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Shell Guides
The Shell Guides were originally a 20th-century series of guidebooks on the counties of Britain. They were aimed at a new breed of car-driving metropolitan tourist, and for those who sought guides that were neither too serious nor too shallow and who took pleasure in the ordinary and peculiar culture of small town Britain. In the three decades after the Second World War the Shell Guides provided a surreptitiously subversive synthesis of the British countryside. History The series started in June 1934, with Betjeman's ''Cornwall'', and continued until 1984, by which time about half the country had been covered. The series was sponsored by the oil company Shell. The original guides were published on a county-by-county basis, under the editorial control of the poet John Betjeman and (later) the artist John Piper. There were three publishers involved in the publication of the thirteen pre-war titles: The Architectural Press, Batsford and finally, in 1939, Faber and Faber. In 1939 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Pitt-Rivers
Major Michael Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers (27 May 1917 – December 1999) was a West Country landowner who gained notoriety in Britain in the 1950s when he was put on trial charged with buggery. This trial was instrumental in bringing public attention – and opposition – to the stringent laws against homosexual acts as they then stood. Early life Pitt-Rivers was the son of Captain George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers and the actress Mary Hinton who died in 1979. A West Country landowner and conservationist of colourful antecedents, his great-grandfather was Lt-Gen A.H. Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers whose ethnographic collection, donated to Oxford University in 1883, formed the basis of the Pitt Rivers Museum named after him. Michael Pitt-Rivers served in World War II, gaining the substantive rank of Captain in 1946. Prosecution In the summer of 1953, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu offered his friend Peter Wildeblood the use of a beach hut near his country estate. Wildeblood brought wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Shackleton
Keith Hope Shackleton MBE (16 January 1923 – 17 April 2015), born in Weybridge, Surrey, was a British painter who concentrated on landscape views and animals. He has also produced limited edition prints. He was a friend of the conservationist and fellow painter Peter Scott, with whom he travelled to Antarctica. Like Scott, he went to Oundle School. He was also a presenter on the BBC children's television programme '' Animal Magic'' and of the Children's ITV series ''Animals in Action'', produced by Anglia Television using footage from its ''Survival'' series. A retrospective exhibition of his "Polar Art", depicting creatures and scenery from both the Arctic and Antarctic was open at the Scott Polar Research Institute in May and June 2007. Shackleton was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Books By John Betjeman
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Books About The United Kingdom
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many page (paper), pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bookbinding, bound together and protected by a book cover, cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a Recto, leaf and each side of a leaf is a page (paper), page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wynford Vaughan-Thomas
Lewis John Wynford Vaughan-Thomas (Given name#Name at birth, né Thomas) (15 August 1908 – 4 February 1987) was a Welsh newspaper journalist and radio and television broadcaster. In later life he took the name Vaughan-Thomas after his father. Early life and education Thomas was born in Swansea, in South Wales, the second son of Dr. David Vaughan Thomas, a Professor of Music, and Morfydd Lewis, the daughter of Daniel Lewis who was one of the leaders of the Rebecca Riots in Pontarddulais. He attended the Bishop Gore School, Swansea, where the English master was the father of Dylan Thomas, who was just entering the school at the time that Vaughan-Thomas was leaving for Exeter College, Oxford. At Oxford he read modern history and gained a second class academic degree. Career BBC In the mid-1930s, Vaughan-Thomas joined the BBC and, in 1937, gave the Welsh-language commentary on the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. This was the precursor to several English-lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditional county town is Nottingham, though the county council is based at County Hall in West Bridgford in the borough of Rushcliffe, at a site facing Nottingham over the River Trent. The districts of Nottinghamshire are Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark and Sherwood, and Rushcliffe. The City of Nottingham was administratively part of Nottinghamshire between 1974 and 1998, but is now a unitary authority, remaining part of Nottinghamshire for ceremonial purposes. The county saw a minor change in its coverage as Finningley was moved from the county into South Yorkshire and is part of the City of Doncaster. This is also where the now-closed Doncaster Sheffield Airport is located (formerly Robin Hood Airport). In 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the north-west, West Yorkshire to the north, South Yorkshire to the north-east, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the west and south-west and Cheshire to the west. Kinder Scout, at , is the highest point and Trent Meadows, where the River Trent leaves Derbyshire, the lowest at . The north–south River Derwent is the longest river at . In 2003, the Ordnance Survey named Church Flatts Farm at Coton in the Elms, near Swadlincote, as Britain's furthest point from the sea. Derby is a unitary authority area, but remains part of the ceremonial county. The county was a lot larger than its present coverage, it once extended to the boundaries of the City of Sheffield district in South Yorkshire where it cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Spalding
