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
Designed by FLH Fleming in 1926, the house displays many trademarks of the Baker tradition, but the crisply articulated portico lends it a sophistication that wouldn’t be out of place in a London townhouse. It was owned by the Oates family from 1933 to 1989. Originally from Australia, Bert Oates and his Brother Len were pioneers in the automative retail and manufacture industry in South Africa.