Architecture of the United Kingdom
Encyclopedia
The Architecture of England refers to the architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 practised in the territory of the present-day country of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and in the historic Kingdom of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

. The term can also be used to refer to buildings created under English influence or by English architects in other parts of the world, particularly in the English and later British colonies and Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, which developed into the Commonwealth of Nations
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

.

Apart from Anglo-Saxon architecture
Anglo-Saxon architecture
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing...

, the major forms of non-vernacular
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 architecture employed in England before 1900 originated elsewhere in western Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, chiefly in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, while 20th-century Modernist architecture derived from both European and American influences. Each of these foreign modes became assimilated within English architectural culture and gave rise to local variation and innovation, producing distinctive national forms. Among the most characteristic styles originating in England are the Perpendicular Gothic of the late Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style unto its own right....

 and the 'Queen Anne' style
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...

.

Prehistoric architecture

The earliest known examples of architecture in England are the megalithic tombs of the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

, such as those at Wayland's Smithy
Wayland's Smithy
Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow and chamber tomb site located near the Uffington White Horse and Uffington Castle, at Ashbury in the English county of Oxfordshire ....

 and the West Kennet Long Barrow
West Kennet Long Barrow
The West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire, England. The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century.Archaeologists...

. These cromlech
Cromlech
Cromlech is a Brythonic word used to describe prehistoric megalithic structures, where crom means "bent" and llech means "flagstone". The term is now virtually obsolete in archaeology, but remains in use as a colloquial term for two different types of megalithic monument.In English it usually...

i
are common over much of Atlantic Europe
Atlantic Europe
Atlantic Europe is a geographical and anthropological term for the western portion of Europe which borders the Atlantic Ocean. The term may refer to the idea of Atlantic Europe as a cultural unit and/or as an biogeographical region....

: present day Spain; Brittany; Great Britain; and Ireland. Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

 has shown them to be, as historian John Davies
John Davies (historian)
John Davies is a Welsh historian, and a television and radio broadcaster.Davies was born in the Rhondda, Wales, and studied at both University College, Cardiff, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is married with four children...

 says, "the first substantial, permanent constructions of man and that the earliest of them are nearly 1,500 years older than the first of the pyramids of Egypt." The Neolithic henge
Henge
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork which are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three types is that they feature a ring bank and ditch but with the ditch inside the bank rather than outside...

s of Avebury
Avebury
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles which is located around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, south west England. Unique amongst megalithic monuments, Avebury contains the largest stone circle in Europe, and is one of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain...

 and Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...

 are two of the largest and most famous megalithic monuments in the world. Although their purpose is unknown with any certainty, suggestions include ceremonial use and interpreting the cosmos. With other nearby sites, including Silbury Hill
Silbury Hill
Silbury Hill is a prehistoric artificial chalk mound near Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site, and lies at ....

, Beckhampton Avenue
Beckhampton Avenue
The Beckhampton Avenue a curving prehistoric avenue of stones that ran broadly south west from Avebury towards The Longstones at Beckhampton in the English county of Wiltshire. It probably dates to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age....

, and West Kennet Avenue, they form a UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

 called Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Wiltshire, England. The WHS covers two large areas of land separated by nearly , rather than a specific monument or building. The sites were inscribed as co-listings in 1986....

.

Numerous examples of Bronze Age
Bronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain refers to the period of British history that spanned from c. 2,500 until c. 800 BC. Lasting for approximately 1700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the era of Iron Age Britain...

 and Iron Age
British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, and which had an independent Iron Age culture of...

 architecture can be seen in England. Megalithic burial monuments, either individual barrows
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...

 (also known, and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

 maps, as Tumuli,) or occasionally cist
Cist
A cist from ) is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East....

s covered by cairn
Cairn
Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...

s, are one form. The other is the defensive earthworks known as hill fort
Hill fort
A hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some were used in the post-Roman period...

s, such as Maiden Castle
Maiden Castle, Dorset
Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age...

 and Cadbury Castle
Cadbury Castle, Somerset
Cadbury Castle is an Iron Age hill fort in the civil parish of South Cadbury in the English county of Somerset. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and associated with King Arthur.-Background:...

. Archaeological evidence suggests that British Iron Age domestic architecture had a tendency towards circular dwellings, known as roundhouses
Roundhouse (dwelling)
The roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, originally built in western Europe before the Roman occupation using walls made either of stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels and a conical thatched roof. Roundhouses ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m...

. Their wooden structures have not survived above ground.

Roman architecture

The Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 period brought the construction of the first large-scale buildings in Britain, but very little survives above ground besides fortifications. These include sections of Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...

 and coastal forts such as those at Portchester
Portus Adurni
Portus Adurni was a Roman fortress in the Roman province of Britannia. Listed in the Notitia Dignitatum, it is generally accepted as having been located at adjoining Portchester in the English county of Hampshire and was later converted into a medieval castle known as Portchester Castle...

