The English House

Clive Aslet

Editions

Review

A striking feature of The English House is that it is not illustrated – apart from pretty line drawings at the start of each chapter.  (It also has very nice endpapers.)  I mention this not as a criticism but as a way of introducing what the book is by saying what it is not.  It is not a systematic analysis of the various architectural styles used in English domestic buildings, nor is it a gazetteer of houses around the country.  It is more ambitious than that.  Through a carefully chosen sequence of houses, Aslet has presented us with a brilliant narrative history of the development of the English house, embracing changes in technology, environment, social values and customs, economics, life aspirations, and a great deal more.

From Boothby Pagnell Manor House, a stone-built Norman home near Grantham, to the The Butterfly House in Surrey – via a Georgian townhouse in Bath, mill workers’ homes in Cromford, Ruskin’s Brantwood, Elvedon Hall and several others – Aslet considers how these buildings have been occupied and altered to suit contemporary requirements and tastes.  This is a fascinating work of social history. - review by John de Falbe