Ashcombe

E-230: B. T. Batsford Ltd.. Good. 1949. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Published by B. T. Batsford, Ltd. , London, UK. 1949. Viii, 124 pgs. Illustrated. First Edition/First Printing. Bound in cloth boards with titles present to the spine. Boards have shelf-wear present to the extremities (spine is sunned and faded). Offsetting present to the endpapers. Previous owner's name present to the FFEP. Text hs notes and marks present to the margins. Binding tight and solid. The author's account of his residence at Ashcombe from 1930 to 1945, with mentions for many of his guests. Ashcombe House, also known as Ashcombe Park, is a Georgian manor house, set in 1,134 acres (4.59 km2) of land on Cranborne Chase in the parish of Berwick St John, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The photographer and designer Cecil Beaton first visited the house in 1930, taken there by the sculptor Stephen Tomlin together with the writer Edith Olivier. He was later to write of his first impression of the house, as he approached it through the arch of the gatehouse: "None of us uttered a word as we came under the vaulted ceiling and stood before a small, compact house of lilac-coloured brick. We inhaled sensuously the strange, haunting and rather haunted atmosphere of the place . I was almost numbed by my first encounter with the house. It was as if I had been touched on the head by some magic wand." EB; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 0 pages .