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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: 407
Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free for all purposes usage credit requested, or as marked.
51.—Plan and Section of Chun Castle
Chûn Castle is in West Penwith, Cornwall; it was built about 2,500 years ago. Remains of tin smelting have been found there, strengthening the suggestions that tin mining was active in Cornwall [...] [more...] [$]
52.—Plan of Chambers at Ballyhendon
“Camden has given a rude [crude] representation of two caverns near Tilbury in Essex, “spacious caverns in a chalky cliff, built very artificially of stone to the height of ten fathoms [18 metres, or 60 feet], and somewhat straight at the top. [...]” The universality of the practice is shown in the caves which were discovered in Ireland, in 1829, [...] [more...] [$]
53.—Plan of Chambers on a Farm twelve miles from Ballyhendon
see Fig. 52 for notes. [$]
54.—Ground Plan and Section of the Subterranean Chamber at Carrighhill.
I think the place mentioned is probably Carrick, and in particular either the neolithic Carrick East Burial Chamber or Carrigadoon Hill, but I am not certain. At any rate the text makes clear that it is in Ireland, but says nothing more. The cited archaeological report [...] [more...] [$]
“Of the domestic buildings of the early Britons there are no remains, if we except some circular stone foundations, which may have been those of houses. It is concluded, perhaps somewhat too hastily, that their houses were little better than the huts of the rude tribes of Africa or Asia in our own day (Fig. 49). In the neighbourhood of Llandaff were, in King’s time, several modern pig-sties, of a peculiar construction; and he held that the form of these was derived from the dwellings of the ancient Britons. (Fig. 55.) This form [more...] [$]
“Some of the Roman writers might lead us to believe that the Britons had boats capable of distant navigation; but this is doubted by most careful inquirers. But the light boats which were peculiar to the island were certainly of a construction well suited to their objects; for Cæsa, in his History of the Civil War, tells us that he had learnt their [...]
The celebrated stone which now forms the seat of the coronation chair of the sovereigns of England is a flat stone, nearly square. It formerly stood in Argyleshire, according to Buchanan; who also says that King Kenneth, in the ninth century, transferred it to Scone, and enclosed it in a wooden chair. The monkish tradition was, that it was the identical [...] [more...] [$]
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