Add MS 64107

PLAN AND VIEWS OF HURST CASTLE, CO. SOUTHT.: 'PLAN of THE PENINSULA whereon HURST CASTLE is situated where on the South side thereof the Sea endanger'd undermining the same to prevent which the Wharfing at A was Design'd and Built by Talbot Edwards his Majestys Second Engineer in the Year 1716', 'Tho. Chamberlain Delt.'; circa 1760. Surmounted by: 'East View of Hurst Castle'; 'West View of Hurst Castle'. Scale of plan: 1:1200. 'Scale of [500] feet' [= 5 inches]. The plan and views seem to have been copied at the Drawing Room of the Board of Ordnance in the Tower of London from much older exemplars, the original of the plan perhaps dating from circa 1716. The views resemble engravings of Samuel and Nathaniel Buck published in 1733, but there are considerable architectural differences between the depictions of the castle in the engravings and these views. Thomas Chamberlain (b.1742/3, d.1794) was employed at the Tower from 1759 until 1794. The plan is accompanied by a note on the intended function of Hurst Castle. For other eighteenth-century plans etc. of Hurst Castle see Add. 6735, f. 25; 22875, ff. 12v-13; King's Topographical Collection 14. 61-63; 15.4. For other work by members of the Drawing Room see particularly Add. 22875, 60393 A, C, E-I. For other early eighteenth-century fortification plans copied by Chamberlain see Public Record Office M.R. 557/2 and M.P.H.H. 60. Compare also Douglas W. Marshall, 'Military Maps of the eighteenth century and the Tower of London Drawing Room', in Imago Mundi 32 (1980), pp. 21-44. Purchased from Burgess Browning, Bulletin no. 3, item 48, Feb. 1987.

Paper. Ink and watercolour (plan); ink and wash (views). 330 x 730mm. (plan); 170 x 360mm. (views).