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It takes a designer’s eye to spot what the rest of us miss. Ian Logan, a prolific designer who has worked with big-name brands such as Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, traces his keen eye for aesthetics back to childhood. In an interview marking five years since the publication of his book Logomotive, he opens a window into his visual world.

If you’re into doors – and who isn’t? – we are publishing a book packed full of them. Grand, stylish or unusual, public or private, religious or commercial, shiny or shabby, Doors of London picks out the best of them. It’s in the bookstores today.

Once upon a time, a child’s dream was to get a train set for Christmas. Michael Moore from Toy Train Tips and Tricks keeps the dream alive by celebrating model railways on his YouTube channel. This month he revisits a moment of department store magic, scrutinizing some famous trains of Christmas past.

It was 5.30 on Christmas morning, 1972. Ian Logan was staying with friends in Salinas Valley, CA, and must have been woken by Santa Claus. He wandered outside and saw a line of boxcars rolling across the asparagus fields. This memorable shot is part of our Christmas Bundle. Sign up and roll the clock back!

For 70 years Queen Elizabeth II was the one constant in an ever-changing world. The ending of her reign has been a cause of great sorrow, not just in Great Britain, but around the world. And now, with the public period of mourning ended, that responsibility must pass to her son King Charles III.

We salute a leader who embodied enduring values.

A new and improved Train Sim World releases today on PC and consoles. It brings some impressive upgrades including dynamic weather and more realistic lighting effects, a reworked Livery Designer and an Off the Rails mode which allows you to drive any loco on any route, all to immerse yourself in the world of train driving.

The artist and humorist William Heath Robinson was born 150 years ago on 31st May. To celebrate, Chris Beetles opened a new exhibition of Heath Robinson drawings and paintings at his gallery in St James’s. He was also in conversation with Geoffrey Beare, a leading light at the Heath Robinson Museum.

Book of the Month. An invaluable and unique archive. A visual tribute. The perfect read. An absolutely glorious book. These are a few examples of what the papers say about Logomotive.

Freight gets scant coverage in today’s railway media, often buried on the back pages, but the award-winning transport journalist James Graham aims to change that. For those who love freight on the tracks, he will launch a freight-only e-zine, Freight Tracks, on Valentine’s Day.

Who’s interested in logos? At least 112.7k people are and they follow Logo Geek, a logo design service provided by Ian Paget. In a new podcast, Ian geeks out for an hour with Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey, a designer and writer passionate about all things logos and locomotives, to discuss their new book Logomotive.

How many journalists get to drive a Coronation class steam locomotive? Our intrepid author Jonathan Glancey did. In a podcast published today he also tells what it was like riding the footplate of Duchess of Hamilton from Settle to Carlisle and what he loves about the marriage of art and engineering.

The Chartered Society of Designers have dined out on one of our books, calling it a visual feast. ‘The real treat,’ Carmen Martínez­-López writes of Logomotive, ‘is the imagery of the trains with their branding, the logos, and the associated typography.’

As publishers of a new book on railroads, we were delighted to hear of a sparkling new exhibition celebrating the golden age of US rail travel. Romancing the Rails tells how the New York Central confronted competition from automobiles with visually stunning advertising, luxurious dining cars and sleek streamlined trains.

Gary Shapiro hosts the radio show From the Bookshelf, broadcast from the KSCO station in Santa Cruz. He has just interviewed Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey about Logomotive, their new book on railroad logos and locomotive design. The podcast is up. Board now for a trip back in time.

Last Saturday the Wall Street Journal Review ran a piece on railways and design and how the two intertwine in our book Logomotive. ‘The design of the locomotives themselves may have left the deepest impression,’ writes Peter Saenger, ‘especially the sleek, art deco-influenced “streamliners”.’

They rolled out a red carpet at Grand Central when you boarded the overnight train to Chicago. Those were the days, says Jonathan Glancey, when rail travel was romantic. Hear this and other stories from the last days of steam by watching his Father’s Day interview, now available on YouTube.

America comes to Stafford this weekend. Where Andrew Carnegie once poured in his steel fortune, Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey open their great big American train show. Sound far-fetched? It’s not.

In a rousing talk given recently in Madison, Wisconsin, Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey recalled the triumphs of American railroad engineering and design in the 1930s. American railroads absolutely had it all, they told their audience. ‘We hope they’ll do it again in the future. Come on, you can do it, America!’

Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey are talking trains this weekend. They are putting on a double act in Madison, Wisconsin, telling the story behind their new book Logomotive. What took them to Grand Central Terminal or the West 60th Street freight yard? What foot plates did they ride?

Logomotive is being shipped across the Atlantic. Publication in the US will be on 21st April. Readers in the US can pre-order Logomotive and receive their copies from our US warehouse in April or they can order from the UK and have their books flown across the Atlantic now. A pre-publication offer is open.

