The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative chambers which occupy the building. The palace is one of the centres of political life in the United Kingdom; "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and the British Government, and the Westminster system of government commemorates the name of the palace. The Elizabeth Tower of the palace, nicknamed Big Ben, is a landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general. The palace has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of 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, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded toward the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was initially a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new Norman ruling class. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 until 1952, although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.
Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. It originated in the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France. The style at the time was sometimes known as opus Francigenum ; the term Gothic was first applied contemptuously during the later Renaissance, by those ambitious to revive the architecture of classical antiquity.
Magdalen College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and one of the strongest academically, setting the record for the highest Norrington Score in 2010 and topping the table twice since then. It is home to several of the university's distinguished chairs, including the Agnelli-Serena Professorship, the Sherardian Professorship, and the four Waynflete Professorships.
Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, 400 yards south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the opposite bank.
Esher is a town in the borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole.
William Waynflete, born William Patten, was Headmaster of Winchester College (1429–1441), Provost of Eton College (1442–1447), Bishop of Winchester (1447–1486) and Lord Chancellor of England (1456–1460). He founded Magdalen College, Oxford, and three subsidiary schools, namely Magdalen College School in Oxford, Magdalen College School, Brackley in Northamptonshire and Wainfleet All Saints in Lincolnshire.
Claremont Landscape Garden, just outside Esher, Surrey, England, is one of the earliest surviving gardens of its kind of landscape design, the English Landscape Garden — still featuring its original 18th-century layout. The garden is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.
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.
Historic Royal Palaces is an independent charity that manages the United Kingdom's unoccupied royal palaces:
A fan vault is a form of vault used in the Gothic style, in which the ribs are all of the same curve and spaced equidistantly, in a manner resembling a fan. The initiation and propagation of this design element is strongly associated with England.
Edward Blore was a 19th-century English landscape and architectural artist, architect and antiquary.
The architecture of Russia refers to the architecture of modern Russia as well as the architecture of both the original Kievan Rus', the Russian principalities, and Imperial Russia. Due to the geographical size of modern and Imperial Russia, it typically refers to architecture built in European Russia, as well as European influenced architecture in the conquered territories of the Empire.
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.
Esher Place is a Grade-II listed country house, since 1953 used as a college by the trade union Unite, in Esher, Surrey, United Kingdom. The building is at least the fourth on approximately the same site and mainly dates to the 1890s. It incorporates traces and small parts of some its earlier forebears.
Lionel Gordon Baliol Brett, 4th Viscount Esher, 4th Baron Esher CBE was a British peer, architect and town-planner. He succeeded to his title on the death of his father in 1963.
Watlington Park is an English country house with its surrounding grounds of approximately 500 acres (200 ha), located atop an escarpment in the Chiltern Hills, approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) southwest of Christmas Common and 1.4 miles (2.3 km) southeast of Watlington, Oxfordshire.
Perpendicular Gothic architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-centred arches, straight vertical and horizontal lines in the tracery, and regular arch-topped rectangular panelling. Perpendicular was the prevailing style of Late Gothic architecture in England from the 14th century to the 17th century. Perpendicular was unique to the country: no equivalent arose in Continental Europe or elsewhere in the British-Irish Isles. Of all the Gothic architectural styles, Perpendicular was the first to experience a second wave of popularity from the 18th century on in Gothic Revival architecture.
Holy Trinity Church, Theale is a Church of England parish church in the Diocese of Oxford. It was completed in 1832 in the Early English style, influenced by Salisbury Cathedral. The church is a Grade I listed building.
