posted 03-09-2001 04:25 PM
I have a copy of this book. My copy was published in London in 1894. I love it's sub-title, "The Scenery and the Splendours of the United Kingdom - Views of our Stately Houses. Photographs taken by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen and by favour of the Noblemen and Gentlemen who now own many of these histoic places. Royal Residences, Palaces and Castles, Bowers and Hunting Lodges, River Banks and Islets, The Homes of Princes."
Even this is extremely dowdy compared to the introduction, "The sturdy British belief that the United Kingdom is the best place in the world is supported by as strong a beleif that the people of these Islands have made it so. There are brighter skies and higher mountains and larger rivers and broader lakes and taller trees to be found elsewhere.... We find that the Englishmen-and Irishmen and Scots and Welsh: Queen's-men-have in them some rare simplicity that makes them of all men the best artificers at teh fine old mystery of country-making. It is hand-made, all of it, the beauty of Britain. The working hours were centuries, and the sweat and toil was the blood of wars. Where the deer feed by daylight now, in the lines of ranged beeches, our fathers knew nights of armed alarm, when a break in the clouds brought blows. They were stern men who raised the stern walls of our castles, and the moat where the water-lilies gleam today was a ready grave for the over-bold..."
It goes on - I suspect sufficiently patriotic to make even an American wince!
The pictures in the book are magnificent.I find it interesting to see which properties have changed since that date, and which ones are pretty much the same. One of the most noticable differences is that most castles have been stripped of the extensive ivy-covering clearly visible in these 1894 photos.
Levan