Topografie

Since New Amsterdam became New York in 1664, constant change and development has been its driving force. Today, it is America's densest urban environment and most vital city, boasting one of the most recognizable skylines in the world.

"Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, the woman who launched the restoration of Central Park in the 1980s, now introduces us to seven remarkable green spaces in and around New York City, giving us the history—both natural and human—of how they have been transformed over time. Here we find The greenbelt and nature refuge that runs along the spine of Staten Island on land once intended for a highway, where mushrooms can be gathered and, at the right moment, seventeen-year locusts viewed. Jamaica Bay, near John F. Kennedy International Airport, whose mosaic of fragile, endangered marshes has been preserved as a bird sanctuary on the Atlantic Flyway, full of egrets, terns, and horseshoe crabs. Inwood Hill, in upper Manhattan, whose forest once sheltered Native Americans and Revolutionary soldiers before it became a site for wealthy estates and subsequently a public park. The Central Park Ramble, an artfully designed wilderness in the middle of the city, with native and imported flora, magnificent rock outcrops, and numerous species of resident and migrating birds. Roosevelt Island, formerly Welfare Island, in the East River, where urban planners built a “new town in town” in the 1970s and whose southern tip is the dramatic setting for the Louis Kahn–designed memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Freshkills, the unusual twenty-two-hundred-acre park on Staten Island that is being created out of what was once the world’s largest landfill. The High Line, in Manhattan’s Chelsea and West Village neighborhoods, an aerial promenade built on an abandoned elevated rail spur with its native grasses and panoramic views of the Hudson River and the downtown cityscape. Full of the natural history of the parks along with interesting historical facts and interviews with caretakers, guides, local residents, guardians, and visitors, this beautifully illustrated book is a treasure trove of information about the varied and pleasurable green spaces that grace New York City."

This enchanting tour of America's most cherished birds and flowers is an intimate collection of lovely images from beloved letterpress studio Dutch Door Press. Each state's emblematic flora and fauna are paired in winsome vintage-inspired compositions and accompanied by fascinating facts about the states, the plant and animal species, and how they came to symbolize their regions. From the quail and poppy of California to the bluebird and rose of New York, every page of this volume offers a visual treat filled with charm and nostalgia. An exquisite tribute to a sweet tradition, Birds & Blooms of the 50 States is perfect for Mother's Day gifting and year-round good cheer.

This is a Lake District walking book with a difference. Designed for all ages and abilities, walkers will delight in this unique collection of easy forays into the beautiful, lesser known and quieter parts of Cumbria. And to add another dimension, author Graham Dugdale reveals a fascinating nugget of history, a whimsical tale or a heinous crime associated with each route. Graham's careful choice of routes, lively style, well-drawn attractive maps, and eye for a good story, guarantee both an excellent day out and a highly entertaining read.

North Yorkshire Is England's Largest County And, Being Almost 100 Miles Wide And 65 Miles Long, Offers Some Of The Country's Most Stunning Scenery. This Work Takes Readers Through The Wonderfully Varied Landscape Of North Yorkshire, And Examines Its Rich History Through Colour Photographs And Words.

"Readers of the poems of William Wordsworth have likely encountered at least in some small way his love of the garden and gardening. And those who’ve visited the Great Britain’s Lake District know well that Wordsworth was master of more than one craft.Each year, thousands of visitors from throughout the world treat themselves to an enchanting taste of Wordsworthian England on the grounds of Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount. There they find themselves awed by the aesthetic of the poet who designed the functional and pleasure grounds of the Wordsworth family gardens.Whether you’ve ever had the fortune to stroll the very terraces on which Wordsworth paced out his lines for posterity, you can do so again and again in this elegant full-color photo study by Carol and Richard Buchanan.In all of Wordsworth scholarship, no one has so definitively connected the themes of Wordsworth’s poetry to his philosophy of gardening or has truly in one work demonstrated how nature in the raw and rocky Lake District became the soul and backbone of a poet and gardener who would not be enslaved by the tastes of his day.Counterposing poems of the garden and the letters and journals of Wordsworth and his eloquent sister Dorothy, Carol Buchanan, in her quiet and sensitive manner, manages to picture the whole Wordsworth poet, gardener, and devoted and longsuffering family man. Illuminating Buchanan’s perspective on Wordsworth’s gardens, and on the Lake District that shaped Wordsworth’s sensibilities, are three never-before-published garden plans and more than one hundred breathtaking photographs by Richard Buchanan.The general layout and functional economy of the argument and explanations are very satisfying—like walking through a well ordered garden; and the authority of Buchanan’s discussions of the gardening work and thoughts of the Master is worn so unassumingly that no reader will be intimidated, yet scholarly readers will recognize the thoroughness of her study and be delighted at their own level.—Mark L. Reed"

