Berkshire

Nikolaus Pevsner described Berkshire as `half home county, half West Country'. This revised and comprehensive guide follows its historic boundaries, including the large area transferred to Oxfordshire in the 1970s. The variety of architecture is, in consequence, broad and remarkable. Berkshire's houses range from intriguing early timber-framed dwellings to the splendours of Windsor Castle, at once England's greatest fortress and finest royal palace, through Georgian, Victorian and Arts-and-Crafts mansions of exceptional diversity and richness. Besides its many medieval churches, the county is a wonderful hunting ground for the Gothic Revival, including works by famous names such as Butterfield and G.E. Street. Its market towns retain much of their Georgian charm, while the prosperity of recent years has brought new waves of confident and innovative architecture.

Each city, town or village is treated in a detailed gazetteer. A general introduction provides a historical and artistic overview. Also included are plentiful maps and plans, over 100 new colour photographs, full indexes and an illustrated glossary. The result is both an indispensable reference work and an invaluable guide.

`What better way .... to explore England than with the latest volume of Pevsner's guides to the counties of England, the greatest treasury of English architecture ever compiled.' Marcus Binney, The Times

`In a world where few things seem to get better, the enlarged and revised editions of Pevsner are a glorious exception.' John Martin Robinson, Country Life

`There is still nothing in the world (repeat, the world, not just this country) to match these books.' Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Guardian

`The inheritors of Pevsner have exceeded his achievement with no compromises. This is a great feat of publishing in the best tradition of architectural history.' Colin Amery, Times Literary Supplement

The Buildings of England series offers descriptions, spiced by lively informed comment, of every building of architectural importance in every English county. Besides the grand set pieces---cathedrals and their furnishings, great country houses and their parks, the commercial and industrial architecture of Victorian cities---the reader is introduced to lesser delights, from village churches to garden follies, from pubs to pumping stations. The introductions provide a historical survey of each county's art and architecture, which is illustrated in a central section of over a hundred photographs and in the text by many specially drawn maps and plans.

Dr Geoffrey Tyack is a Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, Director of the Stanford University Centre in Oxford, and editor of the Georgian Group Journal. His other books include Sir James Pennethorne and the Making of Victorian London (1992). He lives in Oxford, within sight of pre-1974 Berkshire.
Dr Simon Bradley is editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides. He is author of two hardback Buildings of England volumes, London I: The City of London and London 6: Westminster, and the paperback London: The City Churches.
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83), one of the most learned and stimulating twentieth-century writers on art and architecture, began his career in Germany. He later became Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck College (University of London), Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge and a Gold Medallist of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In addition to The Buildings of England, first published from 1951 to 1974, be was founding editor of The Pelican History of Art and of The Buildings of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Among his many publications are An Outline of European Architecture, Pioneers of Modern Design and A History of Building Types.