Victorian House Book, The

Robin Guild acquired an international reputation as a designer of interiors ranging from small studio apartments and country houses to the cabins of motor yachts and private jets. Co-founder of Designers Guild, he worked for many well-known clients including the Rolling Stones, Joan Collins, Trevor Nunn and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. He designed the interiors of Ralph Lauren's London clothes store, as well as Brown's and the Empress Garden restaurants. His book The Finishing Touch has been translated into four languages. He died on 27th August 2006. Vernon Gibberd, RIBA, has run a private architectural practice in London since 1970; before that, he spent two years working as an architect in New York. The practice is very mixed, combining new work with restoration. He has designed aviaries and a maze and grotto for Leeds Castle in Kent, worked for the National Trust and rehabilitated a wing at Arundel Castle. Other projects include a folly garden in Scotland and grottoes in Hampshire and Worcestershire. Vernon Gibberd's publications include booklets written and illustrated for the National Trust, a book on kitchen design and a history source book of architecture from Egyptian times to the present day. Simon Rigge has been a writer and editor since leaving Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He learned his trade under Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart and Barrie Pitt on Purnell's History of the Second World War, then under A. J. P. Taylor and John Roberts on The History of the 20th Century, where he wrote articles on everything from the Italian Campaign of 1943-45 to Electricity in Everyday Life. On the picture side he worked with Germano Facetti and John Deakin, narrowly escaping being painted by Francis Bacon. After a short spell on the Observer Colour Magazine, he moved to Time-Life Books where he wrote and edited for The British Empire, a partwork history co-published with the BBC, The World's Wild Places and The Great Cities series. In 1979 he founded Sheldrake Press, where he has worked with many eminent authors.