Bücher veröffentlicht von Hobnob Press

William Guise, later Sir William Guise, 5th Baronet of Elmore, travelled in Switzerland and Italy in 1764 in the company of Edward Gibbon, the historian. Two journals chronicling in great detail the first part of their tour, from Lausanne to Florence, Rome and other Italian cities, and the cultural sites and artefacts that they saw, have survived in the archives of Elmore Court, Gloucestershire, which was the Guise family home. Despite their historic and cultural interest, there has until now been no full transcription of these journals (totalling 83,000 words) apart from some references to them in an edition of Gibbon's diaries. As well as perceptive comments and opinions on the architecture, statues, pictures and other works of art which they saw, there are extensive references to military matters and fortifications; to the politics and governance of the towns of Northern Italy and to travel and lodging issues. The journals illustrate the serious nature of the Grand Tour as undertaken by Guise and his better known travelling companion, Edward Gibbon.

The authors take a fresh approach to the telling of Mary Sidney's fascinating story. She was a remarkable woman who spent a significant part of her life at Wilton House. Married at the age of fifteen to one of England's richest men, she was close to Queen Elizabeth I. As she lived at a time of political and religious change, her story is told against that background. The untimely death of her beloved brother, the courtier and poet, Sir Philip Sidney, altered the course of her life. Mary Sidney became a trend-setter, forging a pathway for women writers: a talented poet, a skilful translator and editor and an influential patron of the arts. She wrote a version of Antony and Cleopatra. Her metrical psalms inspired poets, including a distant relative, George Herbert. Her legacy is traced to the wider world and the poetry of New England. Closer to home her relationship to key figures of the day is explored: James I, William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser, to name a few. Mary Sidney Herbert's contribution to literature has never been sufficiently acknowledged but this book redresses that neglect and offers an engaging insight into an influential woman's life.

The River Nadder in Wiltshire rises in the Donheads, east of Shaftesbury, and flows through the Vale of Wardour to Wilton, where it joins the Wylye and then, at Salisbury, the Avon. This remarkable social and landscape history, beautifully illustrated, presents the story of every village and settlement in its valley, drawn from historical sources and oral reminiscence, and lovingly presented by the author of Little Imber on the Down, and Collett's Farthing Newspaper. First published in 1995, Rex Sawyer revised Nadder in 2006, and it was published in a new format and with many extra illustrations. Long unavailable, this print-on-demand reprint will make it accessible to a new generation of readers.

A Higher Reality, by John Chandler tells the story of England's largest and (arguably) most important nunnery, and of the town that grew up alongside it. King Alfred established Shaftesbury and its abbey on a Dorset hilltop in the late ninth century. His community of nuns became the model for other royal nunneries and a focus for the veneration of a murdered king, Edward the Martyr. It was supported by large, wealthy estates in Dorset, Wiltshire and further afield, and its church and monastic buildings were rebuilt on a massive scale around 1100. The medieval town of Shaftesbury prospered at the abbey gates, and became an important centre of trade and communications. Following its dissolution in 1539 the abbey was demolished, and almost all trace of it was lost until archaeological excavations began on its site in the nineteenth century. The town, however, renewed itself with stone from the abbey and has continued as an attractive and flourishing community. It enjoys one of the most striking and beautiful settings of any English town, and the site of its abbey church - its foundations exposed within a peaceful garden - has become a popular attraction for visitors and residents. John Chandler's book was commissioned by the Friends of Shaftesbury Abbey to accompany the new museum opened on the site in 1999. It offers an absorbing and wide-ranging history of the abbey, its saint, its buildings and estates, the devotional and cultural life of its nuns, its downfall and rediscovery. There is much too about the origins and development of the town of Shaftesbury, including a guided walk in search of its history. Although intended for a popular readership the text is fully referenced with an extensive bibliography and a comprehensive index, which will prove invaluable to students of monastic and urban history. First published in 2003 it is now reissued as a print-on-demand paperback.

