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33+ Works 2,380 Members 15 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Mark Girouard is one of Britain's leading architectural historians and the author of many books. He lives in London.

Works by Mark Girouard

The Victorian Country House (1971) 166 copies
A Country House Companion (1987) 152 copies
Hardwick Hall (1976) 91 copies
Historic Houses of Britain (1746) 75 copies
Victorian Pubs (1975) 43 copies
Enthusiasms (2011) 25 copies

Associated Works

Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House (1965) — Introduction — 247 copies
Our World's Heritage (1987) 94 copies

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Reviews

The country houses built in Britain during the mid- and late-19th centuries, as Mark Girouard, notes in this book, are monuments to their age. Built for the Victorian country gentleman, they reflected the values and priorities of his class, while their development speaks to the changing tastes and technologies of the period. In taking these houses as his subject, the author seeks to offer insight not just into the buildings but into a social class that dominated the age and whose influence can still be felt in many ways today.

Girouard divides the book into three parts. The first offers a general overview of Victorian country houses, including their design, construction, and layout. This allows him to provide some generalities about Victorian country homes, as well as charting their evolution throughout the period. He follows this in the second part by detailing 23 houses built during the era. Scattered throughout Great Britain and Ireland, they serve as case studies, with their individualized descriptions illustrating the assertions made earlier in the book. The remaining homes built during the era are listed in a catalog that comprises the final third of the work, giving readers a complete list of every one of the homes and their subsequent fate.

Generously illustrated with photographs of the houses and supplemented with floor plans, maps, and biographical details of the architects, Girouard's book is a lavish study of its subject. Written in a clear style, its pages offer a comprehensive synopsis of the evolution of Victorian country abodes, one that provides many interesting details about their development. Though written over thirty years ago, it remains a useful starting point for anyone interested in the country houses and in what they reveal about the Victorian elite.
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MacDad | 1 other review | Mar 27, 2020 |
Il mio è un rapporto tanto particolare quanto personale quello che ho con le "Country Houses" inglesi. Tutto nasce da lontano, al termine del corso degli studi universitari all'I.U.O.di Napoli nel secolo e nel millennio trascorsi. Un lavoro di traduzione, una "scoperta" che feci nella Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli. Mi ricorda i migliori anni della mia vita da studente in quella straordinaria città.

Mio padre tipografo, mio zio editore, ed io medesimo, conoscemmo una persona straordinaria che lavorava in quel posto dedicato ai libri. Era la dottoressa Talò alla quale devo, tra tante altre cose, anche la fortuna di avere scovato per me, in quel paradiso dei libri che è quella biblioteca, i quattro volumi dei dell’economista inglese Arthur Young.

Quei libri facevano parte della collezione privata della biblioteca dei Borboni direttamente fatti arrivare da Londra, con speciale dedica. Su di essi ho avuto la possibilità di redigere la mia tesi di laurea ed effettuare poi le successive ricerche per la borsa di studio quadriennale ministeriale sulla Rivoluzione Agricola Inglese sotto la guida di quell’indimenticabile Maestro e Anglista che fu Fernando Ferrara.

Quei volumi profumavano d’Inghilterra e della sua storia, ma anche di un odore napoletano e borbonico. Ecco dove mi ha condotto la lettura di questo libro a distanza di oltre mezzo secolo. Arthur Young nella stesura dei suoi resoconti sulla Rivoluzione Agricola non mancò di occuparsi delle tante Country Houses che facevano parte di quella realtà agricola terriera che stava attraversando la più grande rivoluzione della storia di quel Paese.

Una rivoluzione tanto importante quanto necessaria da conoscere. Precedette e condusse a quella altrettanto rivoluzionaria, che va sotto il nome di Rivoluzione Industriale. Il caso, ma non solo questo, ha voluto che la prossima estate mi si è data la possibilità di seguire un ennesimo corso di studio su questo argomento durante una Summer School al Marlborough College, in Inghilterra.

Le etichette che ho assegnato a questo libro identificano la qualità del libro. Un caso personale di bibliomania, ma anche di identità della storia di un popolo vista in un determinato periodo che va dal Medio Evo e che continua ancora oggi anche se in maniera diversa. Microstoria che diventa storia, in un passato che per la penna di chi scrive diventa un piacevole viaggio nel tempo toccando temi che sono trasversali ed anche universali.

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AntonioGallo | 5 other reviews | Oct 9, 2019 |
Girouard set out to trace the resurgence of chivalry in England. The book starts out well, with a description of the most popular play of 1912, "Where the Rainbow Ends." In it, a collection of school children battle the Dragon King and their aunt and uncle, who are cruel and unpatriotic. With the help of St.George and a pet lion, they defeat the villains, and "audience and cast sing the National Anthem together." Girouard points out the chivalrous origin of various other ludicrous events of the time (Titanic, the Eglinton Tournament, etc). After Elizabeth I, chivalry fell out of favor, and only revived in the early nineteenth century. A national obsession with the (very idealized) medieval era began. Chivalry led to the formation of the Boy Scouts, sports as a school activity, trade as ungentlemanly, colonial rule, and especially the crazed way Great Britain entered WWI.

The thesis is interesting and the period a favorite of mine, but I had a hard time getting through this book. One problem was that Giouard flits about in time a great deal; tracing the development of knightly metaphors is made far more difficult when the writer suddenly jumps 50 years. The other problem I had was that at least half the chapters were almost catalogs of poets and pieces of art--very little analysis, but long lists of names.
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wealhtheowwylfing | 1 other review | Feb 29, 2016 |
A book remarkably dense about the seats of power of the French aristocracy.

How permanent fixtures of medieval architectonic aristocratic privileges, towers, moats, coats of arms, stags and hounds representations, got carried over through the centuries to make those who owned them apart from the masses.

How small in numbers were the aristocrats who found their death during the 1789 French revolution; 1200 out of 160,000 individuals executed/guillotined..

It seems according this author that most who received the invention of Dr. Guillotin were non-aristocrats (think Danton and Hebert).

How overinflated their numbers in France compared to English peerage due to adding robe nobility to the existing sword nobility as criteria to become aristocrat.
Political nobility also added several thousands (Napoleon, Louis-Philippe).

Girouard shows with accurate perception and compelling visual arguments, a society ranked through the material possessions of its members, castle or country house, or through the right to wield intangibles, such as raising taxes, receiving vassal homage, rendering high and low justice.
Looking forward to read its counterpart; life in the English Country House.
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Artymedon | 2 other reviews | Jan 5, 2014 |

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