Revisiting Pevsner's North Riding: updating a classic

Dr Jane Grenville will discuss Pevsner’s research methods and show how the explosion of architectural historical research in the intervening half century and the appearance of the internet have enabled a hugely expanded second edition. She will then present selected highlights of Georgian architecture in the county, including a discussion of Forcett Park, whose mysteries remain, to some extent, intact - and the pleasures and pains of updating Pevsner’s entry on Castle Howard in the light of so much subsequent research.

Jane’s transition from dirt archaeologist to buildings research was inspired by working as a teenager with Dr Harold Taylor (“Anglo-Saxon Architecture “). After research on churches and parish formation in pre-Conquest Lincolnshire (unfinished), she joined the Listed Buildings Re-Survey for Yorkshire in 1984 and her knowledge expanded to all periods. Like Pevsner, she became a “GP” in the field. She worked in professional conservation until joining the Archaeology Department at York, where she initiated undergraduate standing buildings modules and an MA - and then ensured the continuation of the famous MA in Conservation Studies after the demise of the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies. She retired in 2015 after a spell in senior management. Pevsner was the perfect retirement project.

All are welcome to YGS lectures. Admission is free to Members and students, and a suggested donation from non-Members of £5.