As a trainee architect, Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863) was sent to Greece, Asia Minor and Italy on the recommendation of his master, Robert Smirke, then engaged in the design of the Royal Opera House’s Doric portico. Cockerell was an exceptionally intelligent and sensitive observer and his letters home on the ancient Greek sites he visited are the basis of this study of his key role in the cultural shift from Georgian to Victorian architecture in Britain.

Looking beyond art historical issues, this detailed, well-illustrated history of the building of Beverley Minster in Yorkshire starts with a study of the masons’ marks and uses the huge number of marks found in the building, in combination with documentary evidence, to reveal the complex construction history and show how the building evolved between c.1190 and 1400. The study also discusses later restorations, including those of Nicholas Hawksmoor, and the maintenance of the Minster down to the 19th century. Slightly off-mint.

The religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries led to changes in the design, furnishings and uses of parish churches, which nonetheless remained at the heart of local communities. The essays in this interdisciplinary collection examine the evolution of such buildings across different confessions, both in Europe and in the global colonial context, especially Asia and the Americas.

The presence of clay rather than stone made Essex one of the first areas to popularize building with brick. One example is the Grade II listed Shenfield toll-house, the only surviving toll-house on the London to Harwich road.

Established on routes into Exeter in the 1750s, turnpikes soon extended across the county. While most toll-houses were rendered, the local shale stone can be seen at Yealmbridge, with red sandstone examples at Cheriton Cross and Venn Bridge.

The county’s oldest toll-house is a thatched building in Newton Poppleford that has been dated to about 1758. The area’s shale stone can be seen unrendered at Yeo Vale, with Goodleigh Road a good example of the gothick windows of the 19th century.

Many of Cambridgeshire’s roads were turnpiked in the early 1700s and most of the county’s toll-houses were rectangular. Typical designs are those at Littleport, Witcham and Chatteris, with four octagonal examples, such as Trumpington, dating to the Victorian era.

Some of Britain’s earliest toll-houses were built in Suffolk, in 1711 on the Ipswich to Scole road, but one of the county’s best-known examples is at Sicklesmere – an octagonal toll-house built from white brick with a slate roof and gothick windows.

Although Twelver Shi‘ism is dominant in southern Iraq and Iran, it rarely appears in discussions of Islam’s artistic heritage. This book introduces the faith’s great shrines, its impact on craft industries and the annual processions when metal standards are paraded.

In 22 illustrated essays, this volume examines how reverence for the prophet Muhammad and his family (Ahl al-bayt, literally, ‘People of the House’), an essential principle of belief for Shi’i Muslims, has shaped how artists, patrons and ritual participants have expressed their allegiance through the arts, architecture, material culture and ritual.

At the end of the 19th century new materials and structural methods allowed architects to develop more minimalist, functional forms. Hasted traces this modernist style’s evolution from 1890s Chicago to London’s 2012 Olympic Park, showing how British architecture was influenced by figures including Frank Lloyd Wright and enriched by the contributions of many European émigrés.

A vast dome covering part of Manhattan in a diaphanous skin; Frank Lloyd Wright’s mile-high skyscraper; a 19th-century ‘Gothic’ cathedral; or Vladimir Tatlin’s design for a stupendous monument to the Third International ... Some of the most exciting buildings in the history of architecture were never constructed, yet the plans survive. Illustrated with reproductions of architectural drawings, paintings and prints, this book surveys 50 abandoned schemes including ideal cities, eccentricities such as The Triumphal Elephant, and more recent green experiments.

During the Cold War a complex infrastructure of defence installations was built across Britain in response to the threat from nuclear weapons. After 1989 many of these formerly secret sites were considered obsolete and abandoned. This volume reports the findings of a project to identify those most in need of preservation, with photographs (both archive and modern) of the buildings, Ordnance Survey images, cutaway diagrams, architectural plans and ephemera, while the detailed text explains their purpose and construction and the historical background.

Starting with their origins in Chicago, the architectural historian Dan Cruikshank tells the story of the skyscrapers, the architects and engineers who created them, and the city that nurtured the bold, new structures in the 1890s. He begins with the early career of John Wellborn Root, and later devotes a chapter to Root’s pioneering, steel-framed Reliance Building – a pivotal structure in the development of modern architecture.

Many of Somerset’s dovecotes became redundant in the 19th century and were converted or allowed to decay. This comprehensive illustrated survey describes the current state and history of the county’s 49 surviving stone, brick and cob dovecotes and pigeon-lofts, some dating from medieval times. The authors also dispel longstanding misconceptions as they explain how such structures were designed and used. Slightly off-mint.

