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Georgian Architecture in the British Isles 1714 - 1830

Georgian Architecture in the British Isles 1714-1830 (English Heritage 2011) is 444 pages long with 481 illustrations, many in colour. Georgian Architecture (David & Charles 1993) is a different book, 223 pages long with 204 pictures (all black and white). The 2011 book is completely re-written, and includes new research carried out over the last 20 years, with material on styles, building-types, individual buildings, monuments and commemoration, the exotic (Hindoo, Chinee, etc.), pleasure-gardens, garden-buildings, structural innovations, ecclesiastical buildings, Palladianism, Gothick and its resonances, the Picturesque, and much else, setting architecture within the complex political climates of the Georgian period, not least the very stability of the Hanoverian Succession which led to the first four Georges. It is a celebration of the major themes found in building-design of the period, and an examination of the stylistic choices of the age, along with the growing interest in mediaeval architecture, monastic remains, and ruins which played such an important part in the Gothic Revival and in the design of landscapes of the Picturesque. In the 2011 book, the author has offered resolutions to several problems (not least (p.107) the meaning of mysterious fabriques at Shugborough, Staffordshire, which has eluded scholars for two centuries). He also includes many buildings in Ireland for the first time; investigates the disposal of Georgian dead and their commemoration; provides a huge bibliography and set of references; looks at Georgian scenography in terms of town-planning; describes and illustrates ephemeral buildings such as coaching-inns and buildings for pleasure; investigates tea-gardens and assembly-rooms; and covers a vast range of topics. Various Revivals are discussed and explained, and the book offers a wide-ranging explanation of the richness of the Georgian age, clarifying connections between nationhood and style, between continuity and stability in political terms, and between structural and industrial inventiveness and building-types.