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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| Walks Round Red Brick gets a fresh face - and some red colouring at last | Walks Round Red Brick gets a fresh face - and some red colouring at last |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Leeds University is too little known to many of the local citizens, who pass the Parkinson Building with its student-decorated flight of grand steps and think to themselves: that's it. | Leeds University is too little known to many of the local citizens, who pass the Parkinson Building with its student-decorated flight of grand steps and think to themselves: that's it. |
| Far from it. Behind the grandeur of the formal buildings along Woodhouse Lane lies an entire chunk of Georgian and Victorian Leeds, colonised by the academics and later adorned with some very fine Brutalist architecture, if you admit of such a bracketing of adjectives. | Far from it. Behind the grandeur of the formal buildings along Woodhouse Lane lies an entire chunk of Georgian and Victorian Leeds, colonised by the academics and later adorned with some very fine Brutalist architecture, if you admit of such a bracketing of adjectives. |
| Professor Maurice Beresford was the great expert on this, perhaps the best modern historian of Leeds and certainly a supporter of 'town and gowning'. Although his chair was in economic history which may sound boring – the 'dismal science' and all that – he was a sprightly figure and a great investigator of his surroundings, accompanied by his mongrel dogs Lulu and Sheba. | Professor Maurice Beresford was the great expert on this, perhaps the best modern historian of Leeds and certainly a supporter of 'town and gowning'. Although his chair was in economic history which may sound boring – the 'dismal science' and all that – he was a sprightly figure and a great investigator of his surroundings, accompanied by his mongrel dogs Lulu and Sheba. |
| The 'Prof with the Dog' was his nickname, especially when in 1977 he embarked on describing and illustrating a series of walks around the university campus, the very area which is so little-explored by the 'town' element of Leeds. Descriptions and photographs appeared fortnightly in the uni's house magazine, a Dickensian deadline system which added to the immediacy of his already readable prose. They were so popular that they were collected into a book, Walks Round Red Brick, which nicely coupled the landscape with the generic term for late 19th century and early 20th century universities. | The 'Prof with the Dog' was his nickname, especially when in 1977 he embarked on describing and illustrating a series of walks around the university campus, the very area which is so little-explored by the 'town' element of Leeds. Descriptions and photographs appeared fortnightly in the uni's house magazine, a Dickensian deadline system which added to the immediacy of his already readable prose. They were so popular that they were collected into a book, Walks Round Red Brick, which nicely coupled the landscape with the generic term for late 19th century and early 20th century universities. |
| The coining of this term (and 'Oxbridge') by Professor Edgar Allison Peers of Liverpool University, whose pseudonym on academic books of Bruce Truscott was only revealed after his death, is one of the many small treasures unearthed in Beresford's wanderings. For all his official discipline, he was a classic field archaeologist, though reluctant to use the title, for which he sought an alternative in vain. As he complained: | The coining of this term (and 'Oxbridge') by Professor Edgar Allison Peers of Liverpool University, whose pseudonym on academic books of Bruce Truscott was only revealed after his death, is one of the many small treasures unearthed in Beresford's wanderings. For all his official discipline, he was a classic field archaeologist, though reluctant to use the title, for which he sought an alternative in vain. As he complained: |
| 'Field' sounds like the countryside and 'archaeologist' sounds antique. | 'Field' sounds like the countryside and 'archaeologist' sounds antique. |
His survey area in Leeds was both urban and recent. | His survey area in Leeds was both urban and recent. |
| Beresford's book has now been republished with additional walks and landscape updates by Christopher Hammond and photographer Ruth Baumberg whose colour pictures have one merit denied to Beresford's original. You can actually see the red. This appears not only in handsome terraces which may come as an eye-opener to those who doubt the existence of such grace and proportion in the city, but in the backside of stone monuments such as the Parkinson Building and Brotherton Library. | Beresford's book has now been republished with additional walks and landscape updates by Christopher Hammond and photographer Ruth Baumberg whose colour pictures have one merit denied to Beresford's original. You can actually see the red. This appears not only in handsome terraces which may come as an eye-opener to those who doubt the existence of such grace and proportion in the city, but in the backside of stone monuments such as the Parkinson Building and Brotherton Library. |
| Published by the Thoresby Society, named after Leeds' most celebrated historian, and the Leeds Phil & Lit, the book leaves the enjoyable character of Beresford's writing intact, including his account of | Published by the Thoresby Society, named after Leeds' most celebrated historian, and the Leeds Phil & Lit, the book leaves the enjoyable character of Beresford's writing intact, including his account of |
| One Sunday afternoon when a post-doctoral research fellow threatened to send for the police on seeing the author in his shrubbery. 'You're no professor, you're a thief!' was the reaction to a hurried explanation. | One Sunday afternoon when a post-doctoral research fellow threatened to send for the police on seeing the author in his shrubbery. 'You're no professor, you're a thief!' was the reaction to a hurried explanation. |
| The image is comparable to those conjured up in another modern classic of the city's landscape which the Phil & Lit has also republished: The Building Stone Heritage of Leeds, in which two Leeds University geologists trace the quarries of every type of stone used in the city centre, including the Travertine marble at Macdonald's and the three grades of Wharfe valley sandstone at Starbucks. | The image is comparable to those conjured up in another modern classic of the city's landscape which the Phil & Lit has also republished: The Building Stone Heritage of Leeds, in which two Leeds University geologists trace the quarries of every type of stone used in the city centre, including the Travertine marble at Macdonald's and the three grades of Wharfe valley sandstone at Starbucks. |
| Both books are published by Jeremy Mills of Huddersfield and you can get them at local bookshops or via the company's online bookshop here. | Both books are published by Jeremy Mills of Huddersfield and you can get them at local bookshops or via the company's online bookshop here. |
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