Why read Fifty English Steeples?

Book cover of Fifty English Steeples: The Finest Medieval Parish Church Towers and Spires in England

Book description

Winner of the DAM Architectural Book Award 2017

This book - an astonishing achievement following five years of detailed and original research - presents the first systematic survey of the fifty most important medieval parish church towers and spires in England, covering a period of some five hundred years. The…

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Topics

The Middle Ages

Genres

Design

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Why read it?

1 author picked Fifty English Steeples as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Richard Jenkyns

Author

This is a labour of love. Flannery provides plans and architectural elevations of 50 towers of medieval parish churches (with and without spires).

These are beautiful in themselves, and his accompanying descriptions are superbly acute, detailed, and perceptive. This is a book, like Ruskin’s Stones of Venice, that makes you see buildings afresh, and better. England is the top country for towers, and this is the top book about them. It’s a book to return to again and again.

From Richard's 3 favorite reads in 2023.