The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw the dramatic expansion of London – wide and elegant boulevards, formal landscaped squares, crescents, blocks of tall redbrick terraced houses, and stone-built Classical public buildings all appeared in Britain for the first time. Throughout London’s sophisticated West End, in Bloomsbury, at Covent Garden, the British Museum and the National Gallery, the legacy of Georgian London is still strikingly apparent. This beautifully illustrated book ...

Whitehaven was just a fishing village on the Cumbrian coast until the port was developed by the Lowther family in the seventeenth century to export coal from the Cumberland coalfield. In the next century it benefitted from the trade in tobacco, sugar and other products with the West Indies to become the second busiest port in the country. The wealth brought to the area was demonstrated by a new town, the most complete example of a Georgian planned town in Britain. Built on a grid system, t...

Dublin has had a long association with its pubs. The city grew rapidly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming a major port for trade around the world, and the city boasted a wealth of taverns, inns, alehouses and public houses. An important part of the city’s prosperity was also the Guinness brewery, founded in Dublin in 1759 and becoming a major employer. Many drinking establishments have survived from these days and have stories to tell, often involving historical figures ...

During the eighteenth century the city of Bath experienced a period of dramatic expansion, when an extensive range of elegant uniform streets, landscaped spaces, tall stone-built Georgian houses, and public buildings made their appearance. There was no master plan for the development of Bath. The city just expanded piecemeal with various developers taking advantage of the city's growing popularity as a spa and resort. Nevertheless, such was the extent and success of these developments that...

The town of Farnham in Surrey lies south-west of London, on the River Wey. The original settlement dates from the Saxon period, although little survives of it today. Following the Norman invasion the Bishop of Winchester built an earthen motte-and-bailey fort overlooking the Saxon settlement. It was redeveloped as a stone castle in the twelfth century, a substantial part of which still stands. The same period saw the construction of St Andrew’s Church. The town was T-shaped and enclosed by...

The ancient city of Bath in Somerset grew up around hot springs on the River Avon, where the Romans founded baths at the location they named Aquae Sulis, the magnificent buildings of which still stand today. The health-giving fame of the waters brought wealth and visitors to the town in later centuries and Bath became an important and fashionable spa town during the Georgian period, attracting high society and gentry from London and around the country. Bath was transformed in the Georgian ...

The city of Limerick, in the west of Ireland, has an interesting history. Established by the Vikings on the estuary of the River Shannon as it flows into the Atlantic, the city was taken over by the Normans in the twelfth century and fought over during the civil wars in the seventeenth century. The city expanded greatly in the Georgian and Victorian eras and this legacy has given Limerick a significant historical fabric of buildings from many ages. Limerick’s Gothic St Mary’s Cathedral, th...

Dublin was established as a Viking settlement in the early Middle Ages and, following the Norman Invasion of Ireland, rapidly grew in size and importance to become a major city. Following the English conquest of Ireland in the sixteenth century, Dublin continued to develop as a centre of trade, and its growing prosperity into the eighteenth century is demonstrated by the city’s rich Georgian architectural legacy, which still forms an important part of Dublin’s character today. Following in...

Edinburgh’s New Town, built between 1767 and 1850, is one of Europe’s finest neoclassical neighbourhoods, a triumph of town planning, with UNESCO World Heritage status. But the importance of the New Town goes far beyond the quality of its architecture. Nearly 250 years after it was built, today it is not only a carefully conserved Georgian neighbourhood but a vibrant community in which people from all walks of life thrive in harmonious surroundings. Those include over 7,000 residential pro...