Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England
69 total works
Oxford's unique collection of university and college buildings both old and new form a major part of this book. The city itself with its medieval walls and castle and ancient churches is also fully described. Among the county's distinguished houses are Vanbrugh's Blenheim and Kent's Rousham Park, each in magnificently landscaped grounds, while village churches range from notable Norman examples such as Iffley to G.E. Street's inventive Victorian creations such as St Simon & St Jude at Shipton-under-Wychwood. Other attractive towns in this still strongly rural county vary from stone-built Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds to brick-built Henley on the Thames.
Pevsner completed his survey of England's buildings with Staffordshire. A county of striking contrasts, it includes the industrial towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent and much of the Black Country, but also the cathedral city of Lichfield, and the wild country of the Peak District and Cannock Chase. Staffordshire's best timber-framed houses rival those of Cheshire, while the local stone gives shape to country houses such as Shugborough, with its celebrated garden building, and to two neo-Gothic masterpiece churches, Pugin's Cheadle and Bodley's Hoar Cross. Modern buildings include the playful and inventive 1930s pavilions of Dudley Zoo.
This completely new edition reveals a county of contrasts. The semi-rural suburbia of outer-Outer London, with its important early Modern Movement houses, is counterbalanced by magnificent mansions and parks, like idyllic Stowe and the Rothschilds' extravaganza at Waddesdon. The Saxon Church at Wing, the exquisite seventeenth-century Winslow Hall, and Slough's twentieth-century factories all contribute to Buckinghamshire's rich inheritance. In this new edition, the unspoilt centres of small towns, like Amersham and Buckingham, are revisited and Milton Keynes, Britain's last and most ambitious New Town, is explained and explored. The rich diversity of rural buildings, built of stone, brick, timber, and even earth, is investigated with scholarship and discrimination. This accessible and comprehensive guide is prefaced by an illuminating introduction and has many excellent illustrations, plans and maps.
The county stretches from the dramatic Malvern Hills on the eastern borders to the fringes of the Cotswolds on the west. The rural areas are rich in sturdy cruck-framed timber buiildings, discussed in an expert introduction, and in village churches which can boast fine sculpture and fittings. The priory of Great Malvern retains exceptional medieval stained glass, and the medieval cathedral at Worcester has the tomb of King John and the chantry chapel of Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's elder brother. The City of Worcester has numerous fine buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while Great Malvern is of special interest as an early nineteenth-century spa town. The supreme example of Victorian grandeur is the eccentrically ambitious grounds and house of Witley Court, now an evocative ruin.
Somerset is a serene county, varied in mood more then most, yet always mild wrote Pevsner, drawing attention to its freedom from the extremes of its neighbouring counties. Highlights of this volume are a full account of the Georgian marvels of Bath, and a separate section on the port of Bristol, whose sumptuous Victorian commercial buildings are among the best of their date in England. The fourteenth century Nunney Castle and John Nash's picturesque Blaise Hamlet are perfect examples of their type, while the cathedrals of Wells and Bristol and the Decorated Gothic of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol inspired some of Pevsner's most eloquent writing on the character of English Gothic architecture.
This southern county has a splendidly varied range of fine buildings. Winchester, with its Cathedral, Castle, College and churches, has some of the finest medieval architecture in England. At Southampton the walled medieval port is still recognisable; in contrast, Portsmouth is of special interest for its extensive Georgian and Victorian dock buildings. The rich countryside abounds in attractive villages and small towns with notable churches and houses, from Norman Romsey Abbey and the quiet grandeur of The Vyne with its audacious portico by John Webb to the early nineteenth century Neo-Grecian of the Grange. Smaller delights include Jane Austen's house at Chawton and Stanley Spencer's unparalleled series of paintings in the Sandham Mermorial Chapel at Burghclere.
