The architecture of the United Kingdom, or British architecture, consists of a combination of architectural styles, dating as far back to Roman architecture, to the present day 21st century contemporary. England has seen the most influential developments,[1] though Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have each fostered unique styles and played leading roles in the international history of architecture.[1] Although there are prehistoric and classical structures in the United Kingdom, British architectural history effectively begins with the first Anglo-Saxon Christian churches, built soon after Augustine of Canterbury arrived in Great Britain in 597.[1]Norman architecture was built on a vast scale throughout Great Britain and Ireland from the 11th century onwards in the form of castles and churches to help impose Norman authority upon their dominions.[1]English Gothic architecture, which flourished between 1180 until around 1520, was initially imported from France, but quickly developed its own unique qualities.[1]
Beyond the United Kingdom, the influence of British architecture is evident in most of its former colonies and current territories across the globe. The influence is particularly strong in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan[4] the result of British rule in India in the 19th and 20th centuries. The cities of Lahore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Chittagong have courts, administrative buildings and railway stations designed in British architectural styles.[4] In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a "nationally important" archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. A listed building is a building or other structure decreed as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance; it is a widely used status, applied to around half a million buildings in the UK, enacted by provisions in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1947.
Within the United Kingdom are the ruins of prehistoric structures and ancient neolithic settlements. The architecture of ancient Rome penetrated Roman Britain with "elegant villas, carefully planned towns and engineering marvels like Hadrian's Wall".[6] After the Roman departure from Britain in around the year 400, Romano-British culture flourished but left few architectural remnants, partly because many buildings were made of wood, and partly because the society had passed into the Dark Ages. Similarly, Anglo-Saxons brought a "sophisticated building style of their own" to Britain, but little physical evidence survives because the principal building material was wood.[6]
Throughout Britain and Ireland, simplicity and functionality prevailed in building styles. Castles, such as Alnwick Castle, Caernarfon Castle and Stirling Castle served military purpose and their battlements and turrets were practical solutions to medieval warfare.[6] Under the feudal system that dominated Britain, fitness for purpose characterised domestic structures, particularly for the lower classes. For many, houses were "dark, primitive structures of one or two rooms, usually with crude timber frames, low walls and thatched roofs. They weren't built to last. And they didn't".[6] Although primarily homes, manor houses of the Late Middle Ages, were designed with achieving respect and maintaining status through their hospitality and lordship rather than the grandeur of their buildings.[6] In the Kingdom of England, Perpendicular style gained preference for civic and church structures throughout much of the Middle Ages. King's College Chapel in Cambridge, which started in 1446 and was completed in 1515, marks the period of transition between Perpendicular and Tudor style architecture.[6]
Between 1500 and 1660 Britain experienced a social, cultural and political change owing to the Union of the Crowns (the accession of James VI, King of Scots, to the throne of England) and the Protestant Reformation.[8] Although Britain became more unified and stable, it became more isolated from continental Europe. Catholic monasteries were closed, and their lands were redistributed, creating new "rich and ambitious" landowners.[8] The architecture of Britain this period reflects these changes; church building declined dramatically, supplanted by the construction of mansions and manor houses. Clergyman William Harrison noted in his Description of England (1577), "Each one desireth to set his house aloft on the hill, to be seen afar off, and cast forth his beams of stately and curious workmanship into every quarter of the country."[6]
A greater sense of security led to "more outward-looking buildings", as opposed to the Medieval, inward facing buildings constructed for defence.[6] However, owing to troublesome relations with Catholic Europe, the free exchange of ideas was difficult meaning new Renaissance architecture was generally slow to arrive in Britain.[6] Increasingly isolated from the continent, landowners relied on new architectural books for inspiration, as well as surveyors to interpret designs.[8] This allowed for much more in the way of the ornamental facades of Italianate architecture to penetrate the architecture of Great Britain; room sizes were increased (as an expensive commodity), and there was also a general move towards balanced and symmetrical exteriors with central entrances, all used as statements of wealth.[6] Medieval Gothic architectural forms were gradually dropped, and mansions and other large domestic buildings became "varied and playful".[8] Ultimately drawing upon ancient Hellenistic art, Inigo Jones is credited as Britain's first classically inspired architect,[8] providing designs as "sophisticated as anything being built in Italy",[8] such as Queen's House and Banqueting House, both in London. For the majority of the people of Great Britain however, domestic buildings were of poor design and materials, meaning few examples from the early modern period have survived.[8] Most buildings remained tied to the locality, and local materials shaped buildings.[8] Furthermore, the buildings of the 16th century were also governed by fitness for purpose.[6] However, more stable and sophisticated houses for those lower down the social scale gradually appeared, replacing timber with stone and, later, brick.[6] The arrival of Flemish people in the 16th and 17th centuries introduced Protestant craftsmen and pattern-books from the Low Countries that also prompted the multiplication of weavers' cottages.[6]