Continent by continent, the Polish graphic designer Micha? Gaszy?ski presents the world’s architectural and engineering masterpieces, each illustrated in his distinctive style and accompanied by facts and statistics about the buildings’ construction, architectural style and history. The book covers ancient monuments such as the pyramids and Stonehenge, places of worship, practical structures including the Suez Canal and Australia’s rabbit and dingo fences, the most remarkable skyscrapers and, beyond the planet, the International Space station.

Thatched roofs are perhaps associated more with the county of Devon than any other part of the country, the 'combed wheat reed' style of straw thatching being the traditional method of the region. Using many archive photographs as well as images of thatchers at work, this book traces the history of thatching in Devon from the earliest times, celebrating the skills and traditions of the craft and exploring some of the most interesting thatched buildings in the county today.

Half the world’s 50 tallest skyscrapers are in China, a testament to the country’s new-found prosperity and global ambition. This is a comprehensive guide to the contemporary design, engineering and technology that was used to create them, by a world expert on tall buildings. It features extensive colour photographs, architectural diagrams and cross-sections of giant towers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and the emerging super-cities in the provinces.

From beyond the ‘Dangerous Site Keep Out’ signs, Matthew Emmett’s photographs show us abandoned buildings and factories, rusting blast furnaces and defunct power stations – very different structures, but sharing the quiet and stillness of abandonment. Accompanying Emmett’s photographic essays are the stories of the 24 sites, among them a ruined castle in north Wales, a cooling tower in Belgium, the disused Box and Spring quarries near Corsham, Wiltshire, and the vast National Gas Turbine Establishment at Fleet.

‘The time is long overdue to descend into the maelstrom of socialist architecture’, writes Owen Hatherley in the introduction to his journey of historical discovery across the magistrales (thoroughfares wide enough for May Day parades), the immense housing estates and the Stalinist skyscrapers of the old communist bloc. Through surviving Soviet-era architecture, Hatherly explores topics such as prefabricated housing, the Metro, museums and memorials, and socialist style in Chinese cities; and he considers how the buildings are perceived and used today.

The first semi-detached houses in the 18th century were relatively grand affairs, but the sense of space and independence that the plan allowed made more modest adaptations of the style perfect for the growing middle class in the early 20th century and it proliferated in suburban developments around major cities. This detailed and well-illustrated study traces the development of a housing style that accounts for a third of the dwellings in Britain.

Jonathan Clarke’s illustrated study of the ‘early Steel Age’, examines the use of mass-produced steel in the structural anatomy of London’s buildings from the 1880s to 1910. Clarke first surveys the technological and economic forces that brought structural steel into being, then goes on to look at how its potential for bigger, brighter and safer buildings was exploited in London theatres, clubs and hotels, banks and offices, shops, pools and tube stations, and in industrial buildings.

In chapters on architectural drawings, maps and mapping conventions, topographical views and other visual sources including models, pattern books, guide books and photographs, a group of architectural and art historians explain the provenance, purpose and terminology of a range of visual sources from the 16th to 20th centuries, and how they can help – and sometimes hinder – an understanding of an original building and its history.

The Chapel Society’s second ‘Miscellany’ presents four illustrated essays: studies of chapel people in Berkshire in 1851, the year in which Nonconformist numbers and locations were recorded in the census; Unitarians and ecclesiology in Northern England; the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Manchester, built by Edgar Wood; and the ecclesiastical work of the Congregationalist architect, Thomas Lewis Banks (1842–1920).

During the second wave of the Industrial Revolution, between 1837 and 1910, mills, factories and engineering works became a common feature of Britain’s townscapes. Focusing on that period, this volume looks at the development of industrial architecture from the purely functional factories of the 1830s to buildings such as Everard’s Printing Works in Bristol, with its Art Nouveau façade. The book is arranged by types of manufactures and illustrated with 150 prints and photographs of buildings now demolished and of the survivors.

Drawing together studies by English Heritage and Historic England’s archaeologists and historians, this volume explores the physical effects of the First World War on the English countryside and built environments. Among the topics discussed in the ten illustrated essays are army camps, airfields and coastal defences; munitions factories, civic and civilian building during wartime and the impact of enemy blockade on the nation’s agriculture; and a final essay examines the building of war memorials.

