Review: Building Anglo-Saxon England, by John Blair

“One of the most intractable problems in the whole range of early medieval studies concerns the dwellings of the Anglo-Saxons. It is generally agreed that they were of wood and that no example survives above ground. Beyond this the student must rely on incidental references in the literature and on the scanty data provided by excavation.” C. A. R. Radford's opening remarks on the Anglo-Saxon house in the inaugural issue of Medieval Archaeology (1957) belong to another age.¹ In the sixty years since Radford wrote, archaeology has revolutionized our understanding of Anglo-Saxon architecture. This much is clear from John Blair's majestic new book, Building Anglo-Saxon England....