The Ordnance Drawing Room 1716–52

Abstract

English Heritage Trust manages many of the buildings erected by the Office of Ordnance, which until its abolition in 1856 was the government department responsible for the construction of fortifications and of buildings for the storage of munitions and weaponry. In the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession this office was re-organized, and it was progressively enlarged in response to the demands made by the succession of 18th-century wars. A branch dedicated to architectural drawing was formed, with a room allocated for its use in the Tower of London. Besides the Office of the King’s Works, which was smaller, the Ordnance Drawing Room was the only permanent public body of professional architects in 18th-century England, and it evolved its own practices, style and architectural education. With few exceptions, the staff of the Drawing Room are rarely considered as architects, only as military engineers; few of their names are known except to military historians. This article identifies them and describes their working environment, the Drawing Room itself, where they designed buildings in Scilly, Pendennis, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Dover, Upnor, Tilbury, Landguard, Scarborough, Tynemouth, Berwick and Carlisle, which are now in the care of English Heritage Trust. As an aid to attribution of the numerous drawings produced by the office in the period between 1716 and 1752 (when the Drawing Room moved premises), the article is succeeded by a catalogue of drawings for the buildings within the Tower itself, and by a transcription of a Register of Drawings for the Tower made by the author from what may be a unique copy in Historic England’s archives. The author’s concordance of the Register with the drawings identifies many of them, and lays the foundation for the attribution of many more.

Notes

I carried out much of my research in the War Office papers during the 1970s and 1980s, before the Public Record Office began to introduce a new (stamped) page/folio numbering system. As a consequence some of my folio and page reference numbers are original to the documents. Where new references have been used, or old ones updated, I have placed an asterisk against the reference.

1 The building is described and illustrated by Anna Keay with Roland B Harris, ‘The White Tower, 1642–1855’, in Edward Impey (ed.), The White Tower, New Haven and London, 2008, 188–203.

2 London, The National Archives, Public Record Office, WO (hereafter cited as WO) 47/29, fo. 99.*

3 Douglas W Marshall, ‘Military maps of the eighteenth-century and the Tower of London Drawing Room’, Imago Mundi, XXXII, 1980, 21–44. The Board’s operation in the period just before the establishment of the Drawing Room is described by Nigel Barker, ‘The building practice of the English Board of Ordnance 1680–1720’, in John Bold and Edward Chaney (eds), English Architecture Public and Private; Essays for Kerry Downes, London and Rio Grande, 1993, 199–214. See also JE Hartley and Yolanda O’Donoghue, ‘Introductory notes’, in The Old Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales, I, 1975.

4 Marshall, op. cit., 21,states the scope of the article: ‘a glimpse into the process of military map procurement, the role of patronage within a small government bureau, and the training of draughtsmen in relation to the development of military technical education’.

5 Marshall, op. cit., 37. Marshall transcribed Desmaretz as Desmeretz.

6 Ibid., 21.

7 Idem.

8 Geoffrey Parnell, The Tower of London, London, 1993, 71–75; Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Arming the Tower: the Small Armoury at the Tower of London’, Apollo, CXXXVII, February 1993, 82–85.

9 London, British Library, Stowe MSS 541, fos 11–12.

10 WO 95, fo. 40; WO 47/28, fos 140 and 144.*

11 Ogborne (c.1662–1734) was appointed Master Carpenter to the Board in 1700, and worked for the Board repeatedly at Woolwich between then and his death in 1734 [Hogg, op. cit., 227 and passim], at the Martin Tower in 1716–18 [WO 51/105], and at Berwick on Tweed in 1718–21 [WO 47/31, fos 41 and 258]. He was a freeman of the Carpenters’ Company, a Citizen of London, Sheriff in 1727, and resident in Rosemary Lane, Whitechapel, when he made his will in 1734 [London, The National Archives, PROB 11/667/325; London, St Olave’s Hart Street, monumental inscription]. As Sheriff he was knighted on 31 January 1727 [Hogg, op. cit., 284; John Noorthouck, ‘The Mayors and Sheriffs of London’, in A New History of London, London, 1773, 893; Alfred B Beaven, The Aldermen of London, London, 1908]. From 1727 he was also a Commissioner of the 50 New Churches [EGW Bill, The Queen Anne Churches, London, 1979, xxiv]. He was an Elder Brother of Trinity House [monumental inscription], for whom he built Trinity Almshouses in Mile End Road [WH Godfrey, The English Almshouse, 1955, 74–75], perhaps to his own design. He was also the surveyor who developed Southampton and Tavistock Streets for the 1st Duke of Bedford between 1700 and 1707 [FHW Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London, XXXVI, London, 1970, 37–40]. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for all this information.

