Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Netley Abbey

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 16:04, 4 November 2008 [1].

Netley Abbey[edit]

Nominator(s): Soph (talk)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because Netley Abbey is one the best preserved medieval Cistercian abbeys in England. The abbey was a royal foundation of the thirteenth century and, after the Dissolution, was a home for important Tudor politicians. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the ruins of the abbey became the subject of much art and poetry of the romantic movement. Today, the extensive remains of Netley Abbey are recognised by the UK government as an Ancient Monument of national importance.Soph (talk) 04:55, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Can anything be done about the mass whitespace that starts midway through the Country house section? Giggy (talk) 08:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response: Now fixed! Soph (talk) 18:14, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional support, pending image concerns I see your rationale for the gallery, but I too prefer to see images integrated with the text. If I were the main editor of the article, I would try to move the picture of Paulet's gatehouse into the section on Paulet's house, and move the picture of the west range to the section describing it. The picture of visitors in the crypt would look well in the folklore section, and one of the engravings in the romantic ruin section. The remaining images are on commons and linked via the commons link if a reader wishes to see them. Anyway, absence of galleries is not a FA criteria, and the layout and licences look OK, so I've struck out my conditions. DrKay (talk) 08:59, 25 October 2008 (UTC) *Yes, is it necessary to force the layout of the page? It leaves a big white space on the right. I would prefer the images to be placed another way.[reply]

  • The images from Wyrdlight probably need OTRS permission, and strictly speaking the image of Paulet should have a source. Given the strength of the other images, these could always be removed if concerns cannot be addressed.
Response:
  • (i) We forced the layout because there were serious problems with the little blue "edit" links bunching up away from their sections. I've completely revised the layout and image usage and it's no longer necessary now, so I've removed the forcing.
  • (ii) I've replaced the Wyrdlight images with other (colour) images with no licensing concerns. I've deleted Sir William. It was a shame to lose him as he is important and it was nice to have a person in the article, but on checking back on the image's page I saw that the copyright had been disputed. Hopefully that will be resolved and he can come back in the future. Soph (talk) 18:14, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is unnecessary, in my opinion, to have a citation at the end of every sentence when successive sentences are from the same source. The source can just be placed at the end of the section. DrKay (talk) 08:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look good, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment — That mass of whitespace in the middle of the article is rather distracting. Also, is there a need for so many images, particularly in a row like that? Images should alternate between left and right alignments. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 16:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: The layout is now fixed. I do think that the number of images was appropriate because Netley is a large building with a long and complex history, and one that has been heavily featured in art. I thought it would be useful to the reader to show it at different periods of its existence. The historical images have now been grouped in their own gallery at the bottom of the page. Soph (talk) 18:14, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Weak oppose - The content is certainly here to take this to FA but I think it needs a lot of copyediting, I counted many short sentences which affected the comprehension and flow of the article and some of the phrases are slightly awkward which also disturbs the way in which the article progresses. Also there are numerous grammar and MOS issues I spotted. For instance why the isolated sentence on "The entire building was roofed with lead, and there were windows in the gables of the attic."[1][5]?? Also I appreciate that the early part of the article discusses its history 750 years ago so accuracy is often difficult to confirm, but if you scan across the article you'll see a high degree of repitition with the words "probably" or "likely". An encyclopedia article should really be based purely on fact as much as possible rather than guesswork. Given the circumstances and what evidence exists though I can accept that it is difficult to be very precise, but it could be reworded to avoid leaving the impession to the reader that it is a grey area in terms of accuracy. Potentially with some polishing up I would be likely to approve of the article. Could do with the removal of some images (some of the black and white images could be removed), and a left and right distrubtion would seemingly give it a better balance from a visual and aesthetic perspective Blofeld of SPECTRE (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response:
  • (i) Matters of prose style are, of course, de gustibus. I've done some rewriting in the light of your comment but I am probably too close to the text. I wrote it and have rewritten it and read it many times, it is my academic field so things that to me need a brief note require more for the general reader, and of course one cannot sub one's own work, which is why a fresh eye is so essential. I fixed the example you gave and a few more considering of your remarks, but I'd be grateful if you could give more examples where you think the writing is weak so matters can be rectified.
  • (ii) re use of 'probably' and 'likely' in the discussion of the buildings and their use during the monastic period qualifying some statements is necessary. Netley is a complex archaeological site with many periods of construction and use; much must depend on interpretation and analysis of the existing ruins in combination with the archaeological evidence (bearing in mind that Netley was excavated in the 1860s using the primitive methods of the time), documentation and comparison to other sites. Where the article says something is probable or likely we are 99.9% sure that it was the case (for instance that the warming house was probably vaulted) but the surviving remains and extant sources do not allow complete certainty. These statements reflect the consensus of scholarly opinion (Netley is not a controversial site) and the full supporting evidence is given in the cited works for the use of the interested reader. Where we have to be genuinely tentative, for instance on the question of the whereabouts of the abbey's infirmary, that is, I hope, made clear. I have perhaps written over cautiously in some places, giving the impression these things are a matter of debate, so I've tightened up several passages to fix the issue. See what you think. Soph (talk) 14:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Oppose - There are some issues to address before I can support.

