Sir Charles Reed Peers CBE FBA FRIBA FSA (22 September 1868 – 16 November 1952) was an English architect, archaeologist and preservationist.
After visiting Egypt again in 1902, he became architectural editor of the Victoria History of the Counties of England in 1903, supervising the architects that described and drew plans of the buildings included in the volumes.
Peers himself drew the plans and wrote the descriptions for a number of buildings, including Winchester Cathedral and St Albans Abbey.
Assisted by Ministry of Works architect Frank Baines, Peers developed a characteristic style of preservation of ruined medieval buildings.
Peers preferred method was to turn a picturesque ruined building into an instructive archaeological site, keeping only those elements that would have been present in the medieval period.
The site would then be fenced, and the ruins surrounded by lawns of mown grass, aided by the relatively recent availability of the mechanised lawnmower.
The works would be completed by making measured plans, taking photographs, and producing a guidebook, with simple labels distributed around the site.
Tons of soil – in places up to 16 feet (4.9 m) deep – were removed using a temporary railway to reveal the medieval ground plan of the site; precariously overhanging masonry was stabilised; and unsteady piers were reconstructed with reinforced concrete cores.
There were 89 properties in Britain in state care in 1910; 22 were added in 1913, mostly ruined abbeys and castles; and 400 sites were preserved by Peers's death in 1952.
The Town and Country Planning Act 1932 took up a suggestion from Peers so local councils could propose buildings for a preservation order (although the powers were only used 20 times between 1932 and 1947).
By the time of his death, Peers had set a standard for the excavation and public presentation of medieval military and monastic sites which endured for several decades.