Past Events

Pevsner Architectural Guides, Buildings of England: Wiltshire

Book Night – Charles O'Brien, Julian Orbach

  • 15 June 2021
  • 6:00 – 7:30 pm
  • Online launch for Julian Orbach’s revised Wiltshire volume in the Buildings of England series, published by Yale University Press
  • Online

Julian Orbach will be in conversation with Charles O'Brien, joint editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides, discussing the trials and rewards of updating and expanding the guide to Wiltshire, which was first published in 1963. It was among the counties that Nikolaus Pevsner knew best and where he kept his own cottage for many years. This is the first revision since 1975 and records not only dramatic changes in the understanding of the significance of the prehistoric monuments of Wiltshire but also the impact of scholarship on every class of building in the last fifty years, from re-assessment of the vernacular cottages and farmhouses of Wiltshire’s villages to the effect of transport and industry on its towns.

Julian will also speak about the challenges of addressing some of the most famous buildings and places in English architectural history: Salisbury, Longleat, Stourhead, and Wilton, among others. Author and editor will also be speaking to James O. Davies, creator of the outstanding photographs for this and many other revised editions of the guides.

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 Wiltshire. Order your copy via the Yale website and enter code Y2169 at checkout.

RRP £45.00 | OFFER PRICE £35.00

UK orders only. Free P&P. Code valid until from 6 to 22 June 2021

Image: Silbury Hill by James O. Davies

Recording

Pevsner Architectural Guides, Buildings of England: Wiltshire

Discussion between Charles O'Briel and Julian Orbach.

About the speakers

  • Charles O'Brien in front of a bookcase

    Charles O’Brien FSA is Listing and Architectural Research Director at Historic England. Until 2022 he was joint Series Editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides. He joined the series in 1997, where he worked full time on the research, writing and editing of the new editions. As author and co-author he has written the revised volumes London 5: East, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough, Hampshire: South and Surrey. He is a former Commissioner of Historic England and former Chair of their London Advisory Committee. 

  • Julian Orbach leaning over a railing, by a river

    Julian Orbach is co-author of three volumes of the Buildings of Wales series and reviser of the volume for Somerset: South and West in the Buildings of England series. He has been the Architectural Adviser to the Victorian Society and for the six-year duration of the project to revise Wiltshire has been a resident of Bradford-on-Avon.