The Building of England: How the History of England Has Shaped Our Buildings

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Simon Thurley. The Building of England: How the History of England Has Shaped Our Buildings

Contents

Building in England 410–1930

The Problem of English Architecture

Some Big Ideas

How English Buildings Looked

The End of Rome

How the Saxons Built

Where People Lived

The Church before the Vikings

The Mercian Kingdom

The Anglo-Saxon Church

Monasteries

Bishops and Kings

The Rise of Local Churches

Building Techniques and Materials

Great Churches: The First Phase

The Parishes

The Towns

The Establishment of Castles

Building Materials and Technology

The Normans and the English

Old Principles, New Fashions

Monasteries

Where the Rich and Powerful Lived

Getting About

The Countryside

Towns

Introduction

Beliefs and Ideas

Landscapes of Power

How People Worshipped

Defence of the Realm

A Capital City

Introduction

A Century of Crisis 1300–1408

Effects on Building

The Language of Architecture 1320–1400

Aristocratic Houses: the Wartime Generation 1350–1400

The Parishes 1380–1530

Civic Pride 1350–1450

Trade and Commerce 1350–1530

Lancaster and York 1422–1485

Aristocratic Houses: The Second Generation 1470–1520

The Coming of the Tudors 1485–1530

Building Materials

Suppression and Iconoclasm

Influences from Abroad

Royal Palaces, Forts and Dockyards

Urban Building

Houses of the Nouveau Very Riche

Houses for Everyone Else

Keeping Clean and Warm

Architecture for Learning

Patrons, Architects and Contractors

Churches from Elizabeth to the Civil War

Introduction

Civil War

Polite Taste

London

Palaces for the Sick, Injured and Mad

Royal and Aristocratic Palaces

The Army and Navy

Introduction

Polite Taste

Religious Building

Public Buildings in London

Government, Justice and Commerce in Provincial Towns

Aristocratic Life in Town and Country

Living in the Country

Introduction

Building Styles

Sailing the Seven Seas

Inland transport

The Struggle Against France

Manufacturing Buildings

Going to Church

Town Building

Polite Town Houses

Aristocratic Houses in Town and Country

Public Buildings

Icons of England’s Olden Time

Technology, Materials and Methods

Railway Revolutions

Stylistic Developments

Churches

Country Estates

Living in Towns

Commercial Buildings

Drinking Responsibly

Municipal Buildings

Crime and Punishment

The Poorer in Sickness and in Health

Technological Advances

The Languages of Polite Architecture

The Hub of Empire

Housing the Multitude

The First World War

Industry and the First World War

Housing after the First World War

Getting About

Education

The Commercialisation of Leisure

Communications

Shopping

Last Words

Endnotes

Picture credits

Index

Acknowledgements

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Cover

Title Page

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On a number of occasions new architectural languages were imported in a measured form that was then embellished and decorated. This reflects an underlying preference for ornamentation. The severity of Norman Winchester Cathedral (fig. 44), for instance, soon gives way to the exuberance of the nave at Durham Cathedral (fig. 51), something, perhaps, more florid and native, while the introduction of austere classical forms at Longleat House, Wiltshire (p. 212), turns into the encrustations of a house like Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire (fig. 195).

So there is a pendulum of taste swinging from austerity, simplicity and minimalism to ornament, colour and exuberance, and then back again. The Norman Conquest swept away the decorated buildings of the late Saxons, generating an architecture of military sobriety; but this gave way, in reaction, to the exuberant buildings of the 12th century. The way the English used Gothic from the 1170s was very austere, but this led to its elaboration and decoration from the 1250s. Simplicity of line and cleanness of form began to return in the 1340s, remaining the accepted language until the 1450s, when it became decorated and exuberant again. Towards the end of the reign of Henry VII and lasting until around 1530, simplicity and austerity returned before being overwhelmed by the theatre of Henry VIII’s court architecture. Then there was a short period of austere classical rigour from the 1550s to the 60s before a riot of Elizabethan and Jacobean decoration commenced. By the 1630s the mood swung back to minimalism, which remained to the Restoration until the richness and inventiveness of Wren, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh become fashionable. Under the influence of Lord Burlington and his approved architects a more tempered and austere classical architecture then took over until the 1760s, when there was an explosion of decorative styles. The simplicity of the Grecian revival in the 1820s was transformed into the richness and colour of revived Renaissance styles in the 1830s. The purity of Gothic Revivalism in the 1840s then led to a riot of expressiveness of High Victorian Gothic in the 1860s, before a return to the simplification of forms of so-called ‘Queen Anne’ from the 1870s. This, in turn, gave way to a revival of interest in baroque forms, which itself stimulated a new breed of minimalist modern classicism.

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