English houses—the world’s best

Press, 25 January 1986, Page 20

English houses —the world’s best

The National Trust Book of the English House. By Clive Aslet and Alan Powers. Viking, 1985. 312 pp. 142 illustrations. Index. $3O. (Reviewed by lan Lochhead) By the end of the nineteenth century English domestic architecture was widely regarded as being the finest in the world. In 1864 Robert Kerr observed with obvious satisfaction that “there are few things so good — and therefore so well worth describing — as a good English house.” At the turn of the century, the German architect Hermann Muthesius, who had been sent to England especially to study that country’s domestic architecture, suggested that the English house had achieved "a kind of perfection.” Muthesius particularly admired the small irregularly planned houses which combined function and utility with a sensitivity to traditional materials and to location, virtues which he traced to their origins in the vernacular houses of the late Middle Ages. It is this tradition of small and medium sized house building, rather than the stately homes usually associated with the National Trust, which forms the central focus of this

concise history of English domestic

architecture. Although the book surveys almost a thousand years of English architecture it differs from most preceding studies by concentrating on the recent past The first two chapters examine the medieval period and the phase of classical house building which dominated English architecture from the early seventeenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The remaining four chapters, well over half the book, are devoted primarily to nineteenth and twentieth century developments. For New Zealand readers this emphasis on the .modern period makes the book of particular interest, since the changes of taste and fashion which the authors lucidly explain provide an essential background for understanding the development of domestic architecture in this country. The more practical aspects of domestic design are also discussed and one of the book’s most informative chapters deals with the Victorian preoccupations of health, privacy and servants. It is well worth being reminded that the modern system of sanitary plumbing which we take so much for granted was an innovation of the Victorian age. The book is well produced and the

illustrations are clear and carefully chosen. While many of the illustrations are of well known houses, others will be less familiar and serve to emphasise the wealth and diversity of domestic architecture to be found in Britain. Although “The English House” is an introductory survey rather than a guide-book, many of the houses discussed are open to the public; these are identified by an asterisk alongside their listing in the index, while those properties owned by the National Trust are similarly marked. . As is appropriate in a book published under the imprimatur of the National Trust, Aslet and Powers stress the important role which the Trust has played in preserving representative houses from all periods. They also emphasise the ever increasing value being placed on the preservation of older houses in Britain, and the recognition that houses of all periods can be adapted to modem living requirements. These lessons can equally well be applied to New Zealand, for in addition to the economic advantages of recycling old houses there are other intangible gains; “More than any other building type, houses tell us about the people of the past and give a sense of Identity for the future.”