Laudator Temporis Acti

Thomas Gray, letter to Joseph Wharton (September 18, 1754):

I had heard often of Guy-Cliff, two miles from the town, so I walked to see it; & of all improvers commend me to M^r Greathead, its present Owner. He shew'd it me himself, & is literally a fat young Man, with a head & face much bigger than they are usually worn. it was naturally a very agreable rock, whose Cliffs cover'd with large trees hung beetleing over the Avon, w^ch twists twenty ways in sight of it. there was the Cell of Guy, Earl of Warwick, cut in the living stone, where he died a Hermit (as you may see in a penny History, that hangs upon the rails in Moorfields) there were his fountains bubbling out of the Cliff; there was a chantry founded to his memory in Henry the 6^th's time. but behold the Trees are cut down to make room for flowering shrubs, the rock is cut up, till it is as smooth & as sleek as sattin; the river has a gravel-walk by its side; the Cell is a Grotta with cockle-shells and looking-glass; the fountains have an iron gate before them, and the Chantry is a Barn, or a little House. even the poorest bits of nature, that remain, are daily threatned; for he says, (& I am sure, when the Greatheads are once set upon a thing, they will do it) he is determined it shall be all new. These were his words, & they are Fate.

Mr. Greathead was Samuel Greathead (1710-1765), who built a house at Guy's-Cliffe in 1751. Here is his portrait, showing what Gray called "a head & face much bigger than they are usually worn":



The house at Guy's-Cliffe is now in ruins. Thanks to Alan Knell for taking the following photograph of the grounds:

Labels: arboricide