The third edition of this book presents a broad outline of the development of architectural styles and movements in Britain. Designed to encourage readers to go out and explore, a concise but extremely readable text provides the cultural and historical contexts necessary to understand the place of a building in architectural development, with the author's own line drawings illustrating important examples. Many of these are well known, while others are relatively obscure but equally rewarding or exemplary. Chapters cover the Anglo-Norman Romanesque style and the transition to Gothic, medieval parish churches, castles and houses, Tudor architecture, Jacobean domestic building, and two seminal figures in British architectural history, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren. The story continues with 17th-century Mannerism, the Baroque, Palladianism, early examples of town planning, including Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh New Town, neo-Classicism and the Gothic revival, and finishes with the many movements and styles that have characterised the 20th century. Both a pocket guidebook and a compact history of architecture, Britain, a guide to architectural styles will enable anyone interested in our built heritage to see it with more knowledgeable eyes.

Author Biography

Hubert Pragnell is head of the art department at the King's School, Canterbury. He has also written and illustrated Industrial Britain: An Architectural History..