In 1818, when Keats was 22 years old, he and his friend Charles Brown embarked on a 46-day walking tour through northern England, Ireland, and Scotland. This lovely volume, consisting of three sections, recreates Keats's tour. The introduction discusses Keats's circumstances and places his trip in the context of the social and political events of the time. At the center of the volume are some 150 photographs, many in color, taken by Walker as she retraced Keats's footsteps. Finally, there are the (annotated) letters and poems that Keats wrote during the tour and the journal that Brown later published.

With its literary history and Georgian architecture, its modern art galleries and classic pubs, Dublin has become both an international tourist destination and a place for stylish, sophisticated lifestyles. This book explores a city that both embodies urban life in a previous century and represents European style in the new millennium. Dublin's social tradition is represented in the hotels and parks, shops and racecourses - all alive with the resurgent excitement of the city. The book also explores the city's relationship with the literary life, from Jonathan Swift to Roddy Doyle - not to mention Shaw, Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, O'Casey and Beckett. It is completed by listings of places to stay and eat and a guide to the sights of the city.

Relive the days gone by in the countryside with this nostalgic, lavishly illustrated look at life in the British countryside from the Victorian era through to the 1960s. Explore every aspect of rural life, from the practicalities of growing and rearing food, to the intense hard work required of young and old, the craftsmen, the industries and markets that buoyed the local economy, and the sports, dances and festivals that were the hard-earned recreation. Discover the reality of living in a country cottage with no mains water, electricity or heating, and learn about the social structure of these close communities now swallowed up by urban sprawl and modern comforts. Illustrated throughout with many images never seen before, Times Past in the Countryside provides an account not just of the rose-tinted memories, but also some of the harsh realities of country life.

Through an interesting collection of pictures, this book tells the fascinating story of the British rural life. Covering everything from churches to windmills, castles to carts, it is of interest to lovers of the countryside.

An evocative compilation of anecdotes that reflect country life as it was in the first half of the 20th century, when the main power of a farm was still horse power, when a network of branch railway lines still criss-crossed the countryside and before poaching became big business. Taken from the Tales of the Countryside series, this is the second collection of interviews and anecdotes garnered from characters like Violet Mould who spent almost the whole of her life travelling England's inland waterways, or George Ranger, a Surrey farrier for over 50 years who never rode a horse. The 21 first-person reminiscences included here have captured the memories of a fast-disappearing breed of country people. They tell of poachers and gamekeepers, huntsmen and horses, farmers and the men and women who lived and worked on the big country estates between the two World Wars.

Part one, A Farm in South-East England - Part two, A Farm in South-West England.

"The architecture of Britain's houses displays a dizzying variety of styles and details. Brimming with 600 full-colour photographs, House annotates hundreds of examples from every conceivable angle from gables and pediments to chimneys and roofs; from bow windows and casements to fanlights and door furniture. Armed with a career's worth of experience and research, Philippa Lewis takes readers up and down the country to feature examples of typically British building, including cottages, manor houses, castles, bungalows, and flats. She also looks at houses built from a wide variety of materials, including stone, glass, wood, brick and even corrugated iron, in different settings such as rural, suburban, seaside and urban. Lively texts help identify specific details and place them in their historical context, as well as offering compelling examples of how innovative conversions of structures such as watermills, gatehouses, and churches reflect and sustain their environment. Readers interested in architectural history and design, and anyone looking to understand the nooks and crannies of their own home, will find this unique guide the most eye-opening and comprehensive of its kind."

