[47-50] Alternative designs (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: Palace of Westminster: designs for alterations and additions, 1793-1828 (499)
    - London: House of Lords, Palace of Westminster: official (mostly domeless) designs, July 1794 - February 1795 (134)

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Reference number

SM (47) 71/1/9 (48) 71/1/10 (49) 71/1/8 (50) 71/1/7

Purpose

[47-50] Alternative designs (4)

Aspect

47 Plan of ground floor 48 Plan of ground floor 49 Plan of ground floor 50 Alternative plan of ground floor

Scale

(47-50) to a scale of 1/15 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

(47-49) A Plan to render the House of Lords and the Rooms and Offices appertaining thereto / more commodious, labelled: The River Thames, M^r Delavall's / House and Offices, Abingdon Street, Old Palace Yard, Part of / King Henry the Seventh's / Chapel, M^r Wilberforce, M^r Wharton, M^r Cowper, M^r Rose, rooms labelled:Waiting Room, The Hall, The Lords / Robing Room, The Earl Marshall, The Duke of Glocester / and the Rest / of the Royal Family, The Kings Entrance, The / Prince of Wales / Robing Room, Anti Room / for Attendants, Anti / Room, Witnesses / attending / the House, Councillors / Attending / the House, Anti / Room, Black Rod, His Majesty's / Robing Room, Witnesses, The Lord / Great Chamberlain, Court (twice), Committee / Room (twice), M^r Cowper, Doorkeeper, The / House of Lords, Lobby / to the / House of Lords, Conference / Room [i.e. the Painted Chamber], M^r Rose, The / Lord Chancellor, Anti-Room / for / Attendants, Doorkeeper, The / Bishops, The / Archbishops and The Court / of / Parliament (50) (in a Roman label) Plan of a Design to Render the House of Lords / and the Rooms and Offices Appertaining thereto more Commodious, labelled: as drawings 47-49; rooms labelled: Arcade, The Vestibule, Attendants / on the Lords, Robing Room / for the Lords, The / Earl Marshall, Council / attending / the House, Attendants / on the Prince, Robing Room for / the Prince of Wales, The Entrance / for his Majesty / and the rest of / the Royal Family, Robing Room for / the Duke of Glocester / and the rest / of the Royal Family, Attendants / on the Duke, Attendants / on his Majesty, Witnesses / attending / the House, The Serjeant / at Arms, Black / Rod, Spectators (twice), Robing Room for His Majesty, Court, Attendants / on the / Lord Chamberlain, Committee Room, The / Lord Chancellor, Attendants / on the / Lord Chancellor, Court, The / House of Lords, Lobby / of the / House of Lords, The / Painted Chamber, The Court / of Parliament, Conference Room, The Bishops, Archbishops, Clerk's Room, Assistant Clerk / of Parliament, The Clerk / of Parliament; dimensions given

Signed and dated

(47) John Soane Arch^t 1794

Medium and dimensions

(47) Pen, sepia, red, black and blue-green washes, pricked for transfer, with quadruple-ruled and black wash border on laid paper (615 x 955) (48) pen, sepia, red, black and blue-green washes, pricked for transfer, with quadruple-ruled and black wash border on laid paper (610 x 959) (49) pen, sepia and blue-green washes, pricked for transfer, with quadruple-ruled and black wash border on laid paper (614 x 943) (50) pen, sepia, red, blue and green washes, pricked for transfer, with quadruple-ruled and sepia wash border on laid paper (564 x 895)

Hand

(47-50) Frederick Meyer (1775-?, pupil April 1791 - 1796)

Notes

As with drawings 36 to 46 these plans are placed laterally across the sheet (with the short sides to right and left). Drawings 47, 48 and 49 are for the same design (except for the location of the King's Robing Room which differs from, for example, drawings 36 to 45 in the re-design of the western end of the building. Instead of the three-bay arcade (covered entrance), vestibule and staircases in Old Palace Yard there is now a waiting room, hall, staircases and (drawing 47 and also earlier drawing 46) a five-bay arcade that now runs the length of the old Court of Requests (or 'Court of Parliament'). The river elevation now has the centre three bays of its five-bays projecting and is fronted by a terrace that is segmental on plan and equipped with three cannon (as does, for example, drawing 35).

See also drawings 102 to 107, interior perspectives filed with these plans (71/1/1-6) and probably in the same office hand.

Drawing 50 has the same entrance arrangement placed southwards as drawings 36 to 44. The five-bay elevation to the river has three projecting bays in the centre and a terrace modelled with swept corners. The area above the lobby between the Painted Chamber and the new House of Lords has a conference room laid out with benches. In drawings 46,47 and 50, the royal route from the King's Entrance (on the south side) via the King's Robing Room is the same but on drawing 48 the Robing Room has been moved westwards.

S. Sawyer, 'Soane at Westminster', PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1999, p. 180, drawings 47-49 (with others) are part of the final stage A in Soane's sequence of designs.

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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).