31-35), and are smaller copies of drawings made for Soane's comments on the proposals submitted to the Bank of England in April 1825 (Bank of England Archives, M5/623). Plan No. 1 shows Soane's design for extending the Bank to the northwest, as executed between 1800 and 1801. No. 2 shows a plan made in 1802 by George Dance for improvements for the Corporation of the City of London, the key element of which was the straightening of Princes Street to join Lothbury opposite the end of Coleman Street. The failure to create a new road parallel to Coleman Street and an increase in traffic had by 1825, however, created a problem. Plan No. 4 shows the proposal submitted by Samuel Acton of the Sewers' Office to remedy this problem, a suggestion that included the demolition of a substantial part of the New Bank Buildings. Soane, labelling Acton's solution as 'preposterous' (Memoirs, p. 33), offered his own alternative in which the 'very dilapidated, ordinary houses' at the corner of Coleman Street would be demolished instead (Plan No. 5), at a much lower cost. Acton's proposal was rejected, as was a later, similar proposal by Mr. W. Mountague of the City Committee of Finance.
The three perspectives of the New Bank Buildings (drawing 115) show the damage that would have been caused by Acton's plan. As Soane wrote, 'if the furious charge made by the Surveyor to the Commissioners of Sewers on the New Bank Buildings had succeeded, it would have taken from that pile all its symmetry, proportion, and architectural character; nor would Mr. Mountague's plan be much less destructive' (Memoirs, p. 34).

Drawing

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