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Sapling.info Bookstore (10)
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Great Gardens of Britain
Helena Attlee and Alex Ramsay
(2011)
Hardcover - 144 pages
Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 0711231346
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Britain is famous all over the world for its gardens. In this book Helena Attlee focuses on twenty of the finest gardens in the country. Her choice encompasses a rich selection of sites all over England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ranging from famous eighteenth-century landscapes such as Stourhead to quirky modern gardens such as Charles Jencks' Garden of Cosmic Speculation in the Scottish borders. Her lively text provides a brief history of each garden combined with a vivid account of its main features. Alex Ramsay's dazzling photographs reveal the gardens at their best. Gardens include: Crathes (Inverness), Crarae (Argyll & Bute), Garden of Cosmic Speculation (Dumfries), Little Sparta (Lanarkshire), Alnwick (Northumberland), Levens (Cumbria), Scampston (Yorkshire), Mount Stewart (Co. Down), Bodnant (Clwyd), Powis Castle (Powys), Stourhead (Wiltshire), Hidcote (Gloucestershire), Great Dixter (Sussex), East Rushton (Norfolk), Beth Chatto's Garden (Essex), Kew (London), Wisley (Surrey), Sissinghurst (Kent), Eden Project (Cornwall), Tresco (Scilly Isles).
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The Omnipotent Magician: Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, 1716-1783
Jane Brown
(2011)
Hardcover - 352 pages
Chatto & Windus
ISBN: 0701182121
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Lancelot Brown changed the face of eighteenth-century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, a magical world of green. This English landscape style spread across Europe and the world. At home, it proved so pleasing that Brown's influence spread into the lowland landscape at large, and into landscape painting. He stands behind our vision, and fantasy, of rural England.
In this vivid, lively biography, based on detailed research, Jane Brown paints an unforgettable picture of the man, his work, his happy domestic life, and his crowded world. She follows the life of the jovial yet elusive Mr Brown, from his childhood and apprenticeship in rural Northumberland, through his formative years at Stowe, the most famous garden of the day. His innovative ideas, and his affable and generous nature, led to a meteoric rise to a Royal Appointment in 1764 and his clients and friends ranged from statesmen like the elder Pitt to artists and actors like David Garrick. Riding constantly across England, Brown never ceased working until he collapsed and died in February 1783 after visiting one of his oldest clients. He was a practical man but also a visionary, always willing to try something new. As this delightful, and beautifully illustrated biography shows, Brown filled England with enchantment - follies, cascades, lakes, bridges, ornaments, monuments, meadows and woods - creating views that still delight us today.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
Stuart Maconie
(2008)
Paperback - 354 pages
Ebury Press
ISBN: 0091910234
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the cliches end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile.
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The Making of the Alnwick Garden: The Duchess and I
Ian August
(2006)
Hardcover - 320 pages
Pavilion Books
ISBN: 186205715X
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Ian August was about to retire from his position as the Factor for the Northumberland Alnwick Estates when the Duchess asked for his help with a new project for a couple of weeks. Eight years later the project that has become Alnwick Gardens is still growing. The Duchess of Northumberland's vision was to create a beautiful public space accessible to everyone. A garden which is a place of contemplation, a place of fun, inspiration and education. This vision is now being taken forward by The Alnwick Garden Trust. Featuring a foreword by the Duchess herself, this book is the story, as told by the man who has been at the Duchess's side since the beginning, of one woman's stubborn battle to create her dream. Told in a mixture of letters, anecdotes and memoirs, Ian August captures the dramas, the dilemmas and the victories of the long battle. He has also documented the gardens' creation so here too are the before-and-after pictures of the largest Tree House in the world; of the Poison Garden; of the Cascade; of David Austen's Rose Garden and many more surprises. It is a garden which uses the latest technologies and interweaves them with age old techniques. The story of its creation is a breathtaking history of courage and determination.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The Buildings of England - County Durham
Nikolaus Pevsner, Elizabeth Williamson (Editor)
(2002)
Hardcover - 574 pages
Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300095996
Synopsis by publisher:
The premier monument is Durham Cathedral, greatest of English Norman churches. Lovers of the Middle Ages will also seek out the county's exceptional Anglo-Saxon churches, while many of its great castles - Brancepeth, Raby, Auckland, Lambton - conceal palatial Georgian and Victorian interiors. The landscape varies dramatically, from the wilds of Teesdale and Weardale in the west, to the pioneering industrial ports of Sunderland and Hartlepool on the coast, including fine gentry houses and stone-built market towns. South Tyneside and northern Cleveland, historically part of County Durham, are also covered.
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Historic Arts and Crafts Homes of Great Britain
Brian D. Coleman
(2005)
Hardcover - 192 pages
Gibbs M Smith Inc
ISBN: 158685531X
Synopsis by publisher:
From esteemed author Brian D. Coleman comes a thorough exploration into the origins of the design and philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain - the roots of which are inspiring a fresh new approach to the more traditional American Arts and Crafts style. Coleman leads an inspiring and beautiful tour of ten of the most historic Arts and Crafts homes in Britain, from William Morris's Red House in Kent to Macintosh's Hill House in Glasgow.
