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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Woburn Abbey
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(24km/15m SW of Bedford) Site of a Cistercian abbey granted to the Russell family (now dukes of Bedford) in 1547. The house dates mainly from the 18C, with successive parts designed by Henry Flitcroft (1697–1769) and Henry *Holland, though a celebrated shell grotto survives from an earlier building of the 1620s. The most historic of the paintings in the house is the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, with the wrecked ships of the *Armada depicted behind her.
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The park, landscaped by *Repton from 1816, is notable for its herd of Père David's deer; the species was preserved here after dying out in China in the late 19C (22 animals were returned to China from Woburn in 1985). Also in the park is a temple of 1818 by *Wyatville, now empty because it was built to house The Graces, a group of three marble nudes by the Italian neoclassical sculptor Antonio *Canova. In the late 1980s they were removed from the temple and offered for sale.
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