The English House: A History in Eight Buildings
Saturday 10 October
Castle Hill Baptist Church
2.00pm
Elegant early-eighteenth century Pallant House in Chichester. In Spitalfields, 19 Princelet Street, built for a Huguenot silk-weaver, ultimately a synagogue. Yet this is also the story of two-up, two-downs in Toxteth, a block of flats in London’s East End and what Ideal Home magazine described in 1926 as Britain’s ‘first modern house’ – in Northampton.
Dan Cruickshank weaves architectural and social history to create a series of brilliantly observed portraits of eight buildings that tell the story of modern Britain.
Together these diverse buildings reveal the ways in which English homes have developed and changed over the centuries. At the same time, they have much to tell us about the lives of their first occupants: their aspirations, their struggles, their place within society and relationship with their local community.