Staffordshire

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.