peterhaleas posted: " It's a delightful Monday in Ames, the sun is shining, the fields are turning green, birds are singing, and you want to get the heck out! On days like these, what better spark for a dream than a beautiful old book to inspire your heart and imagination?"
It's a delightful Monday in Ames, the sun is shining, the fields are turning green, birds are singing, and you want to get the heck out!
On days like these, what better spark for a dream than a beautiful old book to inspire your heart and imagination? Feeling primed to get out of Iowa today, I looked back in Special Collections and found Rivers and Streams of England, a book of Harold Sutton Palmer's watercolors. What better way to learn about new places I'd never have discovered otherwise?
First let's take a look at Coethele.
I've wanted to travel to Cornwall for some time, but I never knew anything of Cotehele House, the edges of which make this painting. On the River Tamar, Cotehele House is a medieval house built in 1458, barely changed even til today. Fronted and backed by beautiful gardens, today visitors can stroll through, wondering how the Edgecumbe family lived across the centuries in this incredible estate. An old mill for grinding corn is nearby on the property also.
How about this?
Located in today's Cambridgeshire, Hemingford Abbots is a tiny town of 636 residents, and probably the pastoral fairy tale dream of many more. On the Ouse River, walkers can see the spire of St. Margaret's Church, which dates partially from c. 1300. Sheep roam the pastures. Houghton Mill turns on the Ouse. It's easy to dream away a lifetime in a quiet, peaceful town like this.
On an Iowa Monday, all it takes is to open a book in Special Collections & University Archives (Parks Library 4th Floor M-Th, 9-5), dream up a place to whisk myself away from Ames, and know that these Sutton Palmer paintings are where someday my feet will go.
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