THE BEST SITE FOR A PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. Tins has
been a vexed question between the Master of the Rolls and the Treasury for the last eight years. It is impossible that the necessity for building a repository at once should become more urgent than we showed it to be last week,—unless, indeed, Carlton Ride or the White Tower should be burnt down. Assu- ming, therefore, that the Government will have wisdom enough to commence the building of a Record Office forthwith, we may now usefully consider the best site ; and, after that, we will endeavour to show, in a subsequent paper, what the nature of the building should be.
Sixteen years ago, the late Record Commissioners proposed that an office for a portion only of the records should be built, on the Rolls estate in Chancery Lane ; and the gardens of the house which was formerly the residence of the Master of the Rolls —the very gardens of the Domus Conversorum, which lasted till the end of the fourteenth century as the reception-house for converted Jews—have been kept vacant for the purpose, with the exception of a small part applied, in a wretched style, to a building for Judges' chambers. The ground is still vacant, and offers the most unexceptionable site for the purpose. "My Lords" of the Treasury in 1839 seem to have been wiser on this subject than their successors in 1844. My Lords of 1839 declined to settle the question of site until it were seen whether the Victoria Tower could be adapted to the safe custody of the records: they were unwilling, without accurate knowledge of the fact, to determine in favour of the Rolls estate, and thus sanction a second building ;. but in their minute they declare their "en- tire concurrence with Lord Langdale in thinking that one general Record Office, under efficient management and resonsibility, is essential to the introduction of a perfect system." See First Re- port of the Deputy Keeper.) " One office essenti to a perfect system "—certainly ; so every one has always said—Record Com- missioners, Commons Committee, the Master of the Rolls. The Treasury does but reiterate the opinions of the most "competent persons.' But My Lords of 1844, as we have seen, repudiate this sound principle, and disagree with the opinion of Lord Langdale and their predecessors, the Record Commissioners and the Com- mons Committee, that one building is essential. They will have several, in order that the Victoria Tower may be one of them! Having to decide between these contradictory principles of My Lords of 1839 and 1844, it is to be hoped that My Lords of 1846 will return to the earliest and best. As late, however, as 1842, the
y.
Treasurhad not decided against the adoption of the Rolls estate; for we find Mr. Trevelyan acquainting Lord Langdale, that "My Lords will deem it adviseable to avail themselves of any opportunity which may offer of adding to the Rolls estate with a view of securing an adequate site," in case that one should be preferred. (Fourth Report of Deputy Keeper.)
Lord Langdale has repeatedly recommended the Rolls estate, as the site offering the most convenient access to the legal pro- fession, the principal parties who consult the public records. There can be no doubt whatever that it would be so. Every soli- citor would certainly vote for the Rolls estate, rather than the site of the Victoria Tower; and in clinging to the latter, the Treasury did so, not on its own merits, but simply because the great tower happened to be at the end of Abingdon Street.
Since it is now clear that the Victoria Tower will not hold even half of the records, and that the adoption of it, with other adjacent. buildings would certainly be more costly than an independent structure, the question of site for this independent building is re- opened. Other sites than the Rolls estate have been mentioned at differ- ent times. Two years ago, Mr. Barry proposed to the Committee on the Removal of the Law Courts to employ the quadrangle opposite Westminstei Hall as a Record Office : but many objec- tions suggest themselves to its adoption. It is questionable whether there is sufficient space even for the records already in the custody of the Master of the Rolls ; and certainly there is not to provide for accruing records for any great length of time. The cost of a building here, forming an essential part of the New Palace, would be immensely greater than a building elsewhere : and moreover, the arrangement and location of the records, which have most peculiar requirements of their own,—as any one who has been into the White Tower, the Chapter-house, or Carlton Ride, may see,—would be made subservient to the style of archi- tecture already predetermined. It requires no witch to say whether the necessities of the records or the architectural features of this site would be the first consideration with Mr. Barry. Lastly, we may add that Westminster is not the most convenient site for the legal profession. On another occasion, Mr. Barry suggested Lincoln's Inn Fields. That locality would be unobjectionable as to site and space, but it is hardly a question that it could not be obtained. The being placed side by side with the proposed New Law Courts, facing St. Clement's Church in the Strand, makes the fourth site not ineligible, but perhaps scarcely capable of suffi-- dent extension. We then come back to the Rolls estate ; which has every ad-: vantage and no drawback. There is sufficient vacant space al.' ready Crown property : if not, more might be had with great advantage to the neighbourhood of the Rolls buildings, Fetter Lane, &c. ; and should there be need, the premises might be ex- tended as far as Holborn1 at a cost probably lower than any other is of the Metropolis. The fitness of the site for the law- yers is undeniable. And, as we have remarked already, the structure would not be concealed, but could be made an essential' part of a proposed Metropolitan improvement. All circumstances therefore combine to prefer the Rolls estate as the site of the Public Record Office : and so narrowed is the question to this choice, that we would venture to predict even Mr. Barry himself would prefer it to all others, his own Victoria Tower included. " My Lords " might ask him.
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