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Summary
Author: Britton, John
Title: Descriptive sketches of Tunbridge Wells and the Calverley estate ; with brief notices of the picturesque scenery, seats, and antiquities in the vicinity. Embellished with maps and prints.
Publication: London, "published by the author, Burton Street" (and Longman & Co and Rodwell) 1832.
Price: Sold
Reference: 11335
Full Description
8vo. xi + (1) + 148 + (4)pp, 2 double-page engraved maps (partly hand-coloured), 1 double-page engraved plate illustrating villas in Calverley Park and their ground plans, and 9 litho plates (india paper proofs). Publisher’s cloth, worn at corners and outer margins, rebacked with recent endpapers, with remains of original printed paper label on upper cover. Mounts of lithographic plates browned and an old stain at upper margin of litho plate of Bodiam Castle. No ownership inscription but Sir Howard Colvin’s copy.
First and only edition of this guide book to Tunbridge Wells and its neighbourhood, written by John Britton at the instigation of Decimus Burton, the able London architect who had been designing and supervising the construction of the new Calverley Park estate in Tunbridge Wells since 1828. Although Britton works into his text complimentary remarks about the new buildings in Calverley Park, the real advantage of Britton’s book to Burton and to Calverley Park’s developer, the businessman John Ward (who contributed to the cost of the book’s publication), lay in its illustrations, which offer attractive perspective views of the principal buildings on the estate, views and ground plans of four specimen villas, and a hand-coloured plan showing the initial stages of the development. The illustrations include a view of Decimus Burton’s newly built Holy Trinity church and a plate showing at its left-hand side Baston Cottage (now demolished), the house that Burton had designed for himself in Calverley Park. BAL Cat 413 (it should be noted that although the BAL copy is a presentation copy from Decimus Burton to T.L.Donaldson, it is a copy of Britton’s book in its ordinary state, in which the litho plates are not india-paper proofs as in our copy).