You might remember that boats can be a big deal. Big deal boats are ships. Starting back when they beat the Spainish armada using fireships, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. They used this force to expand and defend their empire (upon which the sun still has not set) and to bring back all of the remarkable loot from across the world. As part of expanding and defending the empire they often fought the French (and other people) they would keep the ship and whatever it was carrying, bringing wealth to the empire and cash incentives to the sailors. So, being an officer in the Navy was a well propogandized route to prestige and riches. This features in several of Austin's novels and in the series near and dear to our hearts: Horatio Hornblower.
As Horatio advances in ranks he visits the headquaters of the navy about 1-2 times/book. These navy headquaters are the admiralty. And we got to go see them. In honor of Horatio we felt brave, clever, and dutiful. You can tell from this picture. Also visible, though harder to identify, are the ship masts on the building.
In a side note, we are still unsure why the admiralty (center of the navy) is guarded by guys on horses. It seems like no one-horses, guys, sailors, ships- would be very happy about this arrangement. 
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