Gillian’s BA Hons was in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute, her MSc in Politics and Administration from Birkbeck College. She has written biographies of Octavia Hill, Sir John Soane and, in 2006, of John Evelyn (both the latter shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography). Over the years she has written, taught and lectured on architecture and landscape, both in the UK and USA, and among the publications to which she currently contributes are the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Apollo Magazine and the Burlington Magazine. She has written the background essay on the Grand Tour in Perspecta 41, Yale's student-edited architectural journal, published by MIT in 2008.