Commissioned by Lt Col Trench to illustrate his proposals for the re-designing of the Embankment, these superbly detailed and annotated views were executed by the watercolourist Thomas Mann Baynes with the printing entrusted to the celebrated master of early lithography, Charles Hullmandel. Hullmandel’s skillful handling of the medium was much appreciated by contemporaries and was of great importance in popularising lithography as a printing method; he was instrumental in introducing lithography into England and to this day his work ranks with the finest of any period.

Although Trench submitted his plans to Parliament in 1825, it was not for another forty years that his proposals were executed. The Embankment as it is today still corresponds closely to Trench’s designs.