Learn about the history, construction, and thoughtfulness of design that give valuable insight into the philosophy of the movement and how it is reinterpreted today. Honesty of construction, attention to detail, and the value of handcraftsmanship are principles of the Arts and Crafts movement first celebrated by William Morris and John Ruskin over one hundred years ago. Other homes featured in the book include Blackwell in the Lake District (architect M. H. Baillie Scott), Castle Drogo in Devon (architect Sir Edwin Lutyens), Cragside in Northumberland (architect Richard Norman Shaw), and Kelmscott Manor in London (William Morris's holiday home). All homes featured in the book are open to the public and maintained as museums and tributes to the artistry. Contact information is provided for each house, which provides a helpful tool for planning a visit.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Cinemas of Newcastle
Frank Manders
(2005)
Paperback - 196 pages
Newcastle Libraries and Information Service
ISBN: 1857951522
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
From the era of the cinematography and silent movies, through the talkies, to Cinerama and the multiplexes, "Cinemas of Newcastle" traces the varying fortunes of the city centre and suburban cinemas of Newcastle upon Tyne. Frank Manders has fully revised this lavishly illustrated book, telling the story of how the film industry grew and developed in North-East England.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The Buildings of England - Northumberland
Nikolaus Pevsner, Sir Ian Richmond, John Grundy, et al
(2002)
Hardcover - 704 pages
Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300096380
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
The county's remarkable and richly varied military architecutre, from Hadrian's Wall to Warkworth, contrasts with monastic ruins buried deep in the valleys of the Coquet and the Aln or standing proudly by the sea at Holy Island and Tynemouth. Newcastle upon Tyne has the most elegant nineteenth-century city centre in England. Elsewhere the distinctive smaller towns include Alnwick, dominated by its castle, Hexham with its priory, brick-built Morpeth, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, ringed with exceptional sixteenth-century fortifications. Great country houses range from Vanbrugh's theatrical Seaton Delaval to Sir Charles Monck's austere Belsay and Norman Shaw's romantic Cragside. Monuments of a great industrial past, as well as a wealth of smaller buildings, such as bastle houses (peelhouses or stronghouses unique to the Border country), are all vividly described in this revised guide to Northumberland's architectural pleasures.
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Newcastle's Grainger Town: An Urban Renaissance
Fiona Cullen, David Lovie
(2003)
Paperback - 74 pages
English Heritage Publications
ISBN: 1873592779
Review by Sapling Editor:
Grainger Town' is a historically important area at the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne, centred upon a series of Classical streets laid out by Richard Grainger in the 1830s. By the 1990s, Grainger's streets were largely intact but in severe decline, the area having lost its position as the city's retail and business centre. Set up in 1997, the Grainger Town Project was an ambitious attempt to breath new life into the area, seeking to improve the public realm and bring buildings back into use in a programme of 'heritage-led regeneration'. By the time it ended in 2003, the Project had achieved many of its goals, bringing in new retail, leisure, office and residential schemes, and successful transforming the appearance and perceptions of the area.
Published in 2003, this new book provides a timely opportunity to reflect on the Project's successes and challenges. However, with English Heritage a key player in the Project, and both authors playing important roles themselves, the book's portrayal veers towards rose-tintedness; while it rightly celebrates the Project's successes - of which there are many - it would be useful to learn also from the Project's difficulties and mistakes. The book does note the challenges in persuading businesses to invest in the area, but we learn little of the contestations around specific schemes, or ideas that were rejected; for instance, a key example of facadism, contrary to the Project's own policy and subject to signifiant local opposition, is rather glossed over.
'Newcastle's Grainger Town' is also very much a book of parts - the first section provides a good historical account of the city's growth, leading up to Grainger's radical remodelling; the second sets the scene for the Grainger Town Project itself, providing an insight into its operation; and the third is a walking tour incorporating many of the most notable buildings, streets and spaces. While the structure of the first two parts makes good sense, the walking tour does feel rather incongruously tacked on, and replicates much of the content from Lovie's earlier 'Buildings of Grainger Town' guide. By not seeming quite sure who its audience is - academics, practitioners, visitors to the city - the book ends up spreading itself rather thin, a difficulty when it is already relatively short. With its attractive presentation and many beautiful photographs, the book does offer a reasonably-priced introduction to Grainger Town, particularly for anyone unfamiliar with Newcastle. However, those who have seen the Project unfold may prefer to read the various evaluation reports, or wait for a more critical and reflexive account elsewhere -- Graham Soult
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Crossing the Tyne
Frank Manders and Richard Potts
(2001)
Paperback - 152 pages
Tyne Bridge Publishing
ISBN: 1857951212
Synopsis by publisher:
The Tyne's river crossings lie at the heart of our region, not only as pivotal parts of the road, rail, cycle and footpath networks which link our communities, but also as potent symbols of the North East, held in great affection by its inhabitants.
Crossing the Tyne explores the history of the bridges, tunnels, ferries and fords on the tidal reaches of the Tyne, from Ryton to the river mouth. The research spans almost 2000 years of human ingenuity, from the Roman Pons Aelius, to the hi-tech, cutting-edge Gateshead Millennium Bridge. It records some of the more daring methods of crossing the river: intrepid journeys by hot air balloon and airship. Crossing the Tyne also describes some of the innovative schemes which never got past the planning stage, like the mighty bridge, 210ft high, intended to link North and South Shields.
Superbly illustrated with contemporary colour photography by Graeme Peacock and archive material, Crossing the Tyne is a celebration one of the North's great rivers and the people who live beside it.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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