The label on the front board states that this was J. H. Middleton's notebook in 1856. This would have been when JHM was age ten. However, the notebook is filled with copious notes and illustrated when JHM was an adult, starting from age twenty. The notebook is a mix of notes taken from reading upon the subject of Classical art and archaeology, visiting the British Museum, attending lectures such as one on Ephesus at the Royal Institution in 1875, and in situ measured drawings made while travelling in Rome (December 1865-January 1866), Bassae (April 1875), Athens (April-May 1875), Ephesus (May 1875), Mycenae (April 1875, April 1890), Sicily (May 1875) and Egypt (February 1878).
An index at the front organises the material by site, from Athens to Corinth, Aegina, Ephesus, Mycenae, Balbec, Bassae, Corfu, Syracuse (siege of), Tauromenium, Agrigentum, Paestum, Beni-Hasan, Siout, Sakkarah, Thebes (Egypt), Assouan, Pompeii, Ortygia, Olympia, Selinus, Delphi, and classical orders of columns.
Pasted to the inside of the front cover is a letter, dated, 27 November 1899, from Ernest Gardner at University College London, writing on behalf of Mrs Middleton, to James at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, offering these six Middleton notebooks for their Library. (There are actually 8 Middleton volumes in this collection.)