Designs for completing the new buildings in Downing Street, December 1827 (6)

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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 for the new government buildings on Whitehall and the completion of Downing Street with a Triumphal Arch, December 1825-May 1833 (100)

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Reference number

SM (258) 49/3/13 (259) 49/3/5 (260) 49/3/15 (261) 49/3/14 (262) 49/3/18 (263) 49/3/17

Purpose

Designs for completing the new buildings in Downing Street, December 1827 (6)

Aspect

258 Rough perspective Sketch of part of the Attic &c New Council Offices 259 Perspective Sketch of a Design for completing the Buildings in Downing Street with rough elevation of the frontages of the new buildings on either side of Downing Street and the Triumphal Arch from the north east; (verso) rough composite of pencil perspectives of Commissioners' Churches 260 Perspective Sketch of a Design for completing the Buildings in Downing Street from the south east 261 Perspective Sketch of a Design for completing the Buildings in Downing Street from the south east 262 Perspective Sketch of a Design for completing the New Buildings at Whitehall from the north east 263 Perspective Sketch of a Design for completing the New Buildings at Whitehall containing the Board of Trade and / Council Offices and uniting them with the Secretary of State Offices for the Home Department from the north east

Signed and dated

(258) Dec^r 4 1827 and (pencil) Dec^r 4^th 1827 (259) Dec^r 5^th 1827 (260) Dec^r 1827 (261) Dec^r 19 1827 (262, 263) 1827

Medium and dimensions

(258) Pencil and sepia wash on laid paper (286 x 440) (259) pencil, sepia and blue washes with a single ruled border on laid paper (285 x 443) (260, 261) pencil, sepia and grey washes with a single ruled border on laid paper (285 x 444, 288 x 442) (262) pencil, sepia and blue washes with a double ruled border on laid paper (269 x 432) (263) pencil, sepia and blue washes with a single ruled border on laid paper (270 x 430)

Hand

(258, 260-263) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) (259) ?Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843)

Watermark

(258, 260-262) C Ansell 1824 (259, 263) fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate CA

Notes

Drawing 259 is affixed to drawing 51. There is no clear explanation for this. Drawings 260 and 261 are taken from a similar perspective but looking north at the new Privy Council Office. The blank space beneath drawing 261 may be for a front elevation of the new buildings as seen on drawing 259.
On drawing 260 the pavilion at the corner of the Privy Council Office has 10 columns instead of the six shown in designs up to this point. Four of the columns have lines drawn through them, probably showing Soane's disapproval. Drawings 259-261 may be preliminary drawings for Joseph Gandy's Design for Completing the New Buildings in Downing Street, 1827 (drawing 242). The presence of a very rough preliminary drawing which might be for Gandy's perspectives of eight designs for churches in different styles, 1824 (SM 15/4/8) supports this hypothesis.
Drawings 262 and 263 show the two options for completing the buildings, the one with a new block south of Downing Street and the other with a pavilion for the Home Office at the north end of the new building.

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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