12 WO 51/99, fo. 33; WO 51/100, fo. 33.*

13 Unfortunately, some of the bills are lumped together with other unconnected works, and the details are therefore difficult to isolate.

14 WO 51/98, fo. 59.*

15 Ibid., fo 92; WO 47/30, fo. 140.*

16 WO 47/30, fo. 86.*

17 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The excavation of the Roman city wall at the Tower of London and Tower Hill, 1954–1976’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, XXXIII, 1982, 118–21.

18 For a description of this chapter of events, see Geoffrey Parnell, The Tower of London, London, 1993, 98–108.

19 Cf. London, The National Archives, WORK (hereafter cited as WORK) 31/190, ground-floor plan of annexe, 1729.

20 WO 49/32, fo. 138.*

21 London, The National Archives, Public Record Office, SP (hereafter cited as SP) 12/33, No. 63, Ordnance building survey, 20 April 1564. The plan of the vacated office is marked clearly on a survey of the Tower in 1682 as the ‘Old office of Ordnance’ [Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Five seventeenth-century plans of the Tower of London’, London Topographical Record, XXV, 1985, 74].

22 WO 51/17, fo. 43. The sashes were sparingly employed for the ‘Great Roome’ (probably the Board Room) and the ‘Anteroome’ adjoining. The joiner, John Wilkin, supplied ‘Three shash windowes at £7.10s a window’ for each room. Rather oddly for a joiner he also supplied ‘one Picture at £8, and ye frame at £6.10s’ for the Great Room.

23 WO 47/19B, fo. 18.

24 WO 51/ 20, fo. 91.*

25 WO 50/7, fo. 7.

26 Ibid., fos 67, 71, 75, 78, 82 and 90.

27 WO 55/405, p. 6.

28 WO 47/28, fo. 146.*

29 WO 47/30, p. 143.

30 WO 50/7, fo. 89, passim.

31 WO 47/32, p. 141.

32 WO 50/7, fo. 135, passim.

33 Major F Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, I, London, 1879, 96. For a discussion of Borgard’s contribution, see AB Caruana, ‘Albert Borgard and British Artillery of 1675–1725’, Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting, XX/3, 1982, 77–94.

34 WO 47/28, p. 339; WO 47/29, fos 161–62.*

35 Ibid., fos 108 and 170; WO 47/30, fo. 183.*

36 WO 47/26, p. 256.

37 WO 49/77, fo. 50.* This is found in a debenture signed by the Master Carpenter, Matthew Banks, on the last day of March 1642.

38 WO 51/3. fo. 66.*

39 WO 51/35, fo. 160.*

40 WO 51/36, fo. 45.*

41 WO 47/26, p. 256.

42 WO 47/29, fo. 161.*

43 WO 51/103, fo. 35.*

44 WO 50/7, fo. 93.*

45 WO 47/29, fo. 223.*

46 WO 50/7, fo. 93.*

47 WO 47/28, fo. 146.*

48 WO 51/102, fo.16,* an extraordinary payment to James dated December 1718 for ‘making Draughts, Modells, and settling the Proportions of Carriages and Ironwork for the same’.

49 WO 51/103, fo. 35.*

50 WO 51/119, fo. 57.*

51 WO 51/122, fo. 116.*

52 WO 51/126, fo. 106.*

53 Woolwich, Royal Artillery Institution, James Clavell Library, MS G3n/1a.

54 Cf. WO 51/116, fo. 99.*

55 His first payment, for ‘Modelling Carriages, Wheels, &c’ for the period between 17 October 1720 and 31 March 1721 appears in the Bill Books, WO 51/107, fo. 73. Thereafter his salary is recorded in the Quarterly Books, WO 50/7, fo. 131 et seq.*

56 CM Clode, The Military Forces of the Crown: their Administration and Government, London, 1869, I, 464–65.

57 WO 3, fo. 66.*

58 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 69.

