The Australian Colonial House

The definitive work on early Australian architecture and society. Broadbent describes the evolution of Colonial houses and their builders during the colony's foundation in the late eighteenth century, through the golden years of the 1830s, to the depression of the 1840s. These early houses are read as manuscripts, revealing the motives and the follies of their builders. Through the villas, cottages, bungalows and mansions examined in the book, a unique insight is given into early colonial society, its aspirations, its culture or philistinism, its gentility and snobbery, its extravagance and failures.