Weston Park

Authoritative and richly illustrated this account tells not only the story of the House, its setting and extraordinary collections, but also the influence that it has had on wider communities. * Shropshire Parks & Gardens Trust * Williams' beautiful new book, complete with copious illustrations, photographs, and architectural drawings, traces the history of both the house and its inhabitants. It is particularly refreshing to see the female contribution to Weston Park's history fully explored and acknowledged. -- Historic Houses Gareth Williams' book is more than an architectural history. Much is a family history, concluding with an admirably clear account of the transformation of an agricultural and industrial estate (or rather several estates) into the charity of 1986. This transformation has engendered deeper knowledge of the house and particularly of its exceptional contents, so that the book is as much the history of a top-quality collection, pictures, furniture, and porcelain, as anything else. Gareth Williams is the Curator, and his book is consequently the authoritative account. -- The Georgian At first sight Gareth Williams' publication on Weston Park is a delightful coffee table book: large, well-illustrated with a multitude of attractive colour photographs, all suitably captioned. Further examination shows that it is much more. The text is an extraordinarily detailed narrative of the history of Weston Park and its families, in terms of both local and wider contexts, from medieval to present times. -- Pamela Sambrook * The Local Historian *