59 WO 51/15, fo. 148, bill of 31 May 1673 for £53 19s. 2d.

60 WO 51/11, fo. 42.*

61 WO 51/14, fo. 34.*

62 Ibid., fo. 136.

63 WO 51/19, fo. 56.*

64 See entry by Jonathan Spain, ‘Blood, Holcroft (c.1657–1707)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004 (hereafter cited as ODNB), VI, 268–70. The son of the famous Colonel Thomas Blood, the man who very nearly escaped with some of the Crown Jewels from the Tower in 1672 [See entry by Alan Marshall, ‘Blood, Thomas (1617/18–1680)’, ODNB, VI, 270–75]. In most of the Ordnance records the engineer’s Christian name is spelt ‘Holcraft’, but the ODNB presumably uses other sources and names him ‘Holcroft’.

65 WO 51/36, fo. 144.*

66 G Parnell, ‘The refortification of the Tower of London, 1679–86’, Antiquaries Journal, LXIII, 1983, 337–52.

67 WO 51/37, fo. 207.*

68 WO 47/18, fo. 108; WO 50/2, fo. 97, passim.*

69 It is possible that Lucus Boitout was related to a gunner named ‘John Boitouts’ who had his request for leave of absence approved by the Board on 4 August 1715 [WO 47/28, fo. 193*].

70 Ibid., fo. 33.* Where Boitout worked in the Tower is not clear, though it is worth mentioning that in March 1687, William Damsell, joiner, was paid £34 for two large walnut map cases which were placed in the Withdrawing Room of the Coldharbour office, WO 51/36, f. 33.

71 WO 51/50, fo. 63.*

72 WO 50/3, fo. 24.*

73 RH Vetch (rev. FJ Hebbert), ‘Richards, Michael (1673–1722)’, ODNB, cit., XLVI, 785–87.

74 London, British Library (hereafter cited as BL), Stowe MS 477, fo. 4.

75 WO 55/2281.

76 WO 51/83, fo. 55.*

77 WO 51/86, fo. 68.* Subsequent listings in the Bill Books are found in WO 51/87, fo. 35*; WO 51/88, fo. 121;* WO 51/89, fo. 118*; and WO 51/90, fo. 127.*

78 John Venn and JA Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part I, IV, Cambridge, 1927, 391. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for this information.

79 Berne, Canton of Berne, State Archives, Ryhiner Collection of Mapmakers.

80 WO 55/2281 (Part 2), fos 3, 27–28 and 44–45.

81 WO 51/89, fo. 118.*

82 J Nicholas, The Progresses of King James I, London, 1828, 411–19; detailed estimates for goods and services for the staging of this event are in WO 49/30.*

83 WO 51/92, fo. 20. This previously unknown episode in the career of Sir James Thornhill (as he became in 1720) fell between his appointment in about 1689 as assistant to his kinsman Thomas Highmore, then King’s Sergeant Painter, and his appointment as History Painter in Ordinary to George I in 1718. It predates his earliest known architectural design, for the chapel screen of All Souls’ College, Oxford, in 1715 [Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, New Haven and London, 2008, 1038–40; Tabitha Barber, ‘Thornhill, Sir James (c.1675–1734)’, ODNB, LXIV, 617–22]. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for drawing this to my attention.

84 WO 54/199.

85 WO 51/104, fo. 88.*

86 London, The National Archives, Public Record Office, PROB 11/604, fo. 78.

87 London, HM Tower of London, Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Register.

88 Richard Hewlings, ‘Jelfe, Andrews (c.1690–1759)’, ODNB, cit., XXIX, 916.

89 WO 51/101, fo. 16.

90 WO 51/102, fo. 53.*

91 WO 55/490.

92 Colvin, op. cit., 950.

93 WO 47/32 , fo. 113.*

94 Chris Tabraham and Doreen Grove, Fortress Scotland and the Jacobites, London, 1995, 61; Colvin, op. cit., 571.

95 Richard Hewlings, ‘Hawksmoor’s “Brave Designs for the Police”’, in John Bold and Edward Chaney (eds), English Architecture Private and Public: Essays for Kerry Downes, London and Rio Grande, 1993, 225; what is probably Jelfe’s drawing is in BL, K Top, XXXII, 47i.

