The well informed traveller: architectural guides from the 1930s-1950s
Gillian Darley
Many existing guidebooks and publications were available to the enquiring traveller in England between the 1930s and the 1950s. Of particular interest were the Shell County Guides, which in their pre-war format, were highly innovative and idiosyncratic guidebooks, edited by John Betjeman and written and illustrated by artists and writers within his circle. Betjeman's personality and interests were stamped throughout the series. By the late 1930s John Piper's involvement was central to the project, both as an acute architectural observer and photographer, and he eventually inherited the editorship. The depth of unease felt by both Betjeman and Piper towards Pevsner's scholarly approach in the Buildings of England was a constant refrain and the difference in outlook was typified in the differences between the two series.
