Travelling Room to room on horseback …
A majestic mile-long drive lined with centuries-old oak trees leads to Middle Hill house.
All 20 rooms of it.
16 of which were packed with books belonging to Sir Thomas Phillipps, owner of the largest collection of privately owned books in the world.
Born in 1792 and an avid collector, he’d already amassed over 110 titles by the time he was six years old; declaring to a friend that “I wish to have one copy of every book in the world.”
Very soon he’d accumulated more than 60,000 manuscripts and 30,000 books and needed a house big enough to hold them.
Middle Hill, just outside Broadway fitted the bill. Perfectly.
A house so big that he would get from one part to another on horseback. Inside the house!
It’s eccentric, and in all honesty, quite brilliant.
Sure enough, he soon outgrew Middle Hill and moved to an even larger establishment in Cheltenham.
A move which took two years, 230 horses and 160 men to transport and left the countryside, so it was said, littered with the remains of carts that had collapsed under the sheer weight of the task.
Buying too much of something can prove to be unnecessarily expensive – just as Sir Thomas found to his cost.
Which is why we offer you multiple buying options to help you reduce waste and avoid overspend.
If you want a sounding board or just want to bend my ear, I’m on hand for a chat about anything to do with Print or Web Design.
Stay safe.
Alec