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Review
‘Moving…this is a heartbreaking book. What we can do now is treasure what survives from the architectural holocaust, and thank Stamp for his sad memorial’ – Simon Jenkins (The Sunday Times )
‘Excellent book’ (Literary Review )
‘Fascinating...the prose is never less than vibrant, often belligerent, and the analysis scholarly and informed.’ (Apollo magazine )
‘Enthralling’ (Country Life )
‘Well-written and keenly researched account of gratuitous vandalism…a powerful indictment’ (BBC History magazine )
‘Stamp’s diligent research’ Five stars ***** (Mail on Sunday )
‘Excellent book’ (Literary Review )
‘Fascinating...the prose is never less than vibrant, often belligerent, and the analysis scholarly and informed.’ (Apollo magazine )
‘Enthralling’ (Country Life )
‘Well-written and keenly researched account of gratuitous vandalism…a powerful indictment’ (BBC History magazine )
‘Stamp’s diligent research’ Five stars ***** (Mail on Sunday )
Product Description
These days it seems perfectly obvious that stupendous nineteenth-century constructions like St Pancras Station should be not only preserved from dereliction but also restored to their original iron-and-glass glory - and used. But it was not always the case. As recently as the 1970s a superb Victorian building like Glasgow’s St Enoch’s Hotel was being levelled to make way for a banal shopping centre. In the mid-1960s St Pancras itself had been earmarked for demolition. The prevailing attitude of the twentieth century towards Victorian architecture had, for many decades, been well summed up by P.G. Wodehouse in his dismissal of the fictional mid-Victorian Walsingford Hall as ‘a celebrated eyesore in all its startling revolting hideousness’. ‘Victorian’, quite simply, was a term of abuse. Add in the wartime bombing of our cities by the Luftwaffe, and the vandalism of the town planners to make way for the modern ring road and the multi-story, and the scale of the damage is truly sobering. This poignant book, full of stunning and unexpected images, chronicles - and deplores - the catastrophic swathe cut through our architectural heritage by the twentieth century’s sustained antipathy to the nineteenth, as well as offering an offbeat history of Victorian architecture, and its belated re-evaluation, entirely through buildings that have disappeared. Of the 200 notable examples of Victorian architecture illustrated in this book, from the magnificent Imperial Institute in Kensington to Norman Shaw’s superb church in Bingley, from Preston Town Hall to the vast country house of Eaton Hall, not one still exists. A photograph is all we have left. As well as architectural causes célèbres like the Euston Arch and London’s Coal Exchange, Stamp also turns up many lesser-known but amazing Victorian buildings whose loss is perhaps even more to be mourned, because history gave us no time at all to appreciate them. Who’d have known that Hackney in East London briefly accommodated the extraordinary Gothic battlements of Columbia Market, or that Chatsworth in Derbyshire once boasted a soaring glasshouse streamlined like a spaceship? Complementing these plangent images is Gavin Stamp’s angry account of the wilful destruction, largely motivated by ignorance and prejudice, of grand, solid, striking buildings made to last a lifetime. Surprising, chastening, but also uplifting, Lost Victorian Britain is a memorable journey back into a world we should never have lost.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a most valuable look at some of the buildings we lost through neglect, wilful architectural snobbery and modernist ideas, and sadly also wartime damage. The text is angry but informative, the pictures exceedingly well chosen. Strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in our lost heritage.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book was a present for my husband, who has huge admiration for the achievements of Victorian England. He was simply entranced by the quality of the writing and the pictures, but then was saddened by the realisation of what the modern-day vandalism of planning departments had destroyed, merely because it was old.
We are both convinced that anyone with an eye for splendour will thoroughly enjoy this magnificent book and we have no hesitation in awarding five points!
We are both convinced that anyone with an eye for splendour will thoroughly enjoy this magnificent book and we have no hesitation in awarding five points!
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Fantastic book, crammed with information about the lost Victorian Architecture of our country. Amazing photo's. This is a real must for anyone interested in the Victorian Age, or the Gothic Revival.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Victorian fan
This is a beautiful book with great photographs of Victorian buildings, demolished in the name of progress. The buildings are from all over the country. Read more
Published 3 months ago by M. M. Jordan
Lost Victorian Britain - Architecture
This was bought as a present for a senior town planner.
He thought it excellent and I have had no criticisms back.
He thought it excellent and I have had no criticisms back.
Published 14 months ago by Eric Evans
Listmania!
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