Pevsner’s Buildings of Witham

The Buildings of England: Essex by Nikolaus Pevsner was first published by Penguin in 1954. A second edition, written by Enid Radcliffe, was published in 1965. Below there is the text relating to Witham from the second edition, but first I’ll give some information about Nikolaus Pevsner (1902 to 1983). He was born in Leipzig, Germany, where he eventually became a University lecturer specialising in the history of European art and architecture. He developed an interest in English as well as German architecture. His parents were Jewish, so although he was very sympathetic to the Nazi regime, he lost his job and moved to England in 1933. Here he was interned for three months as an enemy alien. During that time he started writing An Outline of European Architecture, which has since sold over half a million copies all over the world. He obtained several University posts in England, and in 1945 embarked on studies leading to the county volumes of the Buildings of England series, including…