Specimens of Gothic architecture and ancient buildings in England : comprised in one hundred and twenty views
A late eighteenth-century antiquarian collection of engraved views of English Gothic buildings, published in London in 1839 from drawings by John Carter, a topographer who recorded medieval churches, abbeys and castles for architects and antiquaries. The four pictures are small outline views of ruined abbeys and castles, printed sideways on the page with handwritten captions beneath, showing towers, gateways, broken walls and the surrounding landscape. A designer could take from them the picturesque ruin motif: crumbling masonry, pointed arches and sketchy hatched shading suited to period illustration or heritage graphics.