Rising in the Cotswolds, the Thames flows through the heart of England on its way to the North Sea. This beautiful river, whose wandering course links together so many villages, towns and cities, is at the centre of English history. Since pre-Roman days it has been a major transport artery, and its 330 kilometre (205 mile) route has determined social, economic, political and regional boundaries over many centuries. Throughout history writers, artists and musicians have been drawn to its banks, adorned as they are with Royal palaces, country houses and abbeys. Passing from its source to the sea, via Lechlade, Oxford, Henley, Reading, Windsor and London, the Thames grows from a tiny stream into a mighty tideway, over a mile wide, its route a vital thread cutting through the varied hills, woods and farmland that characterise the traditional English countryside.

It may be Europe's last great wilderness, but Scotland is an ancient civilization with a unique culture. It was, perhaps, Sir Walter Scott who managed to rewrite Scotland's history as a heroic dramatic pageant. This book is a photographic tribute to the glory of the country and its people.

"The companion to the BBC series Wainwright Walks, with Julia Bradbury following in the footsteps of famous fell-walker and guide writer AW Wainwright. The series includes beautiful aerial sequences of Lakeland icons Blencathra and England's tallest mountain Scafell Pike. It was first broadcast in 2008 and regularly repeated on BBC4 and BBC2, most recently in December 2011. The book collects together all ten of the walks from Series I and II, with clear directions and Julia's commentary on her experience of the walks. Stills from the original series are augmented by the famous line drawings from Wainwright's original books, and evocative landscape photography by Derry Brabbs."

"Commemorating the 100th anniversary of The Guardian's much-loved Country Diary column, Martin Wainwright has compiled a collection of the best of a century's writing, covering the landscape of the whole of the United Kingdom, from Wales to Northern Ireland, Scotland to Norfolk. The column has consistently attracted some of Britain's best writers on natural history and the countryside Jim Perrin the mountaineering writer, whose biography of Don Whillans won the Boardman-Tasker Award, writes the dispatches from Snowdonia; Mark Cocker, author of Birders, writes the Country Diary from Norfolk. There are also diaries written by a leading Suffragette, one of Rupert Brooke's mistresses, and even one of The Guardian's printers. Martin Wainwright has found diaries to reflect the changing of the countryside over 100 years—from the prevalence of owls in World War I trenches full of vermin to the plant surveys of World War II bombsites."

Twenty-five churches in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside are here featured in a series of captivating photographic portraits by Matthew Byrne. The selection has been made on the basis of architectural distinction, beauty, quality of sculpture, carving or stained glass, historical interest or dramatic setting. The churches include remote medieval chapels, grand Victorian churches and modern city-centre landmarks in Manchester and Liverpool. Matthew Byrne's text displays a deep understanding and affection for church architecture, and his atmospheric photography captures the spirit of these unique buildings as architectural heritage, as historic monuments and as places of Christian devotion.

"Mike Parker, bestselling author of Map Addict, is back with a brilliant, intelligent and witty exploration of a glorious and passionate British subject - footpaths and our rights of way. Mike discovers how these paths have become part of our cultural landscape and why, at the tender age of 44, he suddenly finds himself at a crossroads. Provocative, funny and personal, this book celebrates Britain's unique and extraordinary network of footpaths. It examines their chequered and surprisingly turbulent history, from the Enclosures Acts of the eighteenth century to the 1932 Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire; and from the hard-won post-war establishment of great National Trails like the Pennine Way to the dramatic latter-day battles by the likes of Nicholas van Hoogstraten and Madonna to keep ramblers off their land. The story ranges far and wide, to all corners of the country and beyond, and is filled with the many characters that Mike engages with along the way - the poets and artists, farmers and ramblers, landowners and Rights of Way officers and campaigners, historians, archivists and anyone else who crosses his path (or even tries to block it)."

The Spirit of Britain is a masterly survey of the country?s arts literature, music, poetry, painting, architecture, theater, and all the related subjects that, over the centuries, have given British intellectual and cultural life its unique character and vitality. Presented to the reader as a single unfolding narrative, from the Celts to the present day, the arts are set within a vivid panorama of the social, economic, political, and ideological forces that shaped them. 400 gorgeous photographs and works of art add immensely to the dramatic impact of this landmark work of cultural history.

