Clive Aslet (born 15 February 1955) is a writer on British architecture and life, a Visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and publisher of Triglyph Books. For 13 years he was the Editor of Country Life magazine.
Aslet was educated at King's College School in Wimbledon and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he earned a degree in the history of architecture. [1]
After graduating, he joined Country Life magazine in 1977 as architectural writer, becoming architectural editor in 1984, deputy editor in 1989, and editor-in-chief in 1993. In 1997 he was named British Society of Magazine Editors' Editor of the Year. After 13 years as editor-in-chief, from 13 March 2006, Aslet left and took on a newly created role of editor-at-large, which allowed him to write more books as well as articles for newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and The Sunday Times. He has regularly broadcast on radio and television current affairs programmes including Newsnight . [2]
Aslet has published over 30 books, including, in 2012, his first novel, The Birdcage.
In 2019, he established the publishing imprint Triglyph Books with the photographer Dylan Thomas.
Two years later he was one of the small team that founded the Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture at Downing College, Cambridge.
Aslet is the author of:
Cragside is a Victorian Tudor Revival country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. The estate was technologically advanced; the architect of the house, Richard Norman Shaw, wrote that it was equipped with "wonderful hydraulic machines that do all sorts of things". In the grounds, Armstrong built dams and lakes to power a sawmill, a water-powered laundry, early versions of a dishwasher and a dumb waiter, a hydraulic lift and a hydroelectric rotisserie. In 1887, Armstrong was raised to the peerage, the first engineer or scientist to be ennobled, and became Baron Armstrong of Cragside.
Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is published by Future plc. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when moved to Farnborough, Hampshire. In 2022, the magazine moved back to London at 121 – 141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington.
Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, 3rd Baronet, was a British politician and aristocrat. He served as a staff officer during the First World War, from July 1914 to November 1918.
Daniel Gordon Raffan Cruickshank is a British art historian and BBC television presenter, with a special interest in the history of architecture.
Tudor Revival architecture, also known as mock Tudor in the UK, first manifested in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture, in reality it usually took the style of English vernacular architecture of the Middle Ages that had survived into the Tudor period.
John Martin Robinson FSA is a British architectural historian and officer of arms.
Henry Dermot Ponsonby Moore, 12th Earl of Drogheda, is a British photographer known professionally as Derry Moore. He inherited the title of Earl of Drogheda from his father, The 11th Earl of Drogheda. He had the right to use the courtesy title Viscount Moore from November 1957 until December 1989.
Alan Powers is a British teacher, researcher and writer on twentieth-century architecture and design.
John Frederick Harris OBE was an English curator, historian of architecture, gardens and architectural drawings, and the author of more than 25 books and catalogues, and 200 articles. He was a Fellow and Curator Emeritus of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, founding Trustee of Save Britain's Heritage and Save Europe's Heritage, and founding member and Honorary Life President of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums.
Gavin Mark Stamp was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian.
Mark Girouard was a British architectural historian. He was an authority on the country house, and Elizabethan and Victorian architecture.
Unilever House is a Grade II listed office building in the Neoclassical Art Deco style, located on New Bridge Street, Victoria Embankment in Blackfriars, London. The building has a tall, curving frontage which overlooks Blackfriars Bridge on the north bank of the River Thames.
Giles Arthington Worsley was an English architectural historian, author, editor, journalist and critic, specialising in British country houses.
Port Lympne, at Lympne, Kent is an early 20th-century country house built for Sir Philip Sassoon, 3rd Baronet by Herbert Baker and Philip Tilden. Completed after the First World War. Following Sassoon's death in 1939 it was bequeathed with its contents, including cars and planes, to Hannah Gubbay, his cousin. It was abandoned after the Second World War. In 1973, it was purchased by John Aspinall as part of an expansion of his Port Lympne Zoo. The house is a Grade II* listed building as of 29 December 1966.
Orchards is an Arts and Crafts style house in Bramley in Surrey, England. It is on Bramley's boundary with Busbridge and 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of Godalming town centre. Described by English Heritage as the first major work of architect Edwin Lutyens, it is a Grade I listed building. The gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The property is privately owned.
Tigbourne Court is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Wormley, Surrey, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Witley. It was designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, using a mixture of 17th-century style vernacular architecture and classical elements, and has been called "probably his best" building, for its architectural geometry, wit and texture. It was completed in 1901. English Heritage have designated it a Grade I listed building.
Ryston Hall, Ryston, Norfolk, England is a 17th-century country house built by Sir Roger Pratt for himself. The house was constructed between 1669 and 1672 in the Carolean style. In the late 18th century, John Soane made alterations to the house, and further work on the building was carried out by Anthony Salvin in the mid-19th century. Ryston Hall is a Grade II* listed building.
Ashorne Hill House, Ashorne, Warwickshire, England is a late Victorian country house built for Arthur and Ethel Tree by the architect Edward Goldie between 1895 and 1897. Arthur Tree, son of the American lawyer and diplomat, Lambert Tree, and his wife, the Marshall Field's heiress, had moved to England in the later 19th century and established themselves as country gentry. They purchased the Ashorne estate in 1892 and Goldie was commissioned to build a new house in the Arts & Crafts style. The house, now a management training college, is a Grade II listed building.
Norman Adolphus Evill FRIBA was an English architect and draughtsman, apprenticed to Edwin Lutyens.
Crowhurst Place, Crowhurst, Surrey, England is a medieval hall house dating from the early 15th century. In the 20th century, the house was reconstructed and enlarged by George A. Crawley, firstly for himself and subsequently for Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough. It is a Grade I listed building.