It’s always a big moment when the printed proofs of a book arrive. You open the box, smell the fresh ink and see for the first time how your book looks. If this is exciting for a publisher, it is even more so for an author.

Somewhere among the 700-odd containers on board the Y. M. Wellness, owned by the Yang Ming corporation, was our consignment of Logomotive. We are glad to report that our ship has come in. It is now moored in Southampton and our books have been unloaded.

The designer Ian Logan fell in love with railroad logos on his first trip to America in 1968. The design critic Jonathan Glancey and the architect Norman Foster love logos, too, and all that goes with them including loco design, station design, colour, graphics and lifestyle. For the love of logos, they have written Logomotive.

Say Norman Foster and most people think architect. Prompted to name his buildings, they might mention the Gherkin, Apple Park or the Hearst Tower. How many know that the design interests of Norman Foster run to cars, planes and trains? Meet Norman Foster the one-time loco spotter, classic car collector, lover of period Americana and third ‘namer’ on Logomotive.

Here’s someone who bursts on to your screen, words tumbling out of his mouth. Enthusiasm is his trademark. Meet Jonathan Glancey, co-author of our autumn double-header Logomotive. Leaping on to the footplate with his fellow logo spotter Ian Logan, he transports you back to the mid-century heyday of American style.

Meet Ian Logan, designer to the stars and author of our forthcoming book Logomotive. Here he is beside a set of railway signs he designed in the 1970s. Perhaps best known for his tin trays and themed tin boxes, he was blown away by the graphics he saw painted on the side of American trains. He began a secret romance.

Now’s the time to read, but can you get hold of a book? Most of the book trade is shut and Amazon is prioritizing non-book products. Believe it or not, we are operating normally! Our warehouse has found a way of processing orders safely, with customer care teams working from home. So may we suggest some books?

It’s time to pull the cracker and read the joke. Please raise your glass for your own, your Very Own Mr Nick Thomas. He has won our Christmas Cracker Competition with a cup of good cheer. Just what we needed to lighten the mood.

We’ve been suffering a bout of digital angst. If you attempted to join our membership scheme in the past couple of weeks, you may have been held up by a digital roadblock. We apologize for this. As soon as we discovered the incident, we called in the engineers and they’ve fixed it. If you’d like to enjoy the benefits of membership, you now can.

When the days are drawing in, it’s easier to feel winter blues than winter joys, but we can change all that. Give your friends a copy of Very Heath Robinson, send out Heath Robinson Christmas Cards and you’ll banish all woes. We will help you make it happen.

Congratulations to Neville Denson from St Bees in Cumbria, who has won the Wildest Travel Story Competition with his account of a wild, not to say shattering experience in the USA. He receives a copy of Tim Jepson’s Wild Italy: A Traveller’s Guide.

In the imaginative world of Heath Robinson you can pour a cup of coffee with your eyes closed. Just pull on a cord and the Super-De-Luxe Coffee Maker does it all for you. What could be easier? This and other inventive ideas will liven up your coffee break when you use the set of six Heath Robinson coasters we launch today.

Adam Hart-Davis, author of Very Heath Robinson, will be speaking at Exeter’s second Literary Festival at 3.30 p.m. this Sunday, 10th November. You will find him at the magnificent 17th-century Custom House by the quay, where Adam will take you on a journey through the Weird and Wacky World of Heath Robinson.

To celebrate our 40th Christmas, we are holding our biggest competition yet. We would like you to think of an original joke to go inside a Christmas cracker – something so dry and witty that it would have impressed Heath Robinson himself. The winner gets a limited-edition book worth £300.

Continuing our 40th anniversary celebrations, this month we want to hear your wildest travel story. Funny, exciting, romantic, we’re all ears. Win this competition and we’ll give you a copy of Wild Italy: A Traveller’s Guide by the intrepid hiker Tim Jepson.

After sifting through a whopping 114 entries, the judges of our Summer Caption Competition have chosen their favourite rib tickler. It’s a whimsical take on the male condition.

We have matured! From the figment of an idea tossed about while walking the dog on Clapham Common, we have become a publishing house with finished books on the shelves, each with its sales history around the world, each with Herculean labours, and a few jaw-dropping moments, behind it. To celebrate 40 years of publishing, we are giving away a book a month.

Sir Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, will receive the J. M. Barrie Award to mark a lifetime’s contribution to children’s literature, it has been announced. We salute him for delighting children and adults with alternative worlds and fictional characters. Less well known, though no less masterfully expressed, is the delight he himself takes in the imaginary world of Heath Robinson and the wonderfully absurd cast of characters who star in it.

