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Purpose

Designs for a new library, committee rooms and clerks' offices for the House of Commons, June 1821 (copied June 1825) (7)

Notes

The need for new committee rooms for the Commons was already felt in 1820 - the Surveyor-General, Benjamin Stephenson, proposed using rooms in John Henry Ley's former house on 6 November. The following designs are attributed to Adam Lee (c.1772-1843), Labourer in Trust to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster (1806-32). The proposal is for a three-storey building in between the House of Commons and the Painted Chamber with ground-floor offices, a first-floor library facing towards the River Thames and committee rooms on the two pair floor, built around a quadrangle. A select committee on committee rooms was set up in 1824 and designs were subsequently supplied by Soane (q.v. London: House of Commons, Palace of Westminster: designs and executed design for library and committee rooms, 1825-1830).

Catalogued here are a survey drawing and three designs by Lee, and copies made by the Soane Office.

Tom Drysdale, November 2014

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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

Contents of Designs for a new library, committee rooms and clerks' offices for the House of Commons, June 1821 (copied June 1825) (7)