As several readers may know, my day job is looking after Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds. Chedworth sits comfortably within a region that supported some of the most prosperous rural estates in Britannia. Yet the world that sustained and shaped the villa extended far beyond the Coln valley.
BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Coan’s The Buried Man can only be described as magisterial. It is the culmination of decades of patient, methodical, and deeply informed scholarship. Coan has lived with, traced, and tracked H. Rider Haggard for much of his adult life, and this monumental volume represents the distillation of that long engagement. It is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time.
BLUE PLAQUES
This home was designed by Baker, Masey and Sloper in 1906 for Attorney Walter Webber and his wife, Margaret Ross, both keen gardeners. Their home was called Ednam. Webber came to Johannesburg in 1902 and established the firm Webber-Wentzel. He was a member of the Transvaal Legislative Assembly and represented Troyeville.