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![[picture: Old England: Photograph of the book]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/tn/cimg4699-old-england-book-on-eazel-q75-500x436.jpg "[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
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.
![[picture: Stone Church, Cheshire]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1045-StoneChurch-267x200.jpg "[picture: Stone Church, Cheshire]")
Stone is a town in Cheshire. [$]
![[picture: Stone Church, south door]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1046-SouthDoorofStoneChurch-143x200.jpg "[picture: Stone Church, south door]")
1046.—Stone Church, south door.
The South Door of an English Church generally has the font inside, and leads through the South Aisle into the West End of the Nave. [$]
![[picture: Stone Church, Nave and Chancel]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1047-StoneChurch-NaveAndChancel-164x200.jpg "[picture: Stone Church, Nave and Chancel]")
1047.—Stone Church, Nave and Chancel.
Stone is a town in Cheshire. [$]
![[picture: Hadley Church Tower and Beacon]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1048-HadleyChurchTowerAndBeacon-169x200.jpg "[picture: Hadley Church Tower and Beacon]"){kind=tracking}
1048.—Hadley Church Tower and Beacon
“On top of a turret at the South West angle of the tower is an iron cresset, fire pan or pitch-pot, an almost unique survivor of other days. It was erected by the monks to guide wayfarers crossing Enfield Chase by night, and travellers to or from St Albans, or the north. The beacon may have been used as late as 1745 to provide an alarm to warn of the Stuart rising in the North. It was used for a more pleasant occasion to mark the marriage of the Prince of Wales in 1863, when the future Edward VII married Princess Alexandra of Denmark.”
Sources: Village London, Part 2, North and East by Edward Walford 1883 and Handbook to Environs of London by James Thorne 1876. See also Hadley Church Appeal.
“A beacon-tower, of ruder fashion than that of old St. Botolph’s, and used generally for less peaceful purposes, is to be seen at Hadley Church, Middlesex (Fig. 1048). “before the reign of Edward III., beacons were but stacks of wood set up on high places, which were fired when the coming of enemies was descried; but in his reign pitch-boxes, as now they be, were, instead of those stacks, set up; and this properly is a beacon.” (Lord Croke.) The pitch-box, or fire-pot, is still remaining at Hadley, and a picturesque object itis, reminding us of the warlike days when watches were regularly stationed at such places, and horsemen, called hobbelars, according to Camden, waited by, “to give notice in daytime of an enemy’s approach, when the fire would not be seen.” A perilous task these watchers and hobbelars must have had of it, for [more...] [$]
![[picture: 1049.---Lutterworth Church.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1049-LutterworthChurch-259x200.jpg "[picture: 1049.---Lutterworth Church.]")
![[picture: Chilton Church, Oxfordshire]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1050-ChiltonChurch-243x200.jpg "[picture: Chilton Church, Oxfordshire]")
1050.—Chilton Church, Oxfordshire.
An American visited and took some pictures of this clearly very photogenic village. The church itself was extensively renovated starting in 1847, and looks very different in the photographs! [more...] [$]
![[picture: churches,towers,towns,people,clocks,windows,spires]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1052-StNicholasChurch-NewcastleUponTyne-140x200.jpg "[picture: churches,towers,towns,people,clocks,windows,spires]")
1052.—St. Nicholas Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
“Among the more important churches erected in the period of which we treat, that of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne holds an honourable place (Fig. 1052). It crowns a bold eminence, and forms from every point of view the cihef ornament of the town. The founder was St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury; the time, the reign of William Rufus. Henry I. gve the church to the canons of Carlisle. It was burned in 1216, and rebuilt, as supposed, about 1359. The most remarkable [...] [more...] [$]
![[picture: 1053.---Glasgow Cathedral.]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/OldEngland/wm/big/1053-Glasgow-Cathedral-q75-275x200.jpg "[picture: 1053.---Glasgow Cathedral.]")
“As St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the chief specimen of Gothic architecture in Ireland, so is Glasgow Cathedral (Fig. 1053) the most perfect relic of the kind in Scotland, or anywhere else, in the opinion of some of its frequenters and admirers. It is one of the four remarkable points of Glasgow, namely the Cathedral, the Green, a great public esplanade, the Trongate, a noble specimen of a street, and the graceful river Clyde, said by a Glasgow poet to be—
Glory of that and all the world beside.
Mr. Robert Chambers tells us that on these four “the native of Glasgow principally grounds his ideas regarding the [more...] [$]
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