The head of English Heritage,
Dr Simon Thurley, chooses his top ten most important buildings in England’s
architectural history.
1. Westminster
Abbey (c.960)
Coronation
church and mausoleum of kings and queens since the 960s, it was here that
Edward the Confessor developed the style known as Norman and Henry VIII started a gothic refurbishment which took nearly 3 centuries to complete.
2. Rievaulx
Abbey, North Yorkshire (1147-67)
England’s
most beautiful ruin, built in a remote valley by Cistercian monks and one of
the first built in the gothic style with pointed arches.
3. King’s
Bench Walk, Temple, London (1677)
A
prime example of a new type of house developed in James I’s London, first known
as a “row house” and later a terrace. This housing style became the backbone of
the city after the Great Fire of London.
4. The Peckwater Quadrangle, Christ
Church, Oxford (1707)
Designed
by Dean Aldrich, this courtyard was built to house rich undergraduates in a
style rigorously faithful to ancient Roman buildings. The style was taken up by
the circle of the royal court and was adopted for houses, public buildings and
churches everywhere.
5. Ditherington Flax Mill, Shrewsbury
(1797)
The
world’s first incombustible iron-framed building and ancestor to every large
building with a steel frame today, from supermarkets to skyscrapers.
6. A&G Murray Mills, Ancoats,
Manchester (1801)
A&G
Murray’s mills were the first in which manufacturing processes were all powered
by steam and look, at a distance, like a Georgian street, but behind the iron
casements, they drove the largest economy the world had ever seen.
7. Liverpool Road Railway Station,
Manchester (1830)
The
world’s first passenger railway station is a modest but reassuring-looking
building. By blending Avant-garde engineering with reassuringly familiar
architectural styles, architects managed to create an atmosphere of confidence.
8. No 6 Slip, Chatham Historic Dockyard
(1847)
Naval
engineers pushed the limits of technology to build and equip the Navy, and one
of the most important advances was the construction of massive free-standing
iron sheds called “slips”, under which ships were built. These were the first
wide-spanned metal structures in the world.
9. All Saints, Margaret Street, London
(1849)
It
was here that architecture and engineering first fused to create a new language
for the Victorian era. William Butterfield saw the possibilities of coloured
and engineered brick for making modern buildings that were both decorative and
functional.
10. Bedford Park, London (from 1877)
This
mix of brick-built semi-detached and detached Victorian houses in wide streets
with deep gardens became the aspiration of millions. Such suburbs, and cheaper
imitations of them, were built all over England from the 1880s.
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