The premier monument is Durham Cathedral, greatest of English Norman churches. Lovers of the Middle Ages will also seek out the county's exceptional Anglo-Saxon churches, while many of its great castles - Brancepeth, Raby, Auckland, Lambton - conceal palatial Georgian and Victorian interiors. The landscape varies dramatically, from the wilds of Teesdale and Weardale, in the west, to the pioneering industrial ports of Sunderland and Hartlepool on the coast, including fine gentry houses and stone-built market towns. South Tyneside and northern Cleveland, historically part of County Durham, are also covered.
"Everybody tells you Dorset is a house or mansion county, not a church county...Yet when one sets down all one has seen of Dorset churches...one suddenly realises how much one has enjoyed", wrote Pevsner at the conclusion of his journey. The county provides many unexpected pleasures in ecclesiastical buildings, from the Norman arches of Wimborne Minster, the Early English solemnity of Milton Abbey, to the splendour of Sherborne and the monuments and furnishings of numerous smaller buildings. Of castles, mansions and houses, Dorset boasts the evocative ruins of Corfe; the splendid Kingston Lacy; mighty Milton Abbey House and a wealth of more modest homes. But the county also possesses fine towns and villages, from the Georgian elegance of Weymouth and Lyme Regis, to the model estate village of Milton Abbas.
Although so close to London this is still a rural area, with quiet country churches with fine monuments, timber-framed farmhouses, and some splendid country houses, of which the most celebrated is Cecil's Jacobean Hatfield House. At St Albans the remains of Roman Verulamium and the great early Norman abbey speak eloquently of older civilizations. The towns offer intriguing contrasts: Hertford, Bishop's Stortford and Hitchin still have the character of traditional market centres, while the new towns of Stevenage, Hemel Hempstead and Hatfield are important exemplars of planning ideals of the 1950s and 60s.
The North Riding extends from the fells on the Westmorland border to the highest cliffs in England, facing the North Sea. In an area of scattered settlements, Richmond is one of the best market towns in England, as Whitby is one of the best fishing towns. There are the remains of unusually complete and beautiful work at Rievaulx, complemented by fine eighteenth-century landscaping. The North Riding also saw Vanbrugh's astonishing first essay into architecture at Castle Howard, and there are many fine classical houses in a distinctively northern style. Industry has made its mark along the estuary of the Tees, where the Middlesbrough transporter bridge is a unique working survival of early twentieth-century engineering.
Sussex turns away from nearby London, towards the sea and the massive ridge of the South Downs. Its coastal resorts are particularly distinguished, nowhere more so than at Brighton where Nash's orientalising Pavilion sets the tone. Elsewhere castles and fortified town walls along the coast attest to Sussex's military past; Chichester cathedral and Battle Abbey to its medieval endowments. In East Sussex, twelfth-century churches are important survivals in villages also rich in the timber-framed houses for which Sussex is famous. On a grander scale, there are atmospheric country houses such as Petworth House and Uppark. The twentieth century makes its mark in the sober and dignified Festival Theatre at Chichester, the exhilarating De la Warr Pavilion at Bexhill, and the uncompromising forms of the University of Sussex campus.
The well-loved Lake District makes up only part of a wild and spacious county, a poetic setting for exceptionally rich Celtic, Roman and Anglo-Saxon monuments. Carlisle Cathedral and Lanercost Priory represent Northern Gothic, while castles such as Naworth and Appleby developed into fine houses which, in their style and decoration, show a rugged regional independence. Settlements range from the planned Stuart port of Whitehaven to the remote market towns of Kirkby Stephen and Alston in the east, while the architecture of the main villages and farmhouses is famous for its unaffected simplicity.
This work covers the English county of Berkshire. Stretching from the fringes of London, Berkshire originally covered much of present day Oxfordshire. The variety of architecture is, consequently, broad and remarkable, from the towns of the home counties to the farmhouses and churches of its west.
The varied architecture of this east Midland area ranges from the Norman glory of Peterborough cathedral and notable Early English churches to many fine Elizabethan and Jacobean mansions. The finest of these is Houghton House but the most spectacular is Burghley, of palatial proportions in a perfect landscape setting by Capability Brown. Southill and Woburn Abbey display the range and excellence of Georgian houses and landscaped gardens while Wrest Park and Luton Hoo look back to eighteenth-century French architecture from opposite ends of the nineteenth-century. More recently, Whipsnade Zoo exemplifies fine work of the 1930s by Berthold Lubetkin.
