Scale: 1:192. A contemporary builder’s full hull model of the ironclad pre-Dreadnought battleship ‘Sultan’ (1870). Mounted on its original wooden baseboard and turned pillars, it is complete with stump masts and bowsprit, together with a full set of boats rigged on davits and on chocks in the waist. As well as the various sizes of anchor rigged at the bow and stern, there is a triple wheel and two compass binnacles mounted on the raised bridge amidships. This model illustrates the final transition from sail to steam, as the single screw engine would serve as an auxiliary to the main propulsion of sail.

Built at Chatham dockyard, Kent, in 1870, the ‘Sultan’ measured 325 feet in length by 59 feet in the beam with a displacement of 9200 tons. The armament of 8-inch and 4.9-inch muzzle-loading guns was mounted on a two-tier central battery protected by a 9-inch armour belt around the hull.

‘Sultan’ took part in the Vombardment of Alexandria in 1882 and sank after striking a rock off Malta in 1889, but was later raised and repaired. In 1894–96 it was re-engined and largely reconstructed but subsequently saw no further sea service and was relegated to harbour duty in 1903. It was then renamed ‘Fisgard IV’ serving until 1932, when it was removed from the Navy List.