Why read Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Country House?

Book cover of Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Country House

Book description

Describes the career of the seventeenth-century British architect, looks at his designs for rural mansions and castles, and discusses his contributions to their interior decoration

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Why read it?

1 author picked Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Country House as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Elizabeth Goldring

Author

Alas, now out of print, this book is part biography, part architectural history, and part social history. The mason-architect Robert Smythson comes to life, as do the houses he designed and the eccentric patrons who employed him. The book's (mainly black-and-white) illustrations inevitably look a bit dated now. But the text is, to my mind, hard to beat: utterly engrossing, particularly when dealing with Hardwick Hall, a house Girouard knows intimately, having lived there as a small child. I remember stumbling across this book many years ago, as a student, while looking for something else at the library. I ended…

From Elizabeth's list on The best books on Tudor art and architecture.