ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the evolution of the Strand as the focus of architectural conspicuous consumption, from the power houses of the high clergy, the so-called Bishops’ Inns, built from the thirteenth century, to their secular counterparts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which epitomise the rise and fall of great Tudor and Jacobean magnates. As the main highway into London, the Thames was the catalyst of this development, and has remained, unlike many other embanked river towns, at the heart of public display and pageantry, as the latest celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee have shown.
