FOBO - Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 26/53)

Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 26/53)

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[picture: Old England: Photograph of the book]

Old England: A Pictorial Museum of Regal, Ecclesiastical, Baronial, Municipal and Popular Antiquities, Charles Knight (1791 – 1873) London, Charles Knight and Co., Ludgate Street, First Edition, 1845, two volumes, folio, pp. viii, 392; vi, 386, 24 chromoxylographs (incl. frontis.). Many wood-engraved text illustrations.

My copy has contemporary (worn) half-calf with gilt backs; there is some light foxing and dampstaining to the plates and margins of some leaves. Ref. Abbey, Life, 43; purchased D. & E Lake Toronto, 1992.

This book has been reprinted, but the reprint is out of print; you can search for a used copy on Amazon.

I have typed in the index to the book so that you can ask me for other scans if you like.

I have the first few sections online as Old England: A Pictorial Museum if you want to read the actual book!

The book starts with Druidical and Prehistoric remains and continues on to have Castles, Manors and stately homes, Churches, Abbeys and Cathedrals and much more.

Charles Knight also produced an illustrated edition of the Works of Shakspere, as he spelt it.

There is an entry in the Nuttall Encyclopædia for Charles Knight.

Some of the engravings were done by the Dalziel brothers; I have some images from their autobiography, A Record of Work.

Contents

Volume I

Book I. Before the Conquest.

Chapter I. The British Period. [Fig. 1]

Chapter II. The Roman Period. [Fig. 80]

Chapter III. The Anglo-Saxon Period. [Fig. 189]

Book II. The Period From the Norman Conquest to the Death of King John. A.D. 1066—1216.

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. [Fig. 334]

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 491]

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities. [Fig. 795]

Book III. The Period From the Accession of Henry III. to the End of the Reign of Richard II. A.D. 1216—1399.

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. Fig. 814]

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 929]

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities.

Book IV. The Period From the Accession of Henry IV. to the End of the Reign of Richard III. A.D. 1399—1485.

Chapter I. Regal and Baronial Antiquities. [Fig. 1150]

Chapter II. Ecclesiastical Antiquities. [Fig. 1279]

Chapter III. Popular Antiquities. [Fig. 1335]

Although some of the images here are from Volume II, I plan to move them into their own darling little folder, and will make a second table of contents.

This book is online at archive.org (Vol I and Vol II), although the OCR has done a really bad job, and the scans are lower resolution and not cleaned up. But you could use it to request a specific image, and I will scan it for you if it’s not here yet.

Title: Old England: A Pictorial Museum

Author: Knight, Charles

City: London

Date: 1845

Total items: 409

Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free for all purposes usage credit requested, or as marked.

396.—Tower of Oxford Castle

There are more pictures of Oxford by Lang and also Haslehust. [more...] [$]

397.—Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle, as it appeared in the Fifteenth Century. [$]

398.—Norwich Castle

Vol I, p.398, figs 308 and 389: Norwich Castle [$]

399.—Norwich Castle

“[...] Hugh Bigod, who had sworn that Henry had appointed Stephen his successor, was the first to hold out against the king in the Castle of Norwich, which his ancestor had built. Norwich was a regular fortress, with a wall and ditch, an outer, a middle, and an inner court, and a keep. The bridge over one of the ditches and the keep still remain. The keep had long since gone through the customary process of being turned into a jail, and the jail being removed it is now gutted and roofless. This keep is a parallelogram, a hundred and ten feet in length by about ninety-three in breadth. The walls are in some places thirteen feet thick, and the tower is seventy feet in height. It was not sufficient for the people in authority in the last century to tear this fine historical monument to pieces, by their fittings up [more...] [$]

400.—Winchester

“The successor of Henry Beauclerk was also an usurper. The rival pretensions of Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda filled the land with bloodshed and terror for nineteeen years. From the north to the south, from the Barbecans of York (Fig. 386) to the palaces of Winchester (Fig. 400), the country was [...] [more...] [$]

415.—Entrance to Warwick Castle.

[Piers] Gaveston endeavoured to defend himself in Scarborough Castle (of which the crumbling ruins now only remain, Fig. 919), while the king went to York to seek an army for his relief. But before any force could be collected for such a purpose, Piers Gaveston, on the 19th of May, [...] who pledged their faith, it is said, that he should be kept unharmed in the castle of Wallingford. At Dedington, a village between Oxford and Warwick, the Earl of Pembroke, who escorted him, left him for a night under the pretext of visiting the Countess of Pembroke, who was in the neighbourhood. Gaveston seems to remained full of confidence, as usual, until he was roused from his sleep by the startling order to “dress speedily.” He obeyed, descended to the courtyard, and found himself in the presence of the “black dog of Ardenne.” He must have repented then his wretched wit, for he knew the stern Warwick had sworn a terrible vow that he would make the minion fee; “the black dog’s teeth.” A deeper darkness than that of the night must then have overshadowed the wretched Gaveston. No help was at hand. Amid the triumphant shouts of the large armed force that attended Warwick, he was set on a mule, and hurried thirty miles through the night to Warwick Castle (Figs. 415, 416, 417, and 917), where his entrance was announced by a crash of martial music. (p. 235) [more...] [$]

416.—Warwick Castle, Guy’s Tower

“It is a rare consolation for the lover of his country’s monuments, to turn from castles made into prisons, and abbeys into stables, to such a glorious relic of ‘Old England’ as Warwick Castle. Who can forget the first sight of that beautiful pile, little touched by time, not vulgarized by ignorance? (Fig. 417). As he enters the portal through which [...] [more...] [$]

418.—Ancient Statue of Guy at Guys Cliff

This is Guy of Warwick, mentioned in some of the Robin Hood stories. [more...] [$]

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