The Shire Library has published inexpensive but decently illustrated books on unusual and somewhat specialised aspects of architecture, collectibles, design, heritage, social history and much else, some 750 titles in all, including such surprising subjects as Bottles and Bottle Collecting, Tea and Tea Drinking, Dinky Toys, Vintage Farm Machinery, Fire Marks, Parasitic Worms, Old Farm Tools, The Green Man, Evacuees of the Second World War and Betel-chewing Equipment of East New Guinea, the last being surely one of its more eccentric productions. It has also brought out an excellent range called Shire Garden History, including Michael Symes’s useful A Glossary of Garden History (latest edition 2006).

For several years Shire (founded in 1962 by John Rotheroe) was based in the small town of Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, bringing out the Discovering series, starting with East Suffolk. The early output thus consisted mostly of county and touring guides until expanding into other areas in 1967 with Discovering Brasses; then followed many more offerings, on topics such as garden history and design in the Victorian period. In 2007 Rotheroe retired, selling the company to Osprey Publishing. Shire moved to Osprey’s Oxford office and Nick Wright took over as publisher. In 2014 Shire relaunched its series with specially commissioned covers by Peter Ashley. New products will cover an eclectic range of subjects, from childhood in the 1950s to medieval wall paintings, from witches and witchcraft to garden cities, and reissues of successful texts including those dealing with allotments and garden gnomes. The collaboration with Peter Ashley will lead to 100 titles having new looks designed by him. Given that Ashley expresses robust views, holding people like Ian Nairn and John Betjeman in high regard while Tony Blair and Jonathan Ross occupy places among those he despises, and that he deplores much of the stuff foisted on us that ruins the environment, such as ghastly street furniture, bus and train liveries, and, of course, buildings (one can hardly refer to most of the Schlock going up as architecture), interesting things are likely to happen. These two slim volumes are among the latest offerings.

Rosewell’s work, on wall paintings, is an excellent introduction to the theme, with splendid illustrations in colour (of course): the selection of images is intelligent and varied and the text reads well. There is a gazetteer, a selective list of churches and other buildings containing wall paintings, but it is by no means comprehensive, so the book (as one would expect given its size) is really a whetter of appetites. It is none the worse for that, however, and can only be welcomed. The quality of the images is to be commended, and the range of subjects, decorations and types is fairly wide, given that medieval painters could not just paint what they liked but were bound by rigid conventions restricting them in terms of subject matters and in the ways in which they could be portrayed. Medieval humankind was terrified of what might happen after death, and the depictions of Dooms over chancel arches cannot have reassured: even Purgatory was disagreeable and had its own preparatory tortures, which makes one wonder what kind of mind came up with that sort of thing. In many instances, surviving paintings clash uneasily with the architecture, but in others they respond in an architectural way: the delightful thirteenth-century trefoiled painted arches enclosing Passion scenes and scenes from the Life of the Virgin in the church of St Mary, West Chiltington, West Sussex (a relatively unspoiled church, also comprehensively decorated with geometrical patterns), are charming exemplars. A favourite of this reviewer is the exquisitely tender and subtly coloured Virgin and Child (set against a background of beautifully executed curled fronds) framed by a painted representation of an ogee-headed arch, with cusps, supported on slender Gothic colonnettes, in the church of St Peter ad Vincula, South Newington, Oxfordshire. Dating from early in the fourteenth century, the quality of this work (in oil on plaster) is uncommonly fine for a parish church, in a sophisticated courtly style worthy of the finest miniatures of the time. The figure of the Virgin is languidly posed, with beautiful drapery of green and red; she holds a tall lily in one hand, the Child in the other.

Of course, the condensed nature of the series precludes detailed analysis of some of the examples given, which is a pity, but anything that celebrates these considerable achievements of medieval artists is to be welcomed, for our parish churches contain a huge legacy of wonders, despite iconoclastic activities, religious upheavals and the vandalistic impulses of those who ought to know better, but seem to glory in reordering, kowtowing to fashion and using any excuse to throw out or obliterate interesting or beautiful creations (the wonderful screens that used to grace Hereford Cathedral and St Chad’s Cathedral in Birmingham spring to mind).

Spas and Spa Visiting is not in the same league as the first title. Another marvellous subject, its very size (forty pages fewer than Wall Paintings) aroused misgivings in the reviewer, and indeed the rudimentary bibliography gives the game away: the publication does not even scratch the surface of what is a rich seam to be mined by any author. Familiar with the wealth of material that exists on the London spas alone, this reviewer found Rotherham’s offering far too restricted in scope and came to the conclusion that it was little more than what might have been two or three illustrated magazine articles, but too thin for a book, even a small introductory bookette on a topic crying out for a much more generous and lively treatment. Strathpeffer, a neglected spa nowadays, for example, is mentioned, but only en passant in the caption of a cropped illustration: a huge amount of material exists about this more than attractive spot, yet justice cannot be said to have been done to it or to the aqueous subject.

That said, however, the achievements of Shire are to be applauded. This reviewer has found the garden history volumes especially helpful, and in terms of quality of design, production and price the company cannot be faulted.