12 - The gazetteers

Summary

Once it had been established how powerful a medium the print was, and how potentially commercial, it was inevitable that topographical guides would proliferate, to encourage sightseeing and of course to increase profits for the publishers and booksellers. Individual and local guidebooks would serve a focused purpose, but a phenomenon that arose in the second half of the century was the gazetteer, a publication which set out to cover the whole country or large parts of it by providing text and illustrations (prints) to describe features of special historical, architectural or cultural interest. The rise of the gazetteer can also be linked to improvements in travel (road conditions and better suspension in horse-drawn carriages), the spread of tourism and visiting, and the increase in interest in the Picturesque, scenes that were particularly wild or dramatic.

The idea of a countrywide guide was not new in itself. Knyff and Kip's Britannia Illustrata had spread its net wide to illustrate seats of the aristocracy and gentry in 1707, with a second volume in 1715, while the Buck brothers ambitiously attempted to depict all the ‘Views of the most remarkable Ruins of Abbeys and Castles now remaining’ from 1727 to 1742. But it took a change in taste, from the antiquarian focus of the Bucks to the landscape garden and towards the Picturesque, to propel the publications considered in this chapter.

The first of the gazetteers, for our purposes, was one which did no more than dip its toes in the water. England Illustrated, two volumes, 1764, was published by the brothers Dodsley, and only, in effect, presents territory covered by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck 30 years before. In other words, it concentrates on antiquities. Gardens are mentioned minimally, the exception being Chatsworth, where the cypress grove, statuary, the tree of copper (though some say it was of other materials) and the baroque cascade feature. A few gardens are shown peripherally where houses are engraved, but the surprise is a view of the canal at Gubbins, Hertfordshire, after Chatelain (for original, see Fig 5.17), which bears no relation to the text. The illustration of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, on its mount, gives something of the plantings. All engravings in the book are by Joseph Ryland after B Ralph, if sometimes owing something to earlier sources, but without anything relevant in Volume 2.