The life of Dr Edward Thomas Wilson of Cheltenham has never been told. Overshadowed both by his son, the Antarctic explorer who perished with Captain Scott at the South Pole, and his brother, renowned for his heroic attempt to rescue General Gordon at Khartoum, his story is intriguingly complex. A municipal pioneer of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he instigated modern medical practices, such as isolation fever hospitals, district nursing and clean drinking water. A supporter of science and art he opened the museum which now bears his family's name, and promoted libraries and the local School of Art. A founder of the local camera club (the sixth oldest in the country) he pioneered photomicrography as an amateurs' pursuit, and contributed to numerous associations, not least as President of the Cheltenham Natural Science Society. 'No man has done so much as he to stimulate and promote the intellectual life of the town' proclaimed one of his obituaries in 1918, while the epitaph on his gravestone reads simply, 'He went about doing good'. Drawing on previously unpublished material and sources, this is the first in-depth biography of one of life's 'quiet' heroes.

This collection of 37 stories, on themes ranging through love and loss, betrayal, passion and the complexity of human relationships between lovers and family members, has been selected from the author's long career of writing short stories. Most have been previously published in magazines or edited collections, or been presented on radio or as live readings. The author is a Frome based poet, novelist, dramatist and critic.

The Cotswold village of Colesbourne straddles the picturesque valley of the River Churn, as it descends from Seven Springs to Cirencester. Since the 1780s, the historic Colesbourne Estate has been in the ownership of the Elwes family. It was Henry John Elwes who in the 1870s began Colesbourne's now world-famous snowdrop collection. In this new account, Sir Henry Elwes, who served from 1992 to 2010 as Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, draws on unique estate and family archives to paint a vivid picture of a community that saw many changes in the 20th century, yet still thrives today. A fascinating blend of local and personal histories, the book is profusely illustrated, many of the images being published here for the first time.

The borough of Swindon embraces not only one of the largest towns in central southern England; it includes also large tracts of chalk downland and much of the upper Thames valley. The rapid pace of development across this area has resulted in a wealth of important archaeological discoveries, from earliest prehistory to the recent past. Bernard Phillips, author of this profusely illustrated survey, has played a leading part in excavating and understanding Swindon's archaeology over more than fifty years, and so is able to bring to his subject a unique authority, making this the indispensable handbook to the evolution of a region now home to almost a quarter of a million people.

The Jurassic Coast, A Poet's Journey, is the author's second book of poetry, and as the title suggests, is a voyage in verse around the Dorset and South Devon coast in England. In 2001, the Jurassic Coast became England's first natural World Heritage Site, to be protected, conserved and passed intact to future generations. Its breathtaking beauty and wildness have been an inspiring source of riches for the varied poetry in this volume, together with the artist's vibrant illustrations.

Three hundred years ago, in 1721, the 'Dutch engraver' Johannes Kip (or John Kip, his anglicised name) dropped down dead in St John's Street, Westminster, bringing to a sudden end his career in England of more than thirty years as a renowned printmaker. Gloucestershire owes him a special commemoration in 2021 as the draughtsman and also engraver of sixty-four prints commissioned in the early eighteenth century by Sir Robert Atkyns for The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire. The majority of the prints contain an architectural-style drawing of a gentleman's 'Seat', but each is a treasure trove of other features in the surrounding scene. 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. Kip's work as the engraver of houses drawn or painted by a fellow Dutchman, Leendert Knyff (generally known as Leonard Knyff), is well-known; his unique collection of Gloucestershire prints is not. This book, based on the collaborative work of people with an interest in one or more prints, and the accumulated information of the Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust, reveals the significance of Kip's work. There are examples here of old houses and relatively new houses, large houses and relatively modest ones, the houses of aristocrats but more often of Gloucestershire gentry, of elaborate gardens and extensive estates, of 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, and then the sequence of parishes starts with Wick Court, appropriately the least altered of all the houses portrayed. Johannes Kip: The Gloucestershire Engravings is a contribution to the history of the county, to knowledge of the gardens, which in many cases still reflect Kip's engravings, to the unique history of many of the houses which survive three hundred years later, and to the riches of the Gloucestershire countryside.

