50 CONTEXT 189 : SEPTEMBER 2026 48 CONTEXT 186 : DECEMBER 2025 Book reviews Suburban nation England’s Suburbs 1820–2020 Joanna Smith and Matthew Whitfield, Liverpool University Press on behalf of Historic England, 2025, 308 pages, fully illustrated, hardback, ISBN 978 1 836244 35 6, £40 Most people in England live in suburbs. The authors of this book note that it has been argued that England could be viewed as ‘the suburban nation’. But what is a suburb? You do not often hear developers or housebuilders boasting that their new scheme is ‘suburban’, and the first definition I find when looking up ‘suburban’ online is ‘contemptibly dull and ordinary’. So it seems that most people have ended up living somewhere that is not the sort of place they like. What is going on? The answer is that creating suburbs is a common feature of urban change. Joanna Smith and Matthew Whitfield nail it with the three-part ‘broad definition’ that they use in this book. The features of a suburb are, they write, ‘a peripheral or satellite location at the time of creation; a degree of dependence on an urban centre; and a mainly, but not necessarily exclusively, residential character.’ Those three features are all subject to change. A development may have a peripheral or satellite location when it is built, but subsequent development may surround it. The suburb may have a degree of dependence on an urban centre at first, but in time it may develop facilities of its own that make it more independent. And although it may have a mainly residential character when it is built, later it may be swallowed by a town or city centre and undergo a significant change of character. The new suburban development may itself swallow what was there before. In the 19th century, Smith and Whitfield write, ‘rubbish heaps, made up of a medley of refuse, including household waste, street sweepings and dead animals, were to be found in the suburban outskirts and in the poorer urban districts; in London these sometimes attained great size and notoriety.’ Rising land values might lead to those eyesores being removed. Today, the outskirts of towns and cities may be home to ‘waste disposal sites, water reservoirs, industrial plant, power generation sites, pylons and transport infrastructure, including airports and motorway interchanges, supplemented by retail parks, leisure complexes, business parks and distribution depots.’ The advancing suburbs may incorporate those uses or replace them, depending on the economics of development. And suburbs may be seen as suitable for intensification, with a resulting increase in density and perhaps diversity of uses. So suburbs are often changing, not static, however superficially similar many of them may appear. To plan, manage and protect them effectively we need to understand how they developed and what role they play today. That is why in 2012 English Heritage, now Historic England, initiated a national research project on suburban development that would put it in context, and why Historic England has drawn on that research in publishing this book. England’s Suburbs 1820–2020, meticulously researched, well written and superbly illustrated, will be of enormous value to anyone dealing with historic and not-so-historic buildings in what are or once were suburbs, or to anyone fascinated by urban history. Rob Cowan, editor of Context Causes célèbres Campaigning for Edinburgh: the Cockburn Association 1875–2049 Cliff Hague and Richard Rodger, with DJ Johnston-Smith and Terry Levinthal, Birlinn and John Donald, 2025, 256pp, 131 colour illustrations and tables, ISBN 978 0 859767 28 6, £25 Campaigning for Edinburgh celebrates the Cockburn Association’s 150th anniversary judiciously by explaining, warning and advising us of the significant role that a civic voice plays in protecting the character and culture (and so the economy and social stability) of a place. To this end, the authors Georgian survivor St Swithun’s Church Worcester: portrait of a parish Pat Hughes, Apotropaios Publications, 2025, 250 pages, 173 colour and black-and-white illustrations, ISBN 978-1-0369-6635-5, paperback, £20 (available: brian@apotropaios.co.uk) In the words of Alec Clifton-Taylor, writing in 1974, St Swithun’s Worcester is ‘one of the best preserved examples of an early Georgian church in England’. From the early 12th century, St Swithun’s has played an important part in the life of Worcester and its people. The church is listed Grade I, but today it is redundant, in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, and is the subject of this expertly researched and well-presented book. The history as told by Pat Hughes, drawing on extensive church and city archives, includes a background of events both national and local. For example, the devastating plagues and the Gunpowder Plot both had a significant effect on St Swithun’s parishioners. As with most churches, it was also affected by the reformation, the forces resulting from the monarchies of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the ordinances introduced by the Commonwealth authorities following the execution of King Charles I, and the chaotic reign of King James II, who allied with the Roman Catholic faith. A key source of information is the wills of leading townspeople active in parish affairs. Many left funds for church items, necessary repairs to the church or for clerics. While no descriptions of the original building’s appearance survive, Hughes tells us that the medieval interior must have been colourful due to parishioners’ bequests such as the chantry chapels, which would have been richly decorated. The survival of a late-17th-century parish account book has pages devoted to poor relief, and many touching cases are mentioned. In the early 18th century, the old church was demolished and replaced by the present building, designed by Edward and Thomas Woodward of Chipping Camden, talented craftsmen-masons who worked in the classical style. Accounts for the building works cast light on its construction and fittings, with useful information on gilding and paint finishes. Subsequent invoices show that the parish kept the building in good repair, which was not always the case at that time. The 19th century brought increasing interference in parish affairs. The introduction of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and later the Charity Commissioners required parishes to submit forms before they could start any necessary repairs. Interference of a different form came to St Swithun’s in 1903 when the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings opposed the removal of the Georgian box pews and other proposals made by the new incumbent, a high-church Anglican who wished to make the interior less like a preaching box. The parish duly engaged SPAB’s representative, William Weir, to work with their own architect to develop a more sensitive scheme, with the happy result that the church’s interior was retained. In 1937 St Swithun’s faced its greatest threat when the Bishop of Worcester proposed that it be closed and demolished to make way for a commercial development. The issue was put in abeyance during the war, following which views had changed. But later it became evident that major repairs were required, and in the 1970s concern about the church’s stability led to closure, formal redundancy and vestiture in what became the Churches Conservation Trust. The two final chapters deal with the role of the Friends of St Swithun’s in bringing new life to the church. Will Scott, Worcester City Council’s conservation officer and a longstanding IHBC member, acted as chairman of the Friends from 2006 to 2018, and led a dedicated team of committee members and volunteers who called on others to support their aims. These included restoration of the rare organ, clock repairs, music recitals, church services and other events. The
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