Decorative Leadwork £3.50

P. M. Sutton-Goold

978 0 7478 0082 8 (Album 249) 32 pp, 54 ills.

Decorative leadwork is an unsung craft tradition with its origins in the distant past. The simple, hardly-changing process of manufacture by hand, using sheet lead and carved moulds, has long continued. Applied designs with floral, zoomorphic or human forms are rarely repeated in entirety. Similar but seldom identical designs and legends can be found in numerous artefacts, large and small, from the Roman era to the twentieth century, including Roman water tanks, Saxon caskets, twelfth-century fonts, papal bull seals, tokens of secular or religious significance, and quaint roof embellishments. Ornate rainheads have survived from Tudor times to the present day and decorative leadwork, both free-standing and applied, continues to be conserved or replenished by craftmen and artists today in response to aesthetic needs.

Mrs P. M. Sutton-Goold has long researched the leadwork craft and written articles on decorated lead cisterns for Country Life and Antique Collecting.

Dovecotes £4.50

Peter and Jean Hansell

978 0 7478 0504 5 (Album 213) 40 pp, colour and black and white ills.

Although there is little evidence that the Romano-British people bred pigeons, it is widely held that it was the Normans who introduced pigeon-keeping to Britain, and the earliest provision of housing for pigeons is found in some twelfth-century castles and religious houses. This book explains why it was important to keep pigeons and describes the wide variety of buildings that were constructed to house them over the years.

Peter and Jean Hansell have spent many years travelling and researching for a detailed study of dovecotes and related topics, with particular reference to Great Britain. Since the first edition of this book was published, the authors have written two further definitive works on the subject.

East Anglian Village and Town Signs £4.99

Ursula Bourne

978 0 7478 0557 1 (Album 166) 48 pp, 114 colour and 7 b/w ills.

There are more decorative village and town signs in East Anglia than in any other region of Britain. They appear in a variety of styles and many of them are fine examples of gaily painted wood carving or wrought ironwork. Ranging through Norfolk and Suffolk, this new edition, illustrated throughout in colour, explains where the signs are and what they represent.

Ursula Bourne has a great knowledge of and attachment to East Anglia, having lived for fifteen years on a farm in Suffolk.

Discovering English Architecture £6.99

T. W. West

978 0 85263 455 4 (Db 244) 136 pp, 127 ills.

This is a concise survey of the development of architecture in England from the earliest beginnings to the present day. There are many line drawings and photographs, a glossary and a gazetteer of representative buildings of all periods and types.

T. W. West has an MA in Victorian art and has since held teaching posts in further education preparing students for external examinations in the history of architecture.

Fountains and Water Features £5.99

Rosalind Hopwood

978 0 7478 0607 3 (Album 435) 64 pp, 105 colour and 9 b/w ills.

Fountains are as old as civilisation. They originated in the simple provision of an essential element – water – in arid places and they evolved into manifestations of capricious delight and extravagant displays of wealth and power. Fountain development in Great Britain was strongly influenced by travellers returning from Europe during and after the Renaissance. Later, the English landscape designers established a more naturalistic trend in garden design. This book describes the development of fountains and water features in Britain and illustrates many different aspects of it, from mythical allusion, through private pleasure gardens to contemporary civic display. There is also an extensive list of fountains and water features that are open to the public.


Rosalind Hopwood is an art historian with a special interest in fountains and water features. Her PhD thesis on The Origins of the Renaissance Figure Fountain involved extensive travel in Europe and traced the history of water features and the development of hydraulic technology. She has lectured on art and garden history and is a member of the Fountain Society and the Garden History Society.

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Follies £5.99

Jeffery W. Whitelaw

978 0 7478 0624 0 (Album 93) 64 pp, colour and b/w ills

In this book Jeffery W. Whitelaw defines what a folly is and shows that these architectural curiosities are to be found all over England. Many follies were built in the eighteenth century when great landowners, after their Grand Tour of Europe, returned to their estates with visions of putting up romantic ruins to satisfy a yearning for the past. At the same time many of these great estates were being landscaped in the contemporary fashion and the landscape architects were able to crown their grand designs with some sort of eyecatcher for the mansion — a folly, in fact — ‘to give a livelier consequence to the landscape’. The history of follies is traced, from the first prospect tower, through the golden era of the first half of the eighteenth century and up to the Second World War. The numerous illustrations demonstrate the enormous variety of follies that can still be found throughout England.

Now retired from publishing, Jeffery Whitelaw devotes his time to photography.

