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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
In a recent article in this journal Dr Rhodri Liscombe published John Nash's and Robert Smirke's original finished drawings of their specimen church designs of 1818 for the Church Building Commissioners. He also nominated two drawings in the Soane Museum (Figs. 18a & 18b) as ‘almost certainly’ depicting the two specimen church projects by John Soane. However, as will be established here, these two elaborate watercolour drawings illustrate designs, and variations of designs, for three specific churches. Almost all of the drawings which may be associated with Soane's specimen projects are unfortunately lost, excepting only five sheets of rough sketches (Figs.21a-23b), by Soane himself, which remain at the Soane Museum. Nonetheless, it is possible to tell the story of his first substantive adventure as a church architect. This article will provide an analysis of the five existing drawings and an evaluation of the relevant documentary evidence, in an attempt to reconstruct, as far as possible, the designs themselves and the process by which they were created.
1 Liscombe, R., ‘Economy, Character and Durability: Specimen Designs for the Church Commissioners, 1818’, Architectural History xiii (1970), pp. 43–57, esp. pp.43 & 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Crown Architects’ work for the Commission is described in Port, M. H., Six Hundred New Churches (1961), pp. 38–49 Google Scholar. Their relationship with the Office of Works is dealt with in J. Mordaunt Crook & M. H. Port, The History of the Kings Work VI, 1782–1851 (1973).
2 I would like to express my sincere thanks to Sir John Summerson, Miss Dorothy Stroud, the Trustees of the Soane Museum, and Mr R. E. J. Melling of the Church Commissioners for help and permission to publish.
3 Drawer 47, set 4.
4 In his publications on Soane, Arthur Bolton has implied that all of the large perspective watercolour drawings in the Soane Museum are ‘Lecture Diagrams’. This categorization is quite misleading. In fact, most of the ‘Lecture Diagrams’ used by Soane in his lectures at the Royal Academy and Royal Institution were topographical - views of London buildings, Greek temples, capitals, comparisons of buildings or the orders & c. Relatively few illustrations of Soane's own designs were used in the lectures. The illustrations actually used, and others intended for use, can for the most part be readily identified from inscriptions on the versos of the drawings, from George Bailey's original Inventory (see note 5), and from drafts of the lectures in the Soane Museum.
5 The four large drawings discussed in these two paragraphs of text, and notes 5–7, are in Drawer 15, set 4 (formerly Drawer 13, set 8), and in the north drawing-room of the Museum. The drawings do not have individual numbers.
In George Bailey's original inventory of the Soane Museum collections, entitled An Inventory of the various Works of Art, National Curiosities, Fittings and Fixtures &c in Sir John Soane's Museum, in January 1837, taken by the Curator by Order of the Trustees, and in accordance with the 4th Section of the Act of Parliament. 3rd William 4th Chapr 4, vol. A(B) (the finished copy), p.287, Fig. 18a is listed as ‘Another design [of a church] (Exterior & Interior View)’, drawn by ﹜. Gandy. Fig. 19 is listed, ‘Another [drawing] consisting of three designs for a Church’, by J. Gandy.
Soane exhibited three drawings for the Marylebone church at the Royal Academy in 1821: No.950, ‘Sketch for a church proposed to be built in the Regent's Park’. No.960, ‘Sketches for a church proposed to be built in the Regent's Park’. No. 978, ‘Sketch for a church proposed to be built in the Regent's Park’. No. 960 depicted more than one design and is perhaps identical to Fig. 19. Fig. 18a is possibly No.950 or No.978. The third drawing is not in the Soane Museum.
The fullest review of Soane's exhibited designs was part of an attack on Soane signed ‘T.O.’, which appeared in The Guardian, 27 May 1821; reprinted in Bolton, A. T., The Portrait of Sir John Soane, R.A. (1927), pp. 341–342 Google Scholar. The reviewer says that there were ‘four designs for churches; or, more correctly speaking, one design, and three variations, without any real difference’, thus implying that No.960 illustrated two designs rather than the three shown in Fig. 19. It is possible, however, that the reviewer considered the two triumphal arch schemes to be one design, or that he erred in recording the correct number of designs. This difficulty is not easily resolved, but in any case the two Tuscan churches and the ground plan clearly are for the Marylebone church, 1820–21 ‘T.O.'s’ remark ‘The arrangement of the plans is of the commonest kind’ may refer to the plans actually shown in Fig. 19.
