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Flint Architecture of East Anglia by Stephen Hart. Giles de la Mare Publications Ltd, 1 50pp, b&w and colour illustrations. #19.99 pb
This important and comprehensive book focuses on the understanding and appreciation of flint architecture. Flint-built churches and secular buildings form a unique and substantial heritage yet the flintwork tradition in English architecture has been neglected and undervalued.
In areas of chalkland lacking good building limestones and sandstones, flint has determined the character of the vernacular architecture. Flint has graced buildings of quality from Saxon times to the present day. The material came to prominence with the emergence of the distinctive circular church towers of Norfolk, a building form that bypassed the problem of the non-availability of corner quoin stones.
In the period 1450-1525, when wealthy wool merchants bequeathed large sums for church buildings, the imaginative decorative use of flint on East Anglian churches reached its highest level of...