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Design for the basements beneath the new committee rooms, January 1825
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Reference number
SM 51/2/7
Purpose
Design for the basements beneath the new committee rooms, January 1825
Aspect
Plan of the basements with section through the 'Vote Office' and foundations
Scale
bar scale of 1/4 inch to 1 foot
Inscribed
labelled: Yard, Mrs Wagner, Kitchen / Mrs Wagner, Lumber Room / Mrs Wagner, Bishops Waiting / Room, Hall, Bishops Servants / Room, (pencil) ?Mr Kitchen / (Vote Office) / Furniture, Area, Washouse / Mrs W, Cellar, Coal Cellar, Servants Hall, Area, (pencil) Framing 4.9 high and (pencil) some dimensions given
Medium and dimensions
Pen, pencil, sepia, pink and blue washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper (523 x 727)
Hand
Soane Office
Watermark
Smith & Allnutt 1820
Notes
The new committee rooms are located in the place of the old committee rooms and, in this design, retain part of the wall of the old buildings on the west side. There is a narrow yard between the committee rooms and the Royal Gallery to the east. The largest room at basement level, labelled in pencil as the 'Vote Office', has a vaulted ceiling consisting of four shallow brick arches springing from iron columns, of which there are six in total. Elsewhere Soane employed brick arched ceilings as a fireproofing measure - at the Bank of England and the New State Paper Office, for example. This may have been his motive here as well, since the Vote Office was responsible for supplying parliamentary and government documents to Members. The other rooms are service areas. In pencil, Soane experiments with different designs for staircases.
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