Centre Tree of England on the Road leading to Kenilworth in Leamington / Coniston Lake & Bay / Flowers

Two sheets of paper glued together along one edge. The recto of the top sheet features a rough graphite sketch of a tree with buildings in the distance. Inscribed top left, ‘Centre Tree of England on the Road leading to Kenilworth in Leamington’. This refers to a famous tree also known as the Midland Oak. Situated on what is now Lillington Road in Leamington Spa, the tree was supposed to mark the centre of England. On the verso of this sheet is a faint graphite sketch of a lake shore with a tree in the right-hand foreground. Inscribed ‘Coniston Lake & Bay’, referring to Coniston Water in the Lake District. The facing page features a graphite sketch of a flowering pot plant, with two smaller potted plants on either side. On the verso is an inscription in pen-and-ink: ‘Seven Sketches of the Lakes of Windemere, Coniston and Keswick taken in the Autumn of 1840. Bowness Church and Bay with Belle Isle, Regatta Day, on Westmorland Lake, Windemere’. This mention of additional sketches implies that these pages were originally joined to others, perhaps as part of a sketchbook. The drawings are the work of naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844). They were probably produced after his retirement from active service in 1821. In retirement, he lived at his estate at Highfield, near Southampton, and toured around various parts of England. He visited the Lake District at least once, in autumn 1840. For other examples of Hollis’s work, see PAH4885 and ZBB0352–84.