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Ever wondered why the floors in terraced houses are different heights? Or what a landscape looked like before it was built on? And did you know you can date a building by its window sills? In A Lust for Window Sills, Harry Mount takes us on an engrossing tour of the UK's architecture, exploring the quirks, foibles, and tiny details that make their buildings unique, and revealing the fascinating stories and anecdotes behind them along the way. We see every historic building style in Britain in one hour's walk across London, from the Norman apse of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield—where Hugh Grant backs out of marrying Duckface in Four Weddings and a Funeral—to the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing, via Gothic in Holborn, Sir. Christopher Wren in the City, and the Knights Templar at Temple. A trip up the M4 reveals some of their greatest country houses, while a visit to Stonehenge, Avebury, and Silbury Hill is a journey back to the Bronze Age. This book is a lively, entertaining, and affectionate portrait of a country's history and the Britain of today.