The return of the bolt hole

THERE is no English word for . That is as it should be, because the flats that are now an essential part of city life in this country originated in the apartments of the Continent and the US. London looked towards Paris. As were other cities on the mainland of Europe, Paris was, in the 18th and 19th centuries, more densely developed within its city walls than London, which had spilled out into suburbs such as Southwark by the Tudor period. Soon, London found it did not need its wall. Vienna had to wait until the 1860s before replacing the old fortifications with the Ringstrasse; Paris was still building walls in the