‘TO.’ also says ‘There is a view of one of the interiors’, which could refer to Fig. 18a, and criticizes the ‘repetition of the affected and capricious forms, in the ornamental parts, which have so long been characteristic of this Architect’, comments that could refer especially to Fig. 18a.
The watermarks of both Fig. 18a and Fig. 19 are: James Whatman Turkey Mill Kent / 1819.
6 Fig. 18b is listed in Bailey's original Inventory, vol.A(B), p.287, as ‘another [drawing] consisting of Eight designs for Churches in various Styles of Architecture, the dimensions and the accomodation required, being similar in each’, by J. Gandy.
The Doric design for the Marylebone church, a variation of which is shown at the right of this drawing, is dated 1822–24, but was rejected by the Commissioners as too expensive. In March 1824 the Commissioners asked Soane to make a Gothic design, hoping that the change of style might reduce the projected expense. It did not, however. At the same time Soane tried a Romanesque design. There are no working drawings or sketches of the Romanesque scheme in the Soane Museum, but seven drawings by C. J. Richardson in the Victoria & Albert Museum (93.E.19, Nos. 3307.22–3307.28) are undoubtedly copies of lost drawings of this design.
The Ionic design for Walworth church differs from the executed building in the pairs of three-quarter columns recessed in the flanks and the heavy banded rustication on the body of the church. There is another large drawing by Gandy, also Drawer 15, set 4, showing only this design.
The design for Tyringham chapel was one of Soane's favourites. Sketches and drawings for it in the Soane Museum (Drawer 47, set 3) show that it was created in late 1800, not in 1796, as erroneously stated by Soane himself in his Designs for Public and Private Buildings (1832), p. 41 Google Scholar. The correct date was published by Stroud, D., The Architecture of Sir John Soane (1961), p. 161.Google Scholar
7 Fig. 20 has been displayed, in a frame, in the north drawing-room of the Soane Museum since the 1830s, when Soane's first Description of the museum was published. However, it is clearly shown in the picture room of the museum in Britton, J., The Union of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting (1827), pl.xi.Google Scholar
In Bailey's Inventory, vol. A(B), p. 203, Fig. 20 is described: ‘A Group of Churches, designed by Sir J. Soane (1825) to illustrate different Styles of Architecture’. In vol.A(A), the rough copy of this Inventory, p. 208, there is the additional note: ‘exhibited R.A. 1825’.
A review of the 1825 Royal Academy exhibition in the literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, 10 June 1825, p. 395, quite explicitly records the contents of Soane's No. 902: ‘We believe one of the churches, the design of which is here represented, is that built at Walworth by this architect; and, that another of these designs is intended to be carried into effect by him in the parish of Saint Mary-le-bone. This drawing, as a work of art, is finely executed, but the designs, in the Anglo-Norman and later manners of the middle ages, are inferior, in our opinion, to those composed in the more ancient styles of architecture. We think Mr. S. has not been eminently successful in the facades of the church which he has erected at Walworth, from a want of boldness in the features of them, sufficient to produce a richer chiaro scurso.’
Oddly enough, the design for Walworth church shown in these two drawings, with its rustication and additional flank columns, shows Soane's own restlessness with the lack of ‘chiaro scuro’ in the executed building. The flank columns of the executed Marylebone design, adumbrated in the Doric design in Fig. 20, would further demonstrate his concern with plasticity.
8 Soane Museum bound volume of drawings labelled Miscellaneous Drawings No.V, Nos. 166 & 168 respectively. No. 166 shows the churches arranged in space as in Fig. 18b, No. 168 as in Fig. 20. The Doric design in Fig. 18b has two pairs of flank columns, whereas the Doric design in Fig. 20 has engaged columns along the entire length of each flank. These two alternatives have been interchanged from the two sketches.