What better place to hold a literary festival than the Lake District, with its magical scenery and literary associations? This month nearly 100 writers, broadcasters and other national figures will arrive in Keswick for Words by the Water, a ten-day event held on the sylvan shores of Derwentwater. The Theatre by the Lake, where they will speak, is a short stroll from the water’s edge.

Are you looking for a way into publishing? Our publishing traineeships introduce recent graduates to every aspect of the industry. We give you the opportunity to work in the editorial, sales and marketing, production and foreign rights departments. We are recruiting now.

A small town in the English countryside with a population of 6,000 does not immediately conjure up images of metropolitan buzz, but on closer inspection the historic market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire proves to be a real gem in the cultural life of the country, not least because of the Oundle Festival of Literature. St Peter’s Church is the main festival venue.

Do you need a bit of help going uphill? Ideas for presents this Christmas? Take a few tips from the master contraptioneer Heath Robinson, who has a solution to every problem.

We invite you, our readers, to join our new membership scheme. We publish books not because we want to make money, though obviously we must, but because we’re excited and enthralled by the idea of creating something new and shining light on subjects that may have been overlooked or under-appreciated. As a Sheldrake Member you will be closer to the editorial process in which we engage every day and you will be able to obtain our books at a preferential price. For the pleasure of reading.

If you had to name places with literary associations, you might say Haworth, Stratford, the Lakes and Knole, but hardly Yeovil. If anything, the town is known for making gloves, helicopters and Yeo Valley yoghurt. But at the end of October a thriving literary festival takes over the Georgian Manor Hotel, built of local Ham stone, and other venues in the town centre. Though few people know it, Yeovil is also linked with Thomas Hardy and his Wessex novels.

Chances are the name Shute will not ring a bell, but the Shute Festival of Literature and Landscape is here to change that. Offering a diverse range of talks on writing, film-making, exploration and landscape, the festival will whisk you away to East Devon for a weekend retreat in late September.

Say Henley and you think rowers, blazers, boaters, marquees and boat houses, Leander Club and Enclosures. But alongside the 179-year-old Henley Royal Regatta there is a stripling challenger, now in its twelfth year, the Henley Literary Festival.

Discussions in the garden, talks in the Great Hall, the Barn and the Dukes Room, word schools, poetry breakfasts, story-telling, comedy events, theatrical performances: words and ideas in all their forms and combinations are on offer at Ways With Words, the literary festival that’s held this July in the idyllic setting of Dartington Hall.

Let your imagination take flight this summer by going to the Penzance Literary Festival. Between 4th and 7th July writers will be talking about their latest books, focussing on flights literal and metaphorical, in the friendly setting of this fishing port and holiday resort on the Cornish coast.

How do you seduce a most attractive ‘beaut’ in a one-piece bathing suit? And how do you lure a mermaid on to the beach at Margate? For the answers, take up our two-for-one Father’s Day offer and follow the page references.

On 31st May 1872 William Heath Robinson was born in Hornsey Rise, north London. Over the next 72 years he made a huge name for himself as a humorous illustrator. He was as well known as Picasso. Going one better, he got his name in the English dictionary as both a noun and an adjective. To mark his birthday, we offer the De Luxe limited edition of our book Very Heath Robinson at a third off the published price.

Thank you to everyone who entered the Heath Robinson Caption Competition, organized with Gullivers Bookshop and the Wimborne Literary Festival. And congratulations to Nerys Hucker who was declared the winner by the panel of judges led by Adam Hart-Davis, seen above signing copies of his Heath Robinson book. The challenge was to caption a family outing on the Weekend All-Weather Tandem. She rose to the occasion.

Heath Robinson’s Weekend All-Weather Tandem makes family excursions possible. Equipped with a horn, twin umbrellas and anti-lock braking system, it can cope with every eventuality. We’re running a competition to caption this picture. Send us your best idea for a chance to win a Very Heath Robinson De Luxe Edition.

We are very sad to announce that Douglas Botting has died at the age of 83. Author of Wild Britain: A Traveller’s Guide and General Editor of the Wild Guides series, he is a towering figure in the literature of wild places. To him we owe an eternal debt for capturing in beautifully chosen words the harmonies of the natural world of which we are part and on which we depend for our survival.

Nested head to toe in this box are De Luxe wooden cases ingeniously designed to preserve the limited edition of Very Heath Robinson. Folded over the waiting hardback books and tied Heath Robinson-style with knotted string, they become rare woodbacks. The first 20, batch produced and finished by hand, go on sale today.

Need a bit of light relief at Christmas? Our pack of eight Heath Robinson cards will waft you away on a magic carpet of absurdity.

At the back of an old brewery in Taunton’s historic Bath Place lies Brendon Books, an independent bookseller that specializes in maps and travel. Every November the bookshop hosts the Taunton Literary Festival, now in its seventh year. Literary festivals like this are a sign of the new energy in the world of independent bookselling.

