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| The Tower, by EJ Burrow, 1894 |
Originally published in 1899, we got the 1908 third edition: it is a small book of 136 pages, with 49 illustrations, many taken from stunning pen and ink drawings by EJ Burrow, a Cheltenham artist and archaeologist. The author Massé was a metalworker who also wrote the Bell’s guide to Tewkesbury and Deerhurst, as well as guides to several French churches. The book is a pocket sized hardback, the 1905 General Preface set out the series’ aims which it meets handsomely:
‘This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide-books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to the student of Archæology and History, and yet not too technical in language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.’
On opening the front cover there was a bit of a surprise: pasted in the inside cover was a trade label for AH Pitcher of Gloucester, who had shops near the cathedral in College Court and College Street, but facing that was the handwritten name of David Verey with the date January 1981, when he presumably bought (or was given) this copy. Verey is a major figure in Gloucestershire architectural history, writing the original Buildings of England ‘Pevsner’ volumes for the Cotswolds and the Vale and Forest of Dean in 1970, passing away in 1984, so to have his copy of Massé fall into our hands seems serendipitous given that we refer to his books on most of our jobs in the city and shire.
A web version of the 1905 edition, and many others in the series,
can be found here.
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