Much of Britain's architectural heritage was fashioned not by architects but by jobbing builders, using methods passed down through the generations. Extensively illustrated with photographs, maps, plans and elevations, this lucid guide explains the historical development and regional variations of vernacular architecture. It explores the various building types – from manor houses to cottages, farms to industrial premises – construction methods and materials, and decorative details, while the appendices explain how to research the subject, make detailed records and carry out surveys. Slightly Off-mint.

From Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and the breathtaking dome of Florence Cathedral, to the inventive structures of Norman Foster (b.1935) and the poetics of movement in bridges by Santiago Calatrava (b.1951), Kenneth Powell describes the careers of 40 great builders whose engineering skills have been crucial to their success. Written by a distinguished team of architectural historians, the book celebrates the work – and illustrates many individual structures – by figures such as Vauban, Wren, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Frank Gehry.

Dovecotes are one of the least recorded types of vernacular building, but architects including James Wyatt and Edwin Lutyens have designed them and their history reaches into antiquity. This survey of English and Welsh examples ranges from Norman times to the 20th century and from utilitarian structures to Palladian flights of fancy. The authors also describe how doves and pigeons have been domesticated, reared and used by humans. Off-mint.

Few architects have been as influential as Andrea Palladio, whose ideas are embodied in stately buildings across Europe and America. In this fusion of travelogue, architectural guide and historical biography, the acclaimed architectural commentator Witold Rybczynski journeys along the Brenta River in northern Italy to visit Palladio’s surviving villas, and discovers how a rustic stonemason became the most sophisticated architect of the Renaissance.

Founded in the 1830s by the multi-talented Edmund Sharpe, the Lancaster firm of Sharpe, Paley and Austin went on to become the greatest provincial architectural practice in Victorian and Edwardian England. This book charts the firm's history for the first time, explaining how it secured commissions through a web of personal and family connections; and, with a wealth of photographs, it illustrates the urban and rural churches, country houses, schools and infirmaries built by the company.

A selection from the English Heritage archive of some 25,000 photographs taken by professional architectural photographers Bedford Lemere between the 1870s and the late 1920s, this volume focuses on the period after 1890 and offers a view of Britain at the height of its wealth and power. Accompanied by Cooper's introduction, the photographs are arranged by themes, including public buildings, commerce and industry, transport and technology, leisure and entertainment and life at home during the Great War.

After the Blitz devastated many of London's historic churches, some 250 new ones were built throughout the capital, mostly in the Modernist style. They have received little attention, and some have fallen into neglect or been demolished, but as this unique survey makes clear many have considerable architectural merit. A general introduction is followed by a borough-by-borough gazetteer, with each entry illustrated by both an interior and exterior view. The book concludes with a list of architects and their work.

Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby traces a history that leads from Napoleon's encounter with the gigantic monuments of ancient Egypt to the building of the wonders of the industrial world: the Suez Canal, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and the Panama Canal. Grigsby shows how all four modern colossi owe their existence to French engineers and the fantasies of wealth, progress and colonial expansion they and the French financiers and politicians took as a call to destiny. With over 200 illustrations.

Until its conquest by Napoleon in 1797, Venice was not only a great maritime trading power, but controlled a substantial swath of the Italian mainland: the Veneto. After a general historical introduction, this magnificent volume takes the reader on a chronological tour of 28 of the lavish villas built by the city's patricians in Verona, Padua and other mainland cities. Lavishly illustrated with colour photographs, it offers an unparalleled overview of the evolution of art and architecture over five centuries.

This second volume in a three-part biographical series covers the years 1732 to 1750 in the life of English artist, satirist and social critic William Hogarth (1697-1764) when approached and defined. 96pp colour plates

Carved in wood, painted and gilded, winged altar retables were by far the most elaborate works of art of the Gothic period, and most churches in the pre-Reformation period were richly decorated with them - the cathedral in Ulm had 50. Following his detailed introduction, Professor Kahsnitz presents 22 of the most outstanding examples of winged altarpieces, photographed in great detail by Achim Bunz, with analysis of their architecture, iconography and art historical context. Translation by Russell Stockman. Slip-cased.

Until its conquest by Napoleon in 1797, Venice was not only a great maritime trading power, but controlled a substantial swath of the Italian mainland: the Veneto. After a general historical introduction, this magnificent volume takes the reader on a chronological tour of 28 of the lavish villas built by the city's patricians in Verona, Padua and other mainland cities. Lavishly illustrated with colour photographs, it offers an unparalleled overview of the evolution of art and architecture over five centuries.