9 1828 edition, p. 26 and pl. 36; 1832 edition, p. 41 and pl. 36. A note in the margin of p.41 of the 1832 edition, evidently inadvertently omitted in the 1828 edition, refers the reader to the illustration showing the three designs. In the adjoining paragraph Soane remarks, a little carelessly, on the high expense of ‘Either of the Gothic Designs’ for the Marylebone church, which he says were not submitted to the Commissioners. However, the Gothic design did at least reach the Commissioners’ desk, according to their Annual Report for 1824, pp. 16–17.
10 PRO Works 4/23, p.61.
11 ibid., p. 73. A copy of the letter to Soane (Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div.X, B, No.3) is published in Bolton, A. T., The Works of Sir John Soane, R.A. (1924), p.90 Google Scholar.
12 PRO Works 4/23, p.76.
13 ibid.; Works 6/183/1, No.l.
14 Soane Notebook, 23 February 1818; Soane Day Book, 23, 26, 27 & 28 February, 2 & 3 March 1818. The Notebook, Day Book and Journal referred to in the following notes and in the text, are in the Soane Museum.
15 In Christopher, & Wren, Stephen, Parentalia (1750), p. 320 Google Scholar, a source with which Soane and anyone interested in Wren would have been acquainted.
16 Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div. X, A, passim. Soane was asked by Sir Thomas Bernard to value the ground on which Foley House then stood. He sent his valuation on 15 January 1811, enclosing six plans of the site, five of which included schematic designs for a large church (or churches), illustrating possible dispositions of the building and site. Two of the plans were based, as Soane stated in a draft of his valuation, on St James, Piccadilly, another on St John, Hackney, and a circular project was inspired by Rowland Hill's Surrey Chapel. An arrangement of two smaller churches facing one another across Portland Place may have been derived from the Piazza del Popolo, Rome.
17 Smirke: PRO Works 6/183/1, Nos.2, 6, 7; Works 4/23, p.76. Nash: PRO Works 6/183/1, Nos.3, 9, 10.
Liscombe, p. 43, says that Smirke sent six designs, but there exist two statements by Smirke himself (one of which is partially quoted by Liscombe, p. 45) and two from the Office of Works (one of which is published by Bolton, , The Works of Sir John Soane, p. 90 Google Scholar, and referred to by Port, p. 40) which specifically mention four designs.
Probably Smirke did make two more designs, but only in 1820, when the Commissioners requested a Gothic and another - presumably classical-specimen design (Church Building Commissioners Board Minute Book, 2 May 1820). In 1825 and again in 1827 he sent bills to the Commissioners for six designs which he said had been made in 1818, but in 1834, when he once again sent in his designs (which apparently had been returned to him) to the Commissioners as evidence for his charges, he could only find four specimen projects. Moreover, he could not recall having made the fifth and sixth designs, although he was ‘unwilling to suppose’ that his earlier statements naming six projects had been in error (Church Commissioners File 12131, pt II.) See also note 49. In 1834 the Surveyor to the Commissioners, J. H. Good, stated that Smirke had made six designs (cf. Liscombe, p. 43), so either the other two were found or he took Smirke at his word.
18 Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div.X, B, No.4; published in Bolton, , The Works of Sir John Soane, p.90 Google Scholar, and Port, p. 39. The Parliamentary debates on the new churches bill began on 16 March 1818.
19 Soane Day Book, 25 & 27 March 1818. The first entry on the subject in the Notebook is also on 27 March: ‘About the plans for Churches…’
20 Soane Day Book and Soane Journal, 3 April 1818. The Journal entry erroneously records that the drawings were sent to the Commissioners (who did not then exist) instead of the Office of Works, as correctly specified in the Day Book. Cf. also The Office of Works Minute Book, PRO Works 4/23, p. 113. ‘Received a Letter from Mr Soane with 4 plans, 3 elevations, & 1 section, for building the new Churches -’
21 Soane Day Book, 2–3 April 1818.
22 ibid., 25 March-3 April 1818.