96 TNA, WORK 31/51–53, 56–7, 59, 61–62, 68–70, 75–76, 160–61 and 174. WORK 31/146, is the ‘Plan of the Chapel and Houses near it adjoining to ye Line’ and has a scale inscribed ‘Mr Brookes Scale of feete’.

97 Parnell, ‘Arming the Tower: the Small Armoury ...’, cit., 82–85.

98 WORK 31/107.

99 WO 47/28, fo. 149.*

100 WO 47/32, fo. 262.*

101 Ibid., fo. 310.*

102 WO 47/33, fo. 163.*

103 WO 51/120, fo. 116.*

104 WORK 31/154.

105 Geoffrey Parnell, The Tower of London, London, 1993, 76, pl. 55.

106 One, listed in the 1743 Drawing Room register as Tower No. 66, and in the War Office Tower list as is labelled ‘Plan of the North part of Tower’. Another [WORK 31/173] comprises two plans, taken at different levels, and two elevations of a complicated staircase that was built into the north-east corner of the Inner Ward in 1729 to provide access to the first floor of the Martin Tower, which was then the Jewel Keeper’s apartment. After years of wrangling and dispute about the provision of an independent access to the Jewel Keeper’s residence it was agreed that the Office of Works and the Office of the Ordnance would share the cost of a ‘New Stack of Stairs’. The contractor, the bricklayer Joseph Pratt, was paid £308 11s. 4½d. for the work that included the input of bricklayers, carpenters, masons, smiths and painters. Most of their work survives to this day. A third [WORK 31/177] is a ground plan of the Main Guard, erected against the west elevation of the White Tower in 1717. The fourth [WORK 31/193] is a detailed plan, elevation and profile of a palisade erected at the entrance to the Tower immediately in front of the baroque gatehouse designed and constructed under the watchful eye of the great Ordnance engineer Sir Bernard de Gomme in 1670. This little known gatehouse can be seen quite clearly on a water-colour of the western entrance to the Tower by Paul Sandby [WO 51/151, fo. 107*]. Henry Foquet appears to have added the useful comment ‘Vide estimate made by Dugal Cambbell & Minutes 17 June 1740’. Dugal Campbell (d. 1757) was the clerk of works to the Ordnance establishment at the Tower at this time; in 1742 he was promoted to Engineer Extraordinary; in 1744 to Engineer in Ordinary; and in 1757 he was appointed Chief Engineer in North America [Colvin, op. cit., 217].

107 WO 51/26, fo. 57.*

108 Lewes, East Sussex Record Office, AMS5867.

109 C Fleet, ‘Lewis Petit and his plans of Scottish fortifications and towns, 1714–16’, Cartographic Journal, XLIV/4, 2007, 329–41.

110 WORK 31/107.

111 WO 51/96, fo. 28.*

112 WO 51/125, fo. 112.*

113 WO 51/151, fo. 69.*

114 Only five original draughts in the Tower section of the 1743 Registrar are attributed to Richards, but his work in other listed Ordnance sites are yet to quantified; others are almost certainly to be found in the King’s Topographical Collection of the British Library.

115 GR Balleine, A Biographical Dictionary of Jersey, London and New York, 1948, 415–16.

116 WO 47/30, fo. 128; order of the Board to pay Lemprière for the period 23 December 1716 to 13 April 1717 at the rate of 3s. per day.

117 WO 55/2281 (Part 2), fos 3–4.

118 Ibid., fos 54–55.

119 WORK 31/124.

120 WO 51/104, fo. 110.*

121 For a photograph and drawing of the unrestored tower in the 19th century, see Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Old views shed new light on the Tower of London’, Stereo World, XXXV/6, 2010, 26, figs 14 and 15.

122 WORK 31/151.

123 WO 51/134, fo. 63.*

124 W0 47/31, fo. 115.*

125 Ibid., fo. 119, 25 February 1718.

126 Gentleman’s Magazine, XVI, 1746, 383.

127 WO 54/200, p. 8.*

128 Colvin, op. cit., 416–25.

129 Ibid., 1215.

130 WO 51/101, fo. 50.*

131 WO 51/107, fo. 124.*

132 WO 51/179, fo. 48.*

133 WO 51/119, fo. 40.*

134 WO 51/126, fo. 116.*

135 WO 51/126, fo. 74.*

136 WO 51/126, fo. 74.

137 WO 51/126, fo. 88.

138 WO 51/126, fos 96–7.8.*

139 It was as Sheriff that he was knighted on 31 January 1727 [Hogg, op. cit., 284; John Noorthouck, ‘The Mayors and Sheriffs of London’, in A New History of London, London, 1773, 893; Alfred B Beaven, The Aldermen of London, London, 1908]. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for bringing this to my attention.

