A Home for All Seasons

Product Information

You can unsubscribe from our list at any point by changing your preferences, or contacting us directly. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. What starts out as a straightforward house history morphs into something else, a wide-ranging meditation on place and past, taking in climate change, rural depopulation, the Reformation and folklore. This being said, lovely read but a bit of a long winded one, It could have been two books - The history of the house and the live of the author in my opinion.

The Hogarth Press where I’m working, is in the heart of the literary world, with authors coming in all the time. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels. Mrs Woolf, wife of the manager, is a very celebrated author and, in her own way, more important than Galsworthy.

Afew years ago, Gavin Plumley and his husband, Alastair, bought a house in the Herefordshire village of Pembridge. His writing style is also top tier: the book is written in a way that is at once conversational, poetic and intellectual. There were moments which felt “socially preachy” and I find that annoying, especially when I already feel that the book was misrepresented to me. It’s rare that non-fiction has the power to transport you so completely and catch you up in a world that you have never known, and that you never want to leave.

With ancient beams crossing the ceiling, the date they’d been given of 1800 seemed out by centuries.

What I found a bit of a bore was the author (there I have said it) he seemed to drone on a bit if I am honest. Finding the date of construction takes Gavin down many rabbit holes through the seasons, and cycle of the year as well as the historical context of the home from the 1500s and beyond. As Gavin traced Stepps House through various hands and eras, he saw a past emerge that resonates powerfully with our present. Those involved Protestants escaping mainland Europe and the consequent difficulties they had in integrating with the existing population. If I’m honest, the art history was less interesting to me than the social history aspect of the book, but it has inspired me to take more interest in historical detail and the bibliography included will be invaluable for this.