Nikolaus Pevsner, an art historian of European standing, conceived the idea of English architectural guidebooks after he settled in England in the 1930s. At that time architectural history was hardly recognised as a serious academic subject, nor was trustworthy architectural information readily available for the traveller. The success and achievement of his aim eventually became possible with the assistance and enthusiasm of Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, for whom Pevsner had written his Outline of European Architecture in 1942. Lane provided Pevsner with the means to begin research for the books in 1945 with the help of two part time research assistants, both German refugee art historians, and a secretary. For the next twenty five years a pattern was established whereby an assistant worked for
around a year on each county, preparing notes from published sources. During the Easter and Summer university vacations, then armed with fat folders of half-foolscap sheets, Pevsner set off to visit two counties, driven by his wife and, after her death in 1963, by others, usually students at London University or the Courtauld Institute of Art.
The tours, initially made in a 1933 Wolseley Hornet borrowed from Penguin, began in 1947 with Middlesex. The first book, on Cornwall, appeared in 1951, the forty-sixth, and last, on Staffordshire, in 1974. A first draft was written immediately after each long day's visit, a feat of prodigious energy (hence the dedication of one of the volumes "to those publicans and hoteliers of England who provide me with a table in my bedroom to scribble on".) As soon as the travelling was finished, Pevsner shut himself away for a week to write the Introduction while everything was still fresh in his mind. These lively essays on the development of architecture in each county, written by a scholar up to date with the latest art-historical scholarship, were another feature which set the series on quite a different level from previous guidebooks.
Pevsner was unable to devote much more than a month to visiting each county and the speed at which the books were prepared inevitably led to errors and omissions. Each volume invited readers to send in comments and publication, and was immediately followed by a shower of letters eagerly drawing attention to anything from minor misprints to the relatively rare absence of whole villages or substantial houses. As the work became more demanding and time-consuming it became essential for Pevsner to share the writing with others. In the end, thirty-two of the books were written by Pevsner alone, ten together with collaborators, and four were delegated to others, all of whom made their own valuable contribution to the series.
From the 1960s onwards more information was available to be consulted and new research began to make the emphases of the early volumes appear a little unbalanced. Although from the beginning the books had broken new ground by covering all periods of architecture, the greatest space had been devoted to medieval churches and their furnishings. Secular buildings, with some notable exceptions, had been treated more summarily. Revisions, before and since Pevsner's death, have continued to take advantage of developments in architectural scholarship. The scope of the series has been broadened and deepened by the transformation of our understanding of the post-medieval centuries, the research into architecture and urban planning of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the wealth of interest in both rural vernacular buildings and the surviving structures of Britain's industrial past. A younger generation have a greater interest in cinemas and Art Deco factories, and there is an ever growing supply of even more recent architecture to be recorded. The results are more inclusive, but the aim remains the same: to present to a broad public up-to-date and accessible information about the most significant buildings in the country whilst always keeping under review the definition of "significant."
50th Anniversary
The 50th anniversary of the series in 2001 was marked by a busy programme of events. Walks led by our City Guides authors up and down the land proved very popular (so much so in one case that a megaphone had to be used to address the crowd). Other walks or tours were held in London, Newcastle, and South Wales - the last an ambitious two-day affair. We send our thanks to all those involved, and also to the officers and volunteers of the conservation societies, local and national, who helped with publicity and organization. In addition, many hundreds attended the two-day conference 'Pevsner's The Buildings of England', held at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the 13th-14th of July. We are very grateful to our hosts and co-organizers there for making possible this event, in which Pevsner's great project was expertly placed in a broader historical and cultural context. Over two days speakers explored Pevsner's early life and career, the art-historical background which moulded his writing, the attitudes to architectural writing and topography current in England when the series started, Pevsner's involvement with both the study and preservation of Victorian architecture, and his influence on and relevance for later writing.
The following links are summaries of a series of lecture presented on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of the series in 2001.
Sir Nikolaus in Leipzig by Professor Heinrich Dilly, University of Halle
Pevsner's Art History by Professor William Vaughan
A moving target? Pevsner and architectural history 1950-1974 by John Newman
'The style of our century'. The Buildings of England and 20th century architecture by Bridget Cherry
Saving a Century: Nikolaus Pevsner as a Conservationist by Jane Fawcett
The well-informed traveller: architectural guides from the 1930s-1950s by Gillian Darley
Learning from Pevsner: Buildings of England and Buildings of the United States by Damie Stillman
Nikolaus Pevsner and the Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century by Alexandrina Buchanan
Pevsner and the Landscapes of Englishness by David Matless