The book begins with the early origins of this remote hamlet near Trowbridge (in Wiltshire, southern England) which was affected by the Black Death. It describes its heyday under a branch of the Long family, prominent clothiers whose seat was Whaddon House and how they emerged onto the national scene in the turbulent years of the mid-17th century. Whaddon was gradually reduced to a farming community in the 18th and 19th centuries and the histories of the families who lived there and in the wider estate at Paxcroft, Hilperton and Melksham are explored. This wide-ranging village history also includes domestic details of everyday life and the running of an estate and the compelling early 17th century love story of a widow and widower, told through surviving letters.

This book blends biography with military and social history. But it is also a tribute, driven by gratitude. If the story had ended differently the author would never have existed. After Dr Beale retired, he took up family history. For some years he managed to backtrack only one generation - there was so much to discover about his late father, Ron. Ron Swore begins with a teenager taking an oath to serve 'king and country' in the British Army. It ends a decade later, in 1945; a young man having lost his youth to battle trauma, cruelty and slavery. Such was 'Ron's war'. His unit, the 2nd 'Glosters', had been part of the forgotten Dunkirk rearguard, sacrificed to allow more than 300,000 other Allied soldiers to be evacuated from France and to fight another day. Ron survived five years as a prisoner of war, calling on stoicism and survival instinct and saved from starvation by the International Red Cross. When he escaped - from a death march - he and a comrade were secreted and supported by a Czech family who showed incredible courage and humanity. Eventually, back in England, he did as so many of his generation - he promptly closed this chapter of his life. There would be no reminiscences, no reunions and, if possible, no recollections. It was all too painful. Putting the lid down and sitting on it was the only therapy for what we now call 'post-traumatic stress disorder'. This made the story a difficult salvage exercise - for the author, but hopefully not for the reader.

Since its first publication in 1992 this history and guide has provided residents and visitors with a succinct but highly readable introduction to one of England's most interesting and attractive cities. A new edition published in a different format appeared in 2004 but has been out of print for several years. Now thoroughly revised, expanded and illustrated in full colour throughout, Salisbury, history around us provides a clear and fascinating explanation as to how the city, its cathedral, Close and surrounding area have evolved, and how they fit into the pattern of regional and national history. As well as following Salisbury's story through time, it also offers guided strolls around the Close, city centre and eastern chequers, and a longer walk from Old Sarum through the city to Harnham, which can be undertaken separately or in combination.

The story of life in a great country house, Kingston Lacy near Wimborne Minster in Dorset, during the last eighty years that it remained in private ownership, from 1897 to 1981. Times of glamour, bereavement, sadness and benevolence are recalled through the eyes of Henrietta Bankes and her daughter-in-law Hilary, the estate's last influential chatelaines. Geoffrey Brown, a long-term National Trust volunteer at Kingston Lacy, describes life in the house and on the estate, which extended across Dorset to Corfe Castle and the Isle of Purbeck, with great sympathy and understanding, as its owners responded to the social changes of the twentieth century.To Partake of Tea will delight anyone who has enjoyed visiting Kingston Lacy since its acquisition by the National Trust in 1983, and anyone interested in the predicament faced by owners of other large estates as their role has changed and, in some cases, disappeared.Reprint of a book first published in 2006

Early photographs have an undeniable power, providing a window to our past with an immediacy that is hard to match - documenting change and capturing history. Museums, archives and local studies libraries, therefore, continue to build extensive photographic collections to preserve this important visual record for the future. The Local Studies team at Swindon Central Library has built up over many years a list of local photographers, postcard publishers and others connected with the photographic history of Swindon and the surrounding area. Now, drawing on existing resources, librarian Darryl Moody and local historian Paul A Williams have created the definitive reference guide, including all known individual professional photographers, partnerships, firms, postcard publishers and a number of more notable amateurs working in the Swindon area.