140 WO 51/126, fo. 69; WO 51/127, fo. 47; WO 51/128, 16–17 and 33; WO 51/131, 59.

141 WO 51/155, fo. 77; WO 51/159, fo. 159*.

142 WO 51/152, fo. 128.* William Scrimshire was an upholder with premises in Bucklersbury [Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert (eds), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660–1840, Leeds, 1986, 791]. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for bringing this to my attention.

143 WO 51/144, fo. 70.*

144 WO 51/149, fo. 129.*

145 WO 51/136, fo. 85.*

146 WO 51/165. fo. 27.*

147 WORK 31/95–97, 100–3; five of these are reproduced in Impey, op. cit., 197–99. It is worth noting that this unusual shading technique also occurs in drawings of Deene Park, Northamptonshire, made by the Ordnance draughtsman William Brasier in 1746 [John Heward and Robert Taylor, The Country Houses of Northamptonshire, Swindon, 1996, 163–64].

148 WO 51/126, fo. 116.*

149 WO 51/131, fo. 94.*

150 WO 51/124, fo. 124.*

151 WO 51/148. fo. 33.*

152 WO 51/157. fo. 30.*

153 Colvin, op. cit., 217.

154 WO 51/139, fo. 122; WO 51/140, fo. 59.*

155 WO 51/147, fo. 108; WO 51/148, fo. 86.*

156 WO 51/177, fo. 150.*

157 Colvin, op. cit., 896; Luke Herrmann, Paul and Thomas Sandby, London, 1986, 11–12. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for bringing this to my attention.

158 WO 51/151, fo. 107.* WO 51/155, fo. 40, for a second payment for the period 1–12 April 1743.

159 WO 51/153, fo. 47.* The wording of his job description is taken from a bill in which Sandby received £40 12s. for ‘203 Days from 12^th April to 31^st October at 4s. per Diem’.

160 Johnson Ball, Paul and Thomas Sandby, Royal Academicians, Cheddar, 1985, 93. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for bringing this to my attention.

161 Colvin, op. cit., 896; Herrmann, op. cit., 12, notes that there is no evidence to support this. Ball, op. cit., is also sceptical.

162 WO 51/153, fo. 47; WO 51/154, fo. 19.* (two entries).

163 WO 51/154, fo. 154.*

164 Ibid., fos 75 & 125.*

165 Colvin, op. cit., 896.

166 WO 51/165, fo. 28.

167 Colvin, op. cit., 896.

168 This reference is taken from a list of 49 draughtsmen in an Ordnance Bill Book [WO 51], paid on 30 June 1781 ‘to Copy and Contract Draughts in the Drawing Room’. Some idea of their responsibilities is given by a payment of £29 8s. to the artist Benjamin Wilson on 31 July 1778, ‘being his expences on Account of his Experiments at the Pantheon per Board Order 22^nd of July 1778’ [WO 51/281, fo. 34]

For Engraving the following Plates &ca viz,

Table

169 WO 51/155, fos 77–78.* William Brasier was engaged to survey buildings at Boughton for the 2nd Duke of Montagu, Master-General of the Ordnance from 1740 until his death in 1749 [John Cornforth, ‘Castles for a Georgian duke’, Country Life, 8 October 1992, 60]. The duke’s son-in-law and near neighbour, the 3rd Earl of Cardigan, also engaged Brasier to make record drawings of Deene Park, Northamptonshire, in 1746 [Heward and Taylor, loc. cit.]. The striking and accomplished graphic style of Brasier’s drawings of Deene is similar to that of his colleagues Peter Campbell’s and William James’s plans of the White Tower, illustrated at Figs 20–22 here. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for all this information.

