The Diary of a Cotswold Parson

These journals, written in the early part of the 19th century, provide an insight into Gloucestershire life and the world of the Victorian parson. Witts describes his life, work and pastimes, just before rail transport made travel a lot faster. He notices how the fashionable world behaves as he passes through Cheltenham, and how the building of the town progresses. The reader discovers that John Forbes, the architect of the beautiful Pittville Pump Room, was sentenced to transportation for life for fraud, even though it was subsequently commuted to a few years in prison. The parson describes the countryside through which he travelled, and the country houses in which he stayed, particularly Prinknash, where he was a frequent visitor to the Howell family, and Lydney, where he stayed with the Bathursts.