HIS name is not as familiar as that of Joseph Rowntree or George Hudson, but anyone who loves York has reason to be thankful to Francis Johnson. Johnson, a Yorkshire architect who was still practising at the time of his death in 1995, made a great contribution to the fabric of England's finest historic city.

The buildings he helped restore to their glorious best read like a tourists' guide to York: the Merchant Taylors' Hall, the Merchant Adventurers' Hall, Ben Johnson's Shop on Micklegate, All Saints Church, North Street.

His most famous restoration was that of Fairfax House. In a state of terrible disrepair, inside and out, York's finest Georgian town house was on the point of collapse in the 1970s. When the Civic Trust acquired the building from the council, it was to Francis Johnson they turned.

This was a makeover that would have left Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen tearing out his luscious locks. The foundations had to be shored up, the main staircase substantially repaired, and missing parts of the rear elevation rebuilt.

Twenty years ago, Fairfax House was a wreck. Today it is one of York's architectural gems. To mark Johnson's massive contribution to its renaissance, Fairfax House held an exhibition earlier this summer celebrating his work.

Alongside that, a book has been produced - Francis Johnson, Architect: A Classical Statement.

Unusually, the book was paid for by subscription. Among those donating to its publication are William Birch and Son and the Noel Terry Charitable Trust.

It demonstrates the esteem in which the man was held that this large and pictorially resplendent volume could be funded in such a traditional way.

"Indeed, for Francis Johnson the fact that this book is funded by subscription - the classic manner in which eighteenth-century books were supported - would have been a matter of considerable satisfaction," writes Giles Worsley in his introduction.

The book's authors, David Neave and John Martin Robinson, divide the book into two sections. Mr Neave is Johnson's biographer, chronicling his life from his birth in Bridlington in 1911.

He never knew his mother, who died five days after giving birth of peritonitis. His father was a corn merchant.

Johnson's love of buildings expressed itself early in his life. After the First World War bombardment of Scarborough, the Johnson family left Bridlington fearing a similar attack on the East Yorkshire resort. They moved first to Harrogate and then to Sheffield, where the young Johnson became fascinated by the late Georgian mansions in his neighbourhood.

Johnson went on to train as an architect at Leeds, where his love of the Classical period further developed, to the annoyance of the head of the school. He graduated in the middle of the Thirties slump and was out of work for six months before his father found him a place at a Hull architects. Later he set up in practice at Bridlington.

Mr Robinson takes up the architectural side of the story, from the mid-1930s to Johnson's death sixty years later. The beautiful plates, many in colour, of Johnson's work reveal the elegance that was his hallmark, from Lincolnshire country homes to Bridlington council houses.

The section on architecture is much the larger. This is primarily a book for lovers of buildings; there is not much here about the private life of a private man.

It is a weighty tome, part coffee table luxury, part architectural analysis: a fitting tribute to an unsung Yorkshire hero. Unfortunately, at £43, only a few will get to enjoy it.