Lord Clyde-class ironclad

The design of these ships was based upon the design of HMS Bellerophon, but in making the adaptation from this ship's design to the requirements of a wooden hull, Reed had only the behaviour of HMS Royal Oak to learn from, and the tendency of her class to sag amidships had not at that time been recognised. Both ships were built with a beam equal to Royal Oak, and some twenty feet shorter.

Their hulls were a complex sandwich structure, consisting of an inner layer of oak ribs 24 inches (610 mm) thick, a 1.5-inch (38 mm) iron skin, 6 inches (152 mm) of oak support and backing for the armour, an armour layer of 4.5 to 5.5 inches (114–140 mm) in thickness, and a thin sheathing of anti-fouling Muntz metal. It was believed at the time that the 15-inch Dahlgren guns carried by the American monitors would fail to penetrate this sandwich.

• Ballard, G. A., Admiral (1980). The Black Battlefleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-924-3.
• Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
• Parkes, Oscar (1990). British Battleships (reprint of the 1957 ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-075-4.
• Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.
• Reed, E. J. (1869). Our Iron-Clad Ships: Their Qualities, Performance and Cost. London: John Murray. OCLC 7944535.