After the walls, much of a building's structural interest is in how it supports its roof between the gables, but this is usually concealed from the passer by. Much of the remaining interest lies in the detailing - of the masonry, render, carpentry and joinery, and all their furnishings and decoration.

The building "flavours" of certain periods may be consciously reproduced in later times (and in conservation there is a place for this), or may be alluded to by a kind of fakery, or ignored altogether. Tension between old and new is the source of a central dilemma of modern planning. Every age should find truths particular to itself, but without wanton destruction of the old. It is always satisfying to see good proportion and detailing, whatever their era.