England West — Sydney R. Jones, The Studio Publications (1950)

Opening

The second volume of the trilogy has the longest journey. It begins north of the Thames and ends at Hadrian's Wall, crossing every kind of English landscape in between: Cotswold wool churches, Welsh Marches border towns, Staffordshire pot banks, Derbyshire limestone dales, and the peel towers of Cumberland. Jones had spent decades filling sketch-books with this territory. In 1950 he opened them up.

The Book

England West is the second volume of Sydney R. Jones's three-part illustrated survey of England, published by The Studio Publications of London and New York in 1950. The volume sweeps from the Chilterns and the Thames valley westward through the Cotswolds, then northward through Shakespeare's County, the Welsh Marches, the Staffordshire Potteries, the Derbyshire Dales, Cheshire, Lancashire, and finally to the Roman Wall at the Cumberland border.

The opening chapter sets the scale with a broad introductory survey tracing a continuous arc from the Thames to Hadrian's Wall, touching on the Roman, medieval, Tudor, Stuart, and Georgian layers of the landscape in turn. Jones writes as someone who has walked and sketched these places over decades, and the text has the discursive quality of a well-worn notebook. Individual chapters focus on distinct regions: the Cotswold stone belt — Burford, Chipping Campden, Cirencester, Bibury — receives extended treatment, as does the Shakespeare country around Stratford and Warwick, the Marches towns of Ludlow and Shrewsbury, and the industrial-historical landscape of Staffordshire and the Trent valley.

The illustrations include some of Jones's finest architectural drawings. Compton Wynyates, the Tudor moated house described as virtually unaltered since the reign of Henry VIII, opens the illustrated section. Haddon Hall, Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, Little Moreton Hall, Kenilworth Castle, and Ludlow Castle all appear alongside lesser-known subjects — Nantwich's timber-framed streetscape, the crumbling peel towers of Cumberland, the canal infrastructure of Staffordshire — that Jones treats with equal seriousness. Four hand-drawn regional maps and a full index are included. The printer was William Clowes and Sons Ltd of London and Beccles; offset plates by Bradford and Dickens.

The Maker

Sydney Robert Fleming Jones (1881–1966) was born in Birmingham and trained as both an architect and artist. He studied in Birmingham and later at the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he became a regular exhibitor. His work spanned etching, engraving, watercolour, and pen-and-ink illustration, and he maintained a parallel career as an architectural draughtsman throughout his life. He lived for many years in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, and died there in 1966.

His earlier published works include Old English Country Cottages (1906), Village Homes of England (1912), London Triumphant (1942), and Thames Triumphant (1943). Original pen-and-ink drawings from Village Homes of England are held in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection in London. A significant bequest of his work entered the V&A through the Art Fund in 1968. Works are also held in the Art Institute of Chicago. The England trilogy — South (1948), West (1950), East (1954) — represents the culmination of his career as a topographical recorder.

Significance

England West covers territory that was already under significant development pressure in 1950. The expansion of Birmingham and the Black Country had consumed large areas of Warwickshire and Worcestershire countryside; the coal and pottery industries of Staffordshire had transformed entire landscapes; Lancashire's mill towns were in post-war economic transition. Jones navigates this without sentimentality, acknowledging the industrial heritage as part of the English story while focusing his draughtsman's eye on what was architecturally and historically distinctive.

The East/West division of England — separated by an imaginary vertical line from the Thames to the Tweed — was the editorial proposal of Jones's publisher Frank A. Mercer of The Studio Publications. England West stretches to accommodate territory as different as Cotswold wool churches and Roman Wall forts. That it does so coherently is a measure of Jones's skill in finding the unifying thread of continuity in the English built landscape. The volume is widely regarded as the richest of the three in its architectural range.

Bibliographic Details

Author: Sydney Robert Fleming Jones (1881–1966)

Publisher: The Studio Publications, London & New York

Address: 66 Chandos Place, WC2, London

First Published: 1950

Printer: William Clowes and Sons Ltd, London and Beccles

Offset Plates: Bradford and Dickens

Series: England Trilogy — Vol. 2 of 3

Earlier Works (title page): England South (1948); London Triumphant (1942); Thames Triumphant (1943)

Format: Hardback, green cloth, gilt lettering, 26 cm, approx. 272 pages

Opening

The Book

The Maker

Significance

Bibliographic Details

References