Peter Smith, who has died aged 86, was a pioneer in studying vernacular architecture by systematically analysing large numbers of buildings. His book Houses of the Welsh Countryside (1975) is still widely considered the best survey of the traditional architecture of any country in Europe. Many buildings survive thanks to the interest he inspired at the very time when disuse and modernisation were reaching a peak of destruction.
Peter was born in County Durham. After attending King Edward VI grammar school in Southampton, he read modern history at Oxford University. On graduating, he entered the Ministry of Transport and briefly studied architecture.
In 1949 he became an investigator for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. He embraced vernacular architecture with an obsessive eye for telling details. Overcoming a disability that gave him an awkward gait, he hiked across hillsides and crawled into roof spaces compiling information. In 1967 he published a brilliant first synthesis in the Cambridge Agrarian History.
Startling insights emerged from his card indexes and maps. Why were longhouses so typical in Wales yet absent in the north-west? Why were there so few cruck roofs in Pembrokeshire? He discovered that in general architectural innovations diffused from east to west, and that almost uniform medieval halls had given way to strongly regional house types.
The commissioners asked Peter to prepare an authoritative volume for Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The resulting 800-page book combined a clear text and a wealth of distribution maps, plans, reconstructions and drawn details. Alongside the open-air museum at St Fagans in Cardiff, it had a defining influence on the understanding, enjoyment and conservation of Welsh traditional architecture.
Peter had risen to be secretary of the Royal Commission in 1973 and during the next two decades he oversaw the launch of projects in industrial archaeology, the absorption of the archaeological work of the Ordnance Survey and the start of aerial reconnaissance. His gravelly voice, whiskers and tweed suits, suggestive of a gruff farmer down from the Dales, belied a warm humour and a passionate devotion to his new country and his mission. It was typical of him that he took a benevolent interest in what I was doing when I came to the commission as a teenage volunteer.
He learned to speak Welsh fluently and favoured the longstanding duties of the commission over bureaucratic process. Many considered it an injustice when he was passed over for the conventional honour on retiring in 1991, though his honorary DLitt from the University of Wales perhaps meant more.
As a remarkable coda to his career, in 2010 his legacy was recognised by a six-hour television series on S4C. Peter produced results that will be valued as permanently as will the buildings that he loved.
He is survived by his wife, Joyce, three children and six grandchildren. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.
Peter was born in County Durham. After attending King Edward VI grammar school in Southampton, he read modern history at Oxford University. On graduating, he entered the Ministry of Transport and briefly studied architecture.
In 1949 he became an investigator for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. He embraced vernacular architecture with an obsessive eye for telling details. Overcoming a disability that gave him an awkward gait, he hiked across hillsides and crawled into roof spaces compiling information. In 1967 he published a brilliant first synthesis in the Cambridge Agrarian History.
Startling insights emerged from his card indexes and maps. Why were longhouses so typical in Wales yet absent in the north-west? Why were there so few cruck roofs in Pembrokeshire? He discovered that in general architectural innovations diffused from east to west, and that almost uniform medieval halls had given way to strongly regional house types.
The commissioners asked Peter to prepare an authoritative volume for Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The resulting 800-page book combined a clear text and a wealth of distribution maps, plans, reconstructions and drawn details. Alongside the open-air museum at St Fagans in Cardiff, it had a defining influence on the understanding, enjoyment and conservation of Welsh traditional architecture.
Peter had risen to be secretary of the Royal Commission in 1973 and during the next two decades he oversaw the launch of projects in industrial archaeology, the absorption of the archaeological work of the Ordnance Survey and the start of aerial reconnaissance. His gravelly voice, whiskers and tweed suits, suggestive of a gruff farmer down from the Dales, belied a warm humour and a passionate devotion to his new country and his mission. It was typical of him that he took a benevolent interest in what I was doing when I came to the commission as a teenage volunteer.
He learned to speak Welsh fluently and favoured the longstanding duties of the commission over bureaucratic process. Many considered it an injustice when he was passed over for the conventional honour on retiring in 1991, though his honorary DLitt from the University of Wales perhaps meant more.
As a remarkable coda to his career, in 2010 his legacy was recognised by a six-hour television series on S4C. Peter produced results that will be valued as permanently as will the buildings that he loved.
He is survived by his wife, Joyce, three children and six grandchildren. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.