1st Edition
The Countryside on View A Handbook on Countryside Centres, Field Museums and Historic Buildings Open to the Public
Originally published in 1971 The Countryside on View is a handbook which provides extensive information about the many ways in which visitors to rural areas may find out about what they have come to enjoy. A major part of it concerns small countryside centres which house information services and which are designed to give both the casual visitor and organised educational parties a deeper understanding of the place they have come to see. The book also has chapters on the techniques involved in the showing of historic monuments and buildings, from lonely cromlechs and romantic ruins to churches, house, bridges and other structures which are still in use. A pioneering work in the field of Museum Studies.
Biography
Elizabeth Beazley was born in the Wirral and served in the WRNS in World War II. She qualified as an architect and worked for Lionel Brett in Oxfordshire, where her work included involvement with Hatfield new town. She subsequently freelanced and made several extended visits to Turkey and Iran in the late fifties and sixties to work on archaeological digs with some of the leading experts of the period. She became a specialist on the vernacular buildings of the Iranian plateau. She combined a career as an author with freelance work as a landscape architect, particularly in the field of visitor access at a time when car ownership was becoming universal. She undertook a significant amount of work for the National Trust, serving on its Architectural Panel for many years. Erddig in North Wales and Culzean in Ayrshire are but two properties that strongly show her influence.
Original Reviews of The Countryside on View:
‘Elisabeth Beazley…gives the nuts and bolts of setting up and running these centres and writes with authority on how to avoid the ‘dry-as-dust museum’ atmosphere.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘…a significant contribution to the literature in the field.’ Museum News (USA)
‘…gives some excellent advice.’ Oxford Mail
