An Album of Curious Houses - Tapa dura

This book has been written and the photographs have been taken to acclaim and applaud a collection of houses and their builders. The author has chosen them because she considers them all remarkable architectural flights of fancy: some of them beautiful, some of them hideous, but all have been chosen for their originality and exuberance, with admiration for the builders, designers and craftsmen. The author's inquisitiveness and love of England leads her to discover, write about and photograph such oddities as an underwater smoking room in Surrey, an 18th century "cottage ornee" in Devon decorated with shells, a cottage built of cement and chicken wire, triangular and circular houses, houses in churches, houses in medieval castles and houses in trees. The miniature Moorish pavilion Amon Henry Wilds built for himself in Brighton in 1827, the strange Mount Stuart built by the Marques of Bute on the Island of Bute in 1890 plus modern examples such as the Gothic/Arts and Crafts/post-modern house the artist Graham Ovenden is creating on Bodmin Moor today are some of those featured. The author's other books include "Vanishing Victoriana", "Temples of Convenience", "The Englishwoman's Bedroom" and "Beastly Buildings". Her photographs appear in many magazines including "Interiors" and "Country Living".