[35] Rough sketch design for library and committee rooms by Mr Ley, Clerk to the House of Commons, August 1825

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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: Palace of Westminster: designs for alterations and additions, 1793-1828 (499)
    - London: House of Commons, Palace of Westminster: unexecuted designs for a new House of Commons, 1825-1833 (29) and executed design for a library and committee rooms, 1825-1830 (53)
      - London: House of Commons, Palace of Westminster: designs and executed design for library and committee rooms, 1825-1830 (53)

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Reference number

SM (35) 51/4/1

Purpose

[35] Rough sketch design for library and committee rooms by Mr Ley, Clerk to the House of Commons, August 1825

Aspect

35 Plan

Inscribed

(Soane) by M^rLey / A Design to remove all the / inconveniences of the plan ordered / to be carried into execution immediately / by the House of Coms - The Lords / of the Treas[ury] &^c/ Rec^dof M^rLey / 9 Aug: 1825 in the / Speakers House (Mr Ley) Long Gallery (twice), Committee Room, Ingrossing Office / Journal &^c/ one above the / other, Proposed addition to / Offices without a building, Open Court, Proposed addition to the / Offices if rebuilt, Open Court (twice), Entrance to to / the Library / on pillars, Proposed new library on a level with the floor / of the long Gallery, to stand on Pillars or / arches, that the Communication with Cotton Garden / may not be cut off from Westminster Hall - not to have any / building above it, that the offices may have light / and air - the Room may be lighted in a beautiful / manner from the cieling - and by windows to the river, The Library / may be / extended / in front / of the / PC, This front may be / advanced or kept / back as may be / thought advisable, Garden attached to the Library, Garden attached / to the Clerks House, River, Proposed new room over M^r / Ley's Kitchen for / Clerk of the Fees, Way to the new Room, Examining / room for / Cl. of fees, The Clerks House, Inner Office / Clerk of the / fees, Clerk of the / fees Office, Lobby, House of Commons and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

as above (9 August 1825)

Medium and dimensions

Brown pen and some pencil on laid paper (369 x 477)

Hand

John Henry Ley

Watermark

J Whatman 1823 and fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche

Notes

The design by Mr Ley left his house intact, 'using the entire space between it and the Painted Chamber for a library on a level with the floor of the Long Gallery and supported on columns or arches so as to leave open the communication between Westminster Hall and Cotton Garden. It was to be lighted "in a beautiful manner from the cieling - and by windows to the river" (at its narrow east end). A further reason for making this building of a single storey was that the offices adjoining the Long Gallery might have light and air. The library might be made as long or short from east to west as might be thought desirable. This sketch also provided for a new room for the Clerk of the Fees, to be erected over the single-storey kitchen of Ley's house, and for alternative enlargements of the offices in the corner formed by the Long Gallery and the Commons' Lobby. When another committee on committee rooms sat in April 1826, Soane produced designs based on this proposal, but for a block of three or four storeys'. (from King's Works, VI, pp.328-9)
John Henry Ley served the House of Commons for 49 years, first as Deputy Clerk and from 1820 to 1850 as Clerk.

Level

Drawing

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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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