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Third competition, 1835: preliminary design

Architectural drawings by C.R. Cockerell

A third competition was officially announced on 25 November 1835, between the same four architects as the first. Five full years had passed since Cockerell had last been actively involved in the project at Cambridge. During this interval he had executed the first major public designs of his maturity: the Dividend Office at the Bank of England and the Westminster Life Office on the Strand.

Immediately after the competition was announced, Cockerell developed a fresh design. He was not yet working from the detail of the brief as stated in the competition announcement (the verso of one drawing shows some questions for Peacock about it) and he also seems to have discarded budgetary realism to let his imagination run free. The result was the development of the principal feature that would last until the end of the project: an enneastyle portico on the principal facade creating a double axis through the centre of the building.