, Pevensey
Anderitum
Anderitum is a commonly cited spelling of a Saxon Shore Fort actually spelled Anderidos, in the Roman province of Britannia. It is located at in eastern Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex and was later converted into a medieval castle known as Pevensey Castle.-Roman fort:It was built by...

 and Burgh Castle
Burgh Castle Roman Site
Burgh Castle is the site of one of several Roman shore forts constructed around the 3rd Century AD, to hold cavalry as a defence against Saxon raids up the rivers of the east and south coasts of southern Britain; and is located on the summit of ground sloping steeply towards the estuary of the...

, which have survived through incorporation into later castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s. Other structures still standing include a lighthouse at Dover Castle
Dover Castle
Dover Castle is a medieval castle in the town of the same name in the English county of Kent. It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history...

, now part of a church. In most cases, only foundations, floors and the bases of walls attest to the structure of former buildings. Some of these were on a grand scale, such as the palace at Fishbourne
Fishbourne Roman Palace
Fishbourne Roman Palace is in the village of Fishbourne in West Sussex. The large palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest of Britain on the site of a Roman army supply base established at the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. The rectangular palace surrounded...

 and the baths at Bath. The more substantial buildings of the Roman period adhered closely to the style of Roman structures elsewhere, although traditional Iron Age building methods remained in general use for humbler dwellings, especially in rural areas.

Anglo-Saxon architecture

Architecture of the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

 period exists only in the form of churches, the only structures commonly built in stone apart from fortifications. The earliest examples date from the 7th century, notably at Bradwell-on-Sea and Escomb
Escomb Church
Escomb Saxon Church is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon churches in England, located in Escomb, approximately 2.5 km to the west of Bishop Auckland, County Durham.-History:...

, but the majority from the 10th and 11th centuries. Due to the systematic destruction and replacement of English cathedrals and monasteries by the Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

, no major Anglo-Saxon churches survive; the largest extant example is at Brixworth
All Saints' Church, Brixworth
All Saints' Church, Brixworth, in Northamptonshire is an outstanding example of early Anglo-Saxon architecture located in central England, and has been called "perhaps the most imposing architectural memorial of the 7th century yet surviving north of the Alps"...

.

The main material is ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

 masonry, sometimes accompanied by details in reused Roman brick. Anglo-Saxon churches are typically high and narrow and consist of a nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

 and a narrower chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

; these are often accompanied by a west tower. Some feature porticus (projecting chambers) to the west or to the north and south, creating a cruciform plan. Characteristic features include quoins in 'long-and-short work' (alternating vertical and horizontal blocks) and small windows with rounded or triangular tops, deeply splayed or in groups of two or three divided by squat columns. The commonest form of external decoration is lesene strips (thin vertical or horizontal strips of projecting stone), typically combined with blind arcading
Blind arcade
A blind arcade is an arcade that is composed of a series of arches that has no actual openings and that is applied to the surface of a wall as a decorative element: i.e. the arches are not windows or openings but are part of the masonry face. It is designed as an ornamental architectural element,...

. Notable examples of this exist at Earls Barton
All Saints' Church, Earls Barton
After the Danish raids on England, Medehampstede Abbey, a few miles away from Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, was rebuilt in about AD 970 to become Peterborough. It is generally accepted that All Saints' Church, Earls Barton was built around this period at the end of the tenth century...

, Bradford-on-Avon
St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon
St Laurence's Church, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, is one of relatively few surviving Saxon churches in England that does not show later medieval alteration or rebuilding....

 and Barton-upon-Humber
St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber
St Peter's Church is the former parish church of Barton-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire, England. It is one of the best known Anglo-Saxon buildings, in part due to its role in Thomas Rickman's identification of the style. It has been subject to major excavations, which are the most...

.

Norman architecture

In the 11th century the Normans were among Europe's leading exponents of Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

, a style which had begun to influence English church building before 1066, but became the predominant mode in England with the huge wave of construction that followed the Norman Conquest. The Normans destroyed a large proportion of England's churches and built Romanesque replacements, a process which encompassed all of England's cathedrals. Most of the latter were later partially or wholly rebuilt in Gothic style
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

, and although many still preserve substantial Romanesque portions, only Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. The Bishopric dates from 995, with the present cathedral being founded in AD 1093...

 remains a predominantly Romanesque structure (along with St Alban's and Southwell, abbey churches in the medieval period). Even Durham displays significant transitional features leading towards the emergence of Gothic. Romanesque churches are characterised by rounded arches, arcade
Arcade (architecture)
An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

s supported by massive cylindrical piers
Pier (architecture)
In architecture, a pier is an upright support for a superstructure, such as an arch or bridge. Sections of wall between openings function as piers. The simplest cross section of the pier is square, or rectangular, although other shapes are also common, such as the richly articulated piers of Donato...

, groin vault
Groin vault
A groin vault or groined vault is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. The word groin refers to the edge between the intersecting vaults; cf. ribbed vault. Sometimes the arches of groin vaults are pointed instead of round...

s and low-relief sculptural decoration. Distinctively Norman features include decorative chevron patterns.

