The first version of this three‎-volume work was published in 1829 as a question‎-and‎-answer book of 80 pages‎.‎ The eleventh‎,‎ and definitive‎,‎ 1882 edition of this hugely popular‎,‎ highly illustrated work‎,‎ reissued here‎,‎ was published at the urging of Sir George Gilbert Scott‎,‎ and consists of two volumes on Gothic ecclesiastical architecture and a ‎'‎companion‎'‎ volume on church vestments‎.‎ Matthew Holbeche Bloxam ‎(‎1805‎-88‎)‎‎,‎ a solicitor by profession‎,‎ was an enthusiastic architectural historian with a passion for churches‎.‎ In the preface‎,‎ as well as explaining his reasons for another edition‎,‎ Bloxam records his concern that some features he had recorded fifty years earlier no longer exist‎:‎ ‎'‎In the so‎-called restorations of ancient churches‎,‎ not a few historical features ‎.‎‎.‎‎.‎have been ruthlessly‎,‎ and in many cases needlessly‎,‎ swept away‎.‎‎'‎ Volume 2 discusses the internal layout of churches before the Reformation‎,‎ and the monastic tradition‎.‎