Vanishing England

Downloads: Under 100
Pages: 341

Read PDF online Download Save

About this book

Vanishing England is the work of P. H. Ditchfield, with illustrations by Fred Roe. The contents list chapters on old walled towns, streets and lanes, old castles, vanishing or vanished churches and old mansions.

The text asks about Crosby Hall, which has gone, and says a few old halls of the City companies remain but most have given way to modern palaces. Old city walls that have defied the attacks of time and of Cromwell's Ironsides are, the text says, often in danger from the wiseacres who preside on borough corporations. A passage describes a farmer who in 1870 employed his men during a hard winter in digging down the west side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the fosse, an action that has almost destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. The text says that some garden cities are garden only in name, being cheap villas surrounded by unsightly fields that have been spoilt and robbed of all beauty.