button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 286:-
of the natural advantages of their country, are found disposed to make the best of them.
How these objects should be formed, or situated, must for the most part be determined by circumstances under the eye of taste. One thing, however, seems worthy of particular notice in this place, which is, that erections of this sort would have the most grand and characteristic effect placed on eminences, so as to have the sky for a back-ground. When this is the case, the hills they are raised upon should be bounded by agreeable lines, seen at a great distance, and much in sight of the principal roads [1].
The most simple of these erections are obelisks, and properly formed summer-houses [2]. But a series of columns constituting a temple, or supporting arches, pediments, &c would have by much the best effect, provided they were properly large, for the ordinary points of view. Through the openings of these columns, the sky should always give them a striking appearance: but in an evening, if the sun set behind them, no spectacle of the kind could be imagined more grand and attractive, or more accordant with the sublimity of the surrounding mountains. Perforated doors and windows, in the
[1] If they be not intended also for a near inspection, they need not be of any expensive materials. Provided they be well formed in outline (and for the design of which, artists of taste should always be applied to) common stone and mortar will do very well.
[2] This kind of summer-house should either be octagonal, or at least have more than four sides. And if either of these sort of erections be not placed on very pointed hills, care should be taken to raise them (either by raising the earth on which they stand, or by giving them a high rustic base, &c.) so that the sides of the hills will not prevent a complete sight of their elevation from the principal points of view.- Nothing can be worse managed, than to see these objects as if rising beyond the top of a hill, or from the bottom of a fish-pond.
Perhaps a summer-house standing on proper rustic arches, through which the sky might be seen, would, for the following reason, in some cases, have good effect.
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