
West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

|
|
|
Transcription
|
|
The transcription, and notes, are from
A Guide to the Lakes, published by William Pennington,
Kendal, Westmorland now Cumbria, and in London, 1778;
using the 11th edition, 1821. This edition has footnotes
by William Cockin, made for the 2nd and 3rd editions, 1780
and 1784, and numerous addenda. The copy used is in the
Armitt Library, Ambleside, item AMATL:AS1221.
|
|
source type: West 1778
|
|
Deciding how to arrange a transcription in
'records' which are destined to become html pages is not
easy. Thomas West's text is ever so slightly rambling;
there is no regular paragraph structure, no regular use
of headings, though it's all very readable! even if
the picturesque hyperbole is repetitive. The transcript
here is made page by page, ignoring the problems that a
sentence might be split across page breaks;
excepting footnotes, which may go on from page to page,
and which are gathered together on the page on which
they start. The original markers for footnotes are
star or asterisk, section sign, etc, which are replaced in
the transcript by a serial number within each page.
|
|
Somewhen, the text, at present in
MODES records, will migrate to xml. At this change the
Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) should be considered, though
at first sight that methodology seems very biased
towards academic study of 'Literature' rather than
everyday text. TEI would mark up the whole of West's text
as one document, the particular arrangement into pages for
an edition treated as a subsidiary feature.
|
|
The exact typesetting has been ignored. In
particular: font posture, italic or upright, is ignored; and
hyphenation across lines has been removed, judging as well
as I am able to retain the hyphen where it likely belongs.
A word split across pages is left that way, but the
beginning part of the word is added as inferred data to
its continuation on the following page.
|
|
Peculiarities of spelling and grammar are
preserved, some are perhaps just typesetter's errors; they
are perhaps confirmed by '(sic)', though the variable use of
o and ou in words like colour and honour is not
usually commented upon.
|
|
(Also see OFR file of transcription
rules, under 'topics'.)
|
|
Notice that there is potential
for interesting problems if the transcription is checked
by machine for consistency of punctuation. It happens
that there are more open quotes than close quotes, and
for quotes to remain unclosed at the end of a page of
text ...
|
|
Text Indexing
|
|
Keywords for indexing the text have
been recorded, as well as I am able: using today's
placenames as well as the text's versions; recognising
unnamed places if possible; using locality
type terms if nothing else is possible, in particular
trying to spot "stations" ie special
viewpoints; indexing objects and topics only if useful.
Thus, I have tried to interpret and understand the text
to make the indexing helful and comprehensible in
today's world; a basic rule is "would you want this
page if you were searching with this keyword?"
|
|
Marginal Comments
|
|
Marginal comments have been added by
the present editor and attempt to structure the text
into journeys and descriptions at viewpoints, the
stations, and of places.
|
|
Map Indexing
|
|
We have indexed maps by cutting them
up into 'squares', using the national grid so that all
maps conform to some extent, and indexing placename in
both map and standard spellings to the map square. It
is fairly easy to find place within a square, as long as
it is not too crowded, and the map square is presented
at a reasonable size.
|
|
The analogous process with text is to
cut it up into pages and index placenames to page, again
using both the text and standard spellings. The index
terms are in the set of keywords allocated by the editor.
But it is always a bother trying to find a placename within
a whole page of text; not too difficult, but more trouble
than is reasonable. The bits of text relevant to one
place might be scattered over several pages.
|
|
Gazetteer Extracts
|
|
For text, it is worth carrying out
a further process. The chunks of text relevant to each
place are extracted and gathered together, and loaded into
the record for the place in a gazetteer. This is much
easier to use. And you can still go to the original text
and read it all in context. The gazetteer is
arranged using standard placename spellings, today's
version of the placename, but will be indexable on all
sorts of spellings, and by other place data. The gazetteer
can also hold extracts from other sources, and map
square images.
|
|
Not all keywords allocated to the
text will prompt a gazetteer entry. Some places in the
text will be unidentifiable; for some places there will be
no useful description (perhaps they shouldn't be indexed
at all); some keywords are for other topics than places,
char, clap bread, roads in general, etc.
|
|
Following West
|
|
Thomas West's description of his
routes takes a great deal for granted; there are no
grid references of locations, no step by step
instructions. Thomas West uses trees and other
landscape features for markers, which will have changed
after more than 200 years. He travelled on foot and
horseback so following his routes by car is not
always practical; following them by foot would take more
time than we have. Although paths are remarkably
longlived they do change, as do roads. Some interpretation
of Thomas West's routes is done from maps, some from our
own travels, using car and foot. Forgive us our errors;
we've done our best.
|
|
Thomas West in his time was a
gentleman and could presume on other gentlemen.
He could ask to cross their private grounds, stand in
their gardens for views, and so on. Today this is
not possible. As an individual you may be well
behaved, gentlemanly, but the number of people wanting to
see what there is to see, is too great for access to
be granted so easily.
|
|
Stations
|
|
Thomas West suggests a number
of stations from which to appreciate a view. These
are noticed quite formally, in numbered sequences, for some
of the lakes. But the reader should be aware that there
are other stations along the way, referred to in the
text without a heading, and that the system of headings
is abandoned after Bassenthwaite Lake has been visited.
|
|
The gazetteer entries, and
indexing keywords, use the term station followed with
a pertinent placename. Other authors introduced their
own stations at later dates. In particular notice that
the maps of Peter Crosthwaite, drawn in the 1780s, plot
both West's and Crosthwaite's own stations.
|
|
The reader must also be aware that
the term station is also used by Thomas West for roman
camps etc.
|
|
|
 |
Lakes Guides menu.
|
|