The Derbyshire Peak District makes a dramatic setting for some of England's finest buildings: the rambling medieval Haddon Hall, the great ducal seat and park at Chatsworth, and the amazing late Georgian mills at Cromford and Calver. Hardwick, Kedleston and Bolsover add to the register of great country houses, while the architecture of high spa towns, Matlock and Buxton, creates its own special atmosphere. Less well known are Derby itself, with its Georgian cathedral, and the gentler country to the south, where Repton and Melbourne preserve unusually eloquent Anglo-Saxon and Norman church buildings.
Warwickshire, Revised and Enlarged
by Nikolaus Pevsner and Alexandra Wedgwood
Published 11 March 1981
Warwickshire's buildings generally reflect a comfortable, well-to-do feel. Stratford-on-Avon is an excellent place to see the buildings of a late medieval and Georgian country town. The great medeival fortresses of Warwick and Kenilworth Castles are among the leading exemplars of their type. The superb range of country houses and landscaped gardens extends from the medieval perfection of Baddesley Clinton, and picturesque Compton Wynates to the eighteenth-century sophistication of Packington Hall. Birmingham and Coventry are major cathedral cities (though neither is anything like the conventional picture of an English cathedral). The nineteenth-century buildings of Birmingham, religious, civic and commercial, are outstanding in their quality and variety, while Coventry is one of the most imaginative examples of a twentieth-century city centre rebuilt after wartime destruction.
A full account of Cambridge begins this volume, tracing its development prior to the University and continuing with the architectural spendours that have appeared since. Cambridge's architectural highlights are numerous. From the medieval college precincts, built throughout the town and marked out by their turreted gatehouses, to Wren's Trinity Library, through the period of Victorian expansion and on to the ambitious and innovative buildings of the twentieth-century. In the county itself the most notable monument is Ely Cathedral with its unique octagonal crossing, and the Georgian river port of Wisbech is especially attractive, while Wimpole Hall exemplifies the grandeur of the major country houses. Substantial survivals of timber-framed buildings are more modest in scale but no less significant. Cambridgeshire architecture cannot fail to delight.
The historic county of Essex is one of the larger counties in England, its western half gradually absorbed into London's eastern sprawl from the nineteenth century onwards. Its buildings are appropriately varied in character, ranging from the Edwardian civic buildings of West Ham and Walthamstow, to the fishing and sailing ports and seaside resorts of the estuaries of the east coast. Besides the great Norman Castle Hedingham and Elizabethan Audley End, Essex boasts pioneering brick houses such as Layer Marney Towers as well as numerous fine timber buildings. Towns and cities range from Colchester with its rich Roman and medieval remains, to the more recent experiments at Harlow New Town.
Full of memorable and surprising buildings, Nottingham is a county that rewards close investigation. Great medieval churches are represented by Worksop, Newark and by Southwell, with its exquisite carved 'leaves'. Of its country houses, Wollaton Hall shows Elizabethan architecture at its most fantastic, Bunny Hall the English Baroque at its most bizarre, while Lord Byron's Newstead Abbey incorporates one of the strangest of all monastic ruins. The city of Nottingham, marvellously set between hills, is crowded with sturdy Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings, and enlivened by a strong local tradition of first-rate Modernist architecture.
Publication of this book, one of six devoted to the buildings of London, marks the completion of the long-awaited revision of the original Pevsner guides and brings the account of the capital's buildings entirely up to date.
This fascinating volume provides a historical introduction to a uniquely diverse area as well as a detailed gazetteer of individual buildings. Along the Thames, relics of a powerful industrial and maritime past remain, and in the East End, Hawksmoor's Baroque churches still tower over Georgian houses. The contributions of generations of immigrants are reflected in places of worship and cultural centers, while a century of social housing has produced architecture now of historic interest. Further out, medieval churches and country mansions stand among the suburban streets and proud civic buildings.