In addition to the topographical guides covered in Chapter 12, there were a number of publications that concentrated on houses and gardens, with small images usually facing a page of descriptive text. The three principal sets were William Watts's Seats of the Nobility and Gentry (1779), William Angus's The Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in Great Britain and Wales (1787), and Picturesque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales by Harrison & Co (1786). The prints were sold individually as well as in bound sets, and have differing dates of publication, so the dates above are ‘from’. To these can be added the collections by Paul Sandby from 1774 to 1781, which embraced urban sights, natural scenery, bridges and old buildings as well as houses and gardens. The fact that all these publications are clustered in the decades 1770–90 and just beyond points to competition and rivalry, but above all to the rise of tourism and the progressively ‘picturesque’ way of portraying and seeing.

The issuing of prints individually was clearly driven by commercial considerations. It might help the consumer to be able to purchase a single print if more were not required, but overall more prints would be sold as a result.

William Watts

Watts (1752–1851), who nearly reached his century, was a pupil of Paul Sandby and Edward Rooker and took over publishing The Copper Plate Magazine after Rooker's death. His masterpiece was the Seats, but he also subsequently engraved sets of views of Bath, London and, after extensive travels abroad, Turkey and Palestine, retiring in 1805 although he had 46 more years to live. His sympathies were with the French Revolution: he went to Paris and lost a considerable sum through becoming financially involved. The Seats, however, betrays no such feelings and is as respectful (not to say sycophantic) to the nobility as could be. Doubtless he knew on which side his bread was buttered, and he had a living to make.

The collection of seats by Watts brings together the work of a number of artists including such prominent names as Richard Wilson, William Tomkins, Paul and Thomas Sandby, Arthur Devis, JC Nattes, Michael Angelo Rooker, Thomas Hearne, George Barret, William Hodges and Humphry Repton.