17 DECEMBER 1954, Page 14

Ireland, a work as monumental as title, and the first

to recognise again the merits of the Victorian grand Classic manner. The Professor was hammering away at Georgian and ' Regency ' long before those styles became fashionable. With his former partner, Gill, he published a book on the regional architecture of the West of EnglatAwhich was the first work to turn our eyes to the simple afid satisfying proportions of Georgian farms, farm-buildings and modest terraces in Devon and Cornwall. He is equally an admirer of the Gothic and this is not remarkable since, as a young man, he was chief draughtsman to Leonard Stokes and an inheritor of the William Morris tradition of arts and crafts. The Professor is the very opposite of the neo-pedant who turns architecture into a ` science' and a nice little non-creative career with a pension at the end. He is no cataloguer; he is an enthusiast. And to walk with him in a town or village is a stimulant, as he waves his arms about and stops in front of a building, leaning back on his umbrella, pointing out this or that merit in it. For the Professor is primarily a person who looks for the good' in everything and is not anxious to condemn. I should think there is no one in the country who has done so much towards saving architecture and English scenery from destruction.