In the wake of the invasion William I
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...

 and his lords built numerous wooden motte-and-bailey
Motte-and-bailey
A motte-and-bailey is a form of castle, with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade...

 castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

s to impose their control on the native population. Many were subsequently rebuilt in stone, beginning with the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

.

There are also a very small number of domestic Norman buildings still standing, for example Jew's House
Jew's House
The Jew's House is one of the earliest extant town houses in England. It lies on Steep Hill in Lincoln, immediately below Jew's Court.Dating from the mid-twelfth century, the building originally consisted of a hall at first floor level, measuring approximately 12 by 6 metres, above service and...

, Lincoln; manor houses at Saltford
Saltford
Saltford is a large village and civil parish in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, Somerset, England. It lies between the cities of Bristol and Bath....

 and Boothby Pagnall; and fortified manor houses such as Oakham Castle
Oakham Castle
Oakham Castle is located in Oakham, Rutland. It was constructed between 1180 and 1190, in the reign of Henry II for Walchelin de Ferriers, Lord of the Manor of Oakham...

.

Gothic architecture

The Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 architectural tradition originated in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in the mid-12th century and spread rapidly to England, where it remained the prevailing style for well over 300 years. In addition to new constructions, many earlier buildings were wholly or partially rebuilt in this manner, so that most surviving English medieval buildings, including all but one of the medieval cathedrals, are predominantly Gothic in form.

The Gothic style arose largely from the introduction of large windows, often filled with stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

 and subdivided by decorative stone tracery
Tracery
In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...

. The desire to increase window space drove the development of new structural techniques, which constitute most of the other distinctive features of the style: pointed arches, rib vault
Rib vault
The intersection of two or three barrel vaults produces a rib vault or ribbed vault when they are edged with an armature of piped masonry often carved in decorative patterns; compare groin vault, an older form of vault construction...

s, flying buttresses and pinnacle
Pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...

s. These increased the strength of the building and reduced the amount of weight which had to be carried by the walls, enabling more space to be occupied by glass. They also made possible greater flexibility of proportions than Romanesque afforded. Other characteristic features include columns composed of multiple shafts and high-relief sculpture, usually of a more naturalistic character than found in Romanesque decoration.

England's Gothic architecture is conventionally divided into three chronologically successive but overlapping styles. Early English Gothic (late 12th-early 14th centuries) is the plainest and closest to French models. It is typified by the simpicity of its vaults and tracery, the use of lancet windows and smaller amounts of sculptural decoration than either Romanesque or later varieties of Gothic. Increasing proliferation and elaboration of sculptural decoration and tracery and the emergence of more complex and decorative vaults marked the transition to Decorated Gothic (late 13th-late 14th centuries). The final permutation of the English tradition, and the furthest removed from contemporary continental styles, was Perpendicular Gothic (mid 14th-early 16th centuries), named for its emphasis on continuous vertical lines and the grid patterns of its tracery. In its use of sculpture and tracery this style was sparser than Decorated, but it saw the intricacy of vaulting reach its zenith, with the development of elaborate lierne vaults and the uniquely English fan vault
Fan vault
thumb|right|250px|Fan vaulting over the nave at Bath Abbey, Bath, England. Made from local Bath stone, this is a [[Victorian restoration]] of the original roof of 1608....

s. The size of windows also reached its peak in this period, while arches and vaults became flatter, developments which placed greater demands than ever before on buildings' structural strength. They were possible because Gothic structural techniques had now reached the height of their sophistication, particularly in the use of buttressing.

Certain features were distinctive to English Gothic churches, particularly cathedrals, throughout their development. They tended to be longer than continental equivalents but also lower and narrower, a fact which facilitated the construction of grand, structurally ambitious towers over the crossing
Crossing (architecture)
A crossing, in ecclesiastical architecture, is the junction of the four arms of a cruciform church.In a typically oriented church , the crossing gives access to the nave on the west, the transept arms on the north and south, and the choir on the east.The crossing is sometimes surmounted by a tower...

, an almost ubiquitous feature of English cathedrals but virtually unknown elsewhere. In plan they were typified by extensive subdivision and the use of rectangular rather than curved forms. Unusually, many English cathedrals were monastic institutions and consequently had cloisters and polygonal chapter house
Chapter house
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room attached to a cathedral or collegiate church in which meetings are held. They can also be found in medieval monasteries....

s attached.

Extensive castle construction continued in the Gothic period, but displayed few of the distinctive features of Gothic church architecture. Norman designs based around a central keep
Keep
A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the...

 gave way to castles whose most massive structure was a large gatehouse
Gatehouse
A gatehouse, in architectural terminology, is a building enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a castle, manor house, fort, town or similar buildings of importance.-History:...

 and which were sudivided either through the construction of concentric rings of walls or the use of cross-walls to partition the internal space.

In most parts of the country, non-military secular architecture was usually based on timber frames, but many royal and aristocratic residences included stone structures, particularly great halls. Stone construction was also widespread in monasteries and university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 buildings. Characteristics introduced from church architecture included the use of tracery to decorate windows. Vaulting, commonplace in churches, was rare in secular buildings, which were almost always roofed in wood, such as the great hammerbeam roof of Westminster Hall.

