Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Images are beautiful bright and vivid. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Although the interiors found in aristocratic houses have received much attention over the years little has been written about how the interiors of middle-class homes have evolved. In this attractive and deeply informed book James Ayres traces the development – in word and picture of vernacular British interiors from the medieval tradition to the mid-nineteenth century. This book is a greatly expanded and revised version of Ayres’s earlier work the Book of the Home in Britain and deals with a wide range of subjects including heating and lighting. details of doors doorways and staircases the use of colour and much more. We learn for example that in Tudor England glazed windows door locks and floorboards were not always considered as fixtures in a middle- class home because of their expense. It was only after such features became cheaper that these interiors grew more decorative and comfortable. In pre-industrial Britain textiles and printed wallpaper were unavailable to most households because of their cost so that colour and pattern were introduced through painted floors ceilings furniture and stencilled walls. In general householders took advantage of what was available nearby; homes in the south-east for example made use of the cast and wrought iron products of Kent and Sussex and those in Devon had locally-made earthenware fire-backs and firedogs. (MP)