Worcestershire
Buildings of England
This comprehensive guide to the buildings of Worcestershire is fully revised and expanded from the first edition of 1968. The county extends from the dramatic Malvern Hills through the Severn Valley to the fringes of the Cotswolds, with architecture no less rich than the landscape. Medieval Worcestershire is represented by the fine Gothic cathedral of Worcester, the splendid remains of the abbeys and priories at Pershore, Evesham, and Malvern, and the many parish churches with their rich inheritance of Norman work. Timber-framed houses are abundant, with spectacular examples in both town and country from the Middle Ages until well into the seventeenth century. But Worcestershire is also a county of red brick and sandstone, as the many fine country houses show: Jacobean Westwood, with its extraordinary X-plan; Hanbury Hall, a gem of the Wren period; Hagley Hall, grand and Palladian; Witley Court, now an unforgettable Victorian ruin. The towns include Stourport, the only English town created by the canals, Kidderminster with its carpet mills, the genteel spa resort at Great Malvern, and the leafy New Town at Redditch. All are fully described and explored in this essential work.
Reviews
"Well researched and concise, Mr Brooks's text – in the great tradition of Nikolaus Pevsner, the original author and editor – gives the eager reader everything he needs to know and more about the county's significant buildings, villages, towns and suburbs" – Jeremy Musson, Country Life
"Mr Brooks has left no stone unturned and no ogee-crocketed arches unrecorded in his quest for achitectural detail" – Mike Pryce, Worcester News
"The new volume is a distillation of the old Pevsner and full of fresh material and sparkling new insights. It's twice the original thickness, lavishly illustrated with maps and beautifully precise line drawings, plus one hundred and thirty two carefully chosen photographs. It all amounts of a formidable, if not gargantuan, piece of work" – Jeff Carpenter, Worcestershire Now
"Not surprisingly, I choose the Brooks-Pevsner Worcestershire as my major book of the year. As a hymn of praise to the country's enticing variousness and exoticism, it is unsurpassed and, I suspect, unsurpassable" – Jonathan Keates, The Spectator
"The beautiful, almost infinite prospect of revised volumes of Pevsner appearing at fairly regular intervals cheers me up amid the Christmas gloom. Alan Brooks's marvellous Worcestershire (Yale) is already by my bed" – Alan Hollinghurst, Guardian
"Alan Brooks's energetic and otherwise exemplary revision is twice the length of Pevsner's 1968 original. It includes much that Pevsner must have seen but considered unworthy of inclusion" – Jonathan Meades, The Oldie
"Brooks, who has added new material, retains the muscular prose of the original... as an encyclopaedic account of the county's built environment, good and bad, it remains essential" – Chris Upton, Birmingham Post
"...fresh in inspiration, yet faithful to the original... if this volume becomes (as it will) a new classic, it will not in any way diminish the stature of the original-rather offer a timely celebration of Pevsner's original achievement which inspired so many" – Dr Malcolm Nixon, Cornerstone
