This is a formidable book about a formidable Victorian who at the same time was something of an enigma and a misfit. In the annals of architectural scholarship, Robert Willis's reputation stands high indeed. Towering above his many contemporaries for whom England's mediaeval cathedrals and abbeys were an absorbing passion, Willis the polymath sorted out their styles, dates and sequence of construction with unerring accuracy and clarity. Canterbury, Ely, Gloucester, Westminster, Winchester, Worcester and York all gave up their secrets under his penetrating analyses which combined thorough engineering competence, precise scrutiny and a discriminating grasp of written sources. Bishop Wilberforce ('Soapy Sam') described him as 'the light of the [Royal Archaeological] Institute and the delight of the annual meetings', when Willis delivered tour de force lectures to large audiences. Viollet-le-Duc owed more to Willis's 'rationalist' interpretation of Gothic than to any other Englishman, while Nikolaus Pevsner's commentaries on the English cathedrals - the intellectual highlight of his famous architectural guidebooks - rely on Willis's investigations as on a rock.
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