Eccentric Britain

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 9781841621227
Total Pages : 316 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eccentric Britain written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful romp around the British Isles searching out the mad marquess, the eccentric earl, the barmy baron, and the daft duke and gathering a fair collection of crackpot inventors, weird adventurers and fascinatingly and not to mention insanely curious customs along the way. All of which make this rainy little island home to that remarkable breed of individual - the British eccentric.This expanded book still doesn't tell you where Stonehenge is, but it does tell you where ten spookier stone circles are where there will be no crowds, no admission charges and no parking problems... This is a book for the intelligent, humorous, curious tourist who doesn't go with the crowd. It is also a great armchair read that has been known to have readers weeping with mirth at the weird ways of the British.

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 184162375X
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ben Le Vay's Eccentric Britain written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2011 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Tesco on every corner, Boden catalogues piled through the letterbox, and Center Parcs holidays - Britain has been overrun by all-pervasive corporate sameness. Or has it? Ben le Vay - expert on all things eccentric - reveals the quirky gems hidden near your home: hotter than the spice girls everywhere, Norfolk's fascinating Mustard Museum; Devon's Gnome Reserve, home to over 1,000 of Britain's beloved garden characters; or the fourth Earl of Dunmore's eccentric home, The Pineapple. Encompassing eccentric pastimes, aristocrats and bizarre last wishes, Ben le Vay's Eccentric Britain is both a humorous and entertaining read, as well as practical guide to some of Britain's most peculiar and unexpected monuments, gardens and museums. Benedict le Vay is a features editor on a leading British newspaper. He spends his spare time researching zany facts about the British and their way of life. He is also the author of Bradt's Eccentric London and Britain from the Rails.

Author : Todd Longstaffe-Gowan
Publisher : Paul Mellon Centre
ISBN 13 : 9781913107260
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book English Garden Eccentrics written by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and published by Paul Mellon Centre. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly original examination of a series of unique gardens made by English eccentrics from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries In his new book, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan looks at a series of unique gardens made by English eccentrics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their unusual creators--from the superstitious antiquary William Stukeley (d.1765), to the pleasure-ground proprietor Jonathan Tyers (d.1767), and the bird-loving Lady Reade (d.1811)--built miniature mountains, shaped topiary, collected animals, excavated caves, and assembled architectural fragments to realize their gardens in a way that was, and sometimes still is, thought to be excessive. Bringing together garden and landscape history with cultural history and biography, English Garden Eccentrics examines what it is about the gardener and his or her creation that can be seen as eccentric and analyzes an area of garden history that has scarcely been previously explored: gardens seen as expressions of the singular character of their makers, and therefore functioning, in effect, as a form of autobiography. This lively and accessible book calls on gardeners today to learn from example and dare to be eccentric.

Author : Edith Sitwell
Publisher : DigiCat
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book English Eccentrics written by Edith Sitwell and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "English Eccentrics" by Edith Sitwell. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Author : Henry Hemming
Publisher : John Murray Publishers
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book In Search of the English Eccentric written by Henry Hemming and published by John Murray Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English eccentric is under threat. In our increasingly homogenised society, these celebrated parts of our national identity are anomalies that may soon no longer fit. Or so it seems. On his entertaining and thought-provoking quest to discover the most eccentric English person alive today, Henry Hemming unearths a surprisingly large array of delightfully odd characters. He asks what it is to be an eccentric. Is it simply to thrive on creativity and non-conformity, and where does this incarnation of Englishness stem from? Hemming concludes that this tribe is, in fact, in rude health, as essential as ever to the English national identity, only they are no longer to be found where you'd expect them. Featuring interviews with Dame Vivienne Westwood, the Marquess of Bath, Pete Doherty, the modern-day reincarnation of King Arthur, the Leopard Man of Skye, Sebastian Horsley, Chris Eubank, Captain Beany and Brian Haw among others.

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 1841624268
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ben Le Vay's Eccentric Oxford written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2011 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the quirky gems hidden across Britain and the weird and wacky things the British do, from bog snorkelling and chimney peeping, to mud marathons and cheese rolling.

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 9781841621937
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eccentric London written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2007 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benedict le Vay reveals London's most bizarre and macabre secrets with his novel approach, which doubles both as a thematic guide to the hidden attractions of the streets of London and a compelling insight into the citizens and culture of this historic city.

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 9781841621722
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eccentric Cambridge written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2006 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide to all things eccentric in Cambridge provides a behind-the-scenes look at this old English university city's people and places. Also included are the essentials of how to get there, unusual places to stay, and oddities aplenty.

Author : John Tingey
Publisher : Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN 13 : 9781568988726
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book W. Reginald Bray written by John Tingey and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first impression of W. Reginald Bray (1879-1939) was one of an ordinary middle-class Englishman quietly living out his time as an accountant in the leafy suburb of Forest Hill, London. A glimpse behind his study door, however, revealed his extraordinary passion for sending unusual items through the mail. In 1898, Bray purchased a copy of the Post Office Guide, and began to study the regulations published quarterly by the British postal authorities. He discovered that the smallest item one could post was a bee, and the largest, an elephant. Intrigued,he decided to experiment with sending ordinary and strange objects through the post unwrapped, including a turnip, abowler hat, a bicycle pump, shirt cuffs, seaweed, a clothes brush, even a rabbit's skull. He eventually posted his Irish terrier and himself (not together), earning him the name "The Human Letter." He also mailed cards to challenging addressessome in the form of picture puzzles, others sent to ambiguous recipients at hard to reach destinationsall in the name of testing the deductive powers of the beleaguered postman. Over time hispassion changed from sending curios to amassing the world's largest collection of autographs, also via the post. Starting with key British military officers involved in the Second Boer War, he acquired thousands of autographs during the first four decades of the twentieth centuryof politicians, military men, performing artists, aviators, sporting stars, and many others. By the time he died in 1939, Bray had sent out more than thirty-two thousand postal curios and autograph requests. The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects tells W. Reginald Bray's remarkable tale for the first time and includes delightful illustrations of some of his most amazing postal creations. Readers will never look at the objects they post the same way again.

Author : Benedict Le Vay
Publisher : Bradt Travel Guides
ISBN 13 : 9781841620985
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.8X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eccentric Edinburgh written by Benedict Le Vay and published by Bradt Travel Guides. This book was released on 2004 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You don't just visit Edinburgh; you fall in love with the place." The best-selling author of Eccentric Britain takes you away from the obvious tartanalia and into Auld Reekie's hidden corners to find spooky stories, weird buildings, mad judges and strange customs. Benedict le Vay also asks the pressing questions that others avoid: Is the Scottish Parliament a monumental cock-up? Was the Stewart dynasty really useless? Should you eat deep-fried Mars Bars...?