2-888-355 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sharpham Park, Somerset, the Birthplace of [Henry] Fielding the Novelist, 1850. 'At Sharpham Park - birth-place of the father of the English novel - were, till lately, preserved a coat and leathers which Fielding once wore. The greater part of the house has been taken down; the remaining portion is tenanted as a farm dwelling. Sharpham has, however, been an important place: it was originally the country-house of the Abbot of Glastonbury, who came hither by water from his abbey. A well-timbered park surrounded the manor-house at Sharpham: of this little remains, the land being divided, and stocked with cattle, whose well-conditioned sides proclaim the fatness of the soil'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.