  • I don't think the lead picture in the infobox is a good choice, given the many other options in the article, on commons, and on Flickr (with acceptable licenses) [2].
  • The grid reference is not needed in the opening sentence. That is already provided in the infobox.
  • Source needed in the Monastic history section for the sentence "The king provided some small grants and the abbey managed to ride through its difficulties, but the sale of much of the property meant that income levels never recovered and it settled into what might be best described as genteel poverty."
  • Except for the unsourced sentence, the Monastic history section appears to be all referenced to a single source, yet the cite is repeated multiple times in those paragraphs. If there is a quote, then a duplicate cite might be needed. Otherwise, when the same cites are repeated consecutively, I think it's needed just once in the last occurrence.
  • I also see that some parts of the article text are put into a table, beginning in the "Cloister and east range" section to the "Netley in literature and art" section. I really don' think using a table in this way is appropriate.
  • There is a large white space in the article, I think caused by the table along with there being too many images. The white space appeares between the "Netley in literature and art" and the "Present day" section.

--Aude (talk) 18:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response
  • (i) Done. I've replaced it with a nice general view of the interior of the church looking west into the nave.
  • (ii) Done.
  • (iii) Done.
  • (iv) Done and several other instances fixed as well. I hope I have got them all.
  • (v) Done. As I said above we did this to fix the blue "edit" links appearing in the wrong places including under the body text. All fixed now.
  • (vi) Done.

