“Buildings,” wrote John Betjeman, are “a public art gallery which is always open.” Simon Jenkins has spent a lifetime in the gallery, arguing against the despoliation of London in the 1970s and chronicling its churches, houses, stations, and cathedrals.

Writing good popular history is a learned art, and Simon Jenkins has mastered it: the capacity to read thousands of pages, to consider hundreds of buildings, to distil 60 years of experience; to select facts and citations with an eye to the startling and to weave coherent and memorable stories where there might otherwise be just a tissue of chaos. The first two-thirds of A Short History of British Architecture is an enjoyably readable romp through two thousand years of architectural history. ‘Unputdownable,’ as journalists used to write. He’s particularly good on London and Wales.

…