Architecture

This lively social history tells the story of the British home from primitive hut to modern suburb. It charts the evolution of the cottage, country house, terrace, flat, villa, semi and bungalow, explaining how each shaped the lives of its inhabitants. Illustrated with posters, prints and photographs – many in colour – it draws not only on architectural treatises and domestic manuals but also on novels, journals and letters to create a rich picture of the ways we have lived.

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).

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 most spectacular of all the creations of the Gothic era’, the rose window still has the power to transfix 21st-century tourists in cathedrals such a Notre-Dame, Strasbourg or York Minster. In this magnificent study, with photographs of almost 300 roses, Cowen takes a chronological approach, exploring the origins and evolution of the form up to the present day, while letting ‘each window speak for itself’. Other chapters discuss the iconography, glazing, geometry and construction of rose windows, and the book concludes with a gazetteer.

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 facade. 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.

From Salisbury to market towns such as Devizes, Wiltshire’s urban buildings express a distinctive local vernacular. Drawing on county archives and illustrated with photographs, maps and plans, this study explains the pattern of development before examining the town houses of the gentry, workers’ and artisans’ dwellings, shop fronts and pubs, detailing period styles, building materials, and external and interior features.

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.

This guide explores the origins, history and building materials of Oxfordshire’s parish churches. The authoritative introduction examines the ways in which the buildings have developed over the last thousand years, and the gazetteer features 116 of the finest medieval and post-medieval examples in the county. Illustrated with over 300 colour photographs and floor plans, the survey provides descriptions of significant architectural features, sculpture and stained glass, and identifies often-overlooked details unique to each site.

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.

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.

One of Scotland’s foremost citizens of the early 18th century, John Erskine (1675–1732), Earl of Mar was active in politics and in architecture, landscape and infrastructure planning. He made important contributions to building in Scotland, particularly in his native Alloa and, in exile in France after his support for the 1715 Rising, he continued designing and planning. This aspect of Mar’s life, rather than his controversial politics, is the focus of Margaret Stewart’s richly illustrated study.

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.

When the Jesuits built their Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair in the 1840s, Catholic worship was still a controversial topic in England, so the modest façade on a quiet side street gave little idea of the splendour within. This handsome book charts for the first time the heritage of a pioneering church that drew such eminent converts as Evelyn Waugh and Edith Sitwell, while commissioned photographs illustrate its magnificent decoration.

Using over 100 examples ranging from the pyramids of Giza to Deconstructivist works such as Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, Isabel Kuhl's richly illustrated volume traces the groundbreaking developments in architecture which led to the construction of the world's most famous and most influential architectural landmarks. In 20 chronologically ordered chapters, the book examines technical achievements, materials and individual projects, including lesser-known buildings as well as the classical masterpieces which have taken architecture in new directions.

Covering more than 20 important buildings including the V&A, the Royal Albert Hall, Imperial College and the Natural History Museum, this Survey of London volume provides a detailed historical and architectural record, illustrated with architectural plans, elevations and photographs. Off-mint. No jacket.

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.

Written by an art historian, this volume 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 Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower and Suez and Panama Canals. 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 gone – whether by act of God, war or planning committee – and some that never were. Richly 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.

Destined to be forever overshadowed by his extraordinary tower, the career of Gustave Eiffel (1832–1923) included a great many significant engineering achievements, among them the Nice Observatory dome, the Garabit Viaduct, the supporting framework of the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Panama Canal locks. As well as describing these and other important projects, Eiffel's direct descendant Philippe Coupérie-Eiffel draws on the family archives to present a richly illustrated portrait of the great engineer's public and private life.

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.

After discussing in general the Roman nobility's desire to build ever more sumptuous houses, the urban setting of the palazzi and their lavish interior decoration, the authors describe the history and architecture of 30 of Rome's finest examples. Massimo Listri's outstanding colour photographs of the buildings include details of their interiors and artworks, and there are reproductions of masterpieces such as Raphael's La Fornarina in Palazzo Barberini and Caravaggio's Rest on the Flight into Egypt in Palazzo Doria Pamphilj.

Andrew Ballantyne's selection of around 150 structures is designed to emphasize the many different functions of architecture. After an initial selection of 'culture-defining monuments' that includes the Parthenon, Hagia Sophia and the Eiffel Tower, the buildings are arranged by role, from dwelling places to bridges, government offices to opera houses, each one illustrated in plan, section and elevation and photographically, along with a lucid explanation of its architectural significance. The book's drawings are also featured on a CD-Rom in EPS and DWG format.

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.

This magnificently illustrated book makes a detailed architectural survey of the mosques, madrasas, palaces and gardens of four great cities of Morocco's former empire: Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat.

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.

Part of the Informed Conservation series, this book surveys places of worship built since 1900 for the many faiths in Leeds, with a final chapter devoted to religions established there since 1945.

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

Focusing on the period since 1940, this illustrated history of the National Trust explores the many different reasons, from philanthropy to tax efficiency, that motivated its benefactors to give away their land.

