| Description | This series of volumes contain drawings and sketches of examples of architectural and artistic elements principally found in churches and churchyards in England and Wales. A small quantity of material in these volumes relate to examples of features found in Scotland and in continental Europe. Each volume usually has one or more indexes to the illustrations which have been created by the compiler. Some of the volumes contain loose notes in Richardson's hand which often relate to the compilation of the indexes.
In addition to the drawings and sketches, the majority of the volumes contain cuttings, extracted from published sources, of other illustrations of features and these occasionally include accompanying text. Many of the volumes also include more comprehensive listings of and notes about the relevant feature. Richardson has compiled these from published sources. However, a number of the volumes in this series do not include the listings which, in some cases, can be found in Richardson's second series of volumes.
Each volume is usually devoted to a single feature or a group of closely related features, as indicated by the title assigned by Richardson. These volumes have also all been numbered by Richardson although his numbering is not entirely consistent. Some of volumes relate to the same feature and are merely companion volumes; while a few of these bear the same volume number (for example, the volumes relating to church chests are numbered Volume 32, parts 1 & 2), others are given separate numbers (for example, the two volumes relating to church windows are numbered Volumes 14 & 15). Other volumes relating to the same feature have been separated either by different architectural periods, such as the volumes for both fonts and capitals, or by geographical areas, as in the case of the volumes relating to stone crosses of Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Man. and these are each given a unique volume number. There is also some repetition and overlap of contents of a number of
volumes. |