Jonathan Glancey, formerly the Architecture and Design Editor at the Guardian, surveys buildings that have disappeared – whether by act of God, war or planning committee – and some that never existed. Well illustrated with photographs and reproductions, the book ranges from ancient structures 'lost in myth', such as the Tower of Babel and Darius's palace at Persepolis, to Norman Foster's Millennium Tower ('left on the drawing board'), and includes such famous lost buildings as Fonthill Abbey, Coventry Cathedral and the World Trade Center.

Simon Jenkins describes our medieval cathedrals as 'the most spectacular and lasting accomplishment of the English people', and they take pride of place in this engrossing volume. A companion to his bestselling England's Thousand Best Churches, the book comprises illustrated architectural histories and personal, keenly observed appreciations of 42 Anglican diocesan cathedrals in England, plus Westminster Abbey and a selection of Roman Catholic cathedrals. The buildings are arranged alphabetically, with one or more colour photographs accompanying each entry.

Described by Cook as 'the missing link of the Arts and Crafts Movement', Edward Prior (1852–1932) was an 'artist-builder' who worked in traditional and new materials and vernacular styles, often in a radical way, and who rejected the use of contractors and middlemen, engaging directly with craftsmen. This richly illustrated study is based primarily on research into Prior's surviving and demolished buildings and unbuilt projects to explore his design intentions, philosophy and architectural legacy.

Situated at the crossroads of Moorish Spain and the Arab East, Morocco once ruled an empire extending over the whole of Andalusia and North Africa. This magnificently illustrated book makes a detailed architectural examination of the four great imperial cities: Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat. From elaborate town plans to intricately crafted details, here are mosques, madrasas, palaces and gardens, rich in artistic tradition and lavish in ornate decoration, that stand as a memorial to a unique and fascinating civilization.

While offering a non-historical vision of the most representative tall buildings of the 1990s, this survey focuses on the architectural challenge of making the scale of skyscrapers compatible with the traditional city, particularly in Asia. The 80 buildings are arranged alphabetically, each with a brief introductory text (in English, Italian and Dutch), plans and photographs. The selection includes iconic skyscrapers from earlier in the 20th century and projects with completion dates in the present century.

In the 19th century there was an amazing flowering of ironwork forms, mass produced and widely distributed, but of extreme variety and richness of design. This volume introduces cast iron (often mistakenly referred to as 'wrought iron'), its manufacturers and their pattern books, and presents an international photographic inventory of the forms taken by cast iron ornamentation, its national variations, its relationship to architecture and its contribution to the appearance of buildings.

In German and English. A monograph of the 'SOKA-BAU' building near Wiesbaden in Germany which is renowned for its energy conservation features and structural efficiency.

Strike a Pose! documents a new extroverted architectural language. The iconographically charged scenes and futuristic spaces featured are playful and experimental and range from private residences to schools and operas, museums and interior design. Manifested in spectacular structures, eccentric forms and vivid colours, this expressive approach goes way beyond conventional stylistic and geographic boundaries.

Drawn from Hook's own experiences with art collectors and dealers, this chapter in art history is narrated through the lens of modern day's art market. Off-mint.

The 12 buildings of this study, identifiable the world over, demonstrate the personality and power of Los Angeles as a major metropolis. Their stories are the story of a city in progress, an urban biography that tells a century's worth of history. The architect of the Bradbury Building accepted the commission after consulting a ouija board and was inspired by a futuristic novel written in the late 1800's; in 1984 the building became a set for the futuristic-noir film 'Blade Runner'. The Jetson-style LAX Theme building provides an indelible image of one of the world's busiest airports; however, few know the poignant story of its designer, Paul Williams, one of Los Angeles's most important African-American architects.

This high-quality monograph introduces over 100 completed and uncompleted works by renowned American architect Michael Graves (1934- ) including the US Embassy in Korea, 10”x8”, colour throughout

The Benedictine Abbey of Downside in Somerset is one of the glories of the Gothic Revival, its mighty tower a landmark for miles. Written by leading architectural historians including Gavin Stamp and Alan Powers, this handsome book traces the story of its creation from Pugin's conception to its completion by Giles Gilbert Scott. Richly illustrated with drawings, plans, archive photographs and dramatic new colour images, this study is both an architectural record and a celebration of an inspirational place.

