BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, known as the Neasden Temple, is a traditional place of Hindu worship designed and constructed entirely according to ancient Vedic architectural texts. Using traditional materials with no structural steel whatsoever, it has been described as Britain's first authentic Hindu temple.
‘If you seek his memorial, look around you.’ So reads Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, his masterpiece. He was commissioned to build a new cathedral after the Great Fire of London in 1666 in which the previous St Paul’s was reduced to ashes. The current St Paul’s took 35 years to build and is the only Renaissance Cathedral in England.
Built by Northamptonshire squire Sir Thomas Tresham in 16th century in a remote corner of the grounds of Rushton Hall near Corby, the Triangular Lodge has three storeys and three sides, each 33ft long, with three bays, three gables and three triangular windows, in celebration of the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Holy Trinity, Sloane Square was designed by John Dando Sedding in 1888 and completed after his death by his assistant Henry Wilson. It was described by Sir John Betjeman as the ‘Cathedral of the Arts & Crafts Movement’ and the great East Window, designed by Edward Burne-Jones and put in by William Morris & Co. is especially magnificent.
Rievaulx Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey set in a remote valley of the North York Moors National Park near Helmsley. It was one of the great abbeys in England until it was seized by Henry VIII of England in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It is one of the most complete, and atmospheric, of England's abbey ruins.
William St Clair, founder of Rosslyn Chapel, brought home from his travels a picture of a pillar that he had admired in Italy and commanded his mason to carve a similar one for the chapel. The mason found himself unequal to the task, so he went off to Italy to examine the original. When he returned the mason was distraught to discover that his apprentice, inspired by a dream, had already carved out the exquisite pillar that we see there now by himself - quite naturally the mason had no choice but to slay the impudent apprentice on the spot.