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The leaves of this book measured approximately 58.6 cm in height and 46 cm in width, and the horizontal chain lines measured approximately 2.6 cm. This is consistent with an English paper of the Group Royal (with lombard) that dates to 1713, has the dimensions 59.5 by 47 centimeters, contains the Strasbourg bend (watermark), with the subset name printing royal (Gaskell 68, 73). ⁷ Dimensions vary in papermaking and are always noted as approximate. This is true in terms of subtle inconsistencies when the paper was made, whether the textblock was ploughed down (to shave paper away, say for a marbled fore edge, head, and tail like this book has), and is slightly compounded in this case by the fact that many of the leaves were separated at the gutter and had rejoined with Japanese paper. But, lucky for us the binding apparently did not hide the watermarks, and a nifty contraption called an Astralite lets one view the page's watermark and chain lines with a flat blue light that resembles a glowing sheet of paper.

Watermarks are made when pictures and letters are sewn with fine wires in a mirror image onto the chain lines at the surface of the paper mould. The watermark pictured on the left, called a Strasbourg Bend, Lea's map of Durham, watermark of Gerrevink and Villedary (Churchill CCCXXVI) ⁸ best represents the one on the pages of this book; this is a subtle variation of the Strasbourg Bend mentioned above from 1713. The fleur-de-lis sits at the center of the gutter area and the corresponding page of the leaf contains the shield and LVG. The watermark appears on every other gathering consistent with the way paper has been made since the fifteenth century: a sheet of a quarto folds into two leaves, which when folded again is 4 pages (each having a front and back). The watermark is centered on the leaf horizontally along the rows of words to come. The counter mark appears to be a JW and appears on the pages that do not contain the Strasbourg bend. There is little consistency as to which mark appears on the inner or outer leaf of each gathering, but for the most part the fleur-di-lis is generally on the left side of the printed leaf, with the shield on the corresponding right side. At the widest points the fleur-de-lis measures 4.3 cm and the shield 4.8 cm; the length of the entire watermark including the LVG is approximately 13.5 cm. What a startling coincidence it was that this Strasbourg bend chanced to be on the first page I turned to in a sizeable book called Watermarks on Paper!