Vernacular architecture

Little survives of the vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 of the medieval period due to the use of perishable materials. Most domestic buildings were built on timber frames
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

, usually with wattle and daub
Wattle and daub
Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw...

 infill. Roofs were typically covered with thatch
Thatching
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge , rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates...

; wooden shingles
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...

 were also employed, and from the 12th century tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...

 and slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 came into use in some areas. Also around the 12th century, the cruck
Cruck
A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which supports the roof of a building, used particularly in England. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally bent, timber beams that lean inwards and form the ridge of the roof. These posts are then generally secured by a...

 frame was introduced, increasing the size of timber framed vernacular buildings. Typically, houses of this period were based around a great hall
Great hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...

 open from floor to roof. One bay at each end was split into two storeys and used for service rooms and private rooms for the owner. Buildings surviving this period included moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...

ed manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

s of which Ightham Mote
Ightham Mote
Ightham Mote is a medieval moated manor house close to the village of Ightham, near Sevenoaks in Kent .The name "mote" derives from "moot", "meeting [place]", rather than referring to the body of water....

 is a notable late medieval example, and Wealden hall house
Wealden hall house
The Wealden hall house is a type of vernacular medieval timber-framed yeoman's house traditional in the south east of England. It is most common in Kent and the east of Sussex but has also been built elsewhere...

s such as Alfriston Clergy House
Alfriston Clergy House
Alfriston Clergy House in Alfriston, Polegate, East Sussex, England, was the first property to be acquired by the National Trust. It was purchased in 1896 for £10. The house lies adjacent to the Church of St. Andrew.-History:...

.

Tudor transition

The Tudor period constitutes a transitional phase, in which the organic continuity and innovation of the medieval era gave way to centuries in which architecture was dominated by a succession of attempts to revive earlier styles.

The Perpendicular Gothic style reached its culmination in the reign of Henry VII
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....

 and the early years of Henry VIII, with the construction of King's College Chapel, Cambridge
King's College Chapel, Cambridge
King's College Chapel is the chapel to King's College of the University of Cambridge, and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic English architecture, while its early Renaissance rood screen separating the nave and chancel, erected in 1532-36 in a striking contrast of style, has been called...

 and Henry VII's Chapel
Henry VII Lady Chapel
The Henry VII Lady Chapel, now more often known just as the Henry VII Chapel, is a large Lady chapel at the far eastern end of Westminster Abbey, paid for by the will of Henry VII. It is separated from the rest of the abbey by brass gates and a flight of stairs.The structure of the chapel is a...

 at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

. However, the Reformation
Reformation
- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

 brought an effective halt to church-building in England which continued in most parts of the country until the 19th century.

By the time of Henry VII's accession castle-building in England had come to an end and under the Tudors ostentatious unfortified country houses and palaces became widespread, built sometimes of stone but more usually of brick, which first became a common building material in England in this period. Characteristic features of the early Tudor style included imposing gatehouses (a vestige of the castle), flattened pointed arches
Tudor arch
A four-centred arch, also known as a depressed arch or Tudor arch, is a low, wide type of arch with a pointed apex. It is much wider than its height and gives the visual effect of having been flattened under pressure...

 in the Perpendicular Gothic manner, square-headed windows, decoratively shaped gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

s and large ornate chimneys. Outstanding surviving examples of early Tudor palatial architecture include Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace is a royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Greater London; it has not been inhabited by the British royal family since the 18th century. The palace is located south west of Charing Cross and upstream of Central London on the River Thames...

 and Layer Marney Tower
Layer Marney Tower
Layer Marney Tower is a Tudor palace, composed of buildings, gardens and parkland, dating from 1520 situated in Layer Marney near Colchester, Essex, England.-History:...

.

Over the course of the 16th century Classical
Classical architecture
Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...

 features derived from the Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

 of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 exerted an increasing influence, initially on surface decoration but in time shaping the entire design of buildings, while the use of medieval features declined. This development gave rise to palatial stone dwellings such as Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall
Hardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...

 and Montacute House
Montacute House
Montacute House is a late Elizabethan country house situated in the South Somerset village of Montacute. This house is a textbook example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical; this has resulted in Montacute being regarded as...

.

Stuart architecture

During the 17th century the continuing advance of Classical forms overrode the eclecticism of English Renaissance architecture, which gave way to a more uniform style derived from continental models, chiefly from Italy. This entailed a retreat from the structural sophistication of Gothic architecture to forms derived from the more primitive construction methods of Classical antiquity. The style was typified by square or round-headed windows and doors, flat ceilings, collonades, pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....

s, pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...

s and dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....

s. Classical architecture in England tended to be relatively plain and simple in comparison with the contemporaneous Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

 of the continent, being influenced above all by the Palladian
Palladian architecture
Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...

 style of Italy. This was first introduced to England by Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...

 and typified by his Queen's House
Queen's House
The Queen's House, Greenwich, is a former royal residence built between 1614-1617 in Greenwich, then a few miles downriver from London, and now a district of the city. Its architect was Inigo Jones, for whom it was a crucial early commission, for Anne of Denmark, the queen of King James I of England...

 at Greenwich.

The Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...

 in 1666 forced the reconstruction of much of the city, which was the only part of the country to see a significant amount of church-building between the Reformation and the 19th century. Sir Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...

 was employed to replace many of the destroyed churches, but his master plan for rebuilding London as a whole was rejected. Wren's churches exemplify the distinctive English approach to church-building in the Classical manner, which largely rejected the domes that typified the continental Baroque and employed a wide range of different forms of steeple
Steeple (architecture)
A steeple, in architecture, is a tall tower on a building, often topped by a spire. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religious structure...

, experimental efforts to find a substitute for the Gothic spire
Spire
A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....

 within a Classical mode. However, a dome featured very prominently in Wren's grandest construction, St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

, the only English cathedral in any permutation of the Classical tradition.

The later 17th century saw Baroque architecture, a version of Classicism characterised by heavy massing and ostentatiously elaborate decoration, become widespread in England. Grand Baroque country houses began to appear in England in the 1690s, exemplified by Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House
Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...

 and Castle Howard
Castle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, north of York. One of the grandest private residences in Britain, most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh...

. The most significant English Baroque architects after Wren were Sir John Vanbrugh
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh  – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...

 and Nicholas Hawksmoor
Nicholas Hawksmoor
Nicholas Hawksmoor was a British architect born in Nottinghamshire, probably in East Drayton.-Life:Hawksmoor was born in Nottinghamshire in 1661, into a yeoman farming family, almost certainly in East Drayton, Nottinghamshire. On his death he was to leave property at nearby Ragnall, Dunham and a...

, who adapted the Baroque style to fit English tastes in houses such as Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace  is a monumental country house situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, residence of the dukes of Marlborough. It is the only non-royal non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between...

, Seaton Delaval Hall
Seaton Delaval Hall
Seaton Delaval Hall is a Grade I listed country house in Northumberland, England. It is near the coast just north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Located between Seaton Sluice and Seaton Delaval, it was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1718 for Admiral George Delaval and is now owned by the National...

 and Easton Neston
Easton Neston
Easton Neston is a country house near Towcester, Northamptonshire, England, and is part of the Easton Neston Parish. It was designed in the Baroque style by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. Easton Neston is thought to be the only mansion which was solely the work of Hawksmoor...

.

Georgian architecture

The 18th century saw a turn away from Baroque elaboration and a reversion to a more austere approach to Classicism. This shift initially brought a return to the Italian Palladianism that had characterised the earliest manifestations of Classical architecture in England. Later Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 increasingly idealised ancient Greek forms, which were viewed as representing Classicism in its original 'purity', as against Roman forms, now regarded as degenerate. Country houses representing this style include Woburn Abbey
Woburn Abbey
Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

 and Kedleston Hall
Kedleston Hall
Kedleston Hall is an English country house in Kedleston, Derbyshire, approximately four miles north-west of Derby, and is the seat of the Curzon family whose name originates in Notre-Dame-de-Courson in Normandy...

. This period also saw the emergence of an increasingly planned approach to urban expansion, and the systematic, simultaneous construction of whole streets or squares, or even of entire districts, gave rise to new forms of domestic construction, the terrace and the crescent
Crescent (architecture)
A crescent is an architectural structure where a number of houses, normally terraced houses, are laid out in an arc to form of a crescent shape. A famous historic crescent is the Royal Crescent in Bath, England.-See also:* Lansdown Crescent, Bath...

, as exemplified in Bath and in Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...

 and Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Among the notable architects practising in this era were Robert Adam
Robert Adam
Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

, Sir William Chambers
William Chambers (architect)
Sir William Chambers was a Scottish architect, born in Gothenburg, Sweden, where his father was a merchant. Between 1740 and 1749 he was employed by the Swedish East India Company making several voyages to China where he studied Chinese architecture and decoration.Returning to Europe, he studied...

, John Wood
John Wood, the Younger
John Wood, the Younger was an English architect, working principally in the city of Bath, Somerset. He began his work as an assistant for his father, the architect John Wood, the Elder...

 and James Wyatt
James Wyatt
James Wyatt RA , was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical style, who far outdid Adam in his work in the neo-Gothic style.-Early classical career:...

.

Victorian architecture

The 19th century saw a fragmentation of English architecture, as Classical forms continued in widespread use but were challenged by a series of distinctively English revivals of other styles, drawing chiefly on Gothic, Renaissance and vernacular traditions but incorporating other elements as well. This ongoing historicism was counterposed by a resumption of technical innovation, which had been largely in abeyance since the Renaissance but was now fuelled by new materials and techniques derived from the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, particularly the use of iron and steel frame
Steel frame
Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...

s, and by the demand for new types of building. The rapid growth and urbanisation of the population entailed an immense amount of new domestic and commercial construction, while the same processes combined with a religious revival to bring about a resumption of widespread church building. Mechanised manufacturing, railways and public utilities required new forms of building, while the new industrial cities invested heavily in grand civic buildings and the huge expansion and diversification of educational, cultural and leisure actvities likewise created new demands on architecture.

