Gents Mag 1838 part 2 p.377
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Gentleman's Magazine 1838 part 2 p.377
[tin-]plate - being, in fact, a drawing-book of metal. Upon this frame the camera may be screwed, and the whole will then rest steadily almost any where. Much depends upon a proper selection of dress or appointments. A frock coat with outside and inside pockets will hold much, and is not so singular as a shooting coat; into the pockets of the coat should go a small but strong geological hammer, a 30 feet tape, a folding foot-rule, a Schmalkalder compass, a clinometer, one of Dollond's small telescopes, and a sheet of ass's skin folded into four. The shoes should be strong and worn with stout gaiters, permitting you to stand in a moat, or some such place, up to the middle in nettles, to draw. Besides these, an india-rubber cape should accompany the baggage, together with an umbrella, under the shade of which you may draw in wet weather. It is important to adopt a good method of description. First a general plan of the building should be sketched; and to this a subsequent description of details will be conveniently referred. The forms of the arches, mouldings, and other particulars from which a date may be inferred, should next be noted, together with the leading particulars of any tombs of founders or others likely to throw light on the age of the building. Next may be drawn general elevations of the different faces of the building, on which may be noted any observations not referable to the plan. These need be but sketches; a few leading dimensions may be taken with the tape; but for the rest it will be sufficient to trust to the eye. After having made a general survey of the building, corrections in the plan may often be made by ascending some of the towers. The bearings of walls, &c. should be taken with the compass. When your examination is completed, it will be well to look round into the neighbouring cottages and farm-houses for fragments of carved oak, stained glass, enamelled tiles, &c. The houses near a ruin are frequently constructed from its materials. Old shafts, broken mullions, &c. are generally in such cases to be discovered, with the font, or perhaps a stone coffin or two, in the gardens of farmyards. In examining a military remain, the features of castellated architecture in different ages should be borne in mind, since it is by these rather than by ornaments that the date of such buildings is to be inferred. The Norman castles, for example, are known at a glance by their keeps, the Edwardian by their concentric defences and their larger windows, and so on. Sometimes the earthworks round the castle are of barbarian date, and therefore older than the building itself. Sometimes they are of the same date; and sometimes they have been thrown up to render the building tenable since the introduction of gunpowder. However mutilated a castle may be, it is generally possible with some some attention to discover traces of ornament; the style of the battlements may be known from an examination of the wall upon which it terminated, the stumps of the door or window mouldings are often to be found overgrown with grass or covered with the top soil; and the tablets and strings, though elsewhere defaced, are usually found perfect in the re-entering angles of the buildings. In examing ecclesiastical structures, there is the less difficulty, that the relative positions and uses of the different buildings are generally known; but this guide does not exist in castles: still the great hall, the kitchen, the stables and guard-rooms, and the gate-house, are apartemnst that must have existed, and may therefore be sought for. In examining a religious house, we should expect to find at least three styles of buildings; those of the original structure, those introduced at a subsequent period by the monks, and those added by the grantee at the Reformation to make the place suitable for a private residence. The antiquary will not always be suffered to conduct his researches in peace; nor indeed is it desirable to neglect the information of the Cicerone of the place. If possible, however, let him make his own examination unmolested, and then compare his own deductions with the local traditions. The Ciceronoe should be paid properly; from sixpence to a shilling is |
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