Taylor developed an interest in Anglo-Saxon architecture early in life. With his wife Joan, née Sills (1903–1965), whom he had married in 1933, he began a survey of more than 400 churches with some remnants of Anglo-Saxon architecture, culminating in the publication in 1965 of the first two volumes of their co-authored "Anglo-Saxon Architecture". Joan died a few weeks before publication. In 1966, Taylor married as his second wife his personal assistant Dorothy Judith Samuel (born 1931), who co-authored the third volume of his work.