The Gothic revival was a development which emerged in England and whose influence, except in church building, was largely restricted to the English-speaking world. It had begun on a small scale in the 18th century under the stimulus of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, a trend initiated by Horace Walpole's house Strawberry Hill
Strawberry Hill House
Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...

. However, widespread Gothic construction began only in the 19th century, led by the renewal of church building but spreading to secular construction. Early Gothic revival architecture was whimsical and unsystematic, but in the Victorian era the revival developed an abstract rigour and became a movement driven by cultural, religious and social concerns which extended far beyond architecture, seeing the Gothic style and the medieval way of life as a route to the spiritual regeneration of society. The first great ideologue of this movement was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, who together with Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...

 designed the new Houses of Parliament, the grandest work of Victorian Gothic architecture.
The Parliament building's Perpendicular style reflects the predominance of the later forms of English Gothic in the early Victorian period, but this later gave way to a preference for plain Early English or French Gothic, and above all to a style derived from the architecture of medieval Italy and the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

. This High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style unto its own right....

 was driven chiefly by the writings of John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, based on his observations of the buildings of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, while its archetypal practitioner was the church architect William Butterfield
William Butterfield
William Butterfield was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement . He is noted for his use of polychromy-Biography:...

. It was characterised by heavy massing, sparse use of tracery or sculptural decoration and an emphasis on polychrome patterning created through the use of different colours of brick and stone. The Gothic revival also drove a widespread effort to restore deteriorating medieval churches, a practice which often went beyond restoration to involve extensive reconstruction
Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

. The most active exponent of this activity was also the most prolific designer of new Gothic buildings, George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...

, whose work is exemplified by St Pancras Station. Other leading Victorian Gothic architects included G. E. Street
George Edmund Street
George Edmund Street was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex.- Life :Street was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839...

, J. F. Pearson
John Loughborough Pearson
John Loughborough Pearson was a Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency unrivalled in his generation.-Early life and education:Pearson was born in Brussels, Belgium on 5...

 and G. F. Bodley
George Frederick Bodley
George Frederick Bodley was an English architect working in the Gothic revival style.-Personal life:Bodley was the youngest son of William Hulme Bodley, M.D. of Edinburgh, physician at Hull Royal Infirmary, Kingston upon Hull, who in 1838 retired to his wife's home town, Brighton, Sussex, England....

.

The Victorian period also saw a revival of interest in English vernacular building traditions, focusing chiefly on domestic architecture and employing features such as half-timbering
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 and tile-hanging, whose leading practitioner was Richard Norman Shaw
Richard Norman Shaw
Richard Norman Shaw RA , was an influential Scottish architect from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings.-Life:...

. This development too was shaped by much wider ideological considerations, strongly influenced by William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

 and the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

. While its ethos shared much with the Gothic revival, its preoccupations were less religious and were connected with romantic socialism and a distaste for industrialisation and urban life. In the later 19th century vernacular elements mingled with forms drawn from the Renaissance architecture of England and the Low Countries to produce a synthesis dubbed the Queen Anne Style
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...

, which in fact bore very little resemblance to the architecture of that reign. While some architects of the period were ideologically committed to a particular manner, a tendency personified by Pugin, others were happy to move between styles. An exemplar of this approach was Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...

, whose works included buildings in Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance styles and eclectic fusions between them.

The new technology of iron and steel frame construction exerted an influence over many forms of building, although its use was often masked by traditional forms. It was highly prominent in two of the new forms of building that characterised Victorian architecture, railway station train sheds and glasshouses. The greatest exponent of the latter was Joseph Paxton
Joseph Paxton
Sir Joseph Paxton was an English gardener and architect, best known for designing The Crystal Palace.-Early life:...

, architect of the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

.

In the 18th century a few English architects had emigrated to the colonies, but as the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 became firmly established in the 19th century many architects at the start of their careers made the decision to emigrate, several chose the USA but most went to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 or New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, as opportunities arose to meet the growing demand for buildings in these countries. Normally they adopted the style of architecture fashionable when they left England, though by the latter half of the century, improving transport and communications meant that even quite remote parts of the Empire had access to many publications, such as The Builder magazine. This enabled colonial architects to stay abreast of current fashion. Thus the influence of English architecture spread across the world. Several prominent 19th century architects produced designs that were executed by architects in the various colonies. For example Sir George Gilbert Scott designed Bombay University
University of Mumbai
The University of Mumbai , is a state university located in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was known as the University of Bombay until 1996 when the city of Bombay was renamed as Mumbai. The affiliated colleges of the university are spread throughout the city of Mumbai and four coastal districts in...

 & William Butterfield designed St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide
St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide
St Peter's Cathedral is an Anglican Cathedral in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. It is the seat of the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide...

.

