The Paul Mellon Centre at Yale University present an online launch of Martin Roberts’ new revision of the County Durham volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides. The event will take place on 31st March 2021, 6-7.30pm, via Zoom.
The author will discuss the project in conversation with Simon Bradley, joint editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides, exploring the challenges of adapting and expanding Nikolaus Pevsner’s original text of 1953 and its interim revision of 1983. The new edition incorporates fresh insights from many fields of scholarship, especially the crucial Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque periods, and the revaluation of many of the county’s castles and fortified houses. Wider themes include questions of regional identity, the legacies of post-war planning and post-industrial change, and the challenges and adventures of fieldwork for a book that aims to embrace, in Pevsner’s words, ‘all ecclesiastical, public and domestic buildings of interest’ in this diverse and historically rewarding county.
To book tickets, and for more information, please visit the Paul Mellon Centre website.
County Durham can be purchased at Yale Books.
About the speakers
- Martin Roberts was born in Chester but has lived in the North East for over fifty years. A qualified architect, he worked as Conservation Officer for Durham City Council for many years, later becoming a Historic Buildings Inspector with English Heritage. A keen interest in the region’s vernacular buildings led him to establish the North East Vernacular Architecture Group in 1991. He also initiated the restoration of Old Durham Gardens, and has written books on the buildings of Durham city (1994) and its university (2013).
- Simon Bradley is joint editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides, and author or co-author of four volumes in the Buildings of England county series. Born in the North East, he first encountered the Pevsner guides when exploring the buildings of Northumberland and Durham as a teenager.
Medieval Art Research 