23 ibid., 3 April 1818.
24 This is certain, not only from the repeated references to ‘various designs’ of churches that appear in the Day Book, but also from a letter from Soane to George Jelf, Secretary of the Commissioners, dated Lincoln's Inn Fields, 5 May 1834. (CC File 12131, ptII). In this letter Soane replied to a request that he send in his drawings as evidence for his fee for making the designs sixteen years earlier:'…the Drawings and Estimates to which the account delivered relates, were sent in April 1818 to the Office of Works and from thence, as I am in formed to the Treasury, but they have not been returned to me. I have how ever selected, from a much larger number, Thirty of the original Sketches, from which those Drawings and Estimates were made, and likewise some Plans and Sections, (Nine in Number) of different Churches, made from actual measurement at the time, for the purpose of assisting to determine the several points which the Board required to be ascertained…'
25 Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div.X, B, No. 1.
26 ibid., No.6; published in Bolton, , The Works of Sir John Soane, p.91 Google Scholar; mentioned in Port, p. 39.
27 See note 24. When J. H. Good reviewed the three architects’ designs in 1834, he implied that he had not seen Soane's drawings: ‘Sir John Soane states that he furnished Two designs with Estimates of each…’ Two paragraphs further on, however, he spoke of an ‘examination’ of the designs (cf. Liscombe, pp. 43–44). Did he include Soane ’s?
28 Drawer 47, set 4, Nos. 1–5, corresponding to Figs.21a-22c, respectively.
29 The junction of tower and west front is incorrectly shown in this plan.
30 Drawer 47, set 6, No.21. This plan is on the same rough paper as Fig.22c and is inscribed in Bailey's hand: ‘Plan of St. Bride's Church in Fleet Street-1818’. The original full date may have trimmed off.
31 Soane Day Book.
32 There are indications, in very faint pencil, of a semicircular eastern colonnade in Fig. 21b.
33 The last Notebook entry (there are only three in all, 27, 28, 29 March 1818) on the churches is for 29 March, a Sunday, which may indicate that the significant work was complete by that date.
34 Nash also included an explanatory letter with his designs, which is not mentioned by Liscombe. It is very briefly summarized by Port, p.41. The original letter is in PRO Works 6/183/1, Nos.9 & 10.
35 Bolton, , The Works of Sir John Soane, p. 91 Google Scholar; Port, pp. 39–40.
36 The copy reproduced here is from PRO Works 6/183/1, Nos. 11 & 12.
37 Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div.X, B, Nos.8 & 9. No.8 is in Spiller's hand, while No.9 is ‘signed’ ‘J.S.’ There are only two minor word changes between the two drafts, although some additional changes were contemplated.
In his Notebook for 29 March 1818 Soane recorded that he was ‘At home, except walking with Mr. Spiller to Mr. Gandy's…’ The consultation between Soane and Spiller on the churches probably took place on that date.
38 An account and illustration of the towerless, porticoless church are in Gentlemen's Mag. lvi, pt.i, April 1796, p.274 Google Scholar, and plate opp. p.273.
39 See note 16.
40 As noted in Port, p. 40, n.6.
41 Drawings for a hexastyle Ionic chapel, part of a larger project for the entire east side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, are in Drawer 14, set 5, Nos.2 & 3; the latter is dated May 1800.
42 See note 16.
43 Soane seems to have had more confidence in his public pronouncements on the new churches. The editors of the Annals of the Fine Arts, 1819, pp. 110–111 Google Scholar, applauded ‘Excellent! Mr. Soane - excellent!’ when Soane introduced into his fifth Royal Academy lecture a commentary on architects’ competitions for the new churches.
44 There is a copy of the Second Letter in the Soane Museum. Both of these pamphlets must have been written with Soane's knowledge, since there are also some manuscript drafts pertaining to them in the Museum.
45 Spiller definitely helped Soane write a letter declining a request to design a church for Stand, near Manchester, in 1822. Port; p. 46, quotes an excerpt from Spiller's draft; Whiifen, M., The Architecture of Sir Charles Barry in Manchester and its Neighbourhood (Manchester 1950), p.4 Google Scholar, published the draft actually sent by Soane.
