Badminton
'Badmington
in the County of Gloucester one of the Seats of
the Most Noble & Potent Prince Henry Duke of
Beaufort Marquesse & Earle of Worcester
Baron Herbert of Chepstow Raglan & Gower and
Knight of the Most Noble order of the Garter.'
'L. Knyff d.' 'I. Kip S.
[London:
Joseph Smith, 1724]; copperplate engraving,
328 x 478 W: 348 x 485 PM: 357 x 490mm,A fine
example..
One fold as published, plate mark and good
margins.
Henry,
Duke of Beaufort, built the house in 1682. He
had a real passion for avenues, and his park
grounds were traversed by numbers of walks,
twenty of them starting from one point like the
centre of a star. It is said that he infected
his neighbours with his own enthusiasm, so that
they let him extend the avenues into their
territory, and in this way he obtained more
distant and glorious views. But the gardens too
cover a very large tract of land. They lie round
a house in the middle of a great park, with the
chief avenue two and a half miles long leading
to the entrance. On the left of it there are
parterres and a bowling-green. Behind the
parterres, and in a straight line with them, are
bosquets with fountains and finely designed
paths; at the very end is a semicircular little
room cut out of the hedge and containing two
fountains.
Condition:a
few minute closed tears, small loss by top fold
from a bookworm; tinted
Price
£145
