58 C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 over some 200 years, securing a position of global supremacy which did much to shape our modern world. Central to this achievement lay the far-sighted and spectacular development of the Royal Dockyards, being themselves the largest industrial development in the 18th century world. During this period the Royal Navy was a major patron of architecture, engineering and technological innovation. For those who are interested in what JM Richards described as the functional tradition in early industrial architecture and in the integration of architecture and emerging technology, this is a rich area of study. There is no one more erudite and articulate to explain the history and significance of the Royal Dockyards than Jonathan Coad. A former inspector of ancient monuments, during more than 30 years Coad has researched and published several seminal works on the subject. Support for the Fleet is an outstanding achievement, the pinnacle of his work. It is unlikely to be surpassed. Through 17 comprehensive chapters, the book explains planning, design and construction, covering both the building and engineering requirements of creating and maintaining the world’s largest fleet. After descriptions of the carefully planned development of the major home dockyards at Portsmouth, Chatham, Sheerness, Devonport and Pembroke, the establishment of overseas facilities is explained. Subsequent chapters cover the special facilities needed to feed tens of thousands of men, supply naval weapons and munitions, respond to new technologies of steel and steam, take care of the sick and wounded, and provide shore-based accommodation and training establishments. An 18th century royal dockyard might employ 10,000 skilled men in ship building and repairing, making ropes and cordage, pulley blocks and barrels. Here were timber-drying sheds, mast ponds, sail and mould lofts, smitheries, foundries and engineering workshops, boat stores, dry docks, covered building slips, fitting-out basins, gun wharves, elegant houses and gardens for shore-based officers, chapels, gatehouses and marine barracks. Among the many spectacular survivals are the 1,100 foot long double ropery at Chatham, with its Maudslay machinery in-situ and still in production; Marc Brunel’s Portsmouth Block Mills, almost certainly the world’s first machine-tool equipped factory, producing 130,000 pulley blocks a year; the prophetic ironframed Sheerness Boat Store, which was the precursor of many factories and warehouses around the world; and the long-span timber and iron roofs of the covered building slips at Chatham and Devonport. The work of many highly skilled administrators, architects and engineers is explained, together with the crucial role of the senior naval officers, who ensured the financial and administrative resources and continuity essential in achieve such complex projects over many years. Support for the Fleet combines richness of content with clarity of style. The quality of illustrations is excellent. They include fascinating contemporary drawings, paintings and later photographs. Not cheap at £100, this wonderful book is worth every penny. Ken Moth is an accredited conservation architect A mixed bunch Mapping, Measurement and Metropolis: how land surveyors shaped 18th century Dublin Finnian O Cionnaith, Four Courts Press, 2012, 278pp, 272 illustrations, ISBN 978 1 84682 348 0, £45 This book, written by a professional Irish surveyor, is a fascinating study of the profession, its techniques and characters, the art of their maps and their impact on the rapid growth of Dublin and environs in the Georgian period. Mapping in Ireland developed from the Down Survey of 1655-6 and the Trustees Survey of 170003. The surveys were driven by the needs of the English military and the redivision of land following the wars of Cromwell andWilliam. This provided a source of employment for surveyors and led to the development of the profession in more peaceable times. The cataclysmic loss of the Essex Bridge by flooding on the Liffey stimulated this, and led to the transformation of Dublin from a small medieval town to one of Georgian opulence. The book first surveys and sets out the structure of the profession in which taste, ability, good connections and suitable mathematical education were important for advancement. In looking at the science, the author explores the relation between the scientific instrument trade and the developing achievement of exactness through the use of the plane table, circumferentor and, finally, the theodolite. Higherlevel science was associated with the problems of magnetic variation, promoting vicious debate about its variability, whether regular or random. It was needed to coordinate surveys conducted at different periods. The book explores the art in compiling and copying maps, and the need to publish through subscribers and to seek some protection of copyright through parliamentary licence. Disputes between landlord and tenant, the bread and butter of much surveying work, required exact methods for area measurement. Sometimes they necessitated recourse to drinking establishments for the robust exchange of insults. John Roque, a French Huguenot, famous for his maps of Paris and Rome and his new, accurate map of London of 1746, was invited over. He published the ‘Exact Survey of Dublin’ in 1756, with unprecedented detail in which buildings, their gardens and different hatchings
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