Items in Berkshire taken from The Antiquities of England and Wales (1786)

Pictures and Maps from “Complete HISTORICAL DESCRIPTIONS of a New and Elegant COLLECTION of PICTURESQUE VIEWS and REPRESENTATIONS of the ANTIQUITIES of ENGLAND and WALES: Being a Grand Copper-Plate Repository of Elegance, Taste, and Entertainment containing a New and Complete Collection Of superb VIEWS of RUINS and ANTIENT BUILDINGS [etc. etc.]” by Henry Boswell, Esq. F.A.S., London, some time around 1786.

The plates in this book are copies of the ones in Grose’s Antiquities, which obviously saved Mr. Boswell a lot of money in preparing his book but these days might be considered a little improper. Or to put it another way, it’s an eighteenth-century rip.

The maps are not taken from Grose’s book, however.

I do not own a copy of this book. The scans were made at low resolution (300dpi) and in uncorrected colour; I bought them on a CD at an ebay store, Outpost164; if you do the same you might also want the CD of vol III of Grose’s Antiquities sold there. It does bother me that the seller is clearly buying the books, scanning the images, then rippping the books apart to sell the plates.

I have put up the Unedited images and also a few that I have edited. If you want me to edit more you will need to send me your socks, or something.