Title: Palaces for pigs : animal architecture and other beastly buildings /
Authors: Lambton, Lucinda.
Publisher: English Heritage,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Animal housing Great Britain.; Fantastic architecture Great Britain.; Memorials Great Britain.
Abstract: "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, as well as bears and even salmon. Thus cone-shaped homes were provided for doves in 1742, while in 1883 a Grecian temple with tapering Egyptian windows was built for pigs in Yorkshire. A red sandstone elephant with a castle on its back was designed for bees in Cheshire in the 1800s, while at Exton in Rutland, a c18th-century Gothic-arched cattle shelter topped with a pinnacled dovecote, enhances the park in which it stands. With such architects as William Kent designing a cowshed, as well as 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.