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Tim Buxbaum

978 0 7478 0150 4 (Album 278) 32 pp, 52 ills. 

Icehouses were designed to store ice in bulk for summertime use in the days before refrigeration. This book examines icehouses in Britain, where they were built in increasing numbers from the early seventeenth century, initially to provide chilled refreshment for the wealthy. By the mid nineteenth century most country estates would have had one. Their design improved as scientific knowledge increased and, although the majority of icehouses remained plain, some exuberant structures were built. Commercial icehouses were erected to serve confectioners, grocers and the fishing industry, for which huge quantities of ice were imported from North America and Norway.

Tim Buxbaum is a chartered architect in private practice in Suffolk, where he lives with his wife Ruth and two sons. Much of his professional work is conservation-orientated, but he also designs new buildings. This Album stems from his interest in garden architecture. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Lighthouses £4.99

Lynn F. Pearson

978 0 7478 0556 4 (Album 312) 64 pp, 104 colour and 5 b/w ills.

The story of the lighthouse is as fascinating and diverse as the design of the buildings themselves. This book relates the story of their construction, often in desperately dangerous and stormy conditions, looks at the lives of their keepers and considers how automation has changed the modern lighthouse. A gazetteer gives brief details of over 180 lights around the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland.

Lynn Pearson is an architectural historian and photographer specialising in unheralded structures, from seaside architecture to multi-storey car parks and mausoleums.. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Sir Edwin Lutyens £4.99

Michael Barker

978 0 7478 0582 3 (Lifeline 43) 48 pp, colour and b/w ills.

Sir Edwin Lutyens was England’s greatest and most prolific architect since Sir Christopher Wren. His career lasted more than half a century, from the reign of Queen Victoria until the Second World War. He designed many country houses and gardens, the Viceroy’s House in New Delhi and numerous monuments, war memorials and cemeteries. Lutyens’s work was romantic in inspiration, classical in discipline, yet complex and often abstract in design, but always executed with excellent craftsmanship using fine materials, including good brickwork and cut stone.

Michael Barker represents the Lutyens Trust and the fund-raising committee for the Franco-British Visitor Centre at Thiepval, for which he has also advised on the displays for Sir Edwin Lutyens.

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Mausoleums £3.50

Lynn F. Pearson

978 0 7478 0518 2 (Album 396) 40 pp, 62 b/w ills.

Mausoleums – magnificent, monumental tombs – are often haunting, powerful buildings in evocative sites. The author reveals their history, beginning with the great tomb at Halicarnassos built for King Mausolos of Caria by his wife Queen Artemisia in the fourth century BC, which gave the monuments their name. She explains the details of their architecture, ranging from massive Egyptianate landmarks through elegant Georgian temples to lavishly decorated Victorian tombs, and considers the motives of mausoleum builders. A substantial, well-illustrated gazetteer of over 150 examples in Britain completes the book, leading the reader on a journey from the remote Sinclair Mausoleum in the north of Caithness – a tiny castle known as Harold’s Tower – to the hugely ornate Royal Mausoleum at Windsor.

Lynn F. Pearson is an architectural historian and photographer specialising in research on unheralded structures. She has published thirteen books, including Discovering Famous Graves (Shire, 1998). She is a research fellow at the University of Wolverhampton, where she is writing and editing the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society’s gazetteer of British ceramic sites. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Discovering Medieval Houses £10.99

Anthomy Emery

*New title - now available

978 0 7478 0655 4 (Db 297, Handbook) 176 pp, 147 colour ills.

Anthony Emery is a leading authority on the medieval houses of England and Wales. A founder Commissioner of English Heritage, former Chairman of Bath Archaeological Trust and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he has combined a business career with academic research.
His book adopts a radically new approach to the development of houses between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries – from Norman to Tudor times – emphasising how their design evolved in response to political and social influences. More than a thousand medieval houses have survived in England and Wales and a list of those that are open to the public is included in the book. There are numerous illustrations, mostly in colour, throughout the text.

Milestones £4.99

Mervyn Benford

978 0 7478 0526 7 (Album 401) 48 pp, many colour ills.

Erected to inform travellers how far they have come and how far they still have to go, milestones are a relic of a time when life moved more slowly. This book tells the story of milestones and the technology they reflect, as well as road measurement. It uses the great variety of designs and styles to argue the historical importance of conservation and to illustrate the compelling fascination of the subject.
Mervyn Benford has worked in education all his professional life and has a consuming interest in history. Concerned at the rate at which evidence of the past disappears, often inadequately recorded, he believes that the understanding of history, the ability to understand cause and effect, to interpret evidence and to recognise what changes and what does not, are all central to an effective society.

