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Les Espaces d'Abraxas: 'Building a Versailles for the people in Noisy-le-Grand'
The Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill's development in the suburbs of Paris is an intriguing solution to how you expand a city using unwieldy machinery.
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'A fantastic creation, with the magic of a strange, dreamed, longed-for world': Inside Schloss Charlottenhof, the Prussian royal family's exquisite sanctuary
The desire for a retreat from the cares of the Prussian court and the formality of palace protocol created Schloss Charlottenhof, Brandenburg, a neo-Classical masterpiece. Aoife Caitríona Lau explains more; photographs by Paul Highnam for Country Life.
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The magnificent London mansion that Country Life mourned when it was demolished to make room for the Dorchester Hotel
Dorchester House was once the epicentre of late-Victorian society.
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Repton: The 500-year-old school with a medieval priory whose story leads back to the kings of Mercia
The medieval Augustinian priory within the curtilage of Repton School in Derbyshire links together the history of this great public school with the Anglo-Saxon era and the Kings of Mercia. David Robinson tells its story, with photographs by Paul Highnam for Country Life.
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The striking Arts & Crafts country home with interiors by William Morris that disappeared without a trace
Rounton Grange was built using profits from the Industrial Revolution, but couldn't quite survive the economic difficulties unleashed by the Second World War
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'The Shakespeare of architects... he has yet had no equal in this country': Sir John Vanbrugh and the legacy of Blenheim Palace
To mark the tercentenary of Sir John Vanbrugh’s death, Charles Saumarez Smith considers the changing reactions to one of his greatest creations, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Photographs by Will Pryce for Country Life.
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Can you tell the difference between a trefoil and an embrasure? A pictorial guide to medieval architecture
Medieval architecture is easy to admire, but its terminology can be impenetrable. Matthew Rice's illustration unlocks it.
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Lord Byron, Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott once dined at this Jacobean mansion in London. Destroyed by The Blitz it lives on now only in the Country Life Archive
Lord Byron jockeyed for position at the table alongside Lord Melbourne and Benjamin Disraeli. Charles Dickens and Sir Walter ScottThe Holland House estate was once London's best example of early domestic Jacobean architecture in the country.
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The Picturesque Scottish castle built on land admired by Robert Burns and erased by war
Dunglass Castle, in Scotland, was once a vision of 18th century Picturesque beauty. Now it lives on only in the Country Life Archive.
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Portmeirion: A century of peculiar genius at Clough Williams-Ellis's great village experiment
2026 marks the centenary of Portmeirion, one of the most celebrated holiday villages in the British Isles. Kathryn Ferry tells the remarkable story of this Picturesque creation; photographs by John Goodall.
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The great country houses which inspired the tales of Agatha Christie, 50 years on from her death
Britain's greatest-ever crime writer set many of her murder mysteries in country houses. With the help of specially commissioned drawings by Matthew Rice, Jeremy Musson looks at the architecture of the buildings she knew — and those which she imagined.
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Find out what remains of the colossal country house whose 'corpulent buffoon' of an owner had it blown up with vast quantities of gunpowder
Melanie Bryan revisits Eastbury Park in Dorset — which was photographed for Country Life 99 years ago, decades after large parts of it were demolished.
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The light, heavenly mills that 'rival the splendour of the great palaces of Venice', built beside a canal in West Yorkshire
Over the past 40 years, a remarkable experiment has brought about the revival of an imposing and vast Victorian factory building. John Martin Robinson visits Salts Mill in Saltaire, West Yorkshire — the property of the Silver family — to find out more. Photography by Paul Highnam for Country Life.
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The 400-year-old floors perfectly preserved in the house that inspired Charles Dickens to create Miss Havisham's mansion
Most country houses demand you look up and around at what you see. At Restoration House in Rochester, you'll miss out if you don't also look down.
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Our cathedrals are 'by far the most important works of architecture in Britain', and Exeter is a perfect 21st century update to a medieval masterpiece
John Goodall looks at an ambitious restoration project to the choir and cloister of Exeter Cathedral, which was completed in 2025. Photographs by Paul Highnam and Andy Marshall.
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The real-life Manderley, and the other country houses that inspired Daphne du Maurier
The writer Daphne du Maurier was fascinated by the English country house. Jeremy Musson explores her evocation of these buildings with the help of photographs from the Country Life Image Archive and a series of specially commissioned drawings by Matthew Rice.
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Country Life's top 10 architecture stories of 2025, from the South Wales terrace with an exquisite Georgian interior, to Ireland's remarkable country houses
We look back at the most-read architecture stories on the Country Life website in 2025.
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The Houses of Guinness: A real-life 'Succession' with privileged characters, living extravagant lifestyles 'and revelling in their extraordinary lives'
The Guinness family has garnered more headlines, column inches and pages written about them than they've seen for many years. Adrian Tinniswood's book, centred on the country houses they built in the British Isles, is the best of the lot, says Timothy Mowl.
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A fate worse than demolition? The desecration of the original Bank of England, one of Georgian architecture's great masterpieces
This year is the centenary of the enlargement of the Bank of England initiated by Sir Herbert Baker. Clive Aslet asks whether the project deserves its reputation as an unforgivable act of architectural desecration. Photographs by John Goodall.
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John Goodall: Restoration is 'an act of recycling', but we need a system that encourages it
New-build is exempt from VAT, but the construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of global emissions of carbon dioxide. Something needs to change, says Country Life's architectural editor.
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170 years ago, a river of excrement ran through the centre of London, spreading stench, disease and death. The engineer and architect who cleaned it up deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Christopher Wren
The architect and engineer Joseph Bazalgette made a contribution to British life and the wellbeing of its people that cannot be overstated. Kate Green celebrates his life and legacy.
