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A Lust for Window Sills
Ever wondered why the floors in terraced houses are different heights? Or what a landscape looked like before it was built on? And did you know you can date a building by its window sills? In A Lust for Window Sills , Harry Mount takes us on an engrossing tour of the UK's architecture, exploring the quirks, foibles, and tiny details that make their buildings unique, and revealing the fascinating stories and anecdotes behind them along the way. We see every historic building style in Britain in one hour's walk across London, from the Norman apse of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield—where Hugh Grant backs out of marrying Duckface in Four Weddings and a Funeral —to the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing, via Gothic in Holborn, Sir. Christopher Wren in the City, and the Knights Templar at Temple. A trip up the M4 reveals some of their greatest country houses, while a visit to Stonehenge, Avebury, and Silbury Hill is a journey back to the Bronze Age. This book is a lively, entertaining, and affectionate portrait of a country's history and the Britain of today.
384 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 17, 2021
3.5 Stars
Mount's book takes us through a generally chronological history of British architecture, ending with a few walks and drives with interesting architecture to be spotted on the way: within London, along the M4 and 'View from the Buffet Car on the Edinburgh Train'. It also features a glossary at the end. The main annoyance I had with this book was the lack of pictures and diagrams! He mentions lots of buildings, and stops to compare one to another, but very, very rarely do we see an picture of what he is talking about. He takes us through parts of church, parts of a classical column and so on, but at no point do we get a labelled image to help explain this and show us this visually. Sadly the few images included are often too small and the feature it is meant to be depicting unclear. Images and diagrams are crucial in a book like this!
At times it feels a little gimmicky dropping names (and going on small, irrelevant tangents about said person) and also listing shows and films that have been filmed in certain buildings (including a description of how for a TV show 40 years ago the BBC created a mock up of building and where the external scenes were filmed - a bit of a tangent!).
He seems to have a thing against casement windows, going as far as to say that if the windows in Fleming's lab were casements, spores would not have come in and therefore penicillin would not have been invented, which is certainly not true as both allow air flow!
There were a few interesting things I learnt from this including that after the Great Fire of London, legislation required a window sill of four inches deep or more, and then later, also to help fight fire, sash frames had to be hidden behind bricks. I was hoping for more details like this that help you date buildings. The other interesting thing I found out was the answer to a question I have had for a bit. Apparently the reason London houses have a white plastered ground floor and then exposed brick for the floors above is because they were mimicking the grander terrace houses, which in turn were mimicking the Palladian classical style.
Mount's book takes us through a generally chronological history of British architecture, ending with a few walks and drives with interesting architecture to be spotted on the way: within London, along the M4 and 'View from the Buffet Car on the Edinburgh Train'. It also features a glossary at the end. The main annoyance I had with this book was the lack of pictures and diagrams! He mentions lots of buildings, and stops to compare one to another, but very, very rarely do we see an picture of what he is talking about. He takes us through parts of church, parts of a classical column and so on, but at no point do we get a labelled image to help explain this and show us this visually. Sadly the few images included are often too small and the feature it is meant to be depicting unclear. Images and diagrams are crucial in a book like this!
At times it feels a little gimmicky dropping names (and going on small, irrelevant tangents about said person) and also listing shows and films that have been filmed in certain buildings (including a description of how for a TV show 40 years ago the BBC created a mock up of building and where the external scenes were filmed - a bit of a tangent!).
He seems to have a thing against casement windows, going as far as to say that if the windows in Fleming's lab were casements, spores would not have come in and therefore penicillin would not have been invented, which is certainly not true as both allow air flow!
There were a few interesting things I learnt from this including that after the Great Fire of London, legislation required a window sill of four inches deep or more, and then later, also to help fight fire, sash frames had to be hidden behind bricks. I was hoping for more details like this that help you date buildings. The other interesting thing I found out was the answer to a question I have had for a bit. Apparently the reason London houses have a white plastered ground floor and then exposed brick for the floors above is because they were mimicking the grander terrace houses, which in turn were mimicking the Palladian classical style.
December 23, 2023
A witty, accessible guide to the various styles of British architecture through the ages. Mount seamlessly uses literary references to further bring the story of our built environment alive. He does not shy away from technical vocabulary but introduces the reader to it as an empowering tool.
His aim is to equip the reader with the ability to notice the distinguishing features of a building, dste them and enjoy the process.
If this is what you want, do not be put off by his style - it will soon win you over!
His aim is to equip the reader with the ability to notice the distinguishing features of a building, dste them and enjoy the process.
If this is what you want, do not be put off by his style - it will soon win you over!
Read
September 30, 2009I confess I am more of a 20th century architecture kind of girl. I find the sweeping curves and arches of what Mount calls "the not so handsome concrete bridge" in Berwick to be heartachingly lovely (and really do consider him a bit of a Philistine for this throwaway comment!).
However, my main complaint about this book is its lack of structure. Mount knows it's a flaw, and tries to cover it up by stating right away that "this book is a dipper, not a reader-straight-througher." I think that's a poor excuse for the fact that he COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO ORGANIZE IT. In the chapter on Palladian (18th century) houses, for example, there's a random paragraph about the American influence on the number of bathrooms in Victorian (19th century) hotels--clearly a juicy little tidbit that simply didn't fit anywhere else.
