Thursday 17 January 2013

An Unexpected Surprise


Sometimes its predictable what results a Google search will return - although when I was researching the history of rubber, I began with the keyword 'rubber' and some (in fact a surprising number) of the results were for websites of what one would call a specialist nature!


Be that as it may, sometimes Google throws up something unexpected and when I was looking for historical images of Stowe landscape this week, I got bonus.  Within the unprepossessing website called 'English for Architecture' is a page called Classical Readings - and what a gold mine it is.


Here are 11 classic garden history texts including Uvedale Price's An Essay on the Picturesque, William Gilpin's Observations on the River Wye and W H Matthews' Mazes and Labyrinths - and most are beautifully illustrated.

Thank you to the late Roberta Barresi for putting the site together.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for this - great to revisit the description of the Wye and Tintern Abbey, 4 miles below us at Veddw, and so recognisable. Though the great ironworks is a ruin too now, of course.

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  2. I am sure Gilpin would have approved of yet another picturesque ruin!

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