Lot 232

[Neve, Richard]

The City and Countrey Purchaser

Books & Manuscripts

Auction: From the Library of Professor Roland Paxton | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 221 to 252

Estimate: £300 - £500

Description

… and Builder's Dictionary: or, the Compleat Builder's Guide. London: printed for J. Sprint, 1703. First edition, 8vo (19 x 11cm), contemporary panelled calf, sprinkled edges, joints cracking, boards scuffed and worn at extremities, front free endpaper with manuscript notes in 18th-century hand [Harris 595; ESTC N5034];
Morris, Robert. Lectures on Architecture. Consisting of Rules Founded upon Harmonick and Arithmetical Proportions in Building. London: printed for R. Sayer, 1736-59. 2 volumes in 1 (part 1 is the second edition of 1759, part 2 is the first edition of 1736), 8vo (22.2 x 12.8 cm for part 1, 21 x 12cm for part 2), contemporary half calf rebacked, raised bands red spine labels, 4 engraved plates in part 1, 12 (1 folded) in part 2, board edges and corner tips worn [Harris 570-71; ESTC T91318 & T90780];
Price, Francis. The British Carpenter: or, a Treatise on Carpentry. Containing the most Concise and Authentick Rules of that Art. London: printed by C. Ackers, 1759. Fourth edition, 4to (25 x 18.5cm), contemporary sheep rebacked, raised bands, 60 engraved plates, boards scuffed [Harris 710; ESTC T118096];
together with 4 others similar (7)

Provenance

From the collection of the late Professor Roland Paxton MBE FICE FRSE (1932-2025), 'Britain's foremost historian of civil engineering' (Telegraph, obituary, 12th November 2025); Professor Paxton was also a leading conservationist of Britain's engineering heritage, and led successful campaigns to restore two of the world's most important railway structures, the Laigh Milton Viaduct in Ayrshire, the world's oldest surviving railway bridge, and the Union Chain Bridge, the world's oldest suspension bridge still carrying road traffic.

Footnote

Richard Neve's The City and Countrey Purchaser “was an entirely new type of architectural book... in which diversified material is brought together from many different sources and arranged alphabetically under catchwords” (Harris p.331). There are two recorded issues of the first edition with different imprints.
Robert Morris was “the outstanding theoretical writer [on architecture] of the first half of the eighteenth century” (Harris p. 317). “The first edition of pt. I [of Lectures on Architecture] was evidently exhausted before that of pt. II which did not require reprinting … The second edition of pt. I is not a page-for-page reprint. It ends on p. 132 instead of 134 and is therefore not continuously paginated with pt. II” (Harris p. 323).
Price's Treatise on Carpentry, first published in 1733, “was the first comprehensive work on carpentry in English and the standard one for the remainder of the century” (Harris p. 374)