{"id":10981,"date":"2012-02-17T01:41:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T01:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=10981"},"modified":"2012-02-17T04:23:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T04:23:00","slug":"fonthill-abbey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2012\/02\/17\/fonthill-abbey\/","title":{"rendered":"Fonthill Abbey"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Views such as these are all we’ve ever have of Fonthill Abbey, a monstrous pile that would have been Britain’s most grandiose folly had it not collapsed in 1825. William Beckford (1760\u20131844) was the man responsible, among other things a very wealthy and bisexual writer whose Vathek<\/em> (1786) is one of the better Gothic novels. The Gothic fad fuelled many such constructions, Horace Walpole having inaugurated the trend decades earlier at Strawberry Hill House<\/a>. Fonthill always fascinates for that outrageously excessive octagonal tower which must have been visible for miles across Wiltshire. Plans and other views show that excess was also a factor elsewhere, especially in the vast hall. The pictures here are from Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. There’s a book at the Internet Archive A Description of Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire<\/em><\/a> (1812) by James Storer, a contemporary account describing the building in detail, and also Delineations of Fonthill Abbey<\/em><\/a> (1823) by John Rutter.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The etching and engraving archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Gothic details<\/a>
\n\u2022 Schloss Falkenstein<\/a>
\n\u2022 Pite\u2019s West End folly<\/a>
\n\u2022 Viollet-le-Duc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Views such as these are all we’ve ever have of Fonthill Abbey, a monstrous pile that would have been Britain’s most grandiose folly had it not collapsed in 1825. William Beckford (1760\u20131844) was the man responsible, among other things a very wealthy and bisexual writer whose Vathek (1786) is one of the better Gothic novels. … Continue reading “Fonthill Abbey”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,42,21,5],"tags":[3360,3361,3362,397,1510],"class_list":["post-10981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-books","category-fantasy","category-gay","tag-horace-walpole","tag-james-storer","tag-john-rutter","tag-viollet-le-duc","tag-william-beckford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2R7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}