Rosemary Hill

speaker

490 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 7 Sep

Rosemary Hill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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Close Readings · London Revisited: The Road to Civil War · 13 Jul 2026 podcast

a townscape of Gothic spires, timber buildings with these overbearing upper stories, narrow wiggly streets.

And suddenly, in comes the piazza, which is a big open square.

This is also the beginning of the terraced house, which is going to be a huge feature of London ever afterwards.

So all the way around three sides, terraced housing, open piazza, and then at the top you've got to build this church which the patron doesn't want to spend much money on.

And in addition to not wanting to spend much money,

You have a sort of iconographic problem because this is the first new Protestant church or the first Protestant church on a new site since the Reformation.

So you have to consider what it's going to look like.

If it looks Gothic, like all the Catholic churches, well, A, that's going to be too expensive.

B, Inigo Jones is not remotely interested in doing Gothic.

And C, it's going to be just too popish.

So you've got to think of something else.

And he very brilliantly took up this idea of the story of architecture, giving architecture a history in the way that James was giving Britannia a history, which goes back into a very shady, mythic past.

where the Ur architectural order is the Tuscan.

And the great thing about the Tuscan, as well as it giving you a tremendously long and deep pedigree, is that it's very plain and simple, so hence quite cheap.

And that's the genius of the Covent Garden Church.

And even the Earl was quite pleased.

He said he didn't want to spend any more than on a barn.

And

So that is a great leap, well, certainly towards the future at the centre of London.

But also at the old heart of London, at St Paul's Cathedral, Jones was busy there too.

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