The picturesque town of Looe, on the South Cornwall coast, is having a very West Country event this week. Local writers, historians, naturalists, photographers, even fishermen, are gathering at the annual Looe Literary Festival to speak on their latest books, tell tales of historic smuggling, exhibit photographs of the beautiful Cornish landscape and journey into world of Victorian railway expansion.

The Minister of State for Transport has spoken powerfully about the importance of beauty in architecture. Addressing the Advisory Panel of the Railway Heritage Trust on Monday, the Right Honourable John Hayes MP said that most of what we had built since the war should be demolished. A stunned silence descended.

Publishers, booksellers and authors today celebrate the UK and Ireland’s second national Bookshop Day. To mark the occasion, we announce a series of bookshop interviews that we will publish over the next three months as the days draw in and you long for a good book to read by the fire.

More babies are born in late September and early October in England and Wales than at any other time of the year: nearly 2,000 a day. If you need a gift to greet one of these new arrivals, we’re offering a book and card with illustrations by well-known artists.

You can now buy six unusual greetings cards drawn by the satirical artist William Heath Robinson, famous for his funny contraptions and ingenious solutions to common problems. We are making them available exclusively through our website. They are not in the shops.

Congratulations to Chris Schüler, senior editor of some major Sheldrake Press books, who has published a highly readable history of the Authors’ Club. You can now watch a video of him talking about it in the Smoking Room of the National Liberal Club in London.

Sheldrake Press are looking for a volunteer graduate with bright ideas to tweet, post and generally promote our major new title Very Heath Robinson.

Book of the Month. Coffee Table Choice. Brilliantly executed. A delightful visual feast. Marvel of bookmaking. Hilarious! These are some of the things people are saying about Very Heath Robinson.

You can also dance with robots, date by slot machine and boil an egg straight from the chicken, thanks to Heath Robinson. Helpful devices to do all these things are now on view in the big new book we publish today, Very Heath Robinson. The author is Adam Hart-Davis, presenter of What the Romans Did for Us, and Philip Pullman has written the Foreword.

Philip Pullman has written the Foreword to Adam Hart-Davis’s new book Very Heath Robinson, celebrating the work of one of Great Britain’s best-loved artists.

Adam Hart-Davis has delivered the text for our spring book Very Heath Robinson, the pictures have been laid out and the colour proofs approved. In a few days we’ll be ready for press.

The Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen used a Heath Robinson contraption to cut the ribbon when he opened the Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner.

The opening of the Heath Robinson Museum on 15th October was a delightfully parochial event.

On 31st May 2016 Heath Robinson would have been 144. Artist, humorist and Contraptioneer Extraordinary, he satirized the technical advances and social pretensions of three generations, from the 1890s to the 1940s. To celebrate a birthday blow-out, we are proud to announce that the well-known television presenter and author Adam Hart-Davis will write a new book for us called Very Heath Robinson.

We are running a mini-quiz in The Oldie magazine. What is the etymology of ‘crap’, we wanted to know. Curiously, the answer is to be found in The Victorian House Book.

We would like to congratulate The William Heath Robinson Trust on passing their fund-raising target of £32,500 on Kickstarter.

We support The William Heath Robinson Trust in their plan to build a Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner, north London. Their fund-raising campaign on Kickstarter is 93 per cent funded. They need help to get to 100%.

A Technical Advice Paper by Denis Meehan

A lot of damage is done to Victorian houses in the name of energy conservation, most frequently by replacing original sash windows with inappropriate double-glazed units. As Denis Meehan explains in his report on Energy Conservation in a Victorian House, changing the windows is one of the last things you need to do.

Our new Pinterest page will help you to explore some of the topics that we specialise in: Victorian restoration, wilderness travel, traditional children’s illustration and quirky design.

To see the four boards on our Pinterest page, please click here.

Get a free copy of When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat when you buy The Victorian House Book. This should help fill the stockings and provoke a few cheeky giggles.

What brings a smile to the face of this cigar-toting stranger? Rubber feet, it turns out. Gangster Pete has rubber feet. If this sounds faintly ridiculous, you are at one with the judges of the Ruthless Rhyme competition. Some of the entries, they decided, while not ruthless, were memorable for their oddity or absurdity.

To celebrate the solstice and all things summery, head to the Riviera ‘And there upon the sunny sands’ relax with a good old laugh, courtesy of Harry Graham. We guarantee the health benefits of When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat. As luck would have it, it’s 50 per cent off this month.

If you admit that men should be permitted to be men, at least on one day of the year, we suggest a late lie-in for the head of the household and a politically incorrect gift: a volume of humorous verse by the charmingly callous Harry Graham.

Cavaliers and Roundheads

Ollie Cromwell, aged just three
Just loved the Diamond Jubilee,
He’d wear a saucepan for a crown,
But soon it stuck there, upside down.