I also somehow expected "A Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble Dash" to be a bit less, well, totally focussed on the Upper Middle Class (if not the Downright Filthy Rich). Mount's discussion of terraces, for example, completely leaves out, well, terraces. OK, so he means Georgian terraces. He doesn't mean industrial terraces. But it took me some time to realize that he just wasn't even going to go there. Ewww! Who would want to wander around the backstreets of Manchester when you could be swanning around Regent's Park? You'd think the silkweavers' cottages of Macclesfield didn't exist.
I do love his odd little inserts--"Sir John Soane and the Red Phone Box," the location of the three original remaining Eleanor Crosses, a picture of the window in Hertford College into which the delicious young Anthony Andrews, in the persona of Sebastian Flyte, threw up in the first episode of the BBC's 1981 Brideshead Revisited. And my very favorite bit of the book was the guided railway journey from King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley--a journey I'd love to take with this book open in front of me. Mount's several other guided architectural tours, by foot and by car (a couple around London and one down the M4!), are also fun.
So, the book does have its moments, and you could say I was warned by the author not to read it straight through. I'd maybe give the same recommendation to any other reader. That way you'll avoid growing annoyed with Mount's stylistic bugs, such as his persistent use of "twirly whirly" as a descriptive term (I'm pretty sure it's an affectation, not architectural techno-speak) and his repeated commands to "think this, think that."
However, my main complaint about this book is its lack of structure. Mount knows it's a flaw, and tries to cover it up by stating right away that "this book is a dipper, not a reader-straight-througher." I think that's a poor excuse for the fact that he COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO ORGANIZE IT. In the chapter on Palladian (18th century) houses, for example, there's a random paragraph about the American influence on the number of bathrooms in Victorian (19th century) hotels--clearly a juicy little tidbit that simply didn't fit anywhere else.
I also somehow expected "A Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble Dash" to be a bit less, well, totally focussed on the Upper Middle Class (if not the Downright Filthy Rich). Mount's discussion of terraces, for example, completely leaves out, well, terraces. OK, so he means Georgian terraces. He doesn't mean industrial terraces. But it took me some time to realize that he just wasn't even going to go there. Ewww! Who would want to wander around the backstreets of Manchester when you could be swanning around Regent's Park? You'd think the silkweavers' cottages of Macclesfield didn't exist.
I do love his odd little inserts--"Sir John Soane and the Red Phone Box," the location of the three original remaining Eleanor Crosses, a picture of the window in Hertford College into which the delicious young Anthony Andrews, in the persona of Sebastian Flyte, threw up in the first episode of the BBC's 1981 Brideshead Revisited. And my very favorite bit of the book was the guided railway journey from King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley--a journey I'd love to take with this book open in front of me. Mount's several other guided architectural tours, by foot and by car (a couple around London and one down the M4!), are also fun.
So, the book does have its moments, and you could say I was warned by the author not to read it straight through. I'd maybe give the same recommendation to any other reader. That way you'll avoid growing annoyed with Mount's stylistic bugs, such as his persistent use of "twirly whirly" as a descriptive term (I'm pretty sure it's an affectation, not architectural techno-speak) and his repeated commands to "think this, think that."
September 8, 2012
I bought this book last Christmas because the title looked interesting. It was definitely a worthwhile purchase.
A witty and enjoyable read, Mount skilfully covers a lot of ground, although I don't think the book is quite as dip-in and dip-out as he suggests in the foreword, as the chapters build upon each other, particular in the technical details of the buildings, so that I'm not sure that someone who'd read the book out of order without previous knowledge of architectural terms would be able to entirely follow. I think some of the detail could do have done with being fleshed out, because, especially in the middle section about Gothic windows, I lost the thread of historical story.
There's also a few occasions where he refers to pictures on the covers, which I'm sure are there in the hardback, but they're not there in the paperback.
But, those minor gripes aside, I had a lot of fun reading this, and, since reading it, using the information in the book while looking at buildings.
A witty and enjoyable read, Mount skilfully covers a lot of ground, although I don't think the book is quite as dip-in and dip-out as he suggests in the foreword, as the chapters build upon each other, particular in the technical details of the buildings, so that I'm not sure that someone who'd read the book out of order without previous knowledge of architectural terms would be able to entirely follow. I think some of the detail could do have done with being fleshed out, because, especially in the middle section about Gothic windows, I lost the thread of historical story.
There's also a few occasions where he refers to pictures on the covers, which I'm sure are there in the hardback, but they're not there in the paperback.
But, those minor gripes aside, I had a lot of fun reading this, and, since reading it, using the information in the book while looking at buildings.
July 1, 2012
England is endowed with a magnificent collection of buildings, as eclectic and diverse as the country and its people. Living in Oxford I am spoiled for choice, I mean, I am writing this from Duke Humfries medieval library and looking out one window at a young Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theater and another at James Webb’s Palladian masterpiece, the Radcliffe Camera. Frequently, though, I found myself wishing I knew a bit more about the buildings I encounter, and not just the significant ones, but the run of the mill terraces and pubs. Mount’s book is not a deep book nor does it explore the subtleties and nuance of every epoch, but it does give one a sense of history. After reading it one can stroll through London, or Oxford, or elsewhere and place most buildings in rough relation to one another. And, essential for Oxford, it gives you a few anectdotes and terms to toss out over a formal hall or drinks party.
July 27, 2011
Interesting and amusing guide to architectural hisory.
October 16, 2012
Great fun.
June 8, 2014
Very readable but also comprehensive
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March 13, 2016
As a non-UKer, I would have appreciated more images and maps to help illustrate his points, but overall, it was an enjoyable overview.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews