An indispensable guide

It is 60 years since Nikolaus Pevsner published Middlesex, the first in ‘The Buildings of England’ series.

It is 60 years since Nikolaus Pevsner published Middlesex, the first in ‘The Buildings of England’ series. The small, southern county was chosen for the prosaic reason that it didn’t need much rationed fuel for research.

His achievement still looks unlikely to be matched: 46 volumes in 23 years, most of them involving 2,000-mile road trips. It isn’t just Pevsner’s architectural scholarship that impresses in this meticulously researched biography, but his physical stamina, at a time when roadside hospitality was at its bleakest. Penguin paid for petrol, but contributed little towards food and accommodation. Camembert sandwiches, bought in London, lasted a week, poisoning the air of Pevsner’s Wolseley Hornet. After an eight-hour day on the road, he smuggled fish and chips into his cheap hotel, occasionally allowing himself a half-pint of Bass or an ice lolly; the 1968 Bedfordshire volume was dedicated to the ice lolly’s inventor.