During the Victorian era, Belfast flaunted its economic prowess with "splendid" Victorian architecture, among them Belfast City Hall, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast Castle, the Belfast Botanic Gardens, Albert Memorial Clock, and the ornate Crown Liquor Saloon.[20] Early 20th century landmarks include a number of schools built for Belfast Corporation in the 1930s by R S Wilshere.[21] Notables include the severe, sturdy, 1936 brick built Belfast School of Music on Donegall Pass and the Whitla Hall at Queen's University Belfast, designed by John McGeagh.[22] Belfast has examples of art deco architecture such a such as the Bank of Ireland and Sinclair's department store on Royal Avenue and the Floral Hall at Bellevue.[22] Many of Belfast's oldest buildings are found in the Cathedral Quarter. Prominent Northern Irish architects include R S Wilshere and McGeogh, cinema architect James McBride Neil, and Dennis O’D Hanna, part of the "Ulster Unit" group of self-consciously modern artists and craftspeople, promoted by poet and curator John Hewitt.[22]
Castle Stalker is one of Scotland's most iconic buildings, and amongst the best-preserved examples of medieval tower houses in Britain.
Scotland is known for its "dramatically placed castles, fused onto defensive ridges and rocky islands".[24] Many of these date from Scotland in the Middle Ages. In contrast to England, which embarked on Elizabethan houses, Scotland saw the building of castles and fortified houses continue well into the 17th century, and many were constructed in a building-boom following the Scottish Reformation.[6] The most distinctive Scottish fortification at this time was the tower house.[24] The grandest medieval Scottish castles are composed of a series of courtyards, with a keep at their centre, but the lone keep-towers were more common, particularly amongst Scottish feudal barons. Some of Scotland's most famous medieval fortifications include Castle Stalker and Stirling Castle. More recent, Jacobean era castles include Edinburgh Castle and Craigievar Castle. The arrival of the cannon made high-walled castles defensively impractical and obsolete,[24] but the fortification genre evolved into a style in its own right; Scots Baronial Style architecture has an emphasis on turrets and strong vertical lines drawn from tower houses, and constitutes one of Scotland's "most distinctive contributions to British architecture".[6]
The new political stability, made possible by the Act of Union,[10] allowed for renewed prosperity in Scotland, which led to a spate of new building, both public and private, during the 18th century. Scotland produced "the most important British architects of this age": Colen Campbell, James Gibbs and Robert Adam were Scots interpreting the first phase of Classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome in Palladian architecture.[10]Edinburgh's New Town was the focus of this classical building boom, resulting in the city being nicknamed "The Athens of the North" on account both of its intellectual output from the Scottish Enlightenment and the city's neo-classical architecture.[25] Together with Edinburgh's Old Town, it constitutes one of the United Kingdom's World Heritage Sites.[26]
Christian architecture in Scotland has a distinct style; The Royal Institute of British Architects have stated that "Scottish churches are peculiarly plain, low and often quite humble buildings".[27] The Scottish Reformation revolutionised church architecture in Scotland, because the Scottish Calvinists rejected ornamental places of worship and few churches escaped their attention.[28] This tradition of geometric purity became prominent in Scottish architecture thereafter, but never became popular in England.[28] Similarly, Scotland has produced some of the most idiosyncratic of architects such as James, John and Robert Adam, Alexander Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which all relate to popular trends in Scottish architecture; all however created Scottish stylistic interpretations and often deliberately injecting traditional Scottish forms into their work.[28] The Adam brothers were leaders of the first phase of the classical revival in the Kingdom of Great Britain.[29]
As stated by Sir Simon Jenkins, "Wales has a very long and porous border with England", which had a major influence upon the architecture of Wales.[30] Many Welsh landmark buildings were designed and built by Englishmen, such as the Romanesque-revival Penrhyn Castle near Bangor, a design by Thomas Hopper that blended Norman, Regency and early-Victorian architecture for an English MP who had inherited a vast Welsh estate.[30]
During the mid-20th century, Britain saw the construction of hundreds of tower blocks—particularly in largest cities—to replace Victorian era slums. This image shows Red Road in Glasgow.
