Rough guide to olde England

Designer Diana Crighton has written and published her own answer to a Rough Guide of England, unlikely to be carted around youth hostels by backpackers.

The very civilised English Excursions is designed by Mitou Tricoit and its front cover is illustrated by John Montgomery. Crighton wanders around the home counties and London blending past and contemporary social history.

“I looked for an English all-through feeling,” says Crighton, who is “head cook and bottle washer” at the Diana Crighton Consultancy.

The author is definitely a designer. Take her description of Batemans, a Jacobean house in East Sussex. “Batemans is essentially Gothic… with just a hint of Renaissance in the pilasters at the ground floor entrance of the triple porch… it is English to the core”.

The book, published by Excursion Publishing, costs 8.95.