Historic Building Mythbusting

Historic Building Mythbusting examines the stories attached to Britain’s old buildings and tests them against architectural, archaeological and historical evidence. James Wright considers why familiar claims take hold, how they change over time and what they reveal about the people who repeated them.

Among the subjects are secret passages, castle spiral staircases, masons’ marks, grooves supposedly made by archers sharpening arrows, and the belief that old houses contain timbers salvaged from ships. Wright also investigates deliberate burn marks and the traditional protective ideas associated with them, alongside competing claims to Britain’s oldest pub. The book focuses chiefly on mediaeval buildings but extends into the early modern and later periods.