A Lust For Window Sills: A Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble Dash

Description

'A brilliant, offbeat celebration of the great hodgepodge of British buildings Thomas Marks, Sunday Telegraph From soaring Victorian railway stations to Edwardian terraces, from Perpendicular churches to Strawberry Hill, Britain has an architecture unrivalled in fertility, invention and heart-stopping beauty. And with some very strong feelings about window sills, Harry Mount could not be better qualified to survey it. Meandering through garden suburbs and cathedral closes, discovering Moghul palaces in Gloucestershire and Egyptian sphinxes in Islington, A Lust for Window Sills is rich with anecdote, allusion and such inspired digressions as where to find the ugliest gargoyles and a liquid history of watering holes from gin palaces to the Rovers Return.

Born in 1971, Harry Mount has degrees in Ancient & Modern History from Oxford and Architectural History from the Courtauld Institute. He is a writer and journalist who regularly writes for a range of national newspapers including the Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian.

** 'Marvellous . . . this book is going to do for architectural history what Lynne Truss's EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES did for punctuation . . . Erudite, playful, witty and inspiring, it is destined to transform the way we look at old buildings . . . Barely a sentence passes without some fascinating and often incredibly useful titbit revealing itself . . . . You'll wonder how you lived without it - LITERARY REVIEW ** 'brilliant, offbeat celebration . . . Harry Mount offers an uncluttered survey of British architectural history and clear, memorable explanations. It is packed with intelligent tips . . . Mounts is an irreverent entertaining guide - Thomas Marks, DAILY - ** 'I have been endeavouring to console myself with Harry Mount's rather brilliant book A LUST FOR WINDOW SILLS, reckoning that an ability to distingu Hannah Betts, INDEPENDENT - ** 'Mr Mount has produced an engaging text, amusingly written with a rich leaven of anecdote. There is too, a wealth of literary quotation and referen John Goodhall, COUNTRY Life - ** 'It's a stroll, a jaunt, possibly a meander, taking the reader through all the architectural periods, around most building types and down numerous