If rarity was the sole justification for a facsimile reprint, then Edward Twycross’s 1846 survey of Cornish country houses would certainly merit this new edition from Fountain Lake Press.
First published in an edition of 50-odd copies, most of which have been dismembered for the sake of their plates, Mansions of England and Wales: Cornwall is so obscure that it escaped the notice of Michael Holmes’s comprehensive bibliography, The Country House Described, and even failed to appear in the first edition of John Harris’s magisterial Country House Index (although it did sneak in right at the end of the second.)
However, rarity is not enough – there has to be a point. And, in this case, there is. Twycross’s Cornwall sheds fresh light on a neglected county and its neglected country houses, just at a moment in the mid 19th century when the mining industry was still bringing prosperity and landed families still lived in some architectural style.
It contains descriptions of 81 Cornish country houses, ranging from landmarks such as Lanhydrock, Cotehele and Heligan, to less well-known mansions, such as the modest Lavethan House, ‘a delightful residence… erected many years since’, and such Tudor-Gothic monsters as Tregothnan and Moorswater Lodge near Liskeard, ‘in the construction of which great taste has been displayed’.
Fifty-one lithographs conjure up a lost world in which sheep graze on immaculate lawns, proprietors gaze proudly up at their ancestral seats and demure bonneted ladies walk their dogs or pause to admire vast and elaborate Italianate gardens.
Republished in an edition of 175 numbered copies, at £395 a pop, Twycross’s Cornwall is definitely not for the casual reader, but it deserves its place in the architectural history of the county.
And Fountain Lake deserves congratulating for finding and resurrecting this rare example of the genre.
Credit: Butson
A stunning country kitchen, which draws inspiration from the late Victorian kitchen at Lanhydrock, Cornwall
The kitchen of Lanhydrock House in Cornwall provided the inspiration for a stunning new kitchen, designed by Bruce Hodgson of
Credit: James Kerr / Knight Frank
A glorious country house in the Cotswolds which comes with its own amphitheatre
Whichford House would be a beautiful period home in any setting, but its magical five acres of gardens – including
-
A rare opportunity to own a family home on Vanbrugh Terrace, one of London's finest streetsThis six-bedroom Victorian home sits right on the start line of the London Marathon, with easy access to Blackheath and Greenwich Park.
-
Materials, textures, construction, expression: A Brutalist watch on your wristLuxury watchmakers are seeking to bridge the gap between two contrasting styles, with exciting results.
-
The five minute guide to 'The Great Gatsby', a century on from its publication'The Great Gatsby' sold poorly the year it was published, but, in the following century, it went on to become a cornerstone of world literature.
-
Love, sex and death: Our near-universal obsession with the roseNo flower is more entwined with myth, religion, politics and the human form than the humble rose — and now there's a new coffee table book celebrating them in all of their glory.
-
When London was beginning to establish itself as modern cultural powerhouse: The 1980s according to David BaileyIn his new book ‘Eighties Bailey’, ‘era-defining’ photographer David Bailey explores a time when London and the UK were at the centre of the fashion, art and publishing worlds.
-
The life and times of P. G. Wodehouse, 50 years on from his deathBertie Wooster, Jeeves, Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set: P. G. Wodehouse’s creations made him one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century, but he was denounced as a traitor and a Nazi.
-
The story of how 007 creator Ian Fleming came to write Chitty-Chitty-Bang-BangChitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, our fine four-fendered friend, turns 60 on October 22nd. Mary Miers relives the adventures of the magical flying car and reveals the little-known story of its creation by Ian Fleming, as the writer turned his attention from the world of 007 to a children's tale.
-
Christmas gifts for children that don't need screens or take batteriesDon't just pick up the latest plastic toys with lights and noises – take a look at these gifts which kids will love just as much as you do.
-
In Focus: T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the poem of broken modern civilisation that seems more apt than everOn the 100th anniversary of its publication, Julie Harding asks why T. S. Eliot’s great poem The Waste Land, with its devastating vision of a broken modern civilisation, still resonates so strongly today.
-
In Focus: The enduring beauty of Thomas Gray's Elegy Written In A Country ChurchyardJack Watkins considers the timeless brilliance of Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.'
