Colvin Special Award 2025 given to editors of The Pevsner Architectural Guides
In 2025, the Board of Trustees of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) decided to create the Colvin Special Award to recognise exceptional works and series of reference volumes in the discipline of architectural history. This award, chosen by the Trustees, is distinct from the annual Colvin Prize (which recognises outstanding works of reference in architectural history) and is to be bestowed occasionally.
In its inaugural year, the Trustees are delighted to announce that the Colvin Special Award has been given to the Pevsner Architectural Guides and its editors Simon Bradley, Bridget Cherry, Charles O’Brien, Elizabeth Williamson, and advisory editor the late John Newman. From 1983, they and a team of independent authors have achieved the revision of all forty-six volumes of the original volumes of The Buildings of England, produced new or revised large-format volumes for all of Scotland and Wales, and made substantial progress with The Buildings of Ireland series.
The books originated in the late 1940s with the renowned architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, who had the aim of producing a portable, county-by-county guide to the most significant buildings in England, written for a specialist and non-specialist audience. The first Buildings of England volume was published by Penguin in 1951 (on Cornwall) and was followed by forty-five more, concluding with Staffordshire in 1974. Fondly referred to as ‘Pevsners’, they quickly became an integral part of people’s travels across the UK. Irish, Scottish and Welsh volumes began to appear from the 1970s. The publication rate of all four series stepped up after 2002, when the series was transferred to Yale University Press.
The Colvin Special Award celebrates and recognises the expertise and scholarship that have enabled Pevsner’s original forty-six volumes to be updated, augmented, and re-written, and new volumes to be produced. In keeping with the Society’s goal to encourage the widest audience for architectural history, the new Pevsner Architectural Guides are set to introduce the architecture of the British Isles, ancient and modern, to a new audience for decades to come.
Two of the Pevsner Architectural Guides’ editors, Charles O’Brien and Simon Bradley, say:
‘The Pevsner editors are delighted to be honoured by the SAHGB with the inaugural Colvin Special Award. The four 'Buildings' series have always been a shared endeavour, depending on long-term support from our publishers Penguin and Yale University Press, the many donors and funders, especially the Paul Mellon Centre, who have underwritten the research, writing and illustration costs for the books, and the dedicated work of many authors and contributors through four decades. It has been a pleasure to work together on this great project, and to bring the revised series to completion in 2024.’
Dr Elizabeth Darling, Chair of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, says:
‘Since the early 1950s, ‘Pevsners’ have become an integral part of many people’s travels across the British Isles. The programme of revisions and new commissions undertaken since the 1980s has rejuvenated the series and brought its unique combination of the highest standards of research and scholarship and readable prose to a new audience. They demonstrate the wide constituencies that the discipline of architectural history can address.’
About SAHGB
The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain brings together all those with an interest in the history of the built environment – academics, architects, heritage experts and the wider public. As the leading body in the field, we believe that appreciation of architectural history plays a vital role in understanding our culture, past and present. With the help of our members, we publish new research, organise a broad range of events, provide educational opportunities and advance the understanding of the built histories of all periods and places, in Britain and beyond.
The awards are overseen by the SAHGB to reward work that is innovative, ambitious and rigorous in tackling histories of the built environment as broadly conceived. The SAHGB’s awards programme is open and inclusive wherever possible, celebrating diversity of approach and recognising work at all career levels.
Please contact the SAHGB at info@sahgb.org.uk for further information.