His Mother tugged, the boy turned pale,
Her efforts were to no avail,
The problem was, his Mother said,
That Ollie had such a round head.

Henry’s party in the street,
Would be a lovely royal treat,
To celebrate the Jubilee,
With flags and music, games and tea.
The food was good, he could not stop,
He ate until he went off pop,
From looking much like Henry Eight,
He ended up just Henry. Late.

Our resident poet, Angela Perkins, has written some Ruthless Rhymes to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The first, entitled Royalist vs Republican, is now published on our Blog.

Royalist vs Republican

A royalist simply through and through,
Fred turned his house red, white and blue.
It really was a sight to see,
All dressed up for the Jubilee.
But Mabel (maybe with good reason)
Showed inclinations close to treason.
Then with an axe found in the garden,
Fred refused to grant her pardon.
He smiled and said ‘Off with her head,
I’ll buy a corgi pup instead.’

The judges in the Ruthless Rhyme Competition were surprised to see illustrations accompanying some of the entries, including one of a man with knitting needles through his head. What could have led him to such a plight? Was this a case of true ruthlessness?

In our Wild Escape Competition, Liz Cleere described a trek in the eastern Himalayas to visit a slice of wild India that people rarely see and Helen Moat recounted the magical night she and her young son Jamie spent in the company of glow worms in Britain’s Peak District. Liz Cleere is the winner.

Gorkhaland’s Wild West by Liz Cleere

The freshly brushed floor of compacted cow dung was smooth and cool under foot. I crossed the room, climbed into the heavy wooden bed next to Jamie and blew out the candle. Night crept in through the open window bringing with it the intoxicating scent of gardenias, and quietening the moths and insects that had been dive-bombing the candle’s flame. Curling up under the blanket, my body relaxed on to the hard mattress, while outside pale moonlight whispered through the forest on the other side of the valley. Somewhere on the horizon Kanchenjunga’s five tiger-toothed caps glinted silver against the black sky.

Wild in Cressbrook Dale by Helen Moat

‘Wake up, little fellow. It’s time…’
 My child of four sat bolt-upright in bed, eyes glassy from dreams of wild things.
 ‘…It’s time for our wild night out,’ I whispered.
 It was a warm summer’s evening in June, the light of the day gently fading out; the air beginning to cool. Jamie’s small chubby hand fitted perfectly in mine, like a Russian doll within a Russian doll, as we slowly descended the stairs. On the kitchen table, a rucksack sat ready, the items needed for our adventure laid out beside it.

The judges have announced the 12 poems short-listed in the Ruthless Rhyme competition. All are now published, along with audio readings, profiles of the writers and judges and a selection of rhymes that deserve mention for being creative or ridiculous.

The runner-up in the Ruthless Rhyme Competition is Rosemary McDougall with her Good Intentions. She scored 20 points, just one behind Angela Perkins with George’s New Year’s Resolution. In third place is Elizabeth Francis with A New Year’s Hobby and a score of 13 points. You can read all three rhymes in our Blog.

A New Year’s Hobby

Margot declared, ‘new year, new me!’
Her new interest? Taxidermy.
She caught and stuffed her children’s rat,
Posed on a plinth the family cat.
Their guinea pig she slit in half;
Her husband lowered his Telegraph.
‘You’re making quite a mess, my dear.
Perhaps just join the gym next year?’

Aunt thought she’d make a contribution
to uncle’s New Year resolution.
She put his bottles out of reach
amongst the polish, soap and bleach.
How on earth could she have guessed
that in his alcoholic quest,
without his specs his sight was dim.
It was the bleach which finished him.

The winner of the Ruthless Rhyme Competition is George’s New Year’s Resolution, written by Angela Perkins. George’s dream was to buy a little place in France, but Mavis stood in his way. A coup de something or other was required. To see how George resolved this petit problème, click here.

George’s New Year’s Resolution

New Year, he thought, was just the chance
To buy a little place in France.
When Mavis once again said no,
George knew that she would have to go.

His beating heart was all a-quiver,
As George pushed Mavis in the river.
And as she floated down the stream,
George shrugged and muttered, ‘Vive la dream’.

After Harry Graham’s Ruthless Rhymes

The contestants in our Ruthless Rhyme Competition have reached the last fence. After a process of ruthless elimination, ten judges have reduced a big field down to a short list of 12. Only the finishing post lies ahead.

For the past two months we have been running a competition to find the best short poem in the style of a Ruthless Rhyme, a humorous verse form invented by Harry Graham. By the time the competition closed at midnight GMT on Sunday 4th March, we had received 65 rhymes from nine countries, including Australia, Germany, India, Nigeria, Romania, Spain, France, the UK and the US. The last entry came in at eight minutes to midnight.