Historical styles in the 20th century

The last great exponent of late Victorian free Renaissance eclecticism was Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

, and his shift into the Classical mode after 1900 symbolised a wider retreat from the stylistic ferment of the 19th century to a plain and homogenous Classicism based on Georgian exemplars, an approach followed by many architects of the early 20th century, notably Herbert Baker
Herbert Baker
Sir Herbert Baker was a British architect.Baker was the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, 1892–1912....

 and Reginald Blomfield
Reginald Blomfield
Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period.- Early life and career :...

. This Neo-Georgian manner, while not greatly favoured in later decades by the architectural profession or architecture critics, has remained popular with clients and conservative commentators, notably Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...

. Domestic architecture throughout the 20th century and beyond has continued to be strongly influenced by a homogenised version of Victorian vernacular revival styles. Some architects responded to modernism, and economic circumstances, by producing stripped down versions of traditional styles; the work of Giles Gilbert Scott
Giles Gilbert Scott
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, OM, FRIBA was an English architect known for his work on such buildings as Liverpool Cathedral and Battersea Power Station and designing the iconic red telephone box....

 illustrates this well.

International Style

The International Style (also known as Modernism) emerged as a reaction against the world before First World War, including historical architectural styles. Stylistically it was functional, drawing upon objects that were designed for a specific purpose such as Oceanliners. It emerged as an idea from continental Europe, but was of interest to some English architects. However it the arrival of emigre architects such as Mendelsohn and Lubetkin that galvanised the position of modern architecture within England.

The bombing of English cities created a housing shortage, in the post war years. To meet this many thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of council house
Council house
A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...

s in mock-vernacular
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 style were built, giving working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 people their first experience of private garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...

s and indoor sanitation
Sanitation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

. The demand was partly sated through the pre-fabrication of buildings within factories, giving rise to the "Pre-fab" .

Brutalist architecture

The reconstruction that followed the Second World War had a major impact upon English architecture. The austerity that followed the WWII meant that cost dictated many design decisions, however significant architectural movements emerged. One such movement was Brutalism, its look was created though the desire to express how buildings were constructed,e.g. the use of exposed concrete. Significant "New Brutalist" buildings were the Economist Building, the Hayward Gallery
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...

, the Barbican Arts Centre and the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 .

High-Tech architecture

High-Tech architecture emerged as an attempt to revitalise the language of Modernism, it drew inspiration from technology to create new architectural expression . The theorical work of Archigram
Archigram
Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s - based at the Architectural Association, London - that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects...

 provided significant inspiration of the High-tec movement. High-tech architecture is mostly associated with non-domestic buildings, perhaps due to the technological imagery .The two most prominent proponents were Lord Rogers of Riverside and Lord Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM is a British architect whose company maintains an international design practice, Foster + Partners....

. Rogers' most iconic English building is Lloyd's Building
Lloyd's building
The Lloyd's building is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London, and is located at 1, Lime Street, in the City of London, England.-Design:...

, situated nearby is Foster´s most famous English building Swiss Re Buildings
30 St Mary Axe
30 St Mary Axe, the Swiss Re Building , is a skyscraper in London's main financial district, the City of London, completed in December 2003 and opened at the end of May 2004...

 (nicknamed The Gherkin). Their respective influence continues into the current century.

Postmodern architecture

Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...

 also emerged as an attempt to enrich Modern architecture. It was especially fashionable in the 1980s, when Modernism had fallen from favour, being associated with the welfare state. Many shopping malls and office complexes for example Broadgate
Broadgate
Broadgate is a large, office and retail estate in the City of London, owned by British Land and the Blackstone Group and managed by Broadgate Estates...

 used this style. Notable practitioners were James Stirling
James Stirling (architect)
Sir James Frazer Stirling FRIBA was a British architect. He is considered to be among the most important and influential British architects of the second half of the 20th century...

 and Terry Farrell (architect)
Terry Farrell (architect)
Sir Terry Farrell, CBE, RIBA, FRSA, FCSD, MRTPI is a British architect.-Life and career:Farrell was born in Sale, Cheshire. As a youth he moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he attended St Cuthbert's High School. He graduated with a degree from Newcastle University, followed by a Masters in urban...

, although Farrell returned to modernism in the 1990s. A significant example of postmodernism is Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...

's Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery.

Contemporary Architecture

  • AHMM Westminster Academy
    Westminster Academy (London)
    Westminster Academy, is an Academy located in London, England.It is a co-educational school for 11+ years that specialized in International Business and Enterprise...

  • David Adjaye
    David Adjaye
    David Adjaye OBE is a British architect.-Early life:David Adjaye was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The son of a Ghanaian diplomat who has lived in Tanzania, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon before moving to Britain at the age of nine, he led a privileged life and was privately educated...

    : Dirty House, Whitechapel Idea Store
    Whitechapel Idea Store
    The Whitechapel Idea Store is a library in Whitechapel, London, England. It opened in September 2005 and was designed by the architect David Adjaye and constructed at a cost of £12 million by William Verry with engineering by Arup....

