Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

marble. The roof has a circle with a quadrangle formed by fret and crocket work; the south front, facing the Poultry, is adorned with a cornice, pediment and acroters, with enrichments of leaves, &c. cut in stone. The interior' is very handsome, though the monuments are few and of little importance! The stone tower, about seventy-five feet in height, is crowned with a cupola, the vane of which is a ship half rigged.

Returning towards Cornhill, the Bank of England will now be the first object of notice. This spacious pile of buildings occupy an area of an irregular form, bounded on the south side 'by Threadneedle-Street," on the west by Princes-Street, on the north by Lothbury, and on the east by St. Bartholomew's-Lane. The whole circuit" contains nine open courts, a spacious rotunda, court and committee rooms, numerous public offices, a printing office, library, &c. besides various private apartments for the principal officers and servants. The centre, or the principal south front,` èxtending about eighty feet, is in the Ionic order, and hás a bold entablature. In the facade of the wings, the architect, Sir Robert' Taylor, has introduced Corinthian columns fluted and gutherooned, arranged in pairs along the whole front, and supporting a pediment at each extremity, with a balustraded entablature. Arched recesses, in the place of windows, form' the intercolumniations; and in the tympanum of each pediment is a bust, within a circular niche: the returns, at each end, are in the same style! It is, perhaps, impossible to form an adequaté idea of the interior of the Bank, without the aid of a ground-plan. The principal entrance from Threadneedle-Street opens by a large arched gateway, with a smaller entrance on each side, into a quadrangular paved court, with which all the leading communications are connected. The east side of this court leads to the Rotunda, the Three per Cent. the Four per Cent. the Bank Stock officé,

the Three per Cent. Consols, the Dividend, the Unclaimed Dividend offices, and through the latter communicates with the new entrance into Lothbury. By this disposition of the avenues the inconveniences occurring to persons, who are obliged to pass through the crowded Rotunda to the Three per Cent. Consol office, is completely done away.

The principal suite of apartments is on the ground floor, beneath which, and even below the surface of the ground, there is more building and a greater number of rooms than in the entire superstructure. At the west end of the Pay hall, is the statue of King William, by Cheere, with a Latin inscription, intended as a compliment to that monarch.

The clock, recently fitted up, and made by Messrs. Thwaites and Reid of Rosamond-Street, Clerkenwell, is a most ingenious piece of mechanism, intended to obviate the inconvenience from clocks differing with each other several minutes, which can never be the case with this; as the hands on the dials, in the different offices, are all moved by the same machine, whether that be right as to time, or faster or slower than the true time. The whole of the communication is carried on by means of brass rods, making in the whole about seven hundred feet, and weighing between six and seven hundred weight. The principal weight to this clock is between three and four hundred weight, and it is wound up twice a-week; and besides shewing the time on sixteen dial plates, this clock strikes the hours and quarters on very large bells, so as to denote the time to those offices that are without the dial-plates.

The entrance on the Lothbury side exhibits a singular, yet interesting display of architectural designs, after some of the best specimens of Greece and Rome. From the return on the west side, in Princes-Street, to the east, in Bartholomew-Lane, the architectural masses are of similar character; both the order and the forms having

[merged small][ocr errors]
[graphic]

Drawn and Engraved by Tigham for the Walks through London.

The Auction Mert, Bartholomeur Lane?.

Published by Warke Nos Pond Street Apr 1117.

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« НазадПродовжити »