The British country house has received more than its fair share of attention, from scholarly analyses to popular television series. It is therefore a considerable challenge to expand the discussion beyond its current perimeters, as the authors successfully do in this ambitious new study. By bringing together and methodically comparing an unprecedented number of country house designs, the authors manage to create an exceptionally subtle picture of functional and structural change in British residential architecture between the Middle Ages and the eighteenth century. The book draws on two quintessential traditions of British architectural scholarship—formal analysis based on empirical study and the more recent strand of research (epitomized by Mark Girouard's Life in the English Country House [New Haven, CT, 1994]), interpreting the country house as a social and cultural phenomenon. The specific theses of this work are quite groundbreaking, however. The authors question the notion that the compact, double-pile house was an invention of the seventeenth century, its emergence precipitated by the onslaught of classical (i.e., Continental) architecture. They argue instead that “the shift towards compact country-house planning … started … in the later fifteenth century” (73) and was driven by social factors rather than by mere emulation of foreign formal models. Numerous examples are brought in to show how, from the basic medieval arrangement (a hall flanked by a chamber and utility buildings) through long-term experimentation, diverse compact plans were created, with less influence of Continental sources than previously assumed. The emphasis on the indigenous character of these structural changes is related to the authors’ assertion that of critical importance in this process were previously neglected “lesser” patrons. These modest owners, professionals and lower ranks, “led the way in rationalizing design” (135) because they wanted houses for comfort and convenience rather than for display. Among the solutions they embraced were, for instance, the single-story hall with a great chamber above, used already in the late fifteenth century, or L- and T-shaped plans, generating more compact layouts. Doubling the pile was initially not an obvious answer due to persistent vernacular practices and technological problems, including the scarcity of long timber. Convenience and economy won out eventually as rooms were bunched together and arranged in double or even triple pile. The authors subsequently describe diverse experimental compact plans in remarkable detail, with Chevening emerging as the definitive solution. This early seventeenth-century house with a Palladio-inspired plan is presented as the epitome of a simple and rational layout, one that proved to be very successful in the following years because practicality and compactness were qualities sought in British architecture long before the arrival of Palladian classicism.

With this convincing master narrative, the authors revise tenets of current scholarship and offer a suggestive new paradigm of appealing clarity. Regrettably, the search for simplicity is not evident in the structure of the book. Whereas the main argument is developed chronologically from the history of donjons and tower houses to the compact plans of the early Georgian period (but not including the “Palladian boxes” mentioned in the title), the specialized essays interjected between the key chapters appear rather arbitrary. These “intromissions” range from an essay on technological aspects of building (“Materials and Structures”), through some theoretical remarks (“Style and Symmetry”), to the more monographic pieces on the best-known practitioners and their impacts on country house design (“John Thorpe and Renaissance Ideas”; “A Formulation: Inigo Jones and John Pratt”). These last essays are a nod toward traditional architectural history, where groundbreaking developments were usually tied to the accomplishments of heroic artists. Chevening's canonical status in the book seems indeed warranted by recent attribution of its design to Inigo Jones, the British Vitruvius.

In fact, the work sits rather uneasily between old and new methodologies. The stress in the opening paragraphs on terms such as “distinction” (1) or the “shared habits of living” (1) appears to invoke the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The argument itself, however, steers closer to traditional scholarship, despite innovative analytical tools to deal with the plans and revisionist views on current historical narratives. Even though the authors shed any suggestions of charting “a river of steady development” (3), an underlying concept of a “relay-race” in the finest formal solutions from one outstanding architect to another is indebted to Vasarian art history and explains forays into attribution debates, largely peripheral to the main argument. It seems as well that, behind the authors’ theory of autonomous change in British residential architecture lurks the time-honored concept of the British country house as an embodiment of “national” insular identity. Finally, although the authors recognize that transformation of the plan is contingent upon a particular resolution of class, status, and gender interests, this last set of concerns remains beyond the compass of their study, despite substantial literature on the subject.

The scope of the book is nonetheless truly impressive, even if it comes at a cost. The authors candidly admit that, faced with the huge number of examples (for instance, of Scottish tower houses), their choice was sometimes “virtually random” (29). Moreover, the sheer number of plans considered does not allow for a more thorough analysis of each existing building or for explanation of the reconstructions suggested by the authors, as some evidence presented remains “largely a matter of guesswork” (81) due to layers of rebuilding and modernization. Length limits might also explain the cursory treatment of the eighteenth-century “stasis,” distinguished by house plans “ossified into a small number of regularly repeated formulae” (140), a view untenable when confronted with the bewildering diversity of plans and designs published in contemporary pattern books.

Still, the rewards awaiting the reader are many. This is a remarkably rich book that carries its impressive learning with great style. It not only does the estimable job of providing a comprehensive picture of residential architecture in premodern Britain but also focuses attention on some of the vital issues that have eluded examination thus far (including the role of nonaristocratic patrons, provincial builders, and vernacular practices in the development of regular, “classicizing” building types). It also offers a wealth of information on the canonical examples of British country houses, as well as on many hardly known residences. There is a compelling section on unique “fancies” or “conceits,” such as Sir Thomas Tresham's celebrated Triangular Lodge (1594–97), followed by a discussion of Warmwell Manor (1618), “the most weirdly, indeed crazily laid-out house in England” (119). More importantly, Gomme and Maguire introduce entirely novel ways of thinking about plans, expanding the conventional understanding of the plan as one of the key graphic representations of built form into a concept based on empirical, functional, and structural terms, implicating the other vital elements of architecture—space and volume. This allows them to redefine the role of the plan in the process of cultural signification, as well as to reveal the layers of meanings embodied and expressed by the seemingly abstract grids. The sophistication of this analysis is likely to inspire historians and laymen alike.

This stimulating material is presented in an elegant, profusely illustrated volume, containing scores of detailed plans, nearly all of them in a uniform scale, which allows for easy study and comparison. Without a doubt this fascinating study makes an important contribution to the field of architectural history as a whole, and it should be of particular interest to the numerous enthusiasts of the British country house.