Recommended Books
The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire
ATKYNS, Sir Robert (1647-1711) – KIP, Johannes “Jan” Kip (1653 – 1722).
Published by London: W. Bowyer, 1712, (second edition 1768)
“ATKYNS, Sir Robert (1647-1711). The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire. London: W. Bowyer for Robert Gosling at the Mitre, near the Inner-Temple Gate, in Fleetstreet, 1712. Folio (15 6/8 x 10 2/8 inches). Engraved portrait of Atkyns by M. vander Gucht, a double-page engraved map of Gloucestershire, 64 double-page views by Johannes Kip, 8 plates of coats-of-arms. “Overshadowed by his father, who as chief baron of the exchequer was speaker of the House of Lords between 1689 and 1693, and with whom he had political disagreements, Atkyns refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III and chose to retire to Pinbury Park, where he had the opportunity to explore his topographical interests. The first of the three major Gloucestershire antiquaries the other two being Ralph Bigland (1712 1784) and Samuel Rudder (1726 1801) Atkyns collected material for parish histories, incorporating manuscripts on church history passed to him by Richard Parsons (1643 1711), chancellor of Gloucester diocese between 1677 and 1711. He compiled comprehensive manorial descents and attempted to record the population of each parish, based on the numbers of houses therein and the yearly birth and burial numbers. The resulting first folio county history of Gloucestershire, his Ancient and Present State of Glostershire (1712), which eulogizes the Stuarts, is especially valuable for its series of sixty-four engravings by Johannes Kip, illustrating the county seats and manor houses in the first decade of the eighteenth century, and preserving a record of features now altered or entirely lost” (Robert J. Haines for DNB). The artist of the spectacular plates that fill the book was the Dutch born John Kip.
EP Publishing Ltd, Facsimile edition 1974 (2 Vols)
ISBN-10: 0854098615
ISBN-13: 978-0854098613
Johannes Kip, the Gloucestershire Engravings, edited by Anthea Jones
Three hundred years ago, in 1721, the ‘Dutch engraver’ Johannes Kip died suddenly after more than thirty years spent in England as a renowned printmaker. Gloucestershire owes him a special commemoration in 2021 as the draughtsman and also engraver of more than 60 prints, executed between 1707 and 1710, of the houses, gardens and landscape settings of gentry houses and mansions. The short commentary which accompanies a large-sized reproduction of each print in this book has pointers to the details and to the history of the house and the family. There are examples of old and relatively new houses, large houses and relatively modest ones, elaborate gardens and extensive estates, splendid views reaching to the shipping on the rivers bounding the county on the west, or more limited ones of local hills. Two engravings of Gloucester are presented first (one of the cathedral was published before Atkyns’ book in 1712), and then the sequence of parishes starts with Wick Court, appropriately the least altered of all the houses portrayed.
March 2021, 174pp. Colour illustrated large format.
Hardback, £25.00, ISBN: 978-1-906978-99-0;
Paperback, August 2021, £16.95, ISBN: 978-1-914407-17-8.
Published in association with Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust.
A New History of Gloucestershire
Samuel Rudder, Cirencester, 1779
Includes engravings of Gloucestershire country houses
Historic Gardens of Gloucestershire
Timothy Mowl
Published by The History Press Ltd, 2002
ISBN 10: 0752419560
ISBN 13: 9780752419565
West Country Gardens
John Sales
Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, Gloucester, 1980
ISBN: 0904387550
Includes detailed descriptions of several gardens of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Avon by the National Trust Head of Gardens and long time champion of the GGLT
Gardens of Delight: the Rococo English landscape of Thomas Robins the elder
John Harris, with natural history notes by Dr Martyn Rix. Two Volumes.
Published by Published by The Basilisk Press, London, 1978
Includes beautiful reproductions of Robins’s rococo garden views.
Nature’s Favourite Child: Thomas Robins and the Art of the Georgian Garden
Catherine Spence
Bradford-on-Avon: Stephen Morris, 2021, 312 pages.
ISBN: 978-1838472634, £40.