Soph (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With the changes, the article is much improved. I made some additional changes, including removing forced pixel sizes per WP:MOS#Images and removing duplicate, consecutive references. The sources all look okay. Though, I'm not ready to support, as I think the article can use further copyediting by someone uninvolved with the article. Sentences like "He died in 1550." in the Dissolution section don't come across as engaging or "brilliant" prose, which is one of the WP:FACR criteria. --Aude (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: Thankyou for all the work you have done on the article to improve the text and catching the duplicate references that I missed. Perhaps you are right that a completely fresh eye should go through and tidy up the prose as now revised. Soph (talk) 13:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone through the article and removed instances with duplicate, consecutive refs. One ref tag can cover multiple sentences, if they are all using the same source.
In going through the article, I noticed a few other issues:
  • The sentence, "The upper level was reached by an external staircase..." in the "Precinct" section is not cited. I think it needs a cite.
  • "inhabited the abbey until the close of the seventeenth century." in the "Country house" section is missing a cite.
  • In the "In literature and art" section, "In 1764, George Keate wrote The Ruins of Netley Abbey, A poem..." does the ref there cover the entire sentence? or just the part of the sentence up to "a poem"?
  • "Netley has its own opera, Netley Abbey, an Operatic Farce..." - I'm not thrilled with having a one sentence paragraph. Can that sentence be combined with another paragraph? or can something be added about the opera, so that the paragraph is more than a single sentence?
Aside from these issues, I think the article is much improved with the copyedits done by User:Malleus Fatuorum. --Aude (talk) 04:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
response:
  • Done. Moved the cites as they covered everything about the abbot's house.
  • Done. Moved the cite to a more appropriate place as it covers it all.
  • Done. Ditto
  • Done. I'm not sure how that sentence got separated, it was meant to be part of the para above. I've now mentioned that the set of the opera featured a recreation of the ruins, but I'm not sure that we need to go into any more detail about it, it's really is only a footnote in the history of Netley (I've read it, it's really, really bad).
I agree that User:Malleus Fatuorum has done an excellent job of tidying up the text. Soph (talk) 11:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I read through the article again and don't see any reason why the article should not be promoted. Good work! --Aude (talk) 20:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Query In the Refectory sectiion what does the phrase "monks' frater" mean? .ϢereSpielChequers 23:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response: The frater is the medieval Latin name for the dining hall for the monks. Fixed now, and thanks to your comment I also caught a couple of uses of dorter (dormitory) Soph (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is something really wrong in the layout of the page, and I corrected WP:MSH issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response: Thanks for your work on the WP:MSH issues. The layout is now fixed. Would you be willing to review the revised article in the light of Wikipedia:Accessibility#Images so I can see and fix where I have gon wrong? I want Netley Abbey and other articles I am working on to be completely accessible to differently abled readers.
  • Comment Kill the gallery. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 18:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Don't kill the gallery. But do desize the pics, and use some more in the text sections. I can't see a particular sequence in the gallery arrangement, and unless I'm missing it, a chronological order would make more sense. Layout looks fine now, on my set up anyway. Prose needs some polishing. Johnbod (talk) 00:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: The gallery is done with the template from the the wiki picture tutorial and I don't want to screw about with that as it should display images in the right size for readers' screens. I've now put the images in chronological order per your suggestion. Originally when the article was submitted for FAC the images in the gallery were in the text, but other editors noted that there were too many pictures for an article of this length so I put all the historical images together. I believe that these pictures are useful to the reader as they demonstrate that Netley was a popular subject for artists of the 18th and nineteenth centuries as asserted in the text, show Netley through the ages and also show now lost features such as the vaults of the church. Soph (talk) 13:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I meant the pics in the main text should be de-sized, as Mos dictates. Some could be moved up from the gallery, especially those showing now-collapsed bits, and something to go next to the text on the later period as a ruin. Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with comments. I have made a few edits to the article to hopefully improve some minor problems with the prose. [3]. Please consider merging the short Abandonment section with Romantic Ruin. Reference 42 is missing page numbers and is there an ISBN for the Department of the Environment source? (Apart from this the sources seem excellent). The Folklore and ghosts section is weak, I would prefer to see that long quotation removed and summarised (but this is not a big deal), and I don't like the way the article ends with a quotation (again, no big deal). Some readers might think the Lead is too short, but it is difficult to see how it could be usefully expanded. Will some of the images from the Gallery fit into the body of the article? And, please get someone to double-check of the image licenses. Well done. Graham Colm Talk 11:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: The missing page number for the reference is now fixed. Unfortunately, there is no ISBN for the Department of the Environment list as far I have been able to discover as it's simply a government document rather than a published book. I think the quote from Browne Walters is evocative and it's good to have a near contemporary source for the legend of Walter Taylor's dream to show that the legend is not a modern one. Netley has a lot of folklore, far more than is mentioned in the article, but I've had to leave it out because it's almost impossible to get reliable cites for things like that. Soph (talk) 17:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Comprehensive and well structured. Will take another look for minor punct fixes etc. --mervyn (talk) 15:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • I would prefer to see "founded in 1239" rather than the vague "early thirteenth century" in the lead. No reason not to give the date, honestly.
  • Okay, very first sentence. "is a medieval monastery"... was would be more appropriate if you're going to call it a monastery. If you want to go with current day stuff, "remains of a medieval monastery" or "the site of a medieval monastery"... but as it's written, the first sentence implies that the monastery is still intact and running.
  • Lead - second paragraph, "donate to the nation"? very formal. Perhaps its my Yank background, but it rings wrong in my ears.
  • Lead first paragraph - "300-year monastic history", first I'd drop monastic, it's uneeded here. Second, precision, while Netley was close to 300 years, it didn't quite make it, perhaps "its nearly 300 year history was quiet."
  • Foundation - second sentence - the last phrase is awkwardly tacked on to the rest of the sentence, perhaps reword to "The abbey was one of a pair that the bishop concieved as a memorial to his memory, the other is ..."
  • Romantic ruin - "to realise the by now unfashionable house for cash from the materials." I think that's a bit opaque to non-Brits. I take it you mean that he demolished it for the building materials?
  • I'm always hit for this ... "In the 1760's Thomas Drummer, who owned a lot of land...", a lot of is not very encyclopedic.
  • I find it very odd to have the foundation, then a long discussion of the buildings, then the monastic history and the rest of the history. Perhaps move all the history together?
  • No need to have the see also section, as both of the articles listed there are linked in the article.
  • I might mention that although the monks sold some manors, at the dissolution they still had retained a decent number of their original endowment. (that's from the Victoria County History which because it's being used as a ref, you should link the title in the bibliography to the British History Online version and delete it as an external link.
  • You might note that not only was Peter des Roches a bishop, he was Chief Justiciar and as the ONDB notes "For more than thirty years Peter des Roches exercised an influence over the Plantagenet court second only to that of the king" as a bit of background. He was quite the politician, although I know our article on his sucks, I haven't hit the bishops of Winchester yet.
Overall, a nice article. I'd love to see more on the actual history of the monastery, honestly, as right now it's more a history of the architecture, but I do understand that Netley was one of those very boring monasteries with no great scandals. I'll be happy to support after some of the above is dealt with. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response:
  • (i) Done.
  • (ii) Done. I've now called it a ruined medieval monastery, which should be clearer.
  • (iii) Done. It's the way such transactions are usually described here in UK. I have substituted 'given'.
  • (iv) Done.
  • (v) Done.
  • (vi) Done. The meaning seemed clear to me from the context, but now changed.
  • (vii) Done.
  • (viii) I think that the structure works best as it is, as the discussion of Henry's patronage flows nicely into the discussion of its results, particularly the church. If you were going to move the section on the buildings where would you put it?
  • (ix) I think the precise details of Netley's land holdings are best left to the VCH. Our readers might find them very boring. I don't know how to link the VCH in the bibliography to the online version. Can you help?
  • (x) Done. Peter des Roches was a real piece of work, a serious prince of the church. He deserves much better coverage than our current article gives him. I've called him a powerful politician and government official now, which I think makes it clear that he wasn't just a bishop.
  • (xi) I'd love to have more on the internal history of the abbey, but there really isn't that much more to say because very little is known about it and what is known is, as you rightly say very dull, no lovely murders and villainy unlike say its sister house of Vale Royal Abbey. Netley really was a very boring monastery, it's only the quality of the surviving remains and its role in literature and art that make it interesting.

