Travel diary of a French holiday

Manuscript travel diary detailing a sight-seeing holiday to Paris and Normandy entitled 'Dix jours a Paris et la Normandie 1865'. Daily entries describe the holiday, which was taken between 11-24 August 1865. The diary is extremely comprehensive, running to 99 pages, and records the holiday in substantial detail: describing scenery, architecture and travel. The author also provides comparisons between English and French customs. These descriptions offer the reader a particularly thorough account of life in France during the mid-19th century. The author fills her holiday with vast amounts of sight-seeing and displays a deep appreciation for architecture, paintings, gardens, churches and museums. The journal is illustrated throughout with a number of pictures, drawings, newspaper cuttings, stereographs and ephemera including train tickets and menu cards. As a consequence, the diary can be considered as a scrapbook of French life.

Each page of the diary is numbered in Roman numerals. There are separate headings for each section of the holiday and the writer uses a neat calligraphic hand for titles and sub-titles. The majority of the entries are recorded in black ink but the author also uses red, and occasionally green, ink to highlight particular entries. The volume also includes an attached letter from Ann Maria Twigg, the likely compiler of the travel diary. This letter is addressed to her mother and dated 18 December 1844.

Internal evidence indicates that the writer, assumed to be Ann Maria Twigg, lived near to Birmingham and she clearly had the means to be able to holiday in France. The letter at the rear of the volume, dated 1844, is written by Ann Maria Twigg and addressed to her mother. At the time of the diary being written Ann and her brother Thomas resided with their mother, at 'The Yews Farm', Shirley, Solihull: most of the other siblings had already married. It would seem that their previous home Ivy House Farm, in Stirchley, was sold between 1861 and 1864 and perhaps it was the proceeds that enabled them to travel. It is at least possible that Ann's travelling companion was Thomas Haye Twigg.

Information provided by a descendant of the Twigg family.

Open, access to all registered researchers.

Purchased June 2010.

Please see full catalogue for more information.

Papers arranged and described by Mark Eccleston, February 2011. Additional information provided by a family descendant in January 2014

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