Lefebvre was the first and one of the few who dared herald the end of the industrial town, with the development of its outskirts and suburbs, and the advent of the Urban. Lefebvre saw in the creation of this urban society new hope for the development of more favourable conditions for humanity.

    

    

    

    

    

    With remarkable lucidity, the author traces the events in the life of the boyhood friend of Louis Capet, Suger; Louis became the King of France and Suger the Abbott of St. Denis. Fat and sometimes foolish, Louis was propped and sustained by Suger, whose life was devoted to his king, his country, and his church. In the slow, patient years in which the old church of St. Denis was torn down, the new one was rebuilt with the innovative features that became popular throughout Europe - the stained glass windows, the piers and buttresses, the ribbed vaulting and soaring pillars of Gothic architecture.

    The rural areas are rich in sturdy cruck-framed timber buiildings, discussed in an expert introduction, and in village churches which can boast fine sculpture and fittings. The priory of Great Malvern retains exceptional medieval stained glass, and the medieval cathedral at Worcester has the tomb of King John and the chantry chapel of Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's elder brother. The City of Worcester has numerous fine buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while Great Malvern is of special interest as an early nineteenth-century spa town. The supreme example of Victorian grandeur is the eccentrically ambitious grounds and house of Witley Court, now an evocative ruin.