Thanks for taking the time to do such a detailed critique. Soph (talk) 16:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drop me a note on my talk page so I can link the VCH in the bibliography when I get home. I'm on the road and will be home late Saturday night (hopefully, as long as my car doens't die) and will get to it when I get home. It's certainly not picky enough to not support the article over. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Status ? Is the nominator addressing Ealdgyth's comments? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
response: The nominator has been very ill and no position to do much of anything over the last week. However, she's now back on duty!Soph (talk) 16:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Like Juliancolton, and DrKay, I advise to drop the Gallery section. Wikipedia's image policy discourages photo galleries (Wikipedia:Image use policy#Photo galleries) unless a convincing reason is given. Frankly, I do not see such a convincing need to display a range of pictures that could have one or two of the best illustrations talked on in an "In literature and art" section (which should be Bucks' and Constable's). Instead, we have an irrelevant gatehouse picture there. The article should be using the best picture available to represent certain ideas or to identify the subject. The gallery here is seemingly indiscriminate in its selection of art on the abbey, judging how all the Common's artwork regarding the abbey have been placed into it here. The duties of a gallery is best left to Commons which is fulfilled by the link in the External links section. Jappalang (talk) 05:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: I disagree with your interpretation of the policy and also your views on the gallery. As has been mentioned above, originally when the article was submitted for FAC the images in the gallery were in the text, but other editors noted that there were too many pictures for an article of this length so I put all the historical images together for the convenience of readers. The images are not there for decorative purposes, nor is their use indiscriminate. They were carefully selected by me from my large collection of originals to illustrate how different parts of the site looked in the past, to demonstrate Netley's role as an inspiration to artists of the 18th and 19th centuries and show Netley at the height of its fame as a romantic landscape (it looked very different to the way it does today). The historical images also show now lost features such as the vaults of the church. I believe they are useful to readers hoping to understand the history of the abbey after it was abandoned and Netley as a cultural artifact.
I agree that it would be nice to have a copy of the Constable painting of the abbey. Unfortunately, it belongs to Cornell University and there is no free image of it available that we could use on Wiki. Instead readers have to follow the link in the references to see it. Soph (talk) 17:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Disagree with that, and the reading of the guideline. All the guideline seems to say about galleries in articles, as opposed to the now virtually extinct stand-alone galleries, is "The determination of whether a gallery should be incorporated into an article or created at the Commons should be discussed on the article's talk page" - and it is not all that clear whether that refers to them either. Commons "galleries" are no substitute - personally I disapprove of them entirely for reasons I won't go into here. That having a gallery is not a problem for FA has been established. However I do agree, and have said above, that more images should be moved up into the text - I think the gallery could perhaps be reduced to a single row. Johnbod (talk) 09:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite, refer to Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Gallery Policy Clarification and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/National Ignition Facility/archive2—the FAC in question. Galleries are disputable, decided by whether they serve a good purpose in the article; this is what the talk page is stating, and is the basis for Skeezix1000's rewording of the current policy.[4] In short, galleries are not to serve decorative purposes. Jappalang (talk) 11:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That supports my position, and indeed only a single image policy wonk favoured keeping the current muddy wording, against the view of the other participants. I note the discussion contains no contributors from the Visual arts Project, probably (and necessarily) the most heavy users of internal galleries, nor, of course, was the discussion notified to them. The FAC for Robert Peake the Elder was where this was discussed. The gallery here is not large, is well captioned, and not decorative. Johnbod (talk) 11:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Robert Peake's FAC was in Feb 2008, while National Ignition's was in May. That itself shows that galleries are contentious in their use and not an automatic allowance (require good reason per policy). While it might be well-captioned, the "decorative" aspect is contestable (see above). As it is, the FAC serves as discussion on this gallery's status. Jappalang (talk) 11:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The timing is hardly relevant, as there is no sign that any of the participants in either discussion was aware of the other. In fact the issue is only mentioned briefly by two reviewers in Ignition; the discussion in Peake is far fuller, and involves more editors. Everything in an FA requires a good reason to be there, and this gallery, though it should be reduced by moving pictures up, has one. In fact, I wholly agree that the Ignition gallery pictures should be moved up into the text, as there is acres of room for them. That is not the case here. One or two of the images could be sacrificed perhaps, but there will still not be enough room in the text for the rest. The article currently has 9 modern photos & 8 print images, which is certainly not over-illustration for a subject with an important visual aspect, and a typical number for an FA on such a subject. Johnbod (talk) 11:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. In the interest of full disclosure I've made quite a few edits to this article, but none any more than copyedits. I agree with some of the earlier comments about the prose quality, which I think suffered during this FAC in the nominator's efforts to address reviewers' concerns. However, I think it has subsequently been much improved. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Do you have any printed sources that could verify the details in the image descriptions or perhaps add to them?