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 1050s, the Normans began to build motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories in England and the Welsh Marches. During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone – with characteristic square keep – that played both military and political roles. Royal castles were used to control key towns and the economically important forests, while baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates. David I invited Anglo-Norman lords into Scotland in the early 12th century to help him colonise and control areas of his kingdom such as Galloway; the new lords brought castle technologies with them and wooden castles began to be established over the south of the kingdom. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 1170s, under Henry II, castles were established there too.
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, Cadw in Wales, and the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland. The classification schemes differ between England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The term has also been used in the Republic of Ireland, where buildings are protected under the Planning and Development Act 2000, although the statutory term in Ireland is "protected structure".
Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century, mostly in England. Increasingly serious and learned admirers sought to revive medieval Gothic architecture, intending to complement or even supersede the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. Gothic Revival draws upon features of medieval examples, including decorative patterns, finials, lancet windows, and hood moulds. By the middle of the 19th century, Gothic Revival had become the pre-eminent architectural style in the Western world, only to begin to fall out of fashion in the 1880s and early 1890s.
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England 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. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.
Castles are buildings that combine fortifications and residence, and many were built within the borders of modern Scotland. They arrived in Scotland with the introduction of feudalism in the twelfth century. Initially these were wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. During the Wars of Independence, Robert the Bruce pursued a policy of castle slighting. In the Late Middle Ages, new castles were built, some on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles that could support a large garrison. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment.
The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used for English Romanesque architecture. The Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications including Norman keeps, and at the same time monasteries, abbeys, churches and cathedrals, in a style characterised by the usual Romanesque rounded arches and especially massive proportions compared to other regional variations of the style.
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 castle fall to an adversary. The first keeps were made of timber and formed a key part of the motte-and-bailey castles that emerged in Normandy and Anjou during the 10th century; the design spread to England, Portugal, south Italy and Sicily. As a result of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, use spread into Wales during the second half of the 11th century and into Ireland in the 1170s. The Anglo-Normans and French rulers began to build stone keeps during the 10th and 11th centuries, including Norman keeps, with a square or rectangular design, and circular shell keeps. Stone keeps carried considerable political as well as military importance and could take a decade or more to build.
The architecture of Ireland is one of the most visible features in the Irish countryside – with remains from all eras since the Stone Age abounding. Ireland is famous for its ruined and intact Norman and Anglo-Irish castles, small whitewashed thatched cottages and Georgian urban buildings. What are unaccountably somewhat less famous are the still complete Palladian and Rococo country houses which can be favourably compared to anything similar in northern Europe, and the country's many Gothic and neo-Gothic cathedrals and buildings.
The architecture of England is the architecture of modern England and in the historic Kingdom of England. It often includes 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, which developed into the Commonwealth of Nations.
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who dominated rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses.
Francis William Petre, sometimes known as Frank Petre, was a New Zealand-born architect based in Dunedin. He was an able exponent of the Gothic revival style, one of its best practitioners in New Zealand. He followed the Catholic Church's initiative to build places of worship in Anglo-Saxon countries inspired by Romance forms of architecture. His basilica Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, in Christchurch was demolished in 2021.
