The complete history of Whitehall Palace, the official seat of the English monarchy for almost 160 years, and part of Merrell's highly popular series of official illustrated histories of the royal palaces of London.
'Excellent . . . Fresh, learned, readable and full of life' Dan Jones, Mail on Sunday Houses of Power is the result of Simon Thurley's thirty years of research, picking through architectural digs, and examining financial accounts, original plans and drawings to reconstruct the great Tudor houses and understand how these monarchs shaped their lives.________What was it like to live as a royal Tudor? Why were their residences built as they were and what went on inside their walls? Who slept where and with who? Who chose the furnishings? And what were their passions?________The Tudors ruled through the day, throughout the night, in the bath, in bed and in the saddle. Their palaces were genuine power houses - the nerve-centre of military operations, the boardroom for all executive decisions and the core of international politics. Far more than simply an architectural history - a study of private life as well as politics, diplomacy and court - it gives an entirely new and remarkable insight into the Tudor world.
Between 1900 and 1950 the British state amassed a huge collection of over 800 historic buildings, monuments and historic sites and opened them to the public. This book explains why the collecting frenzy took place. It locates it in the fragile and nostalgic atmosphere of the interwar years, dominated by neo-romanticism and cultural protectionism.
The story of the Stuart dynasty is a breathless soap opera played out in just a hundred years in an array of buildings that span Europe from Scotland, via Denmark, Holland and Spain to England.
In LOST BUILDINGS OF BRITAIN leading historian Simon Thurley takes a journey into our nation's past and reveals the hidden narratives behind what we have lost from our historic landscape. Today they are ruins, destroyed by fire, neglect, war and even progress. But once they were places of great importance and beauty. Sifting through the remains, Thurley paints a fascinating portrait of how our ancestors once lived and worked. LOST BUILDINGS OF BRITAIN is accompanied by a six-part television series on Channel 4. The six buildings Glastonbury Abbey, the Palace of Whitehall, Nottingham Castle, Millbank Penitentiary, Fonthill Abbey and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
The first modern history of St James's Palace, shedding light on a remarkable building at the heart of the history of the British monarchy
