Portsmouth Block Mills

The Portsmouth Block Mills form part of the Portsmouth Dockyard at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and were built during the Napoleonic Wars to supply the British Royal Navy with pulley blocks. They started the age of mass-production using all-metal machine tools and are regarded as one of the seminal buildings of the British Industrial Revolution. They are also the site of the first stationary steam engines used by the Admiralty.

On line links

For an on-line inter-active presentation showing how blocks were made at Portsmouth see the website of the National Museum of Science and Industry. London - Making of the Modern World

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http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/stories/enlightenment_and_measurement/05.ST.02/?scene=3&tv=true

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Engravings from the Rees's Cyclopaedia account of the block mills can be seen online and copies purchased from the National Museum of Science and Industry as well http://www.ingenious.org.uk

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