The individual panoramas repay close scrutiny. They are serviceable for their dogged depictions of local antiquities, grand constructions, geological features, all from an elevated Point of View. The landscapes are staffed by the Haut Monde with representatives of the working classes. The groupings of the idle classes have a genuine ease and grace to them.

The very nature of the POV encourages a narrative interpretation of the scene, presenting information how an urban settlement is to be approached on path and road with forest, spinney and copse encountered. In all of the panoramas there is a keen sense of how the margins of human settlement are constructed, approximating that sense of anticipation as the wanderer makes her/his way to the centre of town.

My favourite visual prompts are Durham and Kings' Lynn (then Lynn). Some of the Prospects demonstrate a Hollaresque understanding of cubic structures created by adjacant houses in a town. In the assemblage of buildings in Leeds I sense the participation of the drawing frame whereas elsewhere the architecture is merely a patterned summary.

IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN