“... illustrates both the universal dilemma and the general solution, this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of non-violence, of racial brotherhood, this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the ...”

“... At the end of a path lined with cypress trees a rectangle of clipped lawn is enclosed by low grey stone walls. Some 356 British soldiers and airmen of the First World War are buried here, the graves set in rows, softened by evergreen shrubs, floribunda roses and photinia trees. The headstones are engraved with regimental badges, names, ranks and dates. The ...”

“... it, the English dotards and their epigones would, amazingly, still be at it, all red brick and stone quoins, in the years after the second war. ‘Retardataire’ was a word Pevsner relished.Reilly’s galère left out a number of artists of whose existence he may have been unaware, just as they may have been unaware of each other. Patrick Abercrombie ...”

“... with his brother Frank, describing Galway as a grand little magic grey town full of sensitive stone and bridges and water. We … spent a day walking on Achill right out over the Atlantic … Altogether it was an unforgettable trip and much too short, through bog and mountain scenery that was somehow far more innocent and easy and obvious than the ...”

“... not only one of the half-dozen greatest epistolary classics, but a sort of milestone – the last stone of the age whose close the Great War has marked. They are a magnificent commentary on the literary life of his generation, and they’re done in a style which will never be used naturally again. In the years that followed Harry James was contacted by many ...”

“... of Leeds. There is a picture of Kirkstall and the inscription: ‘Built in 1147. Destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in 1539.’ This was what most people believed in Leeds when I was a boy, the notion that there could have been two iconoclasts named Cromwell but a century apart too much of a coincidence for them to take. The idea that it was ‘built in ...”

“... is supposed to be for men only,’ she wrote, ‘and might be better so.’ Unlike Mrs Oliver St John Gogarty, however, who presided at her husband’s evenings, George Yeats ‘always discreetly withdrew, reappearing only to serve refreshments’. When Lady Gregory came to stay, George gave up her room for her, ran messages and answered the ...”