Dan Cruickshank
Soane's Garden Room, Pitzhanger Manor, London, W5 5EQ
Sunday 3rd May 2026
THE ENGLISH HOUSE
'Cruickshank’s enthusiasm for England’s vernacular architecture shines through every infectious sentence of this glorious book... A triumph.' The Times
The distinguished art historian and television presenter tells the story of the English house through eight highly contrasting buildings. It's the story of 19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, built for a Huguenot silk-weaver subsequently becoming a synagogue. It's also the story of a row of two-up, two-downs in Toxteth; a block of flats in London's East End; the house Ideal Home described in 1926 as Britain's 'first modern house' in Northampton; and Chichester’s superbly elegant early eighteenth-century Pallant House. Together these buildings reveal the ways in which English homes have developed and changed over the past few centuries and what they can tell us about the lives of their first occupants: their aspirations, their struggles, their place within society and relationship with their local community.
Dan Cruickshank is an architectural historian and television presenter. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has sat on the Executive Committee of the Georgian Group, and the Architectural Panel of the National Trust. His previous work includes the BBC television programmes Civilisation Under Attack (2015) and At Home with the British (2016), and the books A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings (2015) and Spitalfields (2016).
Event duration: 1 hour
'Cruickshank’s enthusiasm for England’s vernacular architecture shines through every infectious sentence of this glorious book... A triumph.' The Times
The distinguished art historian and television presenter tells the story of the English house through eight highly contrasting buildings. It's the story of 19 Princelet Street in Spitalfields, built for a Huguenot silk-weaver subsequently becoming a synagogue. It's also the story of a row of two-up, two-downs in Toxteth; a block of flats in London's East End; the house Ideal Home described in 1926 as Britain's 'first modern house' in Northampton; and Chichester’s superbly elegant early eighteenth-century Pallant House. Together these buildings reveal the ways in which English homes have developed and changed over the past few centuries and what they can tell us about the lives of their first occupants: their aspirations, their struggles, their place within society and relationship with their local community.
Dan Cruickshank is an architectural historian and television presenter. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has sat on the Executive Committee of the Georgian Group, and the Architectural Panel of the National Trust. His previous work includes the BBC television programmes Civilisation Under Attack (2015) and At Home with the British (2016), and the books A History of Architecture in 100 Buildings (2015) and Spitalfields (2016).
Event duration: 1 hour
