Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)

Pevsner provides the most remarkable and authoritative insight into the architecture not just of Berkshire (this volume) but the whole of the country. His style is not only engaging and understated, but imbued with an immense wealth of knowledge and a deep-seated appreciation of the quirkiness that makes English architecture so particular. This is a masterpiece, and should be on the bookshelves of everyone who lives in any of the localities described (old Berkshire, including the former Borough town of Abingdon, with its magnificent County Hall, the extraordinary Almshouse 'triangle' and the East St Helen Street - the 'best' street in the town). There is no nook or cranny of the county that Pevsner did not manage to cover, and very, very few houses or buildings of importance that he did not manage to talk his way in to.