Sheldrake Press, publishers of the Wild Guides, are running a travel writing competition this month. Share one of your wild travel experiences with us for a chance to be published on our web-site and win a set of guides to Italy, Britain and Ireland.

All this month, Sheldrake Press is offering you a 50% discount on Wild Italy.

Charles Brooking’s major collection of architectural detail, referred to in our earlier news item, has been written up in The Financial Times, along with this griffin and other illustrations. The collection has now been moved to temporary storage, but is still under threat and needs a permanent home and financial assistance. To read the article in The Financial Times, click here. To find out more about the collection’s immediate needs, please visit their web-site.

Are you a budding writer or a keen poet? Would you like to see your work published on-line? We are running a competition to find the best short poem in the style of a Ruthless Rhyme, a humorous verse form invented by Harry Graham.

Since the age of two, Charles Brooking has been collecting architectural detail. He has amassed 250,000 items of salvage, which have just been moved into temporary storage following the withdrawal of support from the University of Greenwich. The collection urgently needs a new home and funding to preserve it for the future. Can you help? For more on this unique archive, click here.

Among our Christmas Gift Ideas are a pashmina shawl from Global Nomadic Carpets, noted for their hand-made Kashmiri carpets.

If you’re looking for a present for an avid gardener, visit our Twitter page to see the latest of our Christmas Gift Ideas.

This month, Sheldrake Press is offering you a 50% discount on The Victorian House Book.

On this day in 1843, the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll was born in London. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and America, and is particularly noted for her collaboration with the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.  Her design style employed cottage-garden motifs to make her meticulous arrangements of plants appear effortless and uncontrived. Notable examples of her work are Vann Hambledon in Godalming, Surrey, Glebe House in Connecticut, USA, and Les Bois de Moutiers, France.

Congratulations to all those special seven-billionth babies out there!

Network Rail have unveiled their plans for the redevelopment of London Bridge station. The aim of the new design, by the architectural firm Grimshaw, is to make it easier for passengers to enter and exit, but the scheme has drawn controversy due to the proposed demolition of the buildings at 64-84 Tooley Street.

The former South Eastern Railway Offices at 64-84 Tooley Street were built between 1897 and 1900 by the architects Charles Barry and Son. Charles Barry Sr created the Gothic extravaganza of the Houses of Parliament. This is the only surviving commercial building by his son, and it is an important part of the London Bridge conservation area. Do we really want to swap this for Network Rail’s new entrance to London Bridge station (see our Blog)?

Today is the 160th anniversary of the closing of the Great Exhibition. In the five months since it opened, over six million people had visited and viewed the 100,000 objects on display, including exhibits from France, America, Canada, India and Russia. To the surprise of many, the exhibition made a profit of £186,000, most of which was used to create the South Kensington museums. The influence of the Great Exhibition on interior design is examined in The Victorian House Book.

On this day in 1852, the architect Augustus Pugin died at his home in Ramsgate, Kent. His most famous project was his work with Sir Charles Barry on the Palace of Westminster after the old building had been destroyed by fire in 1834. Pugin was responsible for the design of the interior and some of the exterior details. His contribution to architecture and interior design is covered extensively in The Victorian House Book, from which this detail in the Palace of Westminster is taken.

Wilsons Antiques, based in West Sussex, is the 50th company to be added to the Victorian House Decoration section on our Links page. Over the past few months, this resource has grown steadily, and now profiles a wide selection of companies providing goods and services useful for the renovation of period houses.

The Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones was born 178 years ago today. Inspired by the artists of the Italian Renaissance, his paintings depict graceful figures in meticulously detailed medieval settings and are often on mythological or religious subjects. His interest in medieval art can also be seen in the stained glass and tapestry designs he produced for Morris & Co. This example is taken from The Victorian House Book by Robin Guild.

In our Architectural Mini-Quiz, launched on 23rd August, we asked you to say which of these three buildings you preferred: (from left) A, B or C. We can now report that 71% of respondents chose A, 20% B and 9% C. There is a lesson here.

We asked you to say which of these three buildings you preferred: (from left) A, B or C. We can now report that 71% of respondents chose A, 20% B and 9% C. There is a lesson here. To read more, please turn to our Blog.

Here are three buildings in the seaside town of Moneglia in Liguria, northern Italy. Which do you prefer: (from left) A, B or C? We will explain the purpose of the quiz as soon as we have the results at the end of this week. Please express your preference by clicking here.

The invention of Coade stone in 1769 allowed architects to add more ornamentation to buildings than had previously been possible. Coade stone mimicked natural stone but was cheaper and longer lasting. The history of artificial stone, including Coade stone, is chronicled in a book by Simon Scott, director of Haddonstone Ltd. His company, just added to our Victorian House Decoration page, produces its own variety of artificial stone.

