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Everyman's Castle: The story of our cottages, country houses, terraces, flats, semis and bungalows

Everyman's Castle: The story of our cottages, country houses, terraces, flats, semis and bungalows

by PhilippaLewis (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2014

    $3.31
Synopsis

'Remarkable...traces the whole story of domestic architecture in Britain.' AN Wilson, Sunday Telegraph An Englishman's home has always been his castle. Everyman's Castle restores people to the panorama of domestic architecture. Philippa Lewis turns an affectionate eye to the characteristic British types of house - cottages, farmhouses, semi-detached, suburban, flats, terraces, bungalows, country houses - and charts their rise and fall. How were they perceived when they were built, and what happened to them subsequently? What sorts of messages did the design of a house send about the inhabitant, from stairs up to the front door (implying servants living below) in a Victorian terrace to bay windows (implying private ownership) in the twentieth century? The book is thoroughly and beguilingly illustrated with amusing and out-of-the-way material from a wide variety of sources. Using the same technique as her acclaimed Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening, Philippa Lewis builds up the story using original specifications, plans and architects' writings on various types of houses, then layering in the experiences or expectations of those who lived in them, drawing on novels, diaries, letters, magazines and even sale advertisements.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 264
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Published: 05 Jun 2014
ISBN 10: 0711233381
ISBN 13: 9780711233386

Media Reviews
'This remarkable book traces the whole story of domestic architecture in Britain. The author takes us from the primative huts at the time of the Domesday Book to Thirties suburbs. It paints the grandeur of great country houses, such as Houghton, and chronicles the development of urban squares and terraces. It escorts us unblinkingly into the shaming slums, in which those who toiled for our 19th-century wealth were compelled to live and die; and it ends in a glorious chapter, my own favourite, on bungalows' -- A N Wilson Sunday Telegraph Unashamedly riddled with class from beginning to end (unavoidably, considering national aspirations and class mobility, both upwards and downwards), the joy is that Lewis has produced a stream of commentary culled from an astonishing range of literary references interwoven with hard facts. Liberally scattered with the rewards of wide-ranging picture research throughout, it's a very handy-sized volume, the text a mere 250 pages. The Spectator 'Philippa Lewis's lively, discursive survey of domestic buildings is a story of attitudes as much as architecture. She ranges widely not just within architectural literature but fiction, poetry, periodicals and plays too...with her breadth of reference and sprightly style she shows how the British psyche can be read through our buildings.' The Guardian 'A celebration of our nation's properties' The Times 'At a time when well designed housing is in high demand and short supply, it's instructive to look to the past and see how the buildings that still underpin the nation's housing stock were shaped.' Wallpaper* 'Admirably forthright.' House & Garden 'An informative and entertaining look at the diversity of Britain's architectural landscape.' Homes and Interiors Scotland 'Absorbing for the urban geographer.' This England
Author Bio
PHILIPPA LEWIS is a picture researcher, author and editor. Previous publications include Details: A Guide to House Design in Britain and Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening. She is married to the painter Miles Thistlethwaite and lives in Somerset.