  • Will Alsop
    Will Alsop
    Will Allen Alsop, OBE RA is a British architect based in London. He is responsible for several distinctive and controversial modernist buildings, most in the United Kingdom. Alsop's buildings are usually distinguished by their use of bright colour and unusual forms...

    : Peckham Library
    Peckham Library
    Peckham Library is a library and community building situated in Peckham in south-east London. It was designed by Alsop and Störmer and won the Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2000....

    , North Greenwich tube station
    North Greenwich tube station
    North Greenwich is a station on London Underground's Jubilee Line, opened on 14 May 1999.Despite its name, North Greenwich is not in the area historically known as North Greenwich, on the Isle of Dogs, north of the river; an entirely different station used to be there, between 1872 and 1926...

  • David Chipperfield
    David Chipperfield
    Sir David Alan Chipperfield CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA is a British architect, born in London. He has offices in London, Berlin and Milan, and a representative office in Shanghai...

    : River and Rowing Museum
    River and Rowing Museum
    The River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, is located on a site at Mill Meadows by the River Thames. It has three main themes represented by major permanent galleries, the non-tidal River Thames, the international sport of rowing and the local town of...

    , Hepworth Wakefield
  • Fashion Architecture Taste
    Fashion Architecture Taste
    Fashion Architecture Taste or FAT is an art and architecture collaborative that first established itself in the 1990s in London, England. Sean Griffiths, Charles Holland and Sam Jacob are the main members of the group. Emma Somerset Davis has been a previous member and a director of the group and...

    :
  • Future Systems
    Future Systems
    Future Systems was a London-based architectural and design practice, formerly headed by Directors Jan Kaplický and Amanda Levete.Future Systems was founded by Kaplický after working with Denys Lasdun, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, and Richard Rogers...

    : Lord's Media Centre
    Lord's Media Centre
    The Lord's Media Centre, officially known as the J.P. Morgan Media Centre for sponsorship reasons, is a building at Lord's Cricket Ground, London.-History:It was designed by Future Systems and cost about £5 million...

    , Selfridges Building, Birmingham
  • Zaha Hadid
    Zaha Hadid
    Zaha Hadid, CBE is an Iraqi-British architect.-Life and career:Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.After graduating she worked...

    :London Aquatics Centre
  • Hawkins\Brown
  • Marks Barfield Architects: London Eye
    London Eye
    The London Eye is a tall giant Ferris wheel situated on the banks of the River Thames, in London, England.It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom, visited by over 3.5 million people annually...

  • Munckenbeck+Marshall
  • Maccreanor Lavington
  • Muf
    Muf
    muf is a collaborative of artists, architects and urban designers based in London, England, specialising in the design of the urban public realm to facilitate appropriation by users.- Awards :...

  • Caruso St John
    Caruso St John
    Caruso St John is an architectural firm established in 1990 by Adam Caruso and Peter St John.They have gained an international reputation for excellence in designing contemporary projects in the public realm. The practice came to public attention with the New Art Gallery in Walsall, a commission...

    : Walsall Art Gallery
    Walsall Art Gallery
    The New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery sited in the centre of the West Midlands town of Walsall, England. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and additional money from the European Regional Development...

    , Nottingham Contemporary
    Nottingham Contemporary
    Nottingham Contemporary is a contemporary art centre in the Lace Market area of Nottingham...

  • Ian Simpson: Beetham Tower, Manchester
    Beetham Tower, Manchester
    Beetham Tower is a landmark 47-storey residential skyscraper in Manchester city centre, England. Completed in 2006, it is named after the developers, Beetham Organization, was designed by Ian Simpson, and built by Carillion....

    , Urbis
    Urbis
    Urbis is an exhibition centre located in Manchester, England. From 2002 to 2010, the centre hosted changing exhibits on popular culture topics including urban living, art, music, fashion, photography and videogames alongside talks, gigs and special events....

    , No. 1 Deansgate
    No. 1 Deansgate
    No. 1 Deansgate is the name and location of a medium-rise apartment building in central Manchester, England. It is the tallest all-steel residential building in the United Kingdom and one of the most expensive addresses in Manchester...

    , Beetham Tower, Birmingham
  • Sutherland Hussey
  • Tony Fretton
    Tony Fretton
    Tony Fretton is a British architect known for his residential and public gallery buildings, as well as other British and international design work. He graduated from the Architectural Association and worked for various practices including Arup, Neyland and Ungless, and Chapman Taylor, before...

    : Lisson Gallery
    Lisson Gallery
    The Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Bell Street, Lisson Grove, London, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents such artists as Ai Weiwei, John Latham, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Jonathan Monk, Julian Opie, Richard Wentworth and Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor...

    ,
  • Wilkinson Eyre
    Wilkinson Eyre
    Wilkinson Eyre Architects is an international architecture firm based in London, England. The firm won the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize two years in a row...

    : Gateshead Millennium Bridge
    Gateshead Millennium Bridge
    The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge spanning the River Tyne in England between Gateshead's Quays arts quarter on the south bank, and the Quayside of Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. The award-winning structure was conceived and designed by architects...


See also


External links

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