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The historic county of Essex is one of the larger counties in England, its western half gradually absorbed into London's eastern sprawl from the nineteenth century onwards. Its buildings are appropriately varied in character, ranging from the Edwardian civic buildings of West Ham and Walthamstow, to the fishing and sailing ports and seaside resorts of the estuaries of the east coast. Besides the great Norman Castle Hedingham and Elizabethan Audley End, Essex boasts pioneering brick houses such as Layer Marney Towers as well as numerous fine timber buildings. Towns and cities range from Colchester with its rich Roman and medieval remains, to the more recent experiments at Harlow New Town.
From prehistoric Stonehenge and Avebury to railway age Swindon, the rolling countryside of Wiltshire encompasses every aspect of English building. Thirteenth-century Salisbury cathedral is set in a spacious close, within a planned medieval town, which boasts Georgian delights such as Mompesson House. Towns and villages range from Marlborough with its sweeping High Street to the exceptional Lacock, in the shadow of its abbey's remains, remodelled as an eighteenth-century Gothick fantasy. The great country houses include some of the finest in England: Palladian Wilton, with which Inigo Jones was involved, Stourhead set in its evocative classical landscape, the elegant eithteenth-century Bowood and the mellow Bath stone of Corsham Court.
The premier monument is Durham Cathedral, greatest of English Norman churches. Lovers of the Middle Ages will also seek out the county's exceptional Anglo-Saxon churches, while many of its great castles - Brancepeth, Raby, Auckland, Lambton - conceal palatial Georgian and Victorian interiors. The landscape varies dramatically, from the wilds of Teesdale and Weardale, in the west, to the pioneering industrial ports of Sunderland and Hartlepool on the coast, including fine gentry houses and stone-built market towns. South Tyneside and northern Cleveland, historically part of County Durham, are also covered.
This volume on London architecture covers the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey and Islington. It gives a view of London's expansion northward from formal Georgian squares, to the hill towns of Hampstead and Highgate.
Although so close to London this is still a rural area, with quiet country churches with fine monuments, timber-framed farmhouses, and some splendid country houses, of which the most celebrated is Cecil's Jacobean Hatfield House. At St Albans the remains of Roman Verulamium and the great early Norman abbey speak eloquently of older civilizations. The towns offer intriguing contrasts: Hertford, Bishop's Stortford and Hitchin still have the character of traditional market centres, while the new towns of Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead and Hatfield are important exemplars of planning ideals of the 1950s and 60s.
London 2: South is a uniquely comprehensive guide to the twelve southern boroughs. Its riverside buildings range from the royal splendours of Hampton Court and Greenwich and the Georgian delights of Richmond, to the monuments of Victorian commerce in Lambeth and Southwark. But the book also charts lesser known suburbs, from former villages such as Clapham to still rural, Edwardian Chislehurst, as well as the results of twentieth-century planners' dreams from Roehampton to Thamesmead. Full accounts are given of London landmarks as diverse as Southwark Cathedral, Soane's Dulwich Picture Gallery and the arts complex of the South Bank. The outer boroughs include diverse former country houses - Edward IV's Eltham Palace, the Jacobean Charlton House, and the Palladian Marble Hill. The rich Victorian churches and school buildings are covered in detail, as are the exceptional structures of Kew Gardens.
Highlights of this volume are a full account of the Georgian marvels of Bath, and a separate section on the port of Bristol, whose sumptuous Victorian commercial buildings are among the best of their date in England.
A county of striking contrasts, Staffordshire includes the industrial towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent and much of the Black Country, but also the cathedral city of Lichfield, and the wild country of the Peak District and Cannock Chase. This guide also covers its best timber-framed houses.
Surrey's architecture is a constantly surprising mix of the rural and urban with many of its most important buildings, such as the seventeenth-century Ham House, found amongst the outgrowth of London itself. The landscape gardens of Painshill and Claremont attest to Surrey's popularity in the eighteenth century and the county's enthusiasm for follies and remarkable garden buildings. More recent architecture includes notable early works by Lutyens, with gardens by Gertrude Jekyll, inspired by the rich stock of late medieval farmhouses and tile-hung cottages in the county's southern villages. Among interwar suburban housing there are some exceptional Modernist homes, such as The Homewood by Patrick Gwynne. Church architecture in Surrey includes work by all of the great names of the Gothic Revival; not least of its surprises is the luminous and spacious interior of Guildford Cathedral.
This work covers the English county of Berkshire. Stretching from the fringes of London, Berkshire originally covered much of present day Oxfordshire. The variety of architecture is, consequently, broad and remarkable, from the towns of the home counties to the farmhouses and churches of its west.