Add MS 52902

PLAN OF PORCHESTER CASTLE, showing additions intended to fit it to receive further French prisoners of war; circa 1800. Unfinished. No cartographer given, but by a War Office draughtsman. No scale given, but 1:600. No compass points, but East at top. Parts of castle numbered, but the corresponding key is missing. Proposed additional buildings, etc., shown in red with elevations of three proposed buildings, two within walls, in ink, and another at centre bottom outside walls, in pencil. [Recently added?] walls shown in yellow with ink hachure. The plan is to the same scale and probably by the same draughtsman as, and includes most of the information in, a finished and more extensive plan, War Office 78/1719, now MPH 516 in the Public Record Office, catalogued as item 1727 in Maps and Plans in the Public Record Office. 1. British Isles, c. 1410-1800, 1907. The present plan may date from a few months later, but the precise relationship between the two is unclear. See D. F. Renn, Porchester Castle, 1977, p. 17.

436 x 475mm. Ink, pencil and coloured washes on paper, now mounted on linen. Annotated in pencil on recto, 'Privy Agents Office', on top right-hand side, and 'Portchester Prison' at centre bottom, but now obscured by backing. Endorsed in ink on verso 'Portchester Castle', together with numbers, apparently from calculations. Central tear (repaired) from left to right.