BECKFORD'S TOWER AT BATH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16718, 11 August 1916, Page 6

BECKFORD'S TOWER AT BATH.

On Thursday, ilay.2, 1844, William Beekford," extravagant and eccentric patron of books and works of art, vied it ,J:is residence, in Lansdowne Terrace. Uatb, which .eoas'sted of two houses, united by an arclnv. v, of which on? w;t« occupied by himself, and the other b^ jiis fiarvants. He acquired the land behind them, extending up Lansdowne Hilt, at t-Le summit of ■which he bui't what "has ever since been known t :«?•

Beckford's Tower,- in Graeeo-Ttalim style, 150 fnet high, affording from i*-.->

si;;nrait a view of large portions o" Wiltshire :»nd Gloucestershire a" xv?" -a." Someraetshir.e, and as far as the ;. Pristol Channel and the Vv'elsh Hi1'?, -'Its object was to enav-- him to ret.' v

a, view of Fonthill Abbel in Wilton:

.which-his father, "William Beeki'ord, n noted tj.j'd jNiavor • f London, had o;>-

. tamed as a country residence, and I where this only child, inheriting -it i nine years old a million pounds of mon-o-v and £100,000 a yar, erected a i.nnnion at a cost of £273,000, but was ..compelled through such extravagance _"to sell it in 1522 for £330,000, and ;n

1820 its lofty totver -fill. His mother was a Hamilton ;,nd a grand-daughter of tli3 sixth Earl of Ahprcorn, and by 'Ms marriage with a Lad/ Gordon, .daughter of the, Earl of Abovne, who died three years r.fterwards, he had two daughters, one of whom married the tenth Duke of Hamilton, but t*he

other he never forgave beenuse-she

■married a Colonel Orde without her ■ father's consent. So largely did he col- ' lec'-t valuable hooks that tfhe Hamilton ifid He.ckford librai'ies, united through • lis daughter's marriage, were sold m ' JBB3 for £86,444. H* was himself au- - Hftr of a book named "Vathek," apparently based' on the "Arabian ■Nights," written by'him in French, for in early Ijfe he had travelled in cJpain, Portugal, and France, v/itnessinji the destruction by the revolutionists of the

Bastille Prison in Paris jn 1789

.had desired that at hi? death-'his body - should rest at ihe foot of his tower on ■ Lansdownc,' but it. was taken across Bath to Widcombe parish on the soirbli side and laid in the Anhe.r c«-met?ry. h\ •a jrranite sarcophagu?. which he had

prepared. His daughter, the Duchess "of Hamilton, gave the tower and ,ground to "VValcot parish as a cemetery, and then hjs remains were re- ■ moved to the resting-place which he ' desired. .