Reuse it! In the list of things that need to be done but which are better put off till tomorrow, book-weeding is near the top. When bookpiles stealthily grow like silent stalagmites on the bedroom floor, it’s an indication that there’s no let-up in the book-buying. My shelves of English architectural history, of English literature, of books about places, music, art, keep growing. And the Resident Wise Woman is adding to the accumulation with her collection of contemporary poetry. Our house is not of infinite size. It’s not even large. So occasionally, I try to go through my shelves, weed out ..read more

Red face, red box I want to reprise a post I did about nine years ago, because it provides some context for another post I intend to write shortly. So here is a brief account of the prototype red telephone box that stands at the entrance to the courtyard of the Royal Academy in London, a tiny building that stands at the beginning of the story of one of Britain’s best known, and best loved, bits of architectural design. Here’s what I wrote back then. Having coffee in Notting Hill Gate before calling my son to arrange our visit to the Ai Weiwei exhibition, I take out my mobile…to discover that ..read more

Foxy Shaldon, a small settlement across the estuary from Teignmouth, was originally busier and much more important than it is now – it was a centre for ship-building, but was eclipse by Teignmouth when the Shaldon side of the river silted up. So by the 19th century, Teignmouth was increasing in size, becoming the town it is today. Meanwhile, Shaldon turned into something of a backwater, although popular as a quiet place to which people retired or visited to enjoy the sea air. This new role of Shaldon saw the building in the early-19th century of a number of houses in the. cottage orné style ..read more

  Place and taste I was recently reading Adam Nicolson’s Sissinghurst, about the beautiful castle in Kent restored and lived in by his grandparents, Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. Adam Nicolson is the third generation of his family to live there and its garden, also the creation of Vita and Harold, is world-famous. In the book, I found this very apposite observation about places: ’It is an article of faith with me that a place consists of everything that has happened there; it is a reservoir of memories, and understanding those memories is not a trap but a liberation, a menu o ..read more

Variety It has become almost second nature to me to seek out the atypical buildings in places that I visit – to look for Victorian architecture in Regency Cheltenham, to find Art Deco in Georgian Bath, to keep my eyes open for the unexpected, not just the Shakespearian, in Stratford-upon-Avon. In Coventry, of course, there’s plenty to look at from the post-World War II rebuilding. But the place also has some buildings that survived the Blitz – medieval town gates, Georgian houses, and this, the former Gaumont-Palace, from the golden age of cinema. It was opened in 1931 and its facade is ver ..read more

Over the moat This is house is another recent discovery for me in a city I thought I knew. It’s called The Fosse, ‘fosse’, meaning ditch, because it was built near the moat of Hereford Castle, itself now long gone. From the outside, at least, it’s a stunning house of 1825, attributed to the architect Sir Robert Smirke. Smirke is best known as a neoclassicist, but he was highly versatile, just as happy with Gothic or Tudor revival, and apparently comfortable whether designing a grand house or a railway station, a prison or the British Museum. The Fosse has elements of Jacobean (the chimney ..read more

Aid for the industrious Wondering along an unfamiliar street in Hereford, I came across this arch, looking like a Jacobean relic stranded in the modern city. A little research soon revealed that it’s neither Jacobean nor stranded. It’s actually Victorian – the Victorians revived virtually every earlier British style of architecture, Jacobean included and they knew that the flattened arch, scrolls, finials, curvaceous gable and pediment would evoke the kind of architecture popular on grand country houses and other buildings from around the year 1600. The arch makes a grand entrance to a ceme ..read more

  Local industry Many people visit the Cotswolds, and most of them come to see quaint limestone cottages and medieval churches, and to walk in the hills along the many waymarked footpaths, taking in stunning views of vale and hill as they go. They come for rural beauty and tranquility, but many of them end up in the most popular showcase towns and villages, from Chipping Campden to Lower Slaughter.* They find find what they’re looking for, but also sometimes what they don’t expect, like surviving evidence of past industry, from cloth-weaving to corn milling, for Cotswold sheep produced ..read more

Take notice There has been a lot in the news recently about the polluted state of many of Britain’s rivers. The River Wye, for example, is undergoing an ecological crisis due to the levels of phosphates in its waters, a state of affairs that has been attributed to run-off from the many intensive poultry farms near its banks.* Other rivers have enormous amounts of untreated sewage dumped into them, because Britain’s sewerage system cannot cope with the demands placed on it by an increasing population and climate change. This is a situation that needs urgent attention. I was reminded of this ..read more

  God’s House Alice de la Pole (1404–75), granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer and Countess of Salisbury then Duchess of Suffolk, was a member of England’s rich and powerful upper class, who had several homes. Her favourite was at Ewelme, in Oxfordshire. Her house has gone, but the church, school, and almshouse she built remain, standing in a tight cluster above the river valley where the village grew up. The almshouse is one of the most beautiful medieval domestic buildings, consisting of dwellings for 13 residents (originally all men), who, in return for their accommodation, wer ..read more