for a modern audience by one of my beloved tutors at
Oxford, Roger Lonsdale. I had therefore read Beckford –
and learned about his creation of the extravagant Fonthill
Abbey not far from Bath – at a fairly young age, but it is
as a collector that Beckford has remained best known,
both when he filled Fonthill with the fruits of his many
trips to the Continent and then, facing tougher financial
circumstances, "sold up" and moved the remnants of
his collection to Lansdown: paintings, statues, prints
and drawings, coins and medals, all of those objects
one places under the sign of virtù.
Beckford purchased No. 20 on the crescent, the last
townhouse on the western side, as well as No. 1
Lansdown Place West, the first townhouse across a
HYLAND
