Finsbury Bank for Savings
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Alfred Bartholomew

Chapter 6 of 111840

The bank he published instead

The rejected design survives on paper. In July 1840 the Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal said that its particulars “are to be found in Mr. Bartholomew’s ‘Specifications for Practical Architecture,’ just published”. The book has one savings-bank specification, Chapter XLVII of Part II, for “a FIRE-PROOF House or Building … for the Managers of the [blank] SAVINGS’ BANK”. The bank’s name and site are left blank.

It fits the description. It has a Portland stone front with “three Palladian window-dressings”, rusticated wings and quoins, two front entrances and two vaulted entrance halls, a depositors’ waiting-hall, a board-room and an actuary’s drawing-room. A note states its purpose: “The object being to reduce as much as possible the quantity of combustible materials, this building, though standing upon nearly 3000 superficial feet, is designed to require only eight loads of timber in its composition”. The roof was to consist “entirely of cast and wrought-iron”, and there were to be “no wooden lintels whatever”.

Book page headed Chapter XLVII: ‘Specification for the erection of and the entire completion, fit for use and occupation, of a Fire-proof House or Building with the appertenances thereof for the Managers of the ... Savings’ Bank upon a plot of ground situate in ... in the Parish of ... in the County of ...’, with gaps left for the names, followed by the bricklayer’s clauses 4478 to 4481. (full-size image)
Chapter XLVII: a fire-proof savings bank, its client left blank.A. Bartholomew, Specifications for Practical Architecture (1840), NYPL copy digitised by Google, via Internet Archive
Diagram of one half of an iron roof truss, from ridge to eaves, lettered P for the cast-iron principals, C for the collar, S for the suspenders, St for the struts, R for the rafters, B for the binders and T for the tie, with a key below and a small drawing of a rafter wedged between ledges on a principal. The key ends: ‘No part of the substance of the iron is to be reduced by the punching or holes.’ (full-size image)
The iron roof truss specified in Chapter XLVII of Specifications, 1840.A. Bartholomew, Specifications for Practical Architecture (1840), NYPL copy digitised by Google, via Internet Archive

No source says in so many words that this is the Finsbury design, but the match is close. If it is, Chapter XLVII is the fire-proof ideal of Hints worked out for a real client, and published after that client had turned it down. The history page sets the specification beside the building as built (the commission). In 2021 its painter’s clause, sashes “finished on the outside thereof, with dark purple-brown”, guided the repainting of the bank’s front (the colours).

Notes

  1. CEAJ (July 1840), p. 217.
  2. Specifications (1840), Part II ch. XLVII, heading and §4478; contents, “XLVII. a Fire-proof Savings-bank”. Neither “Finsbury” nor “Sekforde” occurs in the book.
  3. Specifications (1840), §§4482, 4495, 4498–4501, 4507, 4518, 4536, 4562; compare CEAJ (July 1840), p. 217.
  4. Specifications (1840), §§4531, 4542–4557, 4566, and the note to §4550.
  5. The identification is strong but not stated by any source. Some clauses in the chapter are standard ones found elsewhere in the book, for example the sash colour (§4596) and the water-closet clauses (§4589).
  6. Bartholomew, Specifications (1840), ch. XLVII, §4596. The repainting followed advice from the paint historian Patrick Baty (see the history page).