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Books : reviews

Alec Clifton-Taylor.
The Pattern of English Building: 3rd edn.
Faber & Faber. 1972

Alec Clifton-Taylor, Denis Moriarty.
Buildings of Delight.
Gollancz. 1986

Alec Clifton-Taylor’s knowledge of English buildings was prodigious, stemming from his lifelong enthusiasm for studying them in immense detail and meticulously recording his observations. Buildings of Delight is the culmination of this love-affair with architecture – his own choice of his hundred favourite buildings. They range from castles and abbeys to mills and dovecots, taking in great houses, farmhouses, churches, bridges and, of course, railway stations. Some are famous, many are not. All are described with the inimitable blend of scholarship and humour which delighted millions of viewers of his BBC television series, Six English Towns.

Alec Clifton-Taylor.
The Cathedrals of England: revised edn.
Thames & Hudson. 1986

This exhilarating and highly admirable study focuses on some of the most exciting and groundbreaking manifestations of English architectural genius. With great verve and learning, Alec Clifton-Taylor leads us through nine centuries of English cathedral architecture and decoration, from their Norman beginnings through the flowering of Gothic to the concrete and metal structures of the twentieth century.

Alec Clifton-Taylor.
Six English Towns: revised edn.
BBC. 1986

England’s small towns are as important a part of our architectural heritage as great buildings. In his book and BBC2 television series Six English Towns, the late Alec Clifton-Taylor took six of them – Chichester, Richmond, Tewkesbury, Stamford, Totnes and Ludlow – to show how site, local materials, traditions of building, and social and commercial history have given each town a distinct character.

The towns were chosen to show the variety of English building. The important buildings get fair notice, but in each town the greatest value lies in the way Alec Clifton-Taylor deals with the houses, cottages, shops and markets that make up the bulk of the buildings. It is here that his unrivalled knowledge of building materials and his delight in the use English builders have made of them comes into his own.

Alec Clifton-Taylor.
Six More English Towns.
BBC. 1981

In his second volume of studies of English Towns, Alec Clifton-Taylor looked at Warwick, Saffron Walden, Beverley, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bradford-upon-Avon and Lewes. His unrivalled knowledge of materials and his interest in how a locality has, by its traditions, industries and geology, shaped its buildings gives his pungent architectural judgements authority.

Maps and illustrations make each chapter a useful short guide. But the towns have been chosen to give a geographical and architectural spread, and the book is also an exemplary introduction to the architecture of England’s towns. These are now the places where the sequence of English building can be best appreciated – in Bradford-upon-Avon, for example, half an hour’s walk will take in a Saxon church, a medieval barn, a great Elizabethan house, domestic building of four-and-a-half centuries and, in mills and weavers’ houses, mercantile and industrial buildings as well. Alec Clifton-Taylor’s love of his subject was infectious. His book is a signal contribution to the cause of intelligent preservation.

Alec Clifton-Taylor.
Another Six English Towns.
BBC. 1984

In his third volume on English towns, the late Alec Clifton-Taylor looked at Cirencester, Whitby, Bury St Edmunds, Sandwich, Devizes and Durham – all excellent subjects for architectural portraiture.

The towns were chosen for their geographical and architectural variety. They contain exceptional buildings: in Durham, for example, stands one of the greatest English cathedrals, in Sandwich one of Lutyens’ most perfect houses, The Salutation. But as well as masterpieces like these, each town has public buildings, churches and dwellings, both great and small, which merit intelligent appraisal.

Building materials were Alec Clifton-Taylor’s special field of study, and no one has written better about the way stone, brick and timber contribute to a town’s individuality. But he is equally informative about the tall windows and steep steps of Whitby, the acoustics of Bury’s late Georgian playhouse, or the importance of the Kennet and Avon canal.

Alec Clifton-Taylor wrote about living towns, not architectural museums. He could be tart in his criticism of ill-judged alterations, but antiquity was not by itself enough to win his praise. His judgements were confident and trenchantly expressed; he fought dilution of character by teaching attention to the history and detail of building.

This fully illustrated book offers a thorough and lively guide to the towns it deals with and an introduction to many of the most important aspects of English building.