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Throughout the centuries there have been castles, great and small, for animals as diverse as goats and guinea pigs, deer and dogs, cows and bees, pigs and horses, bears and even salmon. In 1883, a Grecian temple with tapering Egyptian windows was built for pigs in Yorkshire and in the 1800s a red sandstone elephant with a castle on its back was designed for bees in Cheshire. With such architects a... More

Throughout the centuries there have been castles, great and small, for animals as diverse as goats and guinea pigs, deer and dogs, cows and bees, pigs and horses, bears and even salmon. In 1883, a Grecian temple with tapering Egyptian windows was built for pigs in Yorkshire and in the 1800s a red sandstone elephant with a castle on its back was designed for bees in Cheshire. With such architects as William Kent designing a cowshed and Sir John Soane devising classical 'canine residences,' these buildings are not mere curiosities; John Nash applied himself at his most picturesque to a dovecote, while Capability Brown was commissioned to create a classical menagerie and Henry Holland designed an elaborate Chinese Dairy. These buildings are the happy results of the British passion for both architecture and animals - emblems of unrestrained indulgence and often unnecessary extravagance. When designing for animals, architects and their patrons could realise their wildest flights of architectural fancy; the inhabitants could never complain, however idiosyncratic their dwelling - as George Eliot wrote in 1857, 'Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms' - allowing the builders' imaginations to flourish unbridled, often with scant observance to architectural convention. Architecture for animals has been and still continues to be a tremendous British tradition. Palaces for Pigs and Other Beastly Dwellings - fully illustrated with striking detail - celebrates this tradition, telling the fascinating stories behind the buildings that housed animals and the monuments that commemorated them.

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