The Pevsner Architectural Guides are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. The Buildings of England series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes published between 1951 and 1974. The fifteen volumes in The Buildings of Scotland series were completed between 1978 and 2016, and the ten in The Buildings of Wales series between 1979 and 2009. The volumes in all three series have been periodically revised by various authors; Scotland and Wales have been partially revised, and England has been fully revised and reorganised into fifty-six volumes. The Buildings of Ireland series was begun in 1979 and remains incomplete, with six of a planned eleven volumes published. A standalone volume covering the Isle of Man was published in 2023.
The series were published by Penguin Books until 2002, when they were sold to Yale University Press.
Origin and research methods After moving to the United Kingdom from his native Germany as a refugee in the 1930s, Nikolaus Pevsner found that the study of architectural history had little status in academic circles, and that the amount of information available, especially to travellers wanting to inform themselves about the architecture of a particular district, was limited. He had previously written An Outline of European Architecture for the Pelican imprint of Penguin Books. When he was invited to suggest ideas for future publications by Penguin founder Allen Lane, he proposed two: the Pelican History of Art, and a series of comprehensive architectural guides to the English counties which became The Buildings of England.
Work on The Buildings of England began in 1945. Lane employed two part-time assistants, both German refugee art historians, who prepared notes for Pevsner from published sources. Sources used included the inventories of the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, the Survey of London, and the Victoria County History. Pevsner, who held positions at Birkbeck College, University of London and the University of Cambridge, spent the academic holidays touring the country to make personal observations and to carry out local research, before writing up the finished volumes. The first of the original forty-six volumes, Cornwall, was published in 1951, and the last, Staffordshire, in 1974.
Pevsner wrote thirty-two volumes himself and ten with collaborators. A further four of the original series were written by other authors: the two Gloucestershire volumes by David Verey, and the two volumes on Kent by John Newman. The first volume of The Buildings of Scotland was published in 1978, and the first volumes in The Buildings of Wales and The Buildings of Ireland in 1979. Revisions to the original English series began in 1962, and continued after Pevsner's death in 1983. Several volumes are now in their third or fourth revisions, and the final unrevised first edition, Staffordshire, was superseded by an updated edition in 2024.
The Buildings of England The books are compact and intended to meet the needs of both specialists and the general reader. Each contains an extensive introduction to the architectural history and styles of the area, followed by a town-by-townand in the case of larger settlements, street-by-streetaccount of individual buildings. These are often grouped under the heading "Perambulation", as Pevsner intended the books to be used as the reader was walking about the area. The guides offer both detailed coverage of the most notable buildings and notes on lesser-known and vernacular buildings; all building types are covered but there is a particular emphasis on churches and public buildings. Each volume has a central section with several dozen pages of photographs, originally in black and white, though colour illustrations have featured in revised volumes published by Yale University Press since 2003.
Boundaries The volumes originally used the boundaries of the historic counties of England, which were current at the time of writing. They largely continue to use the historic boundaries, but have been partially updated to reflect changes in London, Birmingham and the Black Country, and Cumbria. The volume on the historic county of Middlesex, for example, has been superseded by three of the six volumes covering the Greater London area, whereas Tyne and Wear, which was established from parts of County Durham and Northumberland in 1974, is covered in the volumes about those two counties.
Volumes in print and their editions Since 1962, the guides have undergone a gradual programme of updating to reflect architectural-history scholarship and to include significant new buildings. Pevsner left virtually all the revisions to others, acting as supervisor only. He ultimately revised only two of his original editions alone: London 1: The Cities of London and Westminster (1962) and Cambridgeshire (1970). Both were later revised again by others. The programme of revision of first editions was completed in 2024 with publication of the second edition of Staffordshire, replacing that published in 1974.
Until 1953, all volumes were published in paperback only, after which both hardback and paperback versions were issued. The revision of London: 1 in 1962 was the first volume to be issued in hardback alone, and no further paperbacks were issued after 1964. Until 1970 volumes bore a sequential BE reference number, with Cornwall being BE1. The last volume to be so numbered was Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and the Forest of Dean (BE41). Thereafter ISBNs identify each volume. Beginning in 1983, a larger format was introduced, and all subsequent new editions have been issued in this format (while, pending revisions, pre-1983 volumes continued to be reprinted in the original, smaller format). All editions are now published by Yale University Press.
The list below is of the volumes that are currently in print; for superseded volumes, see below. Where revisions were spread over more than one volume, the preceding edition remained in print until the whole area had been revised.
