All photographs are by Joel Anderson, with the exceptions of 0.1, 1.1–3, 1.5, 1.7–11, 1.13–19, 1.22–3, 1.28–9, 3.2, 3.4–5, 3.12, 5.1, 5.3–4, 5.11, 5.13, 5.24–5, 7.19–27, 7.29–31 and 12.1–21 by the author, 4.5–7, 4.12, 5.14, 6.1, 6.16, 6.19, 11.3–4, 11.16–23 by Nina Power, 4.18–4.22 by Steve Parnell and 11.30 by Douglas Murphy.
Like anyone interested in architecture in the UK, I am enormously indebted to the various editions of Nikolaus Pevsner’s The Buildings of England (and later, Scotland and Wales) published over the last fifty years—the recent series of paperback Pevsner Architectural Guides to individual cities was especially useful. However, this book and the articles that preceded it would have been yet more impossible without the information, recommendations, hospitality and gossip provided by a long list of people, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes through correcting my howling errors, but most often through responding to my online pleas.
So this book is dedicated to the following, though this should not indicate that they agree with any of it. Ordered roughly by city, though there are overlaps. Southampton: Steve Hatherley, Jonathan Raban, Kieran Long, Maggie Fricker; Milton Keynes: Geoff Shearcroft, Iqbal Aalam; Nottingham: Chris Matthews, Anthony Paul Smith, Sophie Sheehy; Sheffield: Steve Parnell, Tom Keeley, Dan Hill, Lisa Cradduck, Ben Morris; Manchester: Penny Anderson, Liz Naylor, Justin O’Connor, Charles Holland, Scott Neil, Ella Wredenfors; Tyneside: Andrew Stevens, James K. Thorp, Tom May, Ev Cook; Glasgow: Colin Ferguson, Douglas Murphy, Anne Ward, Jon-Marc Creaney; Cambridge: William Wiles; West Riding: Laura Oldfield Ford, Matt Tempest, Alison Sampson; Cardiff: Marc Haynes, Richard King; Greenwich: Mary Mills, Carol Kenna, Nina Power, Frances Hatherley, Alberto Toscano, Carl Neville; Liverpool: Jamie Scott, Matthew Whitfield, Jonathan Meades and the corner shop owner who gave me a lift. Thanks also to anyone who stayed anonymous, and apologies to anyone I’ve forgotten. Dzięki Pyzik.
Special thanks to the pseudonymous Lang Rabbie, all-purpose architectural deep throat; to Ian Irvine, Daniel Trilling, Paul Laity, Natalie Hanman, Brian Dillon, Caspar Melville, Esther Leslie and anyone else surprised to have found something they’d commissioned find its way into this text; to Rowan Wilson and Tom Penn at Verso; and most obviously to Amanda Baillieu at Building Design for commissioning Urban Trawl in the first place, and for humouring my occasional skirting around the edges of libel. Finally, thanks to Joel for providing company, drollery and expertise on all but the last of these journeys, and for enduring, and perhaps enjoying, a multitude of fry-ups and Chinese buffets along the way.