This portrait of Britain is intended as a pictorial souvenir and a guide to Britain for the next millennium. Britain is celebrated in all its diversity, from the streets of London to the Lake District. The varied landscape is featured region by region, with picture essays on the most dramatic areas. Every place of interest is visited, from historic towns and cities to castles, cathedrals and stately homes.

"For his third title in the stunning A Year in the Life of...series, noted climber, photographer and writer Bill Birkett turns his attention to another Lake District landscape, one of the most enchanting in Britain sylvan Borrowdale, which stretches from the high fells of Esk Pike and Great Gable down to Lake Derwentwater. Seasonal changes are more marked here than anywhere else in Britain. In spring, violets and anemones fill the woods; summer is a thousand shades of green while autumn's colours are shot through with golden beech trees and rusty bracken. Hill farmers and sheepdogs tend the native Herdwick sheep. Stone cottages and farms occupy the dale and stonewalls span hillside and valley. Fell-runners and hill-walkers explore the heights, while below them local life continues much as it has done for centuries. Born and brought up in the Lake District himself, Bill Birkett captures the nooks and crannies, the woods, watercourses and mountains of this much-loved Lake District scenery like nobody else."

The Peak District was an area viewed with fear and foreboding for a thousand years. Largely impenetrable to the traveller, it was called a 'howling wilderness' by Defoe. Its few inhabitants were uncouth and the last troglodytes in England. Their guttural dialect was barely intelligible and their fondness for drink was renowned and repellent. Since Saxon times the Peak was associated with evil and the abode of the devil was located in the huge cave known as Peak's Arse. By the Norman period this supernatural cavern was proclaimed one of the seven wonders of Europe. Elizabethan topographers declared it the first of the Seven Wonders of the Peak - all of which were natural phenomena except for Chatsworth, built amid what Charles Cotton called ' the warts and pudenda of Nature'. A magical transformation occurred, almost overnight, when the romantic period viewed the Peak in quite a different light. Its wonder was now its landscape - portrayed by artists and writers as picturesque, beautiful and sublime. Rousseau, the 'prophet of Nature' came to live there. Dovedale became Elysium and Monsal Dale Arcadia. Turnpike roads slowly opened up the Peak. Chatsworth was its showplace while Buxton strove to emulate Bath. Scientists such as Erasmus Darwin came to study its geology and industrialists such as Wedgwood and Boulton its minerals. Arkwright's cotton mills made it one of the 'cradles of the Industrial Revolution' and antiquaries and archaeologists explored its ancient remains. Ruskin foresaw the ruin of an idyllic world and raved against the coming of the railways and the curse of trippers. Yet, despite the inevitable scars, the area retained much of its natural beauty and, surrounded by burgeoning urban industrial growth, it became a focal point for the outdoor movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, by 1953 much of the Peak District was designated Britain's first National Park. What is surprising is that this important new book is the first full and

Journalist Andrew Bibby walks the route of the watershed in England that separates the water flowing westwards to the Irish Sea and the Atlantic from the water heading towards the North Sea Skirting the headwaters from Kinder Scout in Derbyshire as far as Hadrian's Wall, he explores various aspects of the area's history, ecology, geology and culture, and meets many of the people whose lives are shaped by the landscape. By choosing a strictly geographical route along the Pennines, rather than a man-made one, he gains crucial insights into how the landscape is created and maintained. This fascinating journey, illustrated with photographs by John Morrison, is a celebration of a much loved but little known part of England.

A treat for all lovers of the English countryside and local history, How to Read a Village is a fascinating and lavishly illustrated look at everything you see in a village — what it means and how it came to be there.

The Pennine Way is the first, and some would say the toughest, of Britain's National Trails. It runs for 256 miles up from Edale in the Peak District along the crest of the Pennines - sometimes known as the Backbone of England - and the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland across the Scottish Border to the village of Kirk Yetholm. The idea of access campaigner and outdoor journalist Tom Stephenson in 1935, the Pennine Way took 60 years to come into being, and is now probably the best-known test of long distance walking in the country. This book is a celebration, rather than a guide to the Pennine Way. While covering the important highlights, it does not stick to the designated route religiously but meanders from the official path where there are points of interest along the way. Illustrated by John Morrison's perceptive photography and award-winning writer Roly Smith's insightful prose, The Pennine Way is at once a beautiful and refreshingly different look at the grand daddy of our long distance footpaths.

