Bird’s-Eye View: Pitzhanger Manor

Perspective: Pitzhanger Manor Vol. 90/5

A bird’s-eye view is a very clever kind of drawing, which shows a building as it would look from the air, as a bird flying over the building would see it – hence the name. This drawing is also of Pitzhanger Manor and shows the arch over the entrance from the road, the gardens and an artificial ruin Soane built to the right of the house.

He would pretend that these were real Roman ruins and even made drawings showing how they would have looked when complete.

The whole thing was probably a sort of joke he liked to play on his visitors and friends. Unfortunately, although the house is still there, the ruins were removed after Soane sold the property. In Soane’s time artificial ruins like this one were built in gardens to remind people of those they had seen in Italy.