The Palladian Bridge at Wilton House, in Wiltshire, was built in 1736-37 for Henry Herbert, the 9th Earl of Pembroke. The design was his own, and such was his passion for building that he became known as the ‘Architect Earl’. The bridge crosses the River Nadder which forms the boundary between the formal gardens and informal landscape.
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The Lansdowne Monument, Cherhill Down, Wiltshire
Sir Charles Barry is usually remembered as the architect of grand Victorian edifices like the Palace of Westminster, and for remodelling country houses such as Trentham in Staffordshire and Harewood in Yorkshire. But he was also happy to take on smaller projects, and in 1845 this elegant obelisk was erected to his design in a distant corner of the Bowood estate of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
Maud Heath, Nikolaus Pevsner, and Wiltshire
Photograph courtesy of Sandy Osborough.
The arrival of an updated volume in the Buildings of England series is always a cause for celebration. Better known simply as ‘Pevsners’, after Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), the author of the earliest volumes, the books are regularly revised. The latest volume to be painstakingly brought up to date covers the county of Wiltshire, and is the work of Julian Orbach. The first edition of the Wiltshire volume appeared in 1963, and was close to Pevsner’s heart, as he had a home in Clyffe Pypard where he and his family spent much of their time: his dedication calls Wiltshire ‘the county of the cottage’.