BECKFORD'S TOWER AT BATH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 197, 4 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

BECKFORD'S TOWER AT BATH.

On Thursday, May 2, 1844, William Beckford, extravagant and eccentric patron of hooks and works of art, died at his residence, jn Lansdowne Terrace, Hath, which consisted of two houses, united by an archway, of which one was occupied by himself, and t'ne other by his servants. He acquired the land oehind them, extending up Lansdowne Hill, at the summit of which he bui'i what 'has ever since been known as Beckford's Tower, in Graeco-Ttalian style, 150 feet high, affording from iti summit a view of large portions ot Wiltshire and Gloucestershire as we'll* Somersetshire, and as far as the Bristol Channel and the elsh Hil's, Its object was to enabl- him to reta i a view of Fonthill Abbel n Wi'ta which his father, \Yilliam Beckford, a noted l.o'<l Yiayor it London, had 01. tained as a country residence, and where this r.nly child, inheriting at nine years old a million pounds of money and £IOO.OOO a year, erected a mansion at a cost of £273,000. but was compelled through such extravagance to sell it in 1*22 for £330,000, and in lt>2s its lofty tower fell. H's mother was a Hamilton and a grand-daughter of the sixth Earl of Ahercorn, and by '■lis marriage with a Lady Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aboyne, wl;o died three years afterwards, he had two daughters, one of whom married tiio tenth Dake of Hamilton, but tlie other he n-ver forgave- been use she married a Colonel Oide without her father's consent. So largely d'd lie collect valuable books that iVie Hamilton and Bock ford libraries, united through his daughter's marriage, were sold in I.kk* for £-56.441. He was himself author of a book named "Yathek, ' apr.aren tlv based on the "Arabian Night-." written bvSiim in French, for 'n earlv ' le he had travelled in Spain. Pottngal,' and France, witnessing the destruction by the revolutionists of the Bastille P' : >on in Paris "n 1759. He had desired that at his v nis bodv rest at the foot of his tower on Lansdowne. but it was taken across Bath io Widccmbe parsh on the soutfi side and laid in the Anher cemetery, ir; a granite sarcophagus which he had prepared. H'S daughter, tVl e Duchess of Hamilton, '-"are the tower and ground to Walcot parish as n cemeiery, and lijs remains were removed to the resting-place which ho desired.