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15. Plan of road imrovements for the Corporation of London

15. Title: Improvements proposed by the Hon. Corporation of London between the Royal Exchange and Finsbury Square. (flanking coat of arms of City of London).
Date: 1802.
Size: 450 x 360 mm.
Imprint(s): Office of Works, Guildhall, Jany 1802. (bottom left corner).
Signature(s): Engraved by John Cooke, Engraver to the Hon. Board of Admiralty.
Location(s): BL, NLW[1] and Soane´s.[2]

Comments: This plan shows the intention to redevelop the site of Bethlem Hospital ('Bedlam') and replace it with the ''London Amphitheatre'' and improve the area between the Bank of England (in Threadneedle Street) with Cornhill and the Royal Exchange to the south and Finsbury Square to the north. This area would then be redeveloped to provide some 60 houses with gardens, stables and coach-houses suitable for ''opulent Citizens''. This complex would then be linked directly to the Royal Exchange via two new 80-ft wide streets.
Sir John Soane’s Museum has three drawings of George Dance's proposed improvements. Dance (1741-1825), Clerk of the City Works, was responsible for the development of Finsbury Square (from 1777) and the design for Finsbury Circus or the London Amphitheatre, designed 1802 and executed by William Montague (1773-1843). Two of these are John Cooke’s engraving (1 and 3) with different pencil markings and/or wash colouring. “In drawings 1 and 2, feint pencil indicates a street that stretches diagonally from the London Amphitheatre to the Tivoli Corner. In drawing 1 coloured washes highlight the buildings on New Street and on the south side of the London Amphitheatre (surveys in the late 1790s had heavily criticised the state of the Bethlem Hospital and this moved to Southwark in 1815). In drawings 2 and 3 the buildings on both New Street and the future Moorgate are highlighted in coloured washes. In drawing 3 the north-west corner of the Bank has been shaded in pen by Soane.”
This is one of only two maps produced by Cooke while still at the Board of Admiralty. It is the only one with the Guildhall address.




[1] BL Maps 3485.(4.); NLW is Gogerddan 455 131/3/12 (kindly checked by Camwy MacDonald, illustrated).

[2] The three Soane´s Museum copies can be viewed at http://collections.soane.org/THES66708: references SM (1) 9/1/13, (2) 9/1/14, (3) 9/1/15. Notes on improvements etc., taken from Soane´s Museum website. 


Link to Map 16.


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