170 WO 51/156, fo. 100.*

171 WO 51/161, fo. 69.*

172 WO 51/158, fo. 46.*

173 WO 51/162, fo. 33.*

174 WO 51/161, fo. 58.*

175 WO 51/162, fo. 103.*

176 WO 51/179, fo. 48.*

177 WO 51/166, fos 27 and 37.*

178 WO 51/168, fo. 90.*

179 WO 51/171, fo. 57.*

180 WO 51/177, fo. 19.*

181 WO 51/177, fo. 29.*

182 WO 47/38, p. 34.

183 WORK 31/154; 1743 Register no. 90.

184 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 75–76.

185 WO 51/180, fo. 38.

186 WO 51/187, fo. 33.

187 WO 51/180, fo. 68.

188 Geoffrey Parnell, The Tower of London: The Official Illustrated History, 2000, 101.

189 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 76, fig. 54.

190 Richard Hewlings, ‘Hawksmoor’s “Brave designs for the Police”’ in John Bold and Edward Chaney (eds), English Architecture Public and Private, London, 1993, 215–29.

191 Laurence Whistler, ‘Ordnance Vanbrugh’, Architectural Review, CXII, December 1952, 377–83; Laurence Whistler, ‘Hawksmoor and the Ordnance’, Architectural Review, CXVIII, October 1955, 237–39.

192 WO 47/20A, fo. 78.

193 Hewlings, op. cit., 216.

194 WO 51/94, fos 23, 111 and 113; WO 51/97, fo. 35.

195 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The reconstruction of the Inmost Ward during the reign of Charles II’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, XXI, 1980, 147–58.

196 The sequence of events is outlined in Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 64–70.

197 WO 47/29, fo. 104.

198 WO 51/97, fo. 13.

199 WORK 31/188.

200 WO 47/30, fo. 90. The master scavelmen, William Edge and George Shakespeare, were ordered on 25 January 1717 to remove the paving in front of the old sheds, and to dig the foundations for the new Carriage Store. This work must have been finished by 30 March 1717 when the bill for their work was settled [WO 51/124, fo. 124].

201 WORK 31/163.

202 WORK 31/164; BL, K Top, XXIV, 23.

203 The greater part of the work was carried out by the Master Carpenter, William Ogborne [WO 51/99], fos 40–42 and the Master Bricklayer, Henry Lidgbird [WO 51/100, pp. 61–63].

204 London, British Library, Kings Topographical Collection (hereafter BL, K Top), XXIV, 23o.

205 A similar structure was proposed for Sheerness in 1717–18 [BL, K Top, XVII.19.l], while a new guard-house erected against the north side of the Middle Tower at the Tower of London as late as 1752 was almost identical [Parnell, Tower of London, cit., col. pl. 10].

206 WO 46/4, fo. 35; demolition account WO51/61, fo. 65.

207 WO 51/34, fo. 147.

208 WO 47/30, fo. 217; WO 51/102, fo. 9. The drawing is evidently a proposal, but it has been entitled in a later, pencil hand ‘Elevations of Martin Tower since its Reparations 1717’, and it is a proposal which was realized, as it shows the elevation as it is now.

209 WO 47/32, p. 189.

210 WO 51/104, fos 11 and 111; WO 51/105, fos 69 and 97.

211 WORK 31/191.

212 WO 51/104, fos 11 and 111; WO 51/105, fos 69 and 97.

213 Ibid., fo. 116.

214 WORK 6/7, pp. 80 and 332, shows a new building, comprising a large staircase leading to the upper part of the Martin Tower with a wash and coal house on the ground floor and a bed chamber and closet above.

215 Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1714–19, 470.

216 WO 51/149, fo. 129.*

217 W0 51/136, fo. 85.*

218 WO 51/154, fo. 80.*

219 Anna Keay, ‘The Elizabethan Tower of London: the Haiward and Gascoyne Plan of 1597’, London Topograhical Society, 2001.

220 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 67.