Title of current edition First edition Co-author(s)or sole author Second edition Co-author(s)or sole author Third edition Co-author(s)or sole author Current ISBN Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough 1968 2014 Berkshire 1966 2010 , Simon Bradley Birmingham and the Black Country 1966–1974 2022 Buckinghamshire 1960 1994 Cambridgeshire 1954 1970 2015 Cheshire 1971 2011 , Matthew Hyde Cornwall 1951 1970 2014 County Durham 1953 1983 2021 Martin Roberts Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness 1967 2010 Derbyshire 1953 1978 2016 Devon 1952 1991 Dorset 1972 2018 Essex 1954 1965 2007 Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds 1970 1979 1999 Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and Forest of Dean 1970 1976 2002 Hampshire: South 1967 2018 , Bruce Bailey Hampshire: Winchester and The North 1967 2010 , John Crook,Rodney Hubbuck Herefordshire 1963 2012 Hertfordshire 1953 1977 2019 Isle of Wight 1967 2006 Kent: North East and East 1969 1976 1983 2013 (4th) Kent: West and the Weald 1969 1976 2012 Lancashire: Liverpool and the South West 1969 2006 Lancashire: Manchester and the South East 1969 2004 , Matthew Hyde Lancashire: North 1969 2009 Leicestershire and Rutland 1960 1984 Lincolnshire 1964 1989 London 1: The City of London 1957 1962 19731997 (4th) Simon Bradley London 2: South 1951–1976 1983 London 3: North West 1951–1952 1991 London 4: North 1951–1952 1998 London 5: East 1952–1965 1998 2005 Charles O'Brien London 6: Westminster 1957 1962 19732003 (4th) Simon Bradley Norfolk 1: Norwich and North East 1962 1997 Norfolk 2: North-west and South 1962 1999 Northamptonshire 1961 1973 2013 Northumberland 1957 1992 , Grace McCombiePeter Ryder, Humphrey Welfare Nottinghamshire 1951 1979 2020 Clare Hartwell Oxfordshire: North and West 1974 2017 Oxfordshire: Oxford and the South East 1974 2023 Shropshire 1958 2006 Somerset: North and Bristol 1958 2011 Somerset: South and West 1958 2014 Staffordshire 1974 2024 Suffolk: East 1961 1974 2015 Suffolk: West 1961 1974 2015 Surrey 1962 1971 2022 Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove 1965 2013 Sussex: West 1965 2019 , Tim Hudson,Jeremy Musson Warwickshire 1966 2016 Wiltshire 1963 1975 2021 Julian Orbach Worcestershire 1968 2007 Yorkshire: The North Riding 1966 2023 Yorkshire: The West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North 1959 1967 2009 Yorkshire: The West Riding: Sheffield and the South 1959 1967 2017 Yorkshire: York and The East Riding 1972 1995
City Guides The first of the paperback City Guides, covering Manchester, appeared in 2001. It featured a new format with integrated colour illustrations. In most cases the City Guides have preceded a revision of the volume on the county in which they are located, although they go into greater detail than the county volumes and have more illustrations. The Bristol guide, for example, superseded part of North Somerset and Bristol, which at that point was fifty years old, and provided material for Somerset: North and Bristol, published three years later. Two of the guides, one covering Hull and the other Newcastle and Gateshead, remain the most recent volumes on their areas of coverage, as the corresponding county volume has not been revised since their publication. This series appears to be on a hiatus, with no new volumes published since 2010 and none confirmed as in planning.
Title of current edition First edition Co-author(s)or sole author Current ISBN Bath 2003 Birmingham 2005 Brighton and Hove 2002 , Richard Morrice Bristol 2008 Hull 2010 , Susan Neave Leeds 2005 Liverpool 2003 Manchester 2001 Newcastle and Gateshead 2009 Nottingham 2008 Sheffield 2004 , John Minnis
Two supplementary worksthus far the only of their typewere published in 1998, one covering London's City Churches and the other the Docklands area (see London Docklands in Superseded and unpublished volumes below). Both were issued in the format of the main series rather than the City Guides. However, unlike the Docklands edition which represented preliminary work for an expanded main volume, the City Churches volume augmented the text in London 1: The City, published the previous year. The continued development of the Docklands area meant that the volume was superseded when London 5: East was published seven years later, but the City Churches volume remains current and was reissued by Yale in 2002.
London: The City Churches (1998) (Simon Bradley)
Buildings of Scotland Nikolaus Pevsner was enthusiastic about establishing a Scottish series, having responded warmly to an unrealised 1959 suggestion by the architectural historian Andor Gomme that the latter could produce it. The first volume in the series, Lothian, except Edinburgh, was written by Colin McWilliam and published in 1978. John Gifford was a major contributor, authoring five volumes and overseeing research on all but one of the remainder before his death in 2013. After Lothian, which was the only volume published in the original small format, a major task was producing Edinburgh (1984) and Glasgow (1990), which were ambitious in their scope of coverage of urban buildings. The remainder of Scotland was covered in the following decades, with the final volume, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, published in 2016. A revision of Lothian was published in 2024, the first full revision of a Scottish volume.
The series is organised using a mixture of Scotland's current council areas (e.g. Highland and Islands) and its historic shires (e.g. Fife and Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire). Some of the Scottish volumes are internally subdivided; for example, Argyll and Bute has separate gazetteers for mainland Argyll, its islands, and Bute. Unlike The Buildings of England, none of the Scottish volumes adopt a hierarchy of ecclesiastical buildings, instead grouping them together.