Wonders & blunders

There are some wonderful Georgian houses around Richmond Green, in south-west London. Every time I walk round it I think which one would I like, and any of them would do. It’s all down to proportion – the Georgians had theirs absolutely perfect. The windows were large, so from inside the rooms were very light.

I think it’s the most elegant period of architecture there is. I now live in a Georgian farmhouse, and it’s fab.

Green elegance
Pevsner described Richmond Green in Surrey as “one of the most beautiful urban greens surviving anywhere in England”. Houses include Maids of Honour Row, a terrace built in 1724, and a group of semi-detached Italianate villas built in the 1850s.

My least favourite building is Alton Magistrates Court. Alton is a beautiful little market town in Hampshire that was blessed with some fine Georgian houses and eventually shops in its high street, but then, presumably in the 1960s, somebody came along and plonked down a large and very ugly concrete court house. Even the front of it looks like a back. It incenses me when I see beautiful Georgian or Victorian Gothic interspersed with some clumsy, unrelated modern building that doesn’t take into account what’s on either side of it.

Grey arrogance
Alton Magistrates Court was built in the late 1970s as part of the town's new police station complex. Archeological finds at the site delayed construction.