Independently of the increased accommodation, the advantage of acquiring for Natural History the exclusive possession of the upper floor is obvious and unquestionable, though the gain is not limited to that department. By separating its galleries entirely from those of Antiquities, the practical superintendence of each would be simplified; one department would no longer be a necessary thoroughfare to another; the confusion of ideas experienced by ordinary visitors from the juxtaposition of collections so incongruous would be avoided; and as each department would have a separate entrance, a facility would be given for varying their periods or regulations of admission, as the circumstances of each might at any time require; considerations which must hereafter acquire increasing weight in proportion to the increasing magnitude of the Museum.
Estimate of approximate expense.
The ground immediately round the Museum, on the average of its three sides, is valued in the Report of the Special Committee of Trustees (twenty-sixth November, 1859), at about forty-three thousand five hundred pounds per acre. |Expense of ground.| The houses in Charlotte Street are inferior in character to those on the other two sides, and might doubtless be purchased at a proportionately less price; but the writer, being anxious to err only on the safe side, assumes the average price as necessary. The ground proposed to be taken is about four hundred and fifty feet long, by a breadth generally of one hundred and fifty feet, but at the south end not exceeding one hundred and ten feet; so that the total area is about sixty-four thousand seven hundred square feet, or somewhat less than an acre and a half. The price, therefore, may be set down at sixty-five thousand pounds.
Buildings are estimated in the same report to cost about two pounds per square foot, reckoned upon the total internal area of the principal floors, without the basement. This calculation is founded on buildings consisting of a basement, a ground floor, and one upper floor. |Of buildings.| The buildings proposed by the writer are in one respect more costly than these, as their basements bear a larger proportion to those floors on which the cost is calculated. But in two other respects they are more economical:—1. Because they include, in one part, a second floor, which swells the space from which the expense is calculated, without involving any addition to the basement. 2. Because some of the galleries on the ground floor are not really separate buildings, but parts of a single block of buildings, subdivided merely by partition walls. On the whole, therefore, the estimate of two pounds per foot seems the safest basis of calculation.
Now the quantity of internal area or floor space in the proposed new buildings is—
| For the collections | 71,760 | square feet. |
| For studies, staircases, &c. | 8,600 | „ |
| ______ | ||
| Total | 80,360 | „ |
This gives, therefore, one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds for buildings, which, added to sixty-five thousand pounds for ground, would amount to two hundred and twenty-five thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds. A further sum must be added for alterations of the existing building, particularly for the removal and reconstruction of the staircase, and the formation of the two rooms described as III (69) and XIII (15). Assuming the expense of these alterations, quite conjecturally, at ten thousand pounds, the total cost would be two hundred and thirty-five thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds. The largeness of the valuation allowed for the ground gives reason to believe that the actual expense of ground and buildings would not exceed, and might probably fall short of, this estimate.
Means of future extension.
[In concluding his remarks on this plan of reconstruction, Mr. Oldfield points out that if ever hereafter further extensions should be required, they might be obtained without material disturbance of the proposed galleries. |Appendix to Minutes of Evidence, 1860, pp. 245, ad fin.| For Antiquities, one or more additional houses might be purchased either in Bedford Square, commencing with No. 4, or in Charlotte Street, commencing with No. 3. The former would be required for the prolongation of the Greek, Græco-Roman, or Roman Galleries; the latter for the Etruscan or Phœnician. For the minor collections on the upper floors either side would be equally appropriate. If further space were needed for Natural History, galleries might be built as suggested by Professor Maskelyne, extending either northwards to Montague Place, or eastwards to Montague Street, as found convenient.]
To the clear and forcible exposition of his plan, thus given by its framer in the paper submitted to the Committee of 1860, many further elucidations were added in evidence. But enough has already been quoted for the perfect intelligibility of the plans so proposed for the sanction of the Trustees and of Parliament. |Minutes of Evidence, June, 1860, Q. 2034, p. 143.| ‘I think,’ said Mr. Oldfield, when questioned, in the Committee, as to the extent of provision for the probable future requirements of the Museum, ‘the proper mode is to secure so much space as will at least meet those demands which are likely to occur during the construction of the building; and then, above all, to adopt a system of construction which would at any future time admit of an extension, without derangement of that which now exists, and so would obviate the very great expense and inconvenience which has hitherto occurred from alterations and reconstructions.’