Further designs for the new Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, June 1824 (4)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, Whitehall & Downing Street: designs for new offices and scheme for the improvement of Downing Street, 1823-33 (284)
    - Designs and working drawings for the new Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, December 1823-October 1824 (106)

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Reference number

SM (60) 49/3/41 (61) 50/3/3 (62) 49/3/26 (63) 49/3/25

Purpose

Further designs for the new Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, June 1824 (4)

Aspect

60 Front elevation 61 Perspective from south east 62 Front elevation with (pencil) section through frontage 63 Front elevation with two alternative attic designs

Scale

(60, 62, 63) bar scales of 1/11 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

60 The Council Office and Board of Trade / Design N^o 1, N^o 1 61 Council Office and Board of Trade / Design N^o 1, N^o 2, (in Soane's hand) App[rove]^d in all its parts - / except the rustics at A B / which are to be omitted and various dimensions given at top of sheet 62 Council Office and Board of Trade / Design N^o 2, N^o 3 and some dimensions given on section 63 Council Office and Board of Trade / Design N^o 3, N^o 4

Signed and dated

(60) Lincolns Inn Fields / 1 June 1824, (in Soane's hand) 5 June 1824 / app[rove]^dand (pencil) 5 June 1824 (61) L.I.F. / June 1824, (in Soane's hand) 5 June 1824 and (pencil) Ap^d 5 June 24 (62) Lincolns Inn Fields / June 1824 and (pencil) 4/6/24 (63) L.I.F. / June 1824

Medium and dimensions

(60) Pencil, yellow ochre, sepia, blue and burnt Sienna washes with single ruled border on wove paper (427 x 540) (61) pencil, yellow ochre, sepia and blue washes with single ruled pencil border on wove paper (479 x 600) (62) pencil, yellow ochre, blue and burnt umber washes with single ruled border on wove paper (479 x 566) (63) pencil, sepia and blue washes on wove paper (428 x 573)

Hand

(60-63) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837)

Watermark

(60-63) Weatherley & Lane 1818

Notes

Drawings 60-63 have the continuous columnar frontage of Soane's earlier designs (drawings 51-53). Drawings 60 and 61, in which the Ionic is replaced with the Corinthian order, show the design that was approved at a meeting at Fife House (Lord Liverpool's residence) on 5 June 1824. In attendance were Lords Liverpool and Harrowby, Frederick Robinson, William Huskisson and Sir Charles Long (1760-1838), Paymaster of the Forces. Long's entry in the ODNB tellingly notes that 'whether it was the appropriate order for the façade of the privy council offices in Whitehall or the need for a fig-leaf on the heroic statue honouring the duke of Wellington that had been subscribed for by the ladies of Great Britain, Long was sure to be consulted.'
The approved design is for a 15-bay, two storey building with an attic over the central nine bays (absent from drawing 61) and giant, fluted Corinthian columns. The ground floor has banded rustication and a single, central entrance plus another entrance on Downing Street. In 'Design No 2' (drawing 62) the attic covers only five bays and the columns - which are Ionic - are only on the upper storey. Design No 3 (drawing 63) appears to have a much taller upper storey and Ionic columns, but no central attic; instead, the two end bays have attics. Two alternative designs for the skyline are also shown.

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

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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