 In 1718, however, he was appointed to survey and engineer the River Kennet to make it navigable from Reading to Newbury.The section of river from Reading to Newbury has a gradient of 66 inches per mile (1.1 metres per kilometre), thus requiring locks to traverse the terrain.The Kennet Navigation Act (1715) had allowed construction to begin, although straight away the navigation proprietors saw huge expense in employing "unskillful person[s]"; ten locks were built at mills on the stretch of river but the severe lack of engineering experience meant the quality of the work undertaken was poor and it progressed at an unacceptable rate, thus Hore was appointed engineer and surveyor.