Walter Crane was born in Liverpool on 15th August 1845. His prolific career reached its zenith with his brightly coloured toy books, created for children but prized by connoisseurs of design. The popularity of these books was hardly surprising, given the care that went into their production and the colours which glowed from every page.

In the 19th century, plasterwork such as cornices and dado rails played both a decorative and practical role. Dado rails, for example, prevented walls from being knocked by furniture, but also added visual interest because contrasting colours could be used above and below. If you wish to add or replace decorative plasterwork in your house, Simply Mouldings can make and install many features, including dado rails and ceiling roses. Their contact details are now available on our Victorian House Decoration page.

Our list of recommended suppliers to the Victorian house renovation market has risen to 40, each with a profile describing the goods and services on offer. Take a look at our Victorian House Decoration Links.

Today is the 210th anniversary of the birth of Sir Joseph Paxton, who designed the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The building was modelled on a conservatory he had created at Chatsworth to house the giant Victoria amazonica water lily. The plant’s vein structure is said to have been the inspiration for his design. There is a chapter on garden design, including conservatories, in The Victorian House Book. Paxton’s railway work is covered in The Railway Heritage of Britain.

‘However charming the gate or imposing the porch, it is the entrance door which captures the eye of the visitor as he waits to be admitted’ (Robin Guild, The Victorian House Book). Impress your visitors with a replica Georgian or Victorian timber door made by GBS Joinery, whose details are now available on our Links page under the Victorian House Decoration section. They offer a bespoke service, making and fitting doors and windows for residential and commercial properties.

On this day in 1870, the Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France. Although he wrote numerous works of history and biography, he is best remembered for his macabre humorous verse, such as ‘Matilda’. To find an equally naughty Matilda, go to When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat.

The great days of railway luxury are returning. Today Top Table have a special offer on the St Pancras Grand, ‘a stylish, romantic destination restaurant’. When was the last time a railway dining room was connected with romance? Brief Encounter? Early next year, the restored King’s Cross station will be unveiled, offering more 19th-century splendour. For a snapshot of the work in progress, see our Blog.

The Victorians placed great importance on the fireplace as ‘the cornerstone of domestic comfort’ (Robin Guild, The Victorian House Book). If you would like to bring some authentic Victorian character into your home, Nostalgia UK Ltd supplies antique fireplaces in wood, stone, slate, cast iron and marble. We have just given them a link on our Links page under the category of ‘Victorian House Decoration’. They have a stock of more than 2,500 fireplaces, including classical, Gothic, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau designs. Visitors to their web-site can take a virtual tour of their showrooms and warehouses.

The Victorian House Book is now available at the Browsers Bookshop and Café, in the picturesque town of Woodbridge in Suffolk. This is an environment where visitors can browse at their leisure, with tea, coffee and cakes available if the mood takes them. Recipes for all the cakes can be found in the cookery books on the shelves. There is a children’s branch of Browsers further down the road.

Today is the bicentenary of the birth of Sir George Gilbert Scott, the architect who designed the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens and the soaring hotel at St Pancras station. The hotel re-opened on 5th May, with many of its original features restored.

Today is the bicentenary of the birth of Sir George Gilbert Scott, architect of the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras, re-opened this year and featured today as a Google Doodle.

When so many people are doing loft conversions or digging out their basements, there is a frequent need for new flights of stairs. To ensure a seamless connection between old and new, you need to be able to copy your existing staircase accurately. This is just the sort of job that E. A. Higginson can do. Their contact details are now available on our Victorian House Decoration page.

In Japan, frogs were thought to bring good fortune, allowing money to return to a person (the Japanese word for ‘frog’ is the same as ‘to return’). This little frog certainly looks as if he might have special powers, as he gazes up at the starry sky. This is our favourite design by The London Stained Glass Company. You can see more designs by visiting their web-site, which can be reached from Victorian House Decoration in Links.

There can be no denying the importance the Victorians placed on first impressions, and with grandeur in mind they turned the front entrances of their houses into showcases of architectural detail and decorative art, in which stained glass was ever-present. If yours is missing, and you want to commission a new design, have a look at Judi Stark’s portfolio, now available on our Victorian House Decoration page.

See a lot more of The Victorian House Book by downloading an Extended Contents List, now available at the end of the standard Contents list on the book information page.

We have added Original Architectural Antiques to our Links section. They supply oak beams, antique doors and door surrounds, new and old oak flooring, railings, chandeliers and limestone garden ornaments.

We have given a link in our website to Chapel House Fireplaces, a family business in West Yorkshire that specializes in the restoration and sale of good-quality antique fireplaces.

Sadly, we have removed the link we gave in our web-site to Amdega Ltd, the world’s oldest conservatory makers. They have gone into Administration after trading for 137 years. You can read the story here.

