PRE-ORDER: An English Vision - Signed Copy

An English Vision showcases two decades’ worth of Ben’s projects and explores his distinctive approach to architecture, design, and decoration. The book opens with a foreword by John, Earl of Moray, and an introduction from Ben, where he outlines his unique design philosophy, which prioritises, above all, a strong sense of happiness, history, character, place, colour, imperfection, a sense of the endeavour as a whole, and a sense of a project’s place in time. 

Succeeding chapters walk readers through a stunning variety of projects, across 352 pages of lush, full-colour photographs taken by Ben himself! This book has been years in the making. In the CIty looks at Ben’s urban projects, including the restoration of a house on Regent’s Park, London, with a new roof garden, glowing jewel-tone interiors, and cornices and joinery detailed with an early 19th-century quality. towns & townhouses explores the firm’s town development work, most notably the masterplanning of Poundbury, King Charles’ New Urbanist development, which comprises more than 1,500 buildings and is a triumph of postwar suburban expansion. A chapter on the Country house shows us rural retreats and historic country homes, among them a dreamlike Jacobean Castle revival in Cornwall, which had to be completely rebuilt and redecorated, with careful attention to historical detail, after a fire ripped through the building in the 1980s. Finally, a chapter on VIllage and Farm highlights projects that include a romantic West Cornwall seaside escape; a small Georgian farm nestled amid the unspoilt beauty of the eastern Cotswolds; and Ben’s own beloved home in West Dorset, a revitalised former parsonage that embodies the exquisite, personal simplicity for which Ben is so renowned.

More than anything, the projects featured in An English Vision reflect Ben’s refined yet playful style, which integrate history, tradition, the different rhythms of time, and the personal tastes of his clients. It is this—the perfect marriage of the enduring and the intuitive—that makes Ben’s work so special and so enlivening.