Mark Child provides a concise, illustrated history of English ecclesiastical architecture from the earliest stone buildings of the Anglo-Saxons to the end of the Victorian era, and explains the key architectural features that identify each period and style. Off-mint.

Featuring hundreds of unique views of London’s skyline, the photographs collected here were taken by a team of intrepid urban explorers who climbed without permission to the tops of gasholders, council blocks, communications antennae and corporate ‘starchitecture’. Motivated by a desire to picture the city’s hidden spaces before the developers ‘rip the heart and soul out of them’, the team’s hair-raising stories and images show the city’s ever-evolving topography and how we have come to inhabit its heights.

Examining the relationship between architecture and literature as interdependent forms of storytelling in 16th- and 17th-century England, Anne Myers looks in depth at a selection of histories, dramas, poetry, diaries and architectural writings, among them, William Camden’s Britannia, ‘The Church-porch’ by George Herbert, the diaries of Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) and John Evelyn’s Parallel of Antient Architecture with the Modern.

Christopher Wren did not take up architecture until he was 30, yet by the time he was 70 he could rival any living European architect. This compact, accessible introduction charts his progress from his tentative beginnings with Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre to his great masterpieces, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, via unbuilt projects that illustrate his flexibility and pragmatism.

Turks first arrived in the Anatolian peninsula in 1071, when the Seljuks, a nomadic people from Central Asia, defeated the Byzantine forces at Manzikert. The empires that they and their successors, the Ottomans, built straddled East and West, and created a new architectural idiom that drew on Graeco-Roman, Persian and Islamic sources. Stunningly illustrated with more than 250 colour photographs, this volume charts the 1,000-year development of Turkish architecture, alongside that of decorative arts such as manuscripts, carpets, ceramics and metalwork.

In 1925 the young American architect Barry Dierks and his lover Eric Sawyer built Le Trident, a Modernist home at Miramar on the Côte d’Azur. Word of Barry’s talent spread, and the commissions that followed propelled them into the heart of Riviera society, with clients including Somerset Maugham and the Marquess of Cholmondeley. This biography recalls Barry and Eric’s time with their glamorous circle of friends, contrasting the lifestyle of the Jazz Age with the hardships that were to come under German occupation.

The history and culture of Europe have been shaped by monasticism, which has left a rich legacy of religious art and architecture. This volume follows its history from late antiquity through its peak in the Middle Ages to the present day. Well illustrated with photographs, paintings and illuminated manuscripts, the book describes the traditions, regulations and daily life of the different orders, profiles famous abbots and abbesses, and celebrates the continuing appeal of the contemplative life.

Showing what buildings looked like and how they developed in the Tudor age, this set of ten A3 double-sided posters includes artworks and photographs of different types of structure along with an explanatory illustrated booklet.

Illustrated with photographs, plans and archaeological drawings, this volume presents the results of an in-depth study of around 120 medieval houses, mostly of cruck construction, in Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

Beginning with Shepton Mallet prison, which had been in use for 400 years when it closed in 2013, Michael Portillo investigates the stories hidden within the walls of twelve buildings that illuminate aspects of Britain’s modern history. Through structures including Brighton’s sewer system, Imber village in Wiltshire, a nuclear bunker in Cambridge and the New Victoria cinema in Bradford, he explores four themes: crime and emergency, life and death, defence, and ‘People’s Pleasure Domes’.

In portraits of nine cities – Troy, Jerusalem, Nineveh, Pithom, Babylon, Sodom, Bethlehem, Ephesus and Rome – this volume examines how archaeology, the study of the Bible and the experience of urbanization intersect in 19th-century Britain.

From the middle of the twelfth century, the seven liberal arts of medieval education – grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy – appeared in allegorical personifications on church facades. In this study, Cleaver explores the relationship between the ideas of the patrons and the practical knowledge of the sculptors of these images, addressing questions of iconography, function, audience and patronage.

The striking concrete structure of St Peter’s College has stood on a hill above the Scottish village of Cardross since the mid 1960s, but after the closure of the seminary in 1980 the building was abandoned to decay and vandalism. This book traces the evolution of the College’s innovative Modernist design and celebrates its recent rebirth as a cultural space. A section of colour photographs documents both the site’s dilapidation and the 2016 Hinterland event at which it was officially reopened.

The culmination of years of painstaking research by Jonathan Coad, the foremost architectural historian of the royal dockyards, this English Heritage volume charts the history of the construction, establishment and evolution of the Royal Navy’s bases – including dockyards, ordnance yards, naval hospitals, barracks and associated buildings – during the periods of expansion after the Napoleonic wars and global dominance during the 19th century.

