Saturday 2 November 2024, 2pm
Westminster Theatre, Chancellor's Building, Keele University, ST5 5BG

Annual Haggar Lecture 2024

Join Simon Bradley, joint editor of the Pevsner Architectural Heritage Guides for an introduction to the buildings of Staffordshire as featured in the most recent revised Pevsner Guide. 

Dr Christopher Wakeling has considerably expanded and updated Pevsner's guide to the historic architecture of Staffordshire, completing the revised Buildings of England series 50 years after the publication of the first series. The county’s highlights include the cathedral city of Lichfield, the county town of Stafford, the Potteries and outstanding country houses from the Tudor, Stuart, and Georgian periods, such as Wootton Lodge, Weston Park, and Shugborough Hall with its internationally important garden buildings. A rich and distinctive industrial history is reflected in the pottery buildings of Stoke‑on‑Trent and the breweries of Burton‑upon‑Trent. Among the smaller towns, Leek was the centre of a thriving Arts and Crafts community. Staffordshire’s best timber-framed houses rival those of Cheshire, and its building stones reflect the varied geology of a landscape that extends to the wild country of the Peak District and Cannock Chase. The county was also a stronghold of the Gothic Revival, represented by such masterpieces as Pugin’s St Giles church, Cheadle, and Bodley & Garner’s memorial church at Hoar Cross.

Our lecturer Simon Bradley is joint editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides (Yale University Press), and editor of Chris Wakeling's revised Staffordshire volume (2024). His own volumes in the revised series include London 1: The City of London, London 6: Westminster, Cambridgeshire, and Oxfordshire: Oxford and the South East. He was educated at Oxforfdand at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he studied the early nineteenth-century Gothic Revival. His other books include The Railways: Nation, Network and People(2015) and Bradley's Railway Guide: a journey through two centuries of British railway history, 1825-2025(2024).

This lecture is brought to you free of charge by the Reginald Haggar Lecture Fund, supported by the Raymond Williams Foundation and Arts Keele. Chris Wakeling was a founder member of the Lecture Fund committee until his death in 2023. He had largely completed his work on the Staffordshire volume of Pevsner but did not live to see final publication of this remarkable and invaluable guide. This lecture and the publication itself will stand as a lasting tribute to Chris and his work.

A promotional code for purchase of the Staffordshire volume at a reduced price will be available to attendees on the day.