it was permanently exempted from billets. From the end of 1882, the money collected for exemption from billet was transferred to the military ministry. This has made it possible to step up the construction of barracks for the army. By 1 January 1900, 19015 barracks had been built, which accommodated 94% of the troops. United Kingdom In the 17th and 18th centuries there were concerns around the idea of a standing army housed in barracks; instead, the law provided for troops routinely to be billeted in small groups in inns and other locations. (The concerns were various: political, ideological and constitutional, provoked by memories of Cromwell's New Model Army and of the use of troops in reign of James II to intimidate areas of civil society. Furthermore, grand urban barracks were associated with absolutist monarchies, where they could be seen as emblematic of power sustained through military might; and there was an ongoing suspicion that gathering soldiers together in barracks might encourage sedition.) Nevertheless, some "soldiers' lodgings" were built in Britain at this time, usually attached to coastal fortifications or royal palaces. The first recorded use of the word 'barracks' in this context was for the Irish Barracks, built in the precinct of the Tower of London in 1669. At the Ordnance Office (responsible for construction and upkeep of barracks) Bernard de Gomme played a key role in developing a 'domestic' style of barrack design in the latter half of the 17th century: he provided barrack blocks for such locations as Plymouth Citadel and Tilbury Fort, each with rows of square rooms arranged in pairs on two stories, accommodating a Company of some sixty men, four to a room, two to a bed. Standard furnishings were provided, and each room had a grate used for heating and cooking. In England, this domestic style continued to be used through the first half of the eighteenth century; most new barracks of this period were more or less hidden within the precincts of medieval castles and Henrician forts. In Scotland, however, a more demonstrative style was employed following the Jacobite rising of 1715 (as at Ruthven Barracks) and that of 1745 (as seen in the monumental Fort George). This bolder approach gradually began to be adopted south of the border during the eighteenth century (beginning with nearby Berwick, 1717). There was much building in and around the Royal Dockyards at this time: during