The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953 was televised by the BBC allowing millions of people to watch the ceremony from their own homes for the first time. Some 27 million people in Britain saw the Coronation live on television with an estimated 227 million worldwide watching at a later date. The event was a chance for Britain to showcase the country as it emerged from the austerity of the post-war years and to hail a new ‘Elizabethan Age’, one in which British arts, manufacture, science and technology would flourish. Published in 1953, The Place of Crowning, contains an illustrated record of the huge construction project which took place along the processional route and inside Westminster Abbey ahead of the Coronation. One of a limited run of 150 signed copies, the book contains illustrations from watercolours made by Sir Henry Rushbury, who had served as an official war artist during both the First and the Second World Wars, and later became the Keeper of the Royal Academy and Head of the Royal Academy Schools. The accompanying text, written by the art historian James Laver, provides an evocative account of the history of Coronations and the logistical challenges faced by the construction firm John Mowlam & Co., the engineers tasked with preparing London for the day.