English Heritage Pocket Books encourage us to look beyond the obvious. Writer and photographer Peter Ashley champions the sometimes neglected and unsung architecture and related artefacts of everyday life, looking at everything from signal boxes to pre-war road signs, from lighthouses to canal tunnels. The series is beautifully produced with original colour photography throughout, accompanied by a witty and often idiosyncratic text. It could be a row of gaily-coloured beach huts, a red corrugated-iron lifeboat station or a film star customs house. Pleasure pier or fishermen's hut, this tour of the coast sets out to discover buildings imbued with a maritime flavour, be they for work or pleasure. Wherever they are they all share the common ground of being on England's edge, that irresistible magnet the coast.