Frances Spalding (née Crabtree, born 16 July 1950) is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''. Life Frances Crabtree studied at the University of Nottingham and gained her PhD for a study of Roger Fry. She taught art history at Sheffield City Polytechnic (19781988) before becoming a freelance writer and curator. She returned to academic work to take up the post of professor of Art History at Newcastle University in 2000. Spalding specialises in 20th-century British art, biography and cultural history and her work includes 15 major books, essays, criticism and reviews. She curated the 2003 exhibition "John Piper in the 1930s: Abstraction on the Beach" at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London. She has also written a study of poet Stevie Smith and a biography of John and Myfanwy Piper. When reviewing ''John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art'', ''The Independent'' said of Spalding "At her scintillating best, she is both a brilliant enca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see History of Worcestershire). Over the centuries the county borders have been modified, but it was not until 1844 that substantial changes were made. Worcestershire was abolished as part of local government reforms in 1974, with its northern area becoming part of the West Midlands and the rest part of the county of Hereford and Worcester. In 1998 the county of Hereford and Worcester was abolished and Worcestershire was reconstituted, again without the West Midlands area. Location The county borders Herefordshire to the west, Shropshire to the north-west, Staffordshire only just to the north, West Midlands to the north and north-east, Warwickshire to the east and Gloucestershire to the south. The western border with Herefordshire includes a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Lees-Milne
(George) James Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses, who worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist and biographer. His extensive diaries remain in print. Early life Lees-Milne was born on 6 August 1908 at Wickhamford Manor, Worcestershire. His biographer Michael Bloch observed that in ''Another Self'', Lees-Milne "conveys the impression that he hailed from an old county family and that Wickhamford was their native seat. This was not quite the case.... His father... had bought Wickhamford, and moved from Lancashire to Worcestershire, only two years before Jim's birth." He was the second of three children and the elder son of a prosperous cotton manufacturer and farmer, George Crompton Lees-Milne (1880–1949), and his wife Helen Christina (1884–1962), a daughter of Henry Bailey, JP and Deputy Lieutenant of Coates, Gloucestershire. Lees-Milne's maternal grandfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rutland
Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest length north to south is only and its greatest breadth east to west is . It is the smallest historic county in England and the fourth smallest in the UK as a whole. Because of this, the Latin motto ''Multum in Parvo'' or "much in little" was adopted by the county council in 1950. It has the smallest population of any normal unitary authority in England. Among the current ceremonial counties, the Isle of Wight, City of London and City of Bristol are smaller in area. The former County of London, in existence 1889 to 1965, also had a smaller area. It is 323rd of the 326 districts in population. The only towns in Rutland are Oakham, the county town, and Uppingham. At the centre of the county is Rutland Water, a large artificial reservoir th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid-Wales
Mid Wales ( cy, Canolbarth Cymru or simply ''Y Canolbarth'', meaning "the midlands") or Central Wales refers to a region of Wales, encompassing its midlands, in-between North Wales and South Wales. The Mid Wales Regional Committee of the Senedd covered the unitary authority areas of Ceredigion and Powys and the area of Gwynedd that had previously been the district of Meirionnydd. A similar definition is used by the BBC. The Wales Spatial Plan defines a region known as "Central Wales" which covers Ceredigion and Powys. Mid Wales is dominated by the Cambrian Mountains, including the Green Desert of Wales. The region is sparsely populated, with an economy dependent on farming and small businesses. Major settlements * Aberaeron * Aberdyfi * Aberporth * Aberystwyth * Bala * Barmouth * Borth * Brecon * Builth Wells * Caersws * Cardigan * Crickhowell * Dolgellau * Fairbourne * Harlech * Hay-on-Wye * Knighton * Lampeter * Llandrindod Wells * Llandysul * Llanidloes * Llanwrtyd * M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