In search of the inspiration behind the work of Bath’s celebrated architect, John Wood the Elder, Kirsten Elliott explores the myths of King Bladud, Stonehenge and Stanton Drew, before taking a ‘virtual walk’ around Bath to examine Wood’s architectural motifs. Slightly off-mint.

Follies are buildings whose only purpose is to ornament a landscape. Drawing on new research and featuring previously unpublished photographs, this survey covers more than 100 of these grottoes, towers and ready-made ruins, and the eccentrics who created them.

Award-winning artist Peter Jarvis demonstrates the techniques that are used to make detailed architectural images of the built environment, including perspective drawing, 3D modelling and colouring. Through step-by-step illustrations the book explores the technical processes involved in creating aerial and street views, from initial sketches through to the finished drawings, with a focus on the use of watercolour for the final touches.

London’s post-war Brutalist and Modernist buildings represent a utopian vision for better living and the geometric purity of their design is emphasized in this collection of striking colour artworks. Among the buildings included are Lasdun’s Sulkin House and Seifert’s NLA Tower.

Slightly off-mint.

Since the early days of rail travel, the civic importance of the stations has been reflected in their architecture. From the splendour of New York’s Grand Central to the simpler structures serving small towns, this account of some of the most interesting examples focuses primarily on North America. Including many historic and modern photographs, it explores the changing requirements the buildings have been presented with and the developments they have undergone. American spelling.

From Prague Cathedral to a wayside cross in Brno, these 15 essays offer new insights into medieval buildings and their decoration, revealing complex patterns of artistic influence against a changing backdrop of economic prosperity, religious strife and dynastic rivalry.

The first volume of this well-illustrated collection of essays comprises 15 studies on Westminster Abbey, with topics including the medieval and early Tudor topography of Westminster, the Romanesque monastic buildings, and polychromy at the Abbey, 1250–1350. In Volume II, eleven essays deal with the Palace of Westminster and its wider topography between the late 11th century and the devastating fire of 1834.

Slightly off-mint.

Ranging from the prehistory of Newcastle to Warkworth castle, the Percy family’s tower house built in the 14th century, this volume of 15 essays explores the remarkably rich material legacy of the Middle Ages in north-east England. Among the significant sites discussed are Hexham Priory, the castle keep in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tynemouth priory and Alnwick castle.

Fiona Fisher explores the development of post-war domestic architecture and the significant role of small private architectural practices through the career of the Surrey-based architect Kenneth Wood (1921–2015) and case studies of several houses designed by Wood himself or his firm.

After an overview of Professor Prache’s career and intellectual legacy, this volume of 13 illustrated essays by her former colleagues and students encompasses a range of approaches including technology-based and geometry-centred studies of architecture, stained glass read as an essential part of a building’s history, and the search for meaning in portal sculptures.

Since the foundation of its cathedral in 597, Canterbury has been the epicentre of Britain’s ecclesiastical history and an important locus for architectural and visual innovation. The majority of these 17 essays deal with aspects of the cathedral, among them the rebuilding by Archbishop Wulfred (805–32), the south oculus and the ‘Old Bakery’ chamber; but other topics include the monks’ library at Christ Church and the Great Gate of St Augustine’s Abbey.

In two parts, on the pre- and post-Reformation chapel, this volume of 26 essays discusses the organization of the chapel within the university; worship; architecture and fittings, including medieval bells and misericords; and the later monuments, stained glass and sundial.

After an introductory, general account of the cathedral, this collection of 13 papers covers a variety of specialized subjects, among them the cult of St Kentigern at the cathedral in the 12th century, Scottish Romanesque sculpture, the stellar vaults of the inner crypt, and excavations at the cathedral in 1992–3.

Slightly off-mint

Stowe House in Buckinghamshire was remodelled throughout the 18th century, growing into the magnificent mansion now occupied by Stowe School. This volume contains contributions from experts who have been involved in the 21st-century programme of urgent restoration. They trace the history of the house, gardens and estate, especially the last two decades when painstaking work has returned the building to its former glory and revealed long-hidden wall paintings.

Slightly off-mint

This personal selection of great ecclesiastical architecture features buildings in 27 countries. Chosen both for decorative interest and for the stories behind them, the structures range from Ethiopian rock-hewn churches to Rio de Janeiro’s colossal concrete cathedral.