Scottish baronial or Scots baronial is an architectural style of 19th-century Gothic Revival which revived the forms and ornaments of historical architecture of Scotland in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Reminiscent of Scottish castles, buildings in the Scots baronial style are characterised by elaborate rooflines embellished with conical roofs, tourelles, and battlements with machicolations, often with an asymmetric plan. Popular during the fashion for Romanticism and the Picturesque, Scots baronial architecture was equivalent to the Jacobethan Revival of 19th-century England, and likewise revived the Late Gothic appearance of the fortified domestic architecture of the elites in the Late Middle Ages and the architecture of the Jacobean era.
London's architectural heritage involves many architectural styles from different historical periods. London's architectural eclecticism stems from its long history, continual redevelopment, destruction by the Great Fire of London and The Blitz, and state recognition of private property rights which have limited large-scale state planning. This sets London apart from other European capitals such as Paris and Rome which are more architecturally homogeneous. London's architecture ranges from the Romanesque central keep of The Tower of London, the great Gothic church of Westminster Abbey, the Palladian royal residence Queen's House, Christopher Wren's Baroque masterpiece St Paul's Cathedral, the High Victorian Gothic of The Palace of Westminster, the industrial Art Deco of Battersea Power Station, the post-war Modernism of The Barbican Estate and the Postmodern skyscraper 30 St Mary Axe 'The Gherkin'.
Architecture in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, dates from Norman times to the present day. Its urban fabric is largely Victorian and later, reflecting Cardiff's rise to prosperity as a major coal port in the 19th century. No single building style is associated with Cardiff, but the city centre retains several 19th and early 20th century shopping arcades.
The architecture of Scotland includes all human building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the Neolithic era to the present day. The earliest surviving houses go back around 9500 years, and the first villages 6000 years: Skara Brae on the Mainland of Orkney being the earliest preserved example in Europe. Crannogs, roundhouses, each built on an artificial island, date from the Bronze Age and stone buildings called Atlantic roundhouses and larger earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans from about 71 AD led to the creation of forts like that at Trimontium, and a continuous fortification between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde known as the Antonine Wall, built in the second century AD. Beyond Roman influence, there is evidence of wheelhouses and underground souterrains. After the departure of the Romans there were a series of nucleated hill forts, often utilising major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dunbarton.
The architecture of Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all building within the modern borders of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Northern Britain in the early fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, and includes vernacular, ecclesiastical, royal, aristocratic and military constructions. The first surviving houses in Scotland go back 9500 years. There is evidence of different forms of stone and wooden houses exist and earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans led to the abandonment of many of these forts. After the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, there is evidence of the building of a series of smaller "nucleated" constructions sometimes utilizing major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dumbarton. In the following centuries new forms of construction emerged throughout Scotland that would come to define the landscape.
Architecture in early modern Scotland encompasses all building within the borders of the kingdom of Scotland, from the early sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. The time period roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the start of the Enlightenment and Industrialisation.
Estate houses in Scotland or Scottish country houses, are large houses usually on landed estates in Scotland. They were built from the sixteenth century, after defensive castles began to be replaced by more comfortable residences for royalty, nobility and local lairds. The origins of Scottish estate houses are in aristocratic emulation of the extensive building and rebuilding of royal residences, beginning with Linlithgow, under the influence of Renaissance architecture. In the 1560s the unique Scottish style of the Scots baronial emerged, which combined features from medieval castles, tower houses, and peel towers with Renaissance plans, in houses designed primarily for residence rather than defence.
Architecture of Wales is an overview of architecture in Wales from the medieval period to the present day, excluding castles and fortifications, ecclesiastical architecture and industrial architecture. It covers the history of domestic, commercial, and administrative architecture.
This is an alphabetical index of articles related to architecture.
MacGibbon, David; Ross, Thomas; Ross, Thomas (1896). The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland: From the Earliest Christian times to the Seventeenth Century. Vol.1. D. Douglas.
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