This guide, though well-written, fails to live up to its promise of being a comprehensive guide to English architectural styles. The biggest fault is entire sections that have no illustrations at all of the buildings mentioned. The illustrations that are here are all black and white. Most are drawings and are quite good, but something like All Saints Church on Margaret Street in London has to be seen in full color to appreciate just how marvelous it is. So once again, you'll be turning frequently to the Internet to see what the book is talking about. ( )

This is one of those books the title of which says it all: a guide that you can carry around with you when visiting towns, cities or country houses to view the buildings of England. (And it really does mean only England, not the other currently constituent countries of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, though much of the information here is transferable to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.) Explicitly excluded from the notion of custom-designed architecture -- except for a brief mention of building materials -- are all those examples of fine vernacular structures, whether thatched cottages, terraced houses or tithe barns, though I suspect the last-mentioned cathedral-like storehouses may well have been planned by the same individuals who directed the building of the associated abbeys.

The book is simply structured, starting with a timeline taking in twenty-two broad stylistic categories -- from Saxon and Norman to Modernism and Art Deco -- and covering the period 600 to 1939. This is then followed, after a short introduction, by chapters summarising the principal features of all those styles, with occasional 'interludes' to discuss changing tastes or available materials. Before the final index there are useful appendices illustrating diagnostic details to aid identification of periods: pillars, windows, doors, arches, vaults and towers.

According to his blog the author has written "The English Buildings Book, England's Abbeys, Restoration, the book of Adam Hart-Davis's series What the Romans Did For Us, other books about architecture and buildings, and various books on other subjects, including Dorling Kindersley's handbooks on Mythology (written with Neil Philip) and Religions." So he definitely knows whereof he speaks. An added attraction of this unpretentious and accessible guide is the inclusion of vintage illustrations, from the line drawings of Colen Campbell's 1715 Vitruvius Britannicus and Victorian reference books to historic postcard photographs. The picture research was done by Fiona Shoop who had access to the postcard collection of the Estate of Stanley Shoop, and they add greatly to the character of this 136-page guide.

http://wp.me/p2oNj1-QF ( )