Look What I Found

During my decades long research into the life and times of the Duke of Wellington, I often think I’ve exhausted every scrap of info ever posted on the web about him. In frustration, I began to enter weird search terms in the hopes of finding something new – Wellington + dogs, Wellington + lobster, Wellington + Charlie Sheen. This worked fairly well, turning up scraps of new, odd and decidedly informative data. Then, I started doing the same semi-random searches using Google Images for other areas of research. I swan, you never know what’s going to pop up. I had so much fun with a recent image search, I’ve decided to share it with you.

I entered “Regency+Row+Bath” in Google Images and got . . . .

This photo led me to a fabulous site titled Cheltonia, all about “the Curiosities of Cheltenham Spa, Past and Present.” It’s a site filled with articles and photos on various architectural details, old streets, placenames, maps and tons of historical tidbits. Warning: you’ll be there awhile.

This photo linked to an Illustrated Glossary of Victorian Sartorial Terms, a subpage of A Compendium of 19th Century Fashions published by the University of Texas. Here’s a photo of an 1801 Court Dress found on the site.

There are tons of fashions on the site, each photo gorgeous and each can be enlarged. Enjoy!

This photo led to a site called In Jane Austen’s England, written by the lady who also runs Sense and Sensibility Patterns. It’s a travel blog about her trips to England to walk in the Regency era. Last post appears to be 9/24/10, but there are tons of pages and pics from this amusing lady who now apparently lives in Kenya. The photos are beautiful and numerous and her text engaging.

 
I  was led to a site called English Buildings: Meetings With Remarkable Buildings run by Philip Wilkinson, the author of The English Buildings Book, by the photo above. I liked the site so much that I’ve added it to our “Amusing Blogs” section.

And the photo below led me to a site called Demolition Exeter, about the destruction of that City’s historic buildings and old streets.

And finally, I met a girl with a sense of fashion and a sense of humour, Miss Nightingale, at Beyond the Pale, via this photo

Here’s a taste of Miss Nightingale’s prose from her “About Me” section: “Affianced to a wonderful man, I currently reside in rather grandly named Royal Tunbridge Wells, located in the county of Kent in the UK. Far from living in the castle (or, at the very least, a medium sized mansion) we so obviously deserve, we live like paupers rent a small flat. I am waiting for that benevolent [yet previously unknown] relative to leave me their entire estate, and expect the hand-written-on-vellum letter from their Dickensian solicitors any day now…

“It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that I am pretty much obsessed with the Victorian and Edwardian [also, to a lesser extent, 1920’s/30’s/40’s] eras, and have been for as long as I can remember. I distinctly recall my mother asking me what I would like to be when I was older. I replied: `A pickpocket!’ which didn’t exactly swell her maternal bosom with pride. Thank goodness I decided I wanted to be a ballet dancer [ha! Short-lived], an actress [secretly feel I missed my calling], a writer [secretly still wish] or Prime Minister [unwise] instead.”

Lots of fashions, yuks and gorgeous photos – I’ve added Beyound the Pale to our blogroll, too.

More finds soon . . . . . .