Northamptonshire

by Nikolaus Pevsner, Bridget Cherry, Gyles Isham

Some of England's grandest country houses are to be found in this prosperous rural midland county with its excellent local building stone from the limestone belt. The Elizabethan Renaissance Kirby Hall, the late seventeenth century French-inspired Boughton, Hawksmoor's stately Baroque Easton Neston and the interiors of Althorp provide a fascinating survey of changing taste through the centuries. The great houses are complemented by smaller buildings of great character, supreme among them Sir Thomas Tresham's eccentric and ingenious Triangular Lodge at Rushton. Of no less interest in this county of 'spires and squires' are the fine village churches, from Early Saxon Brixworth to the noble early Gothic buildings which so inspired the Victorians.

518 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1973

About the author

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (January 30, 1902 - August 18, 1983) was one of the twentieth century's most learned and stimulating writers on art and architecture.

He established his reputation with Pioneers of Modern Design, though he is probably best known for his celebrated series of guides, The Buildings of England, acknowledged as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century scholarship. He was also founding editor of The Pelican History of Art, the most comprehensive and scholarly history of art ever published in English.