221 Parnell, ‘The refortification of the Tower of London’, 337–52.

222 WO 94/5, fo. 139.

223 London, British Library, Stowe MS 477, fo. 18.

224 WO 55/346, p. 170; WO 47/28, fo. 165.

225 TNA, PRO, PC 2/85, p. 242; WO 55/346, p. 169; WO 47/28, fo. 180.

226 WO 47/31, p. 67.

227 Ibid., p. 248; WO 51/102, fos 71–72.

228 W0 51/95, fo. 111.

229 HC Tomlinson, Guns and Government: the Ordnance Office under the later Stuarts, London, 1979, 238.

230 Ibid., 227.

231 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 56; Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The Tower of London in the reign of Henry VIII’, in Graeme Rimer, Thom Richardson and JPD Cooper (eds), Henry VIII: Arms and the Man, Leeds, 2009, 74.

232 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Ordnance storehouses at the Tower of London, 1450–1700’, Chateau Gaillard, XVIII, 1996, 173–74. The conversion of the old medieval hall took place after a debenture was signed by the master carpenter, Matthew Banks, on 10 June 1641 [WO 49/72, fo. 71] and after the Office petitioned the Privy Council on 10 July 1639 for permission to convert the ‘old hall’ into a convenient storehouse for guns, carriages, match and other provisions [London, TNA, SP 16/425].

233 For a general description of one of the finest buildings ever erected at the Tower, see Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 70–71. For a description of the fabulous Small Armoury that was arranged on the first floor of the building under the direction of John Harris of Eaton, see Parnell, ‘Arming the Tower .. .’, cit. (at note 8 in main text), 82–85. The surviving Harris display in the King’s Guard Chamber at Hampton Court, together with an account of all his work in the guard chambers of the royal palaces and senior Ordnance officials may be found in Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The King’s Guard Chamber: a vision of power’, Apollo, CXL, August 1994, 60–66.

234 C Fleet, ‘Lewis Petit and his plans of Scottish fortifications and towns, 1714–16’, Cartographic Journal, XLIV/ 4, 2007, 329–41.

235 John Britton and Edward Wedlake Brayley, Memoirs of the Tower of London, London, 1830, 328.

236 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Ordnance storehouses at the Tower of London’, Chateau Gaillard, XVIII, 1998, 171.

237 For a description of the origins and composition of the Spanish Armoury, together with the other historic Armouries displays, see Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The early history of the Tower Armouries’, Royal Armouries Yearbook, I, 1996, 45–52.

238 WO 51/15, fo. 31.

239 MPH 1/337.

240 MPH 212; MR 480.

241 Parnell, ‘Ordnance storehouses ...’, cit., 174–75; Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The New Armouries, Tower of London’, London Archaeologist, XIII/2, Autumn 2011, 49–54.

242 Colvin, op. cit., 352. I am indebted to Richard Hewlings for bringing this to my attention.

243 The carpenter’s and bricklayer’s accounts for building William Parker’s ‘small house’ were settled in October 1686 [WO 51/33, fos 69 and 88].

244 The accounts for building the house of the Ordnance Clerk, John Whiteing, suggest something much grander than his neighbour, the Ordnance Labourer, was awarded. The main bills were settled in October 1686 [WO 51/33, fos 69 and 87], with the carpenter receiving an additional payment in June the following year [WO51/34, fo. 148]. Whiteing’s identification as ‘Mr White’ by Brookes appears to be a simple error. John Whiteing occupied the post of Third Clerk to the Surveyor-General from June 1667 to December 1669, and in the carpenter’s account for building his house he is described as ‘Mr John Whiting Clerke to Sr Edward Sherburne’ (then Clerk of the Ordnance and senior member of the Board). Whiteing was elevated to the rank of First Clerk to the Clerk of the Ordnance in June 1670, a post he occupied until October 1702 [Tomlinson, op. cit., 227–28].

245 This is possibly the ‘Pedestal Moulding’ mentioned in an account for distempering the walls dated 31 March 1719 [WO 51/103, fo. 116].

246 I attempted to unravel this strange and complicated story in Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Talbot Edwards, Holcraft Blood, the Crown Jewels and the Ordnance Drawing Room’, London Topographical Society Newsletter, November 2010, 9–11.

247 WO 47/31, p. 97; WO 51/101, fo. 70.

248 The principal building accounts are found in WO 51/102, fos 79 and 86; WO 51/104, fos 1–3, 10, 14–15 and 47–48.

249 These four houses are the present Nos 1 and 2 Dial Square [OFG Hogg, The Royal Arsenal, London, 1963, I, 254, 264, and note 186]. It may be noted that the entrances to these houses are also provided with enclosed porches identical to those that can be found against the contemporary barrack block at Upnor Castle.

