BOOK REVIEWS Notes, Historic Landscapes, World Heritage Sites, Conservation Area Partnerships, Architectural Theft and Buildings-atRisk. The Archaeological section has been expanded and new specialist topics are covered resulting in an enlargement by 200 pages. The updating is thorough and demonstrates how much the 1990 legislative changes and subsequent court decisions have altered and refined the interpretation of many issues. Comparing particular sections ·.in the second and latest editions demonstrates how well this updating has been clone - it has been virtually rewritten. Owners of the second edition need to replace it. It would be unwise to rely on what is now outdated information. Some sections of this third edition (for instance that on Conservation Area Partnership Schemes) have already been partly superseded by events. Clearly, keeping up-to-date is rather like painting the Forth Bridge. CONTEXT 52 The systems of cross-referencing are particularly useful. There is an index and separate Tables of Cases, Statutes, Statutory Instruments, Circulars and PPGs all referenced to the numbered paragraphs of the book. Further copious footnotes refer to the source material. This makes a complex book easy and quick to use for reference purposes. The new edition also provides analysis of recent cases and appeal decisions, clearly making it more than a mere outline of the legislation. For those who believe laws are to be enforced (q.v. Mrs. T. Gorman MP) the table of punishments meted out for the destruction of the nation's heritage will make gratifying reading. This book is principally a work of reference, but in parts is a good read as well. It is worth every penny. No local authority or private practitioner should be without it. Francis Biard PORTMEIRION PLUS Clough Williams-Ellis. (RIBA Drawings Monographs No. 2) Richard Haslam. Academy Editions 1996. 11 lpp. Softback. 84 illus. ISBN 1 85490 430 2 112. £21.95. This attractively presented book begins with an uncritical general appraisal of the work of Clough Williams-Ellis;the text accompanying the plates refers to "wildly romantic little estates", as shown in the design for St. Brotheris Hall, Clanfrothen, which in the present clay would be considered an unfortunate affliction imposed on a landscape, where real life is still hard and uncompromising. However, if the publication is viewed solely as a 'picture book' it then becomes a delightful essay in one man's work, which exhibited unfortunate flights of fancy harking back to imagined past times (each generation has one - unfortunately the perpetrators of such designs which belong to this generation are condoned by royalty) and practical downto-earth, pedestrian buildings. Each scheme illustrated is an individual work of art comprising well balanced and proportioned drawings or charming water-colours which, were they to be framed would find a ready market. The elevation of Stowe School, Buckingham, typifies this. Never having visited or studied Portmeirion, I cannot comment on an idea which would seem to be the unfortunate juxtaposition of an alien concept against a favourite location, which subsequently spawned an equally unfortunate design of pottery; however, the designs within this publication show that the architect was capable of addressing any number of style and buildings, none of them spectacularly original or breaking new ground, but safe and solid, with considerable thought given to the sense of place ancl lanclsca ping. It is particularly no45
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