Old palaces for new plutocrats

Having lived in London for 35 years, I thought I knew its architectural highlights pretty well, but this book is a revelation. It shows an aspect of the city that I hardly realised existed. I had always believed that, in what must now be called the Downton years, Britain’s grandest families preferred to sacrifice their London palaces in order to hang onto their country seats. The French had their priorities the other way about, our attachment to rural life being one of the things that made us British. Devonshire House, on Piccadilly, which was demolished in the 1920s, along with so many other Georgian buidlings, symbolised this retreat from the capital. This narrative remains broadly true, but the joy of Great Houses of London is that it shows how much more survived than one might have thought.

Beginning with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Palace and Ashburnham House, owned by Westminster School, the author takes us suavely around Marlborough House, 10 Downing Street, the Mansion House, Spencer House, 20, St James’s Square — all familiar enough.