A major work in the history of Australian architecture is a rare thing, and it is the more remarkable when the author is an amateur – in the true sense, that is – an enthusiast and connoisseur rather than a professional or academic hack. For Brian Andrews, though he has developed his expertise during a full-time career in telecommunications, is certainly not an amateur in terms of expertise.

This is a survey of Australian Gothic architecture from the 1840s to the 1950s, a date range presumably chosen to minimise any overlap with Broadbent and Kerr’s important Gothick Taste in the Colony of New South Wales. But it is so much broader a work that such circumspection was hardly necessary: it covers twice the length of time, and the whole continent rather than a single colony. As a survey of ecclesiastical Gothic design, this is as comprehensive as one would expect of Andrews but, as a survey of secular and domestic Gothic, it is fairly rudimentary. This is not a criticism of what has been achieved, for only a cooperative work of scholarship and a much larger volume could have covered the ground. It is, however, a criticism of the title and purported scope of the work.