250 WO 47/32, p. 155.

251 Daniel Miles, ‘White Tower dendrochronology programme’, in Impey, op. cit., 297.

252 TNA, WO 47/20A, fo. 117.

253 WO 51/102, fo. 48.

254 TNA, WO 51/99, fo. 21; WO 51/100, pp. 120 and 123.

255 TNA, WORK 31/103, plan dated 1752.

256 WO 47/31, p. 293.

257 TNA, WORK 51/118, fos 33–35. It is interesting to note that an additional payment for this work records just how long a working day in 1723 could be: ‘To 8 Men 8 Days work in fixing the Frame from 4 in the Morning to 9 at Night’.

258 G Keevill and S Kelly, ‘The Tower of London: New Armouries project’, Oxford Archaeological Occasional Paper Number 12, 2006, 22, fig. 13.

259 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 95, fig. 75.

260 WO 51/114, fo. 67.

261 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The Tower of London: the reconstruction of the Inmost Ward during the reign of Charles II’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, XXXI, 1980, 150 and 153.

262 Payment allowed 7 July 1730 [WO 51/124, fo. 87].

263 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 69.

264 Reproduced in Parnell, Tower of London, cit., col. pl. 9.

265 WO 51/96, fo. 28.*

266 WO 51/125, fo. 112.*

267 WO 51/151, fo. 69.*

268 WO 51/137, fo. 89.* Messrs Morris and Pratt, bricklayers, received a further £145 13s. 7½d. for work that included the replacement of chimney stacks and the levelling and consolidation of old stone masonry [ibid., fo. 67].*

269 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘Old photographs shed new light on the Tower of London: the survey of the Tower by Henry Dages and Alfred Harman, 1861’, Stereo World, XXXV/6, May/June 2010, 16–29.

270 WO, 51/114, fo. 101; WO 51/118, fos 37–38.

271 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 38–40, 55–56.

272 This arrangement is the route that countless prisoners are said to have trod on their way to imprisonment and eventual execution. After examining Tower documents for over 30 years, I can state that I have not come across any contemporary evidence for the passage of prisoners through Traitors’ Gate (which may simply be a corruption of ‘Traders’ Gate’). I have, however, found evidence for this hallowed spot being used as an open ablutions area; the verdict of an inquiry in 1564/5 into the state of the fortress, presided over by Sir Thomas Saunders, Steward of the Tower, described the Watergate as ‘very filthy and fowle, and the Staires thereof fare decayed, very needfull to be repaired. Wherefore if any of the Inhabitants within the Tower doe wash their Bucks upon the sayd Staires or have their stooles, lawfull parrying to the contrary, shall for every tyme so offending pay xiid’ [London, British Library, Add. MS 14, 044].

273 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 75, and fig. 55.

274 WO 51/26, fo. 57.*

275 Lewes, East Sussex Record Office, AMS5867.

276 WO 51/126, fo. 62.* The same bill records that the Office of Works, who were responsible for maintaining the Jewel Keeper’s apartment, paid for additional building works costed at £149 15s. 1d.

277 Parnell, Tower of London, cit., 76; Geoffrey Parnell, The Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, Royal Armouries, 1999, 15. This little-known gatehouse can be seen on a water-colour of the western entrance to the Tower by Paul Sandby, brother of Thomas Sandby, who joined the Ordnance Drawing Room on 1 March 1743 [WO 51/151, fo. 107*].

278 I do not know the current TNA reference number, but I do retain a copy of the drawing.

279 JD Davies, ‘George Legge, first Baron Dartmouth (c.1647–1691)’, ODNB, XXXIII, 183–86; BD Henning, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660–1690, II, London, 1983, 724–26.

280 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘The Roman and medieval defences and the later development of the Inmost Ward, Tower of London: excavations 1955–1977’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, XXXVI, 1985, 37–40.

281 WO 51/134, fo. 63.

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Geoffrey Parnell

Geoffrey Parnell was Keeper of Tower History at the Royal Armouries HM Tower of London, and an ector of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings. He has written extensively on aspects of post-medieval military history in England and North America and on the archaeology of the Tower of don and the history of its buildings and institutions. Dr Parnell has lectured extensively in this ntry and abroad and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.