The English Town

Gracious Georgian cathedral towns, elegant

Regency spas, mill towns with ebullient Victorian carving on every edifice — English towns and cities are a source of endless fascination and historical interest. In this entertaining and sumptuously illustrated book, Mark Girouard, author of the best-selling Life in the English Country House, traces the development of these towns through the centuries. From the council chamber to the sewer system, from the market square to the suburbs, from the quayside to the back streets, and from the bright lights to the parks, Girouard describes the origins and development of each feature in terms of the functions it fulfilled, the way it developed, and the buildings and townscapes that it generated. And along the way he introduces us to the people who inhabited this varied and constantly changing English scene.

Girouard takes us to the site of the world’s first commercial dock in Liverpool, the almshouses of Abingdon built in 1446 and still in use, to the people’s paradise of Blackpool with its turn-of-the-century entertainment palaces. We are transported to festive market days in town squares throughout England, to the teeming smoke-infested drama of northern industrial towns, and to the assembly rooms in Bath, where dancing, matchmaking, and gambling were rituals of equal importance. Out of all this there emerges a rich medley of buildings: towering warehouses, mellow houses of Georgian brick or Jacobean half-timbering, pompous banks, grim prisons, and effervescent pubs.

Over the last fifty years, in wartime and in peace, English towns and cities have suffered greatly, but they remain a most precious asset. Girouard’s witty, learned, and original text, accompanied by a wealth of illustrations taken from paintings, drawings, plans and photographs of all periods, provides an unparalleled celebration of this architectural and social phenomenon.