Volume 1, with ms. title "Photographic ExperimVolume 1, with ms. title "Photographic Experiments, 1850-1851," contains some of Capel Cure's earliest photographs of medieval manor houses and castles in the English countryside, particularly Derbyshire, Shropshire, Sussex, and Hertfordshire, many of which have long since been demolished. Included in Vol. 1 are views of Stokesay Castle, Wenlock Abbey, Badger Hall (Capel Cure's family home), Millichope Park, and Chetwynd Park in Shropshire; Ashridge and Down Hall in Hertfordshire; Stoke Edith and Hereford Cloister in Hereford parish; Darley Abbey Hall, the paper mill in Darley, and Duffield Bridge in Derbyshire; Powis Castle, with its distinctive terraced gardens, located in Powys, Mid Wales; Shrubland Hall in Suffolk; and Holland House, Kensington, London.

Photographs from 1851-1852 include several views of Casemate Barracks from the Montague Cavalier station at the British garrison in Gibraltar, some with uniformed fellow soldiers in the shot, as well as several views of Capel Cure's summer house in Gibraltar. There are many photographs from 1853 and 1854 of the British barracks at Roscrea, Templemore, Athlone, and Shannonbridge in Ireland, and portraits of soldiers stationed there, many of whom served with Capel Cure in the 55th Regiment of Foot, and later, in the Grenadier Guards. He has noted in some of captions which comrades were killed, when, and where (Crimean War--Balaklava, The Alma--1854).