"Alfred Wainwright (1907-1991) became the proverbial legend in his own lifetime. He made the Lakeland fells his own through a series of hand-drawn, hand-written guide books. Over 200 fells became known as 'Wainwrights'. His exploits have been emulated in the BBC television series ""Wainwright Walks"". This book presents a treatise on fell walking."

Wainwright The Man Who Loved the Lakes is a celebration of the British landscape, and it tells the remarkable story of Alfred Wainwright who in 1952 decided to hand draw a series of guides to the fells of Lakeland. For the next 13 years he spent every weekend walking, and every weekday evening drawing and writing - completing one page per night. The result was Wainwright's Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. Although initially self published they have now sold over a million copies and are still popular and much loved today. He went on to present a series of TV shows on the BBC about walking in the Lake District that made him even better known. He was an unlikely celebrity, he preferred his own company and thought walking in the countryside should be a solitary rather than group pursuit. Wainwright The Man Who Loved the Lakes introduces him to a new generation of lovers of the countryside, features some of Wainwright's favourite walks and is lavishly illustrated, including stunning aerial shots of the Lake District.

An illustrated tour of fifty of Britain's greatest woodland walks with specialist tree photographer and writer Archie Miles, published in association with the Woodland Trust. From beech woods, oak woods and pine woods to ancient forest, coastal woodland, ravine woodland and the very best arboreta, A Walk in the Woods ranges over twenty-five different topics and a wide geographical range, and includes encounters with some of Britain's most ancient and characterful trees. Complementing and crowning the series of nine regional woodland walking guides already published by Frances Lincoln, the book includes a Gazetteer with brief descriptive details and access information for the featured sites plus a shortlist of some of the best of the rest. The readable and deeply informed text describes the physical topography of each site, in context with the regional characteristics, incorporating information on vegetation, flora, wildlife habitats (with particular reference to rare, endangered or site specific species), as well as a wealth of social, cultural or industrial history. Spellbinding photographs taken throughout the seasons show the diverse interiors of the woodlands, with a range of views into and out of the woods, placing them in their landscape context. Also included are accompanying images of woodland details - fungi, flowers, wildlife, and historic features.

"For many walkers, Blencathra is the finest fell of them all. It stands steep-sided and solitary at the edge of Lakeland's northern fells. The ordinary way up, by Mousthwaite Comb and Scales Tarn, is an intriguingly easy ascent. There are also two Grade 1 scrambles Halls Fell is a ridge rising rockily for 400m, but nowhere difficult; while Sharp Edge is a narrow are te high above Scales Tarn, one of the finest but also one of the hardest Grade 1 scrambles in Lakeland. The ridges on either side of Halls Fell are slightly less rocky, but much wilder. The ravines between those ridges are full of scree, and sheep, and steep wet shale. For solitary wanderers, there's Carrock Fell. And there's the Back o' Blencathra. Youthful enthusiast, rough-handed scrambler, geologist and ghost-hunter, all emerge onto Blencathra's two-kilometre summit ridge. There you stroll on gentle gravel and grass, along the brink of that sudden drop to the south. Beyond Derwentwater and St John's Vale, laid out in panorama, is all the jagged roughness of Helvellyn, the Scafells, and Great Gable. But although Gable and Scafell are excellent hills, the one walkers keep coming back to, again and again, is Blencathra."

This text presents an innovative eight-session programme designed to prevent relapse in clients who have recovered from depression. Integrating cognitive therapy principles and practice into a mindfulness framework, the approach has been proven effective in controlled clinical research.

