Alan Brooks – författare

A comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the buildings in one of the best-loved and most beautiful areas of England. Major buildings include great medieval wool churches and grand country houses such as Badminton and Dyrham, besides some remarkable relics of the early Industrial Revoltion and much fine work by the Arts and Crafts Movement. The architecture of such celebrated towns as Cirencester and Chipping Campden is covered in depth, as are the many villages and smaller houses. An expert overview is given in the introduction, which also surveys the rich prehistoric and Roman remains and the subtleties of the famous Cotswold stone. This revised and expanded volume is the latest addition to the famous Pevsner Architectural Guides, the fruit of extensive new research and deep local knowledge. Numerous maps, plans and new photographs, full indexes and a glossary help make this the indispensable guide for any lover of the Cotswolds.

Most famous for Gloucester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey, this county also boasts intriguing monastic remains at Gloucester, fine houses in stucco and stone in the great Regency spa town of Cheltenham, and post-war suspension bridges reaching over the Severn.

This expanded and updated guide to the buildings of Worcestershire encompasses the entire county, from the dramatic Malvern Hills through the Severn Valley to the fringes of the Cotswolds.  Medieval Worcestershire is represented by the fine Gothic cathedral of Worcester, the splendid remains of the abbeys and priories, and the many parish churches with their rich inheritance of Norman work. Timber-framed houses are abundant. But Worcestershire is also a county of red brick and sandstone, with such fine country houses as Jacobean Westwood, Hanbury Hall, Hagley Hall, and Witley Court. Among the towns are Stourport, the only English town created by the canals, the genteel spa resort at Great Malvern, and the leafy New Town at Redditch.

Rich in new discoveries and fresh interpretation, this fully revised survey is the perfect companion and guide to one of England's most beguiling counties. A profusion of black-and-white timber-framed houses testifies to the prosperity of earlier centuries, as do the many and varied parish churches. Highlights among these include the extraordinary Norman carvings at Kilpeck, the exquisitely spare Cistercian architecture of Abbey Dore, the seductive Georgian Gothick of Shobdon, and Lethaby's Arts and Crafts masterpiece at Brockhampton. The city of Hereford is freshly presented in detail, from its splendid medieval cathedral to the architectural adventures of the Georgians and Victorians. Country houses are plentiful and diverse, including much that is well in step with national fashions. The characteristic landscape of hills and woods lends a special pleasure to architectural exploration, while market towns such as Ledbury, Leominster, and Ross-on-Wye can match any in England for visual and architectural appeal.

This volume is a fully expanded and revised architectural guide to the greater part of Oxfordshire, based on Jennifer Sherwood’s 1970s account, full of new information and with specially commissioned photography.The vernacular architecture of the villages and farms is well represented here, as well as notable town architecture and the medieval parish churches for which the area is well known. Oxfordshire is also a county of great houses, from the romantic medieval ruins of Minster Lovell to the late flowering of Lutyens’s 1930s Middleton Park; the grandest, however, is Blenheim Palace, the Baroque masterpiece designed by John Vanbrugh (1664–1726).