Description
Pre-owned. Hamlets and villages grew into towns and cities as fashionable architects designed pleasure domes of Gaming Halls, Pump Rooms and Assembly Rooms where the Beau Monde gathered to gamble, dance, flirt, gossip, intrigue and drink the waters. Nowadays the architecture and the gardens remain to delight thousands of visitors who walk over the Malvern Hills, go to trade fairs in busy Edwardian Harrogate, breathe the crisp mountain air of Strathpeffer, look at timbered Tudor buildings in Droitwich, go racing in Cheltenham, or to the opera in Georgian Buxton. People of all ages browse in the Pantiles of Tunbridge Wells, admire the Regency wrought iron of Leamington, relax in the pinewoods of Woodhall Spa, flock to the Victorian Festival of Llandrindod wells, or gaze at the dazzling squares and crescents of Bath. The legends, the history and the growth of these eleven British Spas, together with nearby gardens. theatres, cathedrals, mills, historic houses, ruined abbeys, a nature reserve, an arboretum and a Blur John mine, are all described in detail by the author and illustrated by the sensitive and witty photographs taken by her husband, Earl Spencer. Slight wear as to be expected from a book of this age and the dustjacket has the tiniest tear at the lower spine of the book. Hardcover. Published by Weidenfeld And Nicolson 1983