This unabridged compact edition of photographer Harry Cory Wright's breathtaking book documents his quest to capture the variety of natural landscapes that make up the modern British Isles. In the tradition of the great journeys undertaken by such photographic pioneers as Fox Talbot, Cory Wright travelled with his large-format plate camera through the fragile, frozen beauty of Unst in Shetland, down through the Western Isles and mainland Scotland to the dusty chalklands and glowing harvests of southern England and Wales. Each of his remarkable images is infused with the unique spirit of its location - from wild mountain ranges to secret woodland glades, from windswept beaches in winter to wheatfields gleaming in the late-summer sun. With an evocative foreword by award-winning travel writer Adam Nicolson, this is an outstanding portrayal of rural Britain today.

During the twentieth century there was an unprecedented and largely unforeseen transfer of property in Britain from private ownership into the hands of a single charitable institution, the National Trust. In 1945 the Trust owned 112,000 acres and had a membership of 7,850. Fifty years later, when celebrating its centenary, it had a membership of 2 million and the area of land it owned had increased more than fivefold Only relatively recently has the significance of this transfer begun to attract the serious interest of political and social historians. The National Trust and its donors have tended to be diffident about their generosity. The reasons for such generosity prove to be as varied as they are surprising and illuminating. Merlin Waterson's new book, concentrating on the period since 1940, and accompanied throughout by rare and unusual illustrations, sheds new light on the motives of some of the Trust's most important donors.

This ultimate getaway guide to over 1,000 places to visit, includes the best-loved and most popular parts of Britain - including all of the national parks, heritage coastline, areas of outstanding beauty, mountains, rural areas, as well as cities and towns. Easy-to-use maps, inspiring photographs and expert information provide everything needed for planning a visit to any part of the country, from walks and cycle rides to car tours and days out. There are details of the main annual events in each region and some great pubs and cosy tea rooms to stop at and enjoy the local fare.

This collection of photographs captures the spirit of London, a varied, bustling and exciting city. Photographer Anthony Epes has documented the many facets of London during the sleepy early hours before the chaos of the working day with a skill that accentuates the beauty of the images and skylines that we know so well. To complement this photography, writers and personalities who hold London dear to their hearts have provided their musings on the city they love. From Anthony Sher to Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare to Suggs, they have combined to create a body of work that will be a lasting testament to London at the turn of the Millennium.

"In keeping with the grandeur of the house, the grounds at Castle Howard in Yorkshire were designed on an heroic scale. The result of the fruitful collaboration between the 3rd Earl of Carlisle and the architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas HaWKsmoor, they were laid out in the early eighteenth century with sculpture, waterworks and an astonishing array of monuments. They are also rich in variety, with subsequent additions including a Victorian parterre designed by W.A. Nesfield, walled rose gardens, herbaceous borders and a potager. Given free access to this 1,000-acre landscape, Mike Kipling has photographed it in its many moods - in the summer light that brings the detail of the scene into sharp focus and on misty days in winter when a more mysterious atmosphere pervades. Through his skilled eye we see here vistas across lakes and ponds; Ray Wood and its serpentine pathways; the five-mile Avenue with its mock fortifications; the Temple of the Four Winds, the domed Mausoleum, the Atlas Fountain and other memorable sights. Turning his lens, too, to the planting - the carpet of snowdrops that are the first signs of the garden's awakening after winter, its abundant daffodils, its exceptional collections of rhododendrons and azaleas, and of 2,000 roses - Kipling has captured the beauty and magnificence of this spectacular place, which delights visitors with perpetual drama and event throughout the year."

London's gardeners are twice blessed not only do they live in one of the world's most vibrant capitals, it is also one of the most verdant. Gardens of every imaginable style, shape and size abound on rooftops, within palaces, surrounding churches, behind walls - on every piece of dry land - even if it is floating on or lapped by the river Thames. In Great Gardens of London, Victoria Summerley, Hugo Rittson Thomas and Marianne Majerus collaborate to unearth the most fascinating stories of plants and people inside London's most exciting gardens. Some of the gardens are strictly private, while others are regularly open to visitors, but all can now be savoured and enjoyed along with those who know them best. Great Gardens of London is a captivating photographic portrait of the greatest gardens of the capital which are primarily closed to the public or rarely open their gates. It will feature gardens designed by some of the leading contemporary garden designers from across the world. Accompanying the photographs will be essays on the design and planting that explain the designers' inspiration and passion.