This catalogue of the architecture and design of leading American firm Rockwell Group includes high-quality photography and text descriptions of many projects, and in some cases images of the artwork which inspired their designs for theatres, hotels, stadiums, restaurants, casinos and other spaces. 13”x10”, 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-Saxon period to the end of the Victorian era. 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.

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.

Bringing together information from various sources, this book identifies, in an A–Z of their names, the men and women responsible for designing and constructing the buildings of Wiltshire. Not typeset.

This handsome, lavishly illustrated volume charts the production and use of ceramics in architecture and interior decoration from the Middle Ages to the present. Drawing on the rich collection of London’s V&A, the book discusses different traditions and techniques, from the encaustic tiles of the Gothic era through Dutch Delftware to the lively, inventive work of Duncan Grant, while the influence of the Islamic world is shown in the tiles of Moorish Spain and Victorian England.

This guide to Buddhist architecture and iconography, from caves, pagodas, stupas and temples, to carvings, illustrations, mandalas and statues, interprets the forms and symbolism of 100 key historic sites and artworks with reference to the beliefs and narratives of the religion. Illustrated with full-page colour photography, each entry includes precise dates, dimensions and materials used, with a spiritual quotation and a sidebar indicating related works.

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.

In its architecture, politics, religion and daily life, the commune of Prato between the 11th and 14th centuries was typical of late medieval Italy. This richly illustrated history, telling the story of Prato’s origins, construction and demise, illustrates how the medieval communes differed from imperial Rome in their ambition to serve the welfare of residents; and it emphasizes the role of architecture in the city-state’s version of democratic urban life.

If one architect shaped postwar Birmingham, it was John Madin (1924–2012) with his Central Library and Chamber of Commerce. Though rooted in the Modernist tradition, his use of ornament and natural materials imbued his work with human values.

The partnership of Donald McMorran and George Whitby continued the pre-war classicist tradition of Lutyens and Holden while avoiding sterile historicism. The Old Bailey extension and Bury St Edmunds Library demonstrate the elegance and durability of their designs.

In a remarkable series of churches including Bow Common in London’s East End, the Christian architects Robert Maguire and Keith Murray fused the intellectual rigour of Brutalism with the humanity and warmth of the Scandinavian tradition.

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’.

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.

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.

Lifting the lid on a hidden London, Spectacular Vernacular tells the stories behind 100 of the capital’s strangest buildings. This selection includes a medieval crypt under a City office block, an arts centre built of shipping containers, castles real and fake, ancient livery halls, grand private clubs, wartime bunkers, ‘ghost’ Tube stations, and London’s only lighthouse. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs, this volume describes the origins and adaptation of each building, and the often eccentric personalities associated with it.

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.

This visual guide to the language of architecture explores the key components and periods of British buildings, from medieval to modern. The hand-drawn, coloured illustrations focus on the main elements to help identify and date British buildings. The primer starts with the grammar of architecture, has an extensive chapter on vocabulary, and continues with exemplars, materials and a gazetteer of notable buildings. At the back are lists of architects, monarchs, places and terms.

This alphabetical guide features some of the National Trust’s most notable buildings, concentrating on the great houses of the 17th and 18th centuries but spanning almost a thousand years, from the Norman ruins of Corfe Castle to Coleton Fishacre, built in the 1920s. Each entry comprises an overview of the building’s history, setting and architecture and is illustrated with full-colour photographs showing interior and exterior views. Off-mint.

John McCann first describes the various processes of building with earth before going on to survey and illustrate regional differences in clay, cob and pisé (rammed earth) cottages, barns and boundary walls throughout Britain.

From medieval ‘hospitals’, attached to monasteries and offering shelter to lepers, pilgrims or the old and poor, to a modern almshouse opened in 2003, this survey illustrates the various types of charitable housing for the elderly in need in Britain; examines the buildings’ often picturesque architectural styles; and discusses the donors, beneficiaries and life within almshouses. The book ends with a gazetteer of interesting examples to visit.

The Scottish engineer Thomas Telford was nicknamed the ‘Colossus of Roads’ because of the engineering genius he brought to British roads, bridges, tunnels and canals. This concise biography by a local author tells how he established his reputation in Shropshire before creating landmarks such as the Menai Bridge and the Ellesmere and Caledonian Canals.

From early post mills to shuttered sails and crown wheels, this is a well-illustrated survey of the machinery used by windmills across Britain to grind grain, pump water and generate power. Martin Watts, a traditional millwright and historian, explores the local materials and craftsmen that shaped their story.

The long-established Shire Archaeology series comprises illustrated introductory guides on a wide range of archaeological topics. Each volume offers an overview of our current knowledge, as well as providing suggestions for further reading and information about sites to visit. New editions of these books are updated with information learned from the most recent excavations and research.

Accused of having an affair with a boy, William Beckford (1760–1844) retired to his estate at Fonthill, Wiltshire, where he constructed a faux-medieval abbey to house his art and antiquities. This book draws on contemporary records to detail his grandiose building plans, and to tell how, having spent his inherited wealth, he was forced to auction both his collection and the building itself, whose huge Gothic tower came crashing down soon after the sale.