3-077-656 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Belvoir Castle, view from the Stables, 1890. Estate in Leicestershire, seat of the Duke of Rutland. 'The castle stands on a spur of the short hill-range which runs down south-westwards for perhaps eight miles, thickly clad with rich woods, and rising to a mean height of about 400 ft. It has been supposed that the castle-hill itself is partly artificial: it is certain that there was a fortress on its top as early as the Conquest at least, while the discovery of Roman coins here tends to show that it was a Roman camp. Some have held it to be the ancient Margidunum. From the great Peacock Inn, standing solitary at the hill-foot, a broad carriage-way now takes us easily to the castle, winding round the steep incline, through a wood of tall trees, whose brown leaves on a December day carpet the ground, lying under slim beeches and elms, with ivy clinging to their dark stems'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.