This weighty book of lush interior shots selected and presented by Steven Brindle is a rare and delightful treat. London: Lost Interiors is an opportunity to glimpse inside the homes of London from a time well before it was common to photograph them – Victorian, Edwardian and early 20th century London. On top of that, about half the homes in it no longer exist, not to mention the fading and remodelling of the insides of those that do.
Popular ideas of what interior design in England was like between 1880 and 1940 come predominantly from period TV shows like Downton Abbey or Jeeves and Wooster. But these do not tell us how houses that were decorated and redecorated at the time genuinely looked.
Brindle’s book shows that historical decor trends are far more complex, more varied, and more particular than we might assume. For a start, the designers, architects and inhabitants were far more international that you would expect.
