Staffordshire (Pevsner Buildings of England)

Pevsner completed his survey of England"s buildings with Staffordshire. A county of striking contrasts, it includes the industrial towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent and much of the Black Country, but also the cathedral city of Lichfield, and the wild country of the Peak District and Cannock Chase. Staffordshire"s best timber-framed houses rival those of Cheshire, while the local stone gives shape to country houses such as Shugborough, with its celebrated garden building, and to two neo-Gothic masterpiece churches, Pugin"s Cheadle and Bodley"s Hoar Cross. Modern buildings include the playful and inventive 1930s pavilions of Dudley Zoo.