400 - AS II.71. Preliminary design, 1671. Elevation of the Monument and adjacent buildings (unfinished on L), drawn by Robert Hooke to a scale of 6 ft to an inch (drawn scale). Dark brown ink over pencil, shaded with grey wash. 720 x 465 mm. Watermark: Strasbourg lily WR; IHS surmounted by a cross. Inscribed in ink by Wren: With his Mties Approbation / Chr: Wren. On verso: pencil sketch elevation by Wren, probably related, showing a cupola with fish-scale tiling and surmounted by flaming ball finial.
Note to 400: The 1667 Rebuilding of London Act provided money for a ‘Pillar of Brase or Stone be erected on or as neere unto the place where the said Fire soe unhappily bagan', to be erected by the City authorities (SR 5, 609). On 26 January 1671 ‘Mr Hooke' presented a ‘draught [...] of the Pillar' to the Court of Aldermen, which was ‘well liked and approved' (CLRO, REP 76, fol. 58). The Court further approved ‘the Draught or Modell' on 14 February, when the ‘Committee for publique buildings' was ordered ‘to promote the building of the said Pillar with all convenient expedition according to the said draught' (CLRO, REP 76, fol. 72v). That the ‘draught' in question was 400 is apparent from Wren, who, writing in 1675, recorded that ‘a Phoenix was at first thought of, and is the ornament of the wooden Modell of the Pillar, which I caused to be made before it was begun' (WS 5.47). The model is lost, but the draughtsmanship of 400 can be confidently assigned to Hooke (compare his unpublished design for a terrace of houses: BL, Add. MS 5238, 54). The drawing was referred to Wren for his official approval; hence the inscription. It was engraved by Henry Hulsbergh c. 1723 (WS 18, pl. 17). There are further drawings for the Monument in the British Library (WS 5, pls. 35–37; Croft-Murray and Hulton 1960, vol. 2, pl. 293).
[Wren 1750/1965, 321–24; WS 5.45–51 and pls. 35–37; Sekler 1956, 66–67; Downes 1971a, 99–101; Downes 1982a, 66; Downes 1982b, 63; Moore 1998; Jardine 2002, 315–21; Stevenson 2005]