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We have just added a link to Mr Jones of Muswell Hill, makers of curtains, blinds and traditional upholstery. After more than 25 years, they have built up an in-depth knowledge of their subject and amassed a stock of designer fabrics and wallpapers which they claim is the largest in North London. Do a one-stop shop with them, they say, and you will save yourself many frustrating hours of traipsing around.

For your entertainment, we have just posted sample couplets by Harry Graham in our Preview of When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat. Whether your subject is dining, dancing, motoring, bathing or bee-keeping, we believe you will find something here to trigger your schadenfreude. Try this:

When Mrs Gorm (Aunt Eloise)
Was stung to death by savage bees,
Her husband (Prebendary Gorm)
Put on his veil, and took the swarm.
He’s publishing a book, next May,
On “How to Make Bee-keeping Pay.”

This week five mothers or mothers-to-be have won copies of The Kate Greenaway Baby Book through KiddieBase, the online retailer. They are Kelly Brett, Wendy Stanger, Danielle Baker, Abigail Bishop and Samantha Ripley.

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This week five copies of The Kate Greenaway Baby Book can be won through KiddieBase, the on-line retailer. To win one of five prize bundles, including gift vouchers, hampers, jewellery and our Baby Book, KiddieBase invite you to say what being a mother means to you or submit your favourite quotation about motherhood.

We have given a link to Thomas Crapper, who gave their name to an inglorious noun and verb. They are still trading on it, producing hand-made replicas of their firm’s products from the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods. As you would expect, they do loos and W. C. seats, but they can also fit you out with baths, basins, taps and bathroom accessories which they claim are ‘ultra-authentic’ and not the ‘vaguely Victorian’ sanitary ware that is generally available. Lucinda Lambton and Adam Hart-Davis, among others, have written glowing reviews of their period detail and thunderous flush!

Sue Woodford-Hollick says of The Kate Greenaway Baby Book: ‘The cover is stunning and its simplicity makes it very powerful indeed.’ High praise, coming from the former Chair of the London Arts Council.

A front entrance with original tessellated tiles inevitably looks tired after more than a century of use, as this house in Dagnan Road, south-west London, demonstrates (above). Replacing like with like will generally produce the best result, as can be seen from the front entrance of a neighbouring house.

Everyone knows how the Victorians built and finished their houses. After walking down hundreds upon hundreds of streets, you imbibe the style as if by osmosis, so trying to pretend you live in a slick minimalist pad by putting down slate, white gravel, flag stones or other non-original surfaces is unlikely to work. The new will probably jar with the old. A really well-finished job, like the one below, will look far superior.

Workmen have started installing new windows in the house next door. What a relief: they are putting in the correct, wooden, box-sash windows! These closely match the originals and will raise the value of the house, unlike UPVC replacements, which would have lowered it.

Two of our neighbours in Cavendish Road have relaid their front paths in true Victorian style, and what an entrance they have made! They have used the right tiles with square-cut edges, not the rounded modern alternatives which never look as good.

With every purchase of our beautifully presented hardback, The Victorian House Book by Robin Guild, get a free copy of the hilarious When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat by Harry Graham. To redeem this offer, simply enter the code WEB1210 at the check-out. Free UK P+P.

This is an excerpt from the Publisher’s speech at The Victorian House Book launch party, Brunswick House, Vauxhall Cross.

Why did we do a book on Victorian houses? There are more of them in Great Britain than any other period house. A quarter of the British housing stock is Victorian. Nearly six million of us live in them and we all have to look at them when we walk or drive through our cities and towns. When I was a small boy living in Kent, my grandfather used to drive us up to London for a Christmas treat – Peter Pan on ice or Bertram Mills’ Circus – and as we made our way through the Victorian suburbs of Catford, Lewisham, New Cross, Peckham and Camberwell, I witnessed scenes of sad dilapidation. What had been Class I gentleman’s villas now had cars parked in their front gardens, garden walls crumbling, paint peeling off the windows, brickwork dark from London soot, front doors drab and cluttered with inappropriate ironmongery. Rows of plastic doorbells testified to the scourge of multi-occupation.

The new edition of The Kate Greenaway Baby Book has arrived. With a freshly designed cover by the award-winning artist Ting-Chung Cheng, the book combines traditional childhood images with a clean modern style. It has sections for parents to fill in with details of their child’s general progress, as well as important information such as vaccinations and illnesses. All of this is accompanied by beautiful images from one of the first book illustrators to have her work published in colour, and whose ability to capture the innocence of childhood won her lasting popularity. It provides an ideal gift for new and expectant mothers.

To celebrate the launch of our new web-site, now live, we are offering 30% off two of our most popular titles, The Victorian House Book by Robin Guild and When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat by Harry Graham. To obtain these discounts, simply enter the promotional code WEB1110 at the check-out.