The commons bot has eliminated the source information for this image. Would you mind replacing it?

For what it's worth, I think a Commons gallery would be better than the gallery on this article. I'm not convinced that this gallery meets the high bar for inclusion. Awadewit (talk) 14:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

response:
Thanks for doing the image review. There seems to be something approaching a concensus amongst reviewers against the gallery, so it is now, sadly, gone. I have incorporated three of the images from it into the text: Image:Netleysamnathbuck.jpg, Image:Transept1776.jpg and Image:Netleyreredorter1784.jpg.
I am not sure what you mean by printed sources to verify the details of the images, could you explain further? I own the originals of all the historical images of Netley Abbey included in the article and on wiki commons, scanned them from the artwork myself, and took the dates and attributions from those given by the artists (save Image:Net1840.jpg and Image:Chapterinterior1840.jpg which had to be dated independently). The three historical images currently in the article are firmly dated and attributed from the information given by the artists themselves at the foot of their engravings. At the moment I think that the captions we have are fairly self explanatory. How do you think they should be improved?
I've fixed the source for Image:1759netley.jpg. Soph (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, one of the problems with relying solely on the images themselves is that the information included on them is not always accurate. For example, sometimes artists and engravers signed other people's names to make more money. Therefore, it would be best if we could verify that these images are indeed dated and attributed correctly by referring to peer-reviewed analyses of them. However, I know that not every print has been catalogued and discussed. I was wondering if these had been and whether any attempt to find further information on them had been made. Also, printed sources could provide more information about the engravers and artists, such as first names. This information could be added to the image description (I am referring to the image desription page, not the caption). Awadewit (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response:
Prompted by your concerns I have rechecked everything.
Image:Netleyreredorter1784.jpg comes from Francis Grose's The Antiquities of England and Wales (1773-87) which is a famous multi-volume collection of engravings of ancient monuments. The engraver is actually Samuel Sparrow (I needed a magnifying glass and a strong light to see that) Samuel Hooper was the publisher (he did draw and design things too, hence the mistake). Sparrow is known to have worked with Hooper on the book. I've put all these details in the image description. Full information on the book and Hooper can be found here http://www.heatons-of-tisbury.co.uk/grose.htm, including a listing for the engraving; the original title is "Abbot's Kitchin (sic) at Netley Abbey, Hants".
Image:Netleysamnathbuck.jpg is a hand coloured version of Samuel & Nathaniel Buck's 1733 engraving. It is identical to the copy in A Hamilton Thompson, Netley Abbey (pp 14-15), a government publication, which confirms the date and attribution. It's also identical to the copy in the National Maritime Museum collection, see here: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/prints/viewRepro.cfm?reproID=PU1085.
Image:Transept1776.jpg is by Richard Godfrey (fl 1728-94 according to the Dictionary of National Biography), and published by F Blyth of 87 Cornhill, London. Godfrey specialised in archaeological sites, copies of old paintings and scenes from theatre. He worked with Hooper and Sparrow on the Grose book mentioned above. I have not yet been able to find this image catalogued anywhere, however, the style is very much his, the signature is his and the subject matter what he did. We also know that he visited Netley at least once because he drew it for the Grose book (Image:1759netley.jpg, which has also had its information amended). I also don't think that someone ripping off Godfrey's work would put their address on the print, especially when said address was round the corner from where the man himself lived and worked. All this being the case I see little reason to doubt the date and attribution for the picture.
I am very glad you brought this up.Soph (talk) 13:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding this additional information! Awadewit (talk) 15:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response: No problem! I've also now found that the British Library has catalogued the 1776 Godfrey engraving (Image:Transept1776.jpg), which means the date and attribution are now rock solid for all of the historic images in the article. See B.L. catalogue here: http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/RA2G8Y1QA7I4LKQYS7VAH7PBYN178NNNA1CCUAFG3543DSC7ST-24448?func=full-set-set&set_number=133082&set_entry=000047&format=999. Soph (talk) 16:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
False descriptions are not much of a problem for British prints of this period, as adequate IP laws were in place. In any case, none of the prints make extravagant claims of authorship; far from it. The "Godfrey" seems to say "Godfrey del.", ie he did the "original drawing", and not necessarily the engraving or etching for the print. No doubt more information could be found (the local museum or art gallery for a start), although "peer-reviewed" information is unlikely to exist. Johnbod (talk) 19:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support although I was sorry to see the gallery go completely. Johnbod (talk) 19:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
response: I was too, I would have preferred to keep it but there seems to be a lot of opinion against it.Soph (talk) 13:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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