Lizzie Fawkes has grown up in Radical circles where each step of the French Revolution is followed with eager idealism. John Diner Tredevant, her antihero, is a property developer who is building a terrace of fine houses on the hillside, offering unique views. He had known that she would stiffen in a few hours, and that he would not want to see her once again. At Bristol Harbourside the Matthew was under sail and as we climbed up toward Clifton Hill we paused to look down on the SS Great Britain, and over toward Ashton Court.

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children’s author and poet who will be remembered for the depth and breadth of her fiction. The plot development in the book is limited and (just as in Exposure) much of it is revealed up front. The two strongest options were the sale of 8-12 Old Queen Street and 3 Birdcage Walk, consolidating the headquarters in a newly refurbished 1 Birdcage Walk; and the sale of the entire building and a move to freehold or leased premises elsewhere in London.

The novel opens (after a brief and superfluous modern day prelude) with a man burying a dead body in a clearing in a wood, a blend of beauty and horror evoked with such breathtaking poetry that it haunts me still. Naturally, that makes it a highly sought-after destination for events and anyone who’s lucky enough to have been before can vouch why! but that's by the way and not in the book) descends into political rivalry, mass violence and unending bloodshed; while the idealising union of marriage also reveals its increasingly dark and menacing side.

To ensure options were considered with the latest and best information available, the working group commissioned a new condition survey of the building and a complete valuation. Lizzie is reunited with Thomas, but sees the scale of her husband's failure as his office is bare and his creditors come to the house shouting for their money. It had so much promise - a beautiful cover, the story built around very interesting historical facts, well written prose, a mysteriously dead wife, some initially intriguing characters.When considering the move, a new building would be chosen to allow it to meet the needs of the Institution in the post-Covid world, and it could be a modern, sustainable, zero-carbon and highly engineered building which is attractive to current and future members in a different way to the existing building.

I don’t tend to read much historical fiction but having really enjoyed this novel I’m starting to feel that this is a genre that I’m really missing out on. He is displeased with Lizzie's 'independent, questioning spirit', and is of the conviction that she should live and behave only in the manner he wishes her to. Once we get into the real story, and not just the characters and their setting, we are then treated to a fast paced mystery that Lizzie is caught in. He could see the stone curve of the terrace shaping itself according to his vision and he did not care how hard he drove the men’. I found it very interesting to have our leading lady caught between the ideologies of her family and those of her husband.

And yet, for all her indifference to politics, she too is constrained by circumstances beyond her control, bound into marriage at a time when a wife was her husband’s legal property. Further the “period of great political upheaval and social change” behind the look largely centres around the events of the French Revolution and are too often told either by letters from acquaintances or even less revealingly by characters reading newspaper articles aloud to each other – in some ways then it feels like we are viewing the events one step removed and more in the way it could be experienced in a non-fiction historical record. Make sure to have tools, fillers, sealants, sand paper and paint ready for your projects or renovations. It is a fundamental element of our history and traditions and for many it is synonymous with the Institution and a key part of our brand. Ultimately, you’ll have no trouble justifying hiring One Birdcage Walk for your next big pitch or board meeting.