From a rough calculation which I have formed of the buildings shown in Your Royal Highness’s plan for the National Gallery alone (which contains 1900 squares of buildings—i. e., is 30 per cent. larger than the entire British Museum), taking the Palace at Caserta, with which, in point of length and proposed design, it would so nearly assimilate, as a type of the style to be adopted—the cost would be little less than a million and a half of money; and to erect the other buildings, containing about 3995 squares, as shown in the same plan, within the main roads only, in a similar style, together with the enclosure, laying out of the ground, and formation of roads, &c., would probably cost an additional two millions and a half.
With respect to the advantage of this site for the national pictures, as regards immunity from soot and dust, I fear that too much importance is attached to that circumstance, owing to the enormous neighbourhood both existing and arising around it, and to the consequences of its position as regards the denser portions of the Metropolis; for in the more lofty and airy neighbourhood of Hyde Park Gardens, Westbourne Terrace, &c., much inconvenience is felt from the falling of blacks, particularly during an easterly wind. From this and other considerations, I am inclined to think that the heart of London is not more subject to the effects of a sooty atmosphere than its immediate suburbs. All furnace smoke is likely to be soon abated under the provisions of the recent Act of Parliament for that purpose, and it is to be hoped that ere long such a stigma upon Science as the continuance of a similar nuisance from open fires will be removed. As to dust, the site at Kensington, with the open and airy spaces and macadamized roads surrounding it, is likely, I think, to suffer as much from that inconvenience, as the crowded and more frequented parts of London, particularly where the streets are paved with granite.
With reference to the capabilities of the site, in an æsthetic point of view, its lowness and flatness are not favourable to a fine architectural display, and the loftiness of the buildings which it is proposed to erect upon it, if properly proportioned to their lengths, will effectually shut out all view of the loftier background of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, with their fine trees, when viewed from the principal road out of Brompton.
Having thus described the doubts and misgivings which I entertain with respect to the site at Kensington, and as to the possibility of carrying out a perfect and efficient concentration of all that relates to science, art, and literature upon that spot, I proceed to notice the advantages and capabilities, which the existing institutions, to which I have adverted, would offer for such purposes, conjointly with the newly-acquired site.
First.
As regards the present British Museum, which I would propose to call the “British Museum of Arts and Literature.”
This Institution occupies the most central portion of the Metropolis; its site is lofty and commanding; the soil good, dry, and well drained; it is open to the north, and has 82 acres of open space in the squares which adjoin or are immediately contiguous to it; it contains at present 1480 squares of building, and stands upon above 8-1/2 acres of ground, which, by the addition of the surrounding property, with additional buildings upon it, might be increased to 3269 squares of building, and 13-1/2 acres of ground; it has already cost the country little short of a million of money; it is in a good neighbourhood, well calculated for residences for professors and officers of the Institution, and it has the advantage of the London University as an adjunct in its immediate neighbourhood; it is, moreover, a very popular Institution, and its site only requires the clearing away of a portion of the shabby neighbourhood to the south of it, and the opening up of a new approach to it in that direction, to render it an unexceptionable site for a great National Institution.
I propose that this Institution should not only be devoted to Art and Literature, but also to the accommodation of the Learned Societies. For this purpose it would be necessary to purchase the whole of the surrounding property, extending to Montague Street and Russell Square on the east, to Montague Place on the north, and to Bedford Square and Charlotte Street on the west; to cover over the quadrangle with a glass roof, and erect additional buildings on the west side of the present buildings, as recommended in a report, which I recently made to the Government, with a view to increase of the accommodation within the limits of the existing building.
The quadrangle and the ground story of the building might then be appropriated to the antiquities; the whole of the principal floor to the library, including the manuscripts, prints, and drawings: and the reading-rooms and the upper floor to the national pictures, which floor, with certain modifications that could be made at no great cost, might be admirably adapted to receive them, and which would not only accommodate the present collection, including the cartoons at Hampton Court, and my namesake’s pictures at the Society of Arts, but afford space for a future increase of it to nearly eight times its present amount, or more than double the extent allotted to the pictures in the Louvre. To effect these arrangements, it would be necessary to remove by degrees, as other accommodation could be provided, the whole of the Natural History collection, which at present occupies a large portion of the one-pair floor, as well as other portions of the building, to Kensington. On the surrounding property recommended to be purchased, I would propose that as leases fall in, or otherwise by degrees, other buildings for such progressive enlargement of the Institution, as circumstances may render necessary, should be erected, by which the requirements of the country in respect to Art and Literature may be met for ages to come.
| If these suggestions, as far as they relate to the limits of the present building, were carried out immediately, it would be necessary to incur the estimated cost of the additions and transformations, recommended in my recent report to the Government, amounting to | £105,000 |
| To which should be added for the requisite modifications of the one-pair floor, in order to adapt it for the reception of the national pictures | 25,000 |
| Making a total of | £130,000 |