The Stargazer of Hardwicke

I was lent a book, after someone I know saw a previous blogpost about Rev. Webb, the Victorian vicar of Hardwicke who was also a well-known astronomer.
It's a fascinating read.
In 1986, Janet and Mark Robinson moved into The Haven, just past the Hardwicke turning from Hay, to run it as a B&B. They knew it had been the old vicarage, and decided to do some research on what they thought would be a fairly boring old parson, who had been mentioned in passing by Rev. Kilvert in his famous diaries. At the time they knew nothing about astronomy - so they were surprised to find that Thomas William Webb was held in such high regard, mostly because of his book for amateur astronomers, Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes. In fact, their little research project grew into a book which has contributions from a range of astronomers, a geologist and a historian of science, and a foreword by Sir Patrick Moore!

Webb's early life gives an interesting view of what Oxford University was like in the early nineteenth century - Webb was a meticulous diary keeper, and also kept notebooks of his scientific observations, many of which, along with letters and other material, still survive, and are kept at the Library of the Royal Astronomical Society, Hereford City Library and Hereford Cathedral Library (see how useful libraries are!)
When he moved to Hardwicke, he did a lot of his early observations with a telescope he kept in the front hall and carried out onto the front drive at night, where he spent a lot of time kneeling on the gravel! Later he had a little observatory built in the garden, which was really just a wooden shed with a roof that opened up.
He also built a lot of his own equipment, especially in the early days. The best mirrors for telescopes were made of speculum, a metal made from copper, tin and a little arsenic, and astronomers like Webb would make these themselves, spending hours grinding and polishing. Later, he became friendly with local astronomers Rev. Henry Cooper Key of Stretton Sugwas, and George Henry With, the headmaster of Hereford Blue Coat School. Both of these men made telescope mirrors, but it was With who really made it into a serious sideline - he made over 200 over his career, both of speculum and the new technology of silvered glass. The silvered glass was lighter in weight, and easier to prepare, than the speculum, and mirrors could now be larger for more powerful telescopes. Webb didn't only know local astronomers, though - when he went on holidays to Europe later in life, he often visited astronomers on his travels.

Astronomy is having something of a resurgence locally, thanks to the Dark Skies initiative - Brecon Beacons National Park has some of the darkest skies in the country, and they are making efforts to reduce light pollution to keep it that way.
I went looking for a picture, and found this amazing shot from the Guardian: