This title takes a fresh look at a familiar building type - the town house in 18th century London - and investigates the circumstances in which individuals made decisions about living in London, and particularly about their West End house.

For every great country house of the Georgian period, there was usually also a town house. Chatsworth, for example, the home of the Devonshires, has officially been recognised as one of the country's favourite national treasures - but most of its visitors know little of Devonshire House, which the family once owned in the capital. In part, this is because town houses were often leased, rather than being passed down through generations as country estates were. But, most crucially, many London town houses, including Devonshire House, no longer exist, having been demolished in the early twentieth century. This book seeks to place centre-stage the hugely important yet hitherto overlooked town houses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, exploring the prime position they once occupied in the lives of families and the nation as a whole. It explores the owners, how they furnished and used these properties, and how their houses were judged by the various types of visitor who gained access.

Beautifully illustrated history of the Georgian home.

London's modest eighteenth-century houses - those inhabited by artisans and labourers in the unseen parts of Georgian London - can tell us much about the culture of that period. This fascinating book examines largely forgotten small houses that survive from the eighteenth century and sheds new light on both the era's urban architecture and the lives of a culturally distinctive metropolitan population. Peter Guillery discusses how and where, by and for whom the houses were built, stressing vernacular continuity and local variability. He investigates the effects of creeping industrialisation (both on house building and on the occupants), and considers the nature of speculative suburban growth. Providing rich and evocative illustrations, he compares these houses to urban domestic architecture elsewhere, as in North America, and suggests that the eighteenth-century vernacular metropolis has enduring influence.

Continuing her exploration of English interiors, Ros Byam Shaw visits 14 distinctive townhouses full of charm, character and style. In Perfect English Townhouse, Ros Byam Shaw examines the timeless English style of decoration in a variety of Georgian, Victorian, and contemporary townhouses. Architecturally, these tall, narrow properties present challenges. How do you make the best of a basement kitchen with a low ceiling and little light? Or allocate space effectively when you live across five floors? And how do you maximize any outdoor space? Perfect English Townhouse features case studies of such homes, not only in London but also in the provincial towns and cities of England. Some feel like little corners of countryside surrounded by sidewalks, others have a more sophisticated urban allure; some are endearingly quirky, others more classical. All the interiors featured are interesting, inspiring, and reflect the personalities of the people who live in them. These are the kinds of spaces that most of us are familiar with, and that many of us occupy. What is unusual is how cleverly and creatively these examples have been decorated and designed, in the Perfect English style.

From prize-winning historical novelist Louise Allen, this book presents nine walks through both the London Jane Austen knew and the London of her novels! Follow in Jane's footsteps to her publisher's doorstep and the Prince Regent's vanished palace, see where she stayed when she was correcting proofs of Sense and Sensibility and accompany her on a shopping expedition – and afterwards to the theatre. In modern London the walker can still visit the church where Lydia Bennett married Wickham, stroll with Elinor Dashwood in Kensington Palace Gardens or imagine they follow Jane's naval officer brothers as they stride down Whitehall to the Admiralty. From well-known landmarks to hidden corners, these walks reveal a lost London that can still come alive in vivid detail for the curious visitor, who will discover eighteenth-century chop houses, elegant squares, sinister prisons, bustling city streets and exclusive gentlemen's clubs amongst innumerable other Austen-esque delights.

In 1806, the Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford opened a gallery at Cleveland House, London, to display their internationally-renowned collection of Old Master paintings to the public. A ticket to the gallery's Wednesday afternoon openings was a sought-after prize, granting access to the collection and the house's dazzling interior in the company of artists, celebrities, and Britain's elite. This book explores the gallery's interior through the lens of its abundant material culture, including paintings in gilded frames, furniture, silver oil lamps, flower arrangements, and the numerous printed catalogues and guidebooks that made the gallery visible to those who might never cross its threshold. Through detailed analysis of these objects and a wide range of other visual, material, textual and archival sources, the book presents the gallery at Cleveland House as a methodological case study on how the display of art in the 19th century was shaped by notions about public and private space, domesticity, and the role art galleries played in the formation of national culture. In doing so, the book also explains how and why magnificent private galleries and the artworks and objects they contained gripped the public imagination during a critical period of political and cultural transformation during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Combining historical, cultural and material analysis, the book will make essential reading for researchers in British art in the Regency period, museum studies, collecting studies, social history, and the histories of interior decoration and design in the 18th and 19th centuries.