Essex

Buildings of England

Bettley James, Pevsner Nikolaus

Essex is one the largest counties of England, stretching from the suburban fringes of East London to the fishing and sailing ports of Harwich and Maldon and the famous seaside resorts of Clacton, Frinton and Southend. Its buildings are appropriately varied, encompassing rich Roman survivals at Colchester, powerful Norman architecture at Castle Hedingham and Waltham Abbey and the remains of major Tudor and Jacobean country houses such as Layer Marney Tower and the prodigious mansion at Audley End. Besides these highlights, Essex is first and foremost a county famed for its timber buildings, from the eleventh-century church at Greensted to the early and mighty barns at Cressing Temple, and everywhere visible in the wealth of timber-framed medieval houses in its scattered villages and market towns such as Saffron Walden and Coggeshall. Later periods have also made their contribution, from Georgian town houses to Victorian and Edwardian industrial and civic buildings, and from important exemplars of early Modern Movement architecture to the planned New Towns at Basildon and Harlow. Such diversity continues into the present with the major monument of High Tech at Stansted Airport.

About the Author

James Bettley is an architectural historian living in Essex.

Reviews

"A book of this quality – which does not merely confirm the standards of the series, but sets new ones – should make people rediscover Essex" – Simon Heffer, Literary Review

"Essex is an ancient and important county, which deserves to be better understood, and there can be no better place to start than Dr. Bettley's new 'Essex' volume, another monument to the glorious Pevsner tradition" – Jeremy Musson, Country Life

"...to read a Pevsner guide is to discover familiar places in a newly informed light, human history in all its beauty and confusion" – The Guardian

"If you own a copy of the 1954 'Essex' volume, keep it, for it is Pevsner at his best – but to know the county as it stands today go out and buy this latest edition: it simply cannot be beaten" – James Boutwood, Cornerstone

"James Bettley, editor for the revised 'Essex' volume of the 'Buildings of England', is the right man to give proper weight to Victorian building activities in the county" – Gillian Darley, The Victorian

"We should be grateful to Dr Bettley and Yale for continuing and expanding Pevsner's outstanding legacy" – Andrew Derrick, Ecclesiology Today

"This new volume is the result of many years' hard work and has improved the 1956 publication considerably. It should do much to correct our views of this often ignored and under-valued county" – Contemporary Review

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