13 DECEMBER 2008, Page 36

Boldly for restoration

Byron Rogers

WALES by Simon Jenkins Allen Lane, £25, pp. 292, ISBN 9780713998931 ✆ £20 (plus £2.45 p&p) 0870 429 6655

boards and computer screens. Atmosphere is replaced by education monotone. The red-andwhite bedrooms are lost to this cause, as is the brewhouse. The attic, which should be a crammed, busy, squalid warren of stores and servants quarters, looks like something from a BBC makeover programme.