Diary Of A Cotswold Parson

Reverend F. E. Witts notices how the fashionable world behaves as he passes through Cheltenham, and how the building of the town progresses. We discover that John Forbes, the architect of the beautiful Pittville Pump Room, was sentenced to transportation for life for fraud, even though is was subsequently commuted to a few years in prison. The parson describes the countryside through which he travelled, and the country houses in which he stayed, particularly Prinknash, where he was frequent visitor to the Howell family, and Lydney, where he stayed with the Bathursts. His work at Gloucester also brought him into contact with some interesting historical figures, and the diary enables us to build a fuller, more rounded picture of these famous names: the inventor of smallpox vaccine, Dr. Jenner: the bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps, the philanthropist Samuel Warneford: and Bishop Monk.