 He was the Superintendent of Construction in 1841 and, during one of the many floods, narrowly escaped drowning.He then decided that civil engineering was not for him and so, in 1842, he became apprenticed to architect Anthony Salvin (1799-1881) in November 1842 , whose office at the time was situated at 32 Somerset Street, London.Many biographical dictionaries state that Blount trained in the office of Sidney Smirke (drawing on Blount's RIBA obituary) but this is not the case.