The New Baths at Margate in 1828

This plate was engraved for the 4 volume book: England’s Topographer. A New & Complete History of Of Kent from The Earliest Records to The Present Time. Including Every Modern Improvement. Embellished with a Series of Views From Original Drawings. With Historical Topographical Critical & Biographical Delineations……. by W H Ireland.

Ireland is most famous for producing fake Shakespeare’s of his own authorship and trying to sell them for large amounts of money. Known at the time as Shakespeare Ireland, his history of Kent was slated by the critics when first published. “Irelands history of Kent is a miserable performance, with pretensions to being a county history……….he does not appear to have visited the county…….” In those days before modern libel laws literary criticism was somewhat more robust than it is today.

I publish a cheap reprint of the Isle of Thanet section in the book and one day, given time, I hope to reprint more sections on the other parts of Kent.

As this book contains a great many engraved plates sad to say it is often broken up and the plates hand coloured and framed.