Old cottages in Britain have enduring fascination for visitors from all over the world; though threatened with decay and disintegration, they are still looked after by people who love them, who like most of us have little idea about what life in them was like both within and outside our living memory. The Truth about Cottages is a small classic - in the words of the Sunday Times, "required reading for cottage addicts; true scholarship, engrossing history and a real eye-opener for romantics." It tells an often amazing story of cottage life since the seventeenth century, often in the words of the people who built them or lived in them. There is for example the instance of the horse that shared a nineteenth-century, single-room cottage with its 12 human inhabitants, as well as the documented tribulations of rural labourers and barefoot urban dwellers alike, whose homes were as unsanitary and cold as they were picturesque. This is followed by an informative and enjoyable illustrated guide to the fifty main types of cottage, dating from the fifteenth century. A companion for explorers of these gems, as well as a good read.

The late John Woodforde was a radio critic for the Sunday Telegraph. His books include the best-selling Observer's Book of Furniture as well as Georgian Houses for All and The Story of the Bicycle.