Spiller also helped Soane express considerable hesitation concerning the Commissioners’ requirement of a 15 per cent bond from the architects employed by them in 1822, and the inadequate allowance of expense for Walworth church in 1823 (Soane Museum Corresp. 2, Div.X, B; Corresp. 2, Div.X, CI).
46 In 1820–21 Soane expended more than three months of activity on the designs for the Marylebone church, compared to about one and a half weeks on the specimen designs. In both cases two designs in eight drawings were submitted.
47 In the House of Lords on 15 May 1818 Lord Liverpool said that one hundred churches might be built with the grant of one million pounds. This statement may have been influenced by Nash's estimates, but it did not originate with them. In the letter accompanying his designs (see note 34), dated 17 March 1818, Nash said he had been told ‘that 10000£ for each Church was the expence in contemplation’, i.e., the £10000 figure was not his idea.
There is a letter in the ‘National Churches’ correspondence file of the Soane Museum (2, Div.X, B, No.7), dated 27 March 1818, from Nicholas Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, asking Soane to bring ‘the Plans” on 1 April (referred to by Port, p. 39). However, an entry in Soane's Notebook for 1 April 1818 records an appointment with Vansittart respecting the plans for the National Debt Redemption Office, not specimen churches.
48 In a letter dated 23 August 1819. Excerpts quoted by Port, pp. 51–53.
49 PRO Works 6/340/1, Nos. 1, 3. 4. These papers are copies of Church Building Commissioners’ Building Committee minutes for 22 February 1820 and Board minutes probably of the same date. The original minute books covering this date are missing from the Church Commissioners Muniment:
Committee Room
22d February 1820
At a Meeting of the Building Committee Present
Lord Kenyon
The Revd Archdeacon Cambridge
Colonel Stephenson [crossed out in pencil]
Joshua Watson Esqre
In respect to the Plans for Churches and Chapels prepared by the Architects attached to the Office of Works.
The following Report was agreed to.
The Board having been pleased to express a wish that the Building Committee would inspect the Designs for Churches and Chapels prepared by the Architects attached to the Office of Works; with the view of reporting whether any of them could be conveniently applied to for the use of the Commissioners for the Churches and Chapels to be built under the Provisions of the Acts of the 58th & 59 of Geo. 3; beg leave to report-that the Committee have carefully examined three Portfolios containing Plans and Elevations which previously to the passing of the said Acts, had been furnished to the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, and since transmitted by them to this Board; and that it appears to this Committee, on such Examination, that the designs of Mr Nash the Senior attached Architect are the lowest in cost, and entirely within the Sum fixed by the Board as the maximum Expence for building any Church or Chapel; but that as the Ground Plans do not appear to the Committee to be best suited for the purposes of the Board, and as the Building in each Plan are [sic] to be cased with a cement the Committee have not any selection to offer for their consideration.
The Committee beg leave further to report, that as the Designs of Mr Soane and Mr Smirke the other attached Architects exceed the Expence contemplated by the Board; they are not prepared to recommend either of such Designs to their attention; under these circumstances the Committee beg leave to submit whether it may be desirable that it be proposed to the attached Architects to offer other Designs framed with more particular reference to the views entertained by the Commissioners, and that for this purpose they be invited to communicate with the Committee.
In respect to the Report with reference to the Plans for Churches and Chapels prepared by the Architects attached to the Office of Works.
Resolved,
That the Report be approved, and that it be proposed to the Architects attached to the Office of Works, to offer other Designs for Churches and Chapels framed with more particular reference to the views entertained by the Board; and that they be invited to communicate with the Committee thereon.
Only Smirke appears to have made further designs (see note 17), and perhaps only he was formally requested to do so. There is apparently no surviving request of this kind among Soane's papers.
50 PRO Works 6/183/1, No. 17. See Port, p.50 and pp.64–67.
51 CC File 15452. The total cost of St John's was £13966.