Old Cinemas £3.50

Allan Eyles

978 0 7478 0488 8 (Album 357) 32 pp, many b/w ills.

No building type arouses more nostalgic affection than the traditional high street cinema. This book examines the rise and fall of the picture house in Britain.

Hooked on films from the age of eleven, Allen Eyles decided to make a living from his passion for cinema. After he observed the destruction of several notable cinemas, he began documenting their history and has written books about the Gaumont, ABC and Granada circuits as well as editing the historical magazine Picture House. He is currently at work on a two-volume history of Odeon cinemas.

Old Letterboxes £4.50

Martin Robinson

978 0 7478 0446 8 (Album 188) 40 pp, 61 colour ills, 38 b/w ills.

Pillar boxes were first introduced into Britain at the instigation of Anthony Trollope, the novelist who was also a Post Office Surveyor. Nowadays the red postbox is a familiar sight in city street and country lane alike. Although many are very ordinary, some types, such as those that survive from the 1850s, are understandably rare. This book ranges from the Channel Islands to Scotland, and from the heart of London to the depths of rural Wales and the Irish Republic.

Martin Robinson has travelled thousands of miles recording and photographing letter boxes of all kinds, and corresponds extensively with fellow enthusiasts.

Pargeting £3.99

Tim Buxbaum

978 0 7478 0414 7 (Album 341) 32 pp, b/w ills.

Pargeting is the decoration of plastered and rendered finishes on the outside of a building. It is an art and craft that dates back many centuries and varies considerably in technique. Today pargeting is mainly associated with East Anglia, but it once had a wider distribution; many good examples have been lost through neglect, redevelopment, changing taste and fire. There is now a revival of interest in pargeting, and craftsmen are again being commissioned to produce new work.

Tim Buxbaum is a chartered architect whose practice believes in good new building design and the sensitive conservation of historic buildings. Other titles for Shire by this author:

Public Art since 1950 £6.99

Lynn F. Pearson

978 0 7478 0642 4 (Album 451) 80 pp, many colour ills.

Post-war public art encompasses a wide range of intriguing, curious and colourful artworks that can be seen in urban and rural locations throughout Britain. From traditional figurative sculptures to the Angel of the North, these works further the aim of ‘bringing art to the people’. Artworks could be found in the new towns and schools of the 1950s and 1960s, and in redeveloped town centres, where abstract or historical murals were often integrated with new buildings. During the 1980s local authorities and large corporations began to appreciate the value of art in offices and shopping developments, although these works could be controversial. The landmark sculptures of the 1990s and early twenty-first century ensured that public art became a tourist attraction. This beautifully illustrated book reveals the history of post-war public art and provides a detailed guide to nearly two hundred of the most interesting and accessible works in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Lynn F. Pearson is an independent architectural historian and photographer, specialising in unheralded structures and forms, particularly seaside architecture and post-1950 decorative arts. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Roman Villas £5.99

David Johnston

978 0 7478 0600 4 (Shire Archaeology) 72 pp, many colour and b/w ills.

To many people villas symbolise the life of luxury in the countryside of Roman Britain: mosaics and wall paintings, dining rooms and sumptuous baths. This book shows that they were indeed the country houses of prosperous Britons who had learned the ways of Rome. Current research, however, is discovering another aspect: the villa as a farm, the most efficient means of producing goods for market in the new towns, and revenue for the tax collector. The book describes the villa estate and how it was managed, its fields, equipment and outbuildings. It looks at the interdependence of villas and towns and examines the fate of the villas and their estates when the Roman rule ended. Throughout the book examples are chosen from sites that can be seen today, where the visitor can glimpse the richness and variety of life in the countryside of Roman Britain.

David E. Johnston holds a Cambridge degree in classical archaeology with Roman Britain as a special subject. Over the years he has been a practising archaeologist, amateur and professional, and his excavations have included the Sparsholt villa. He is the author of a number of books and research papers, mostly on Roman archaeology and art, especially mosaics. Other titles for Shire by this author:

T. W. West

978 0 85263 748 7 (Db 278) 128 pp, 96 ills.

So much has been written about the natural landscape of Scotland that there has been a tendency to overlook the buildings that have given it its national character. Simply and concisely, using numerous photographs and illustrations, this book surveys the entire range of Scottish architecture to the twentieth century. It is intended for the visitor to Scotland and student of Scottish history.

T. W. West has an MA in Victorian art and has since held teaching posts in further education preparing students for external examinations in the history of architecture.