Upcoming Events

County Durham Pevsner: Virtual Book Launch

Lecture – Martin Roberts, Simon Bradley

  • 31 March 2021
  • 6:00 – 7:30 pm
  • Online launch for Martin Roberts's revised 'County Durham volume in the Buildings of England' series, published by Yale University Press.
  • Online Event

Ancient ruin on top of grassy hill with path leading towards it. Book available at Yale University Press: https://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300225044/ 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.

Yale University Press is delighted to offer attendees of the Paul Mellon Centre’s virtual launch a special discount price for the new Pevsner Guide to County Durham. Order your copy via the Yale website and enter code CDPMC at checkout.

RRP £45.00 | OFFER PRICE £35.00

UK orders only. Free P&P. Code valid until 07/04/2021.

About the speakers

  • Head and shoulders portrait of Martin Roberts.

    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).

  • Head and shoulders portrait of Simon Bradley.

    Simon Bradley FSA joined the Pevsner series in 1994. His own revised volumes include London 1: The City of London, London 6: Westminster, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire: Oxford and the South East. He has also published on the Gothic Revival, drawing on his PhD thesis, and on railways and railway buildings including St Pancras Station (2006), The Railways: Nation, Network and People (2015) and Bradley's Railway Guide: A Journey Through Two Centuries of British Railway History, 18252025 (2024).