The Chapter House of Westminster Abbey was built in 1250. Originally a meeting place, since the Reformation it had bee used as a repository for the records of the Law Courts and the Exchequer. Soane surveyed the building in 1818 and recommended the addition of iron doors and shutters to help protect the records against fire. The two drawings catalogued here show the outhouses that had been built up against the Chapter House by the time of Soane's survey, the most dangerous of which were demolished by the Office of Works after some difficulty in gaining approval.

Literature:
J. M. Crook and M. H. Port, The History of the King's Works, VI, 1973, pp. 535-6.

Tom Drysdale, November 2014