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Fonthill, in Wiltshire, is usually associated with the writer and collector William Beckford, who built his Gothic fantasy house Fonthill Abbey at the end of the 18th century. Fonthill is, however, much more than the story of one man's excesses. Beckford's Abbey is only one of several important houses to be built on the estate since the early 16th century, all of them eventually consumed by fire or deliberately demolished and all of them totally oddly forgotten by historians. Fonthill Recovered draws on histories of art and architecture, politics and economics to explore all of the rich cultural history of this famous estate.