Buildings and Monuments

This page is a bit of a mish–mash – basically, it covers anything (about buildings and other man–made edifices, obviously) that isn't covered anywhere else in the Buildings and Architecture category.

Britain

Please note that buildings in London are likely to be covered on the London page.

Prisons on the Isle of Wight (since the closure of Camp Hill in 2013): Parkhurst and		Albany
Seat of the Dukes of Northumberland since the mid–19th century (owned by the Percy family since the 13th): used as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, and as a setting for other films and TV programmes including Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), The Black Adder (1983), Robin of Sherwood (1984–6), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Star Trek: the Next Generation (1991), The Fast Show (1995) and Downton Abbey (used for Brancaster Castle in the 2014 and 2015 Christmas specials)		Alnwick Castle
Features a complex of formal gardens, originally laid down in 1750 and landscaped by Capability Brown, but which fell into disrepair following World War II when it was used to grow food as part of the Dig for Victory campaign; restored in the early years of the 21st century (2001–4); a Poison Garden was added in 2005, and subsequently became one of the main visitor attractions
Scotland's biggest prison, in terms of the number of prisoners it can accommodate		Barlinnie
London landmark: built in two stages in the 1930s and 1950s, largely unused since 1983; featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals, with a giant inflatable pig floating above it		Battersea Power Station
Public house on Whitechapel Road, in the East End of London: the former brewery tap of the Manns Albion brewery, where the first modern Brown Ale was brewed; known as the place where William Booth preached his first sermon, leading to the creation of the Salvation Army, and where Ronnie Kray murdered George Cornell (in front of witnesses)		The Blind Beggar
Benedictine abbey in Devon: founded in AD 1018, present building begun in 1907, consecrated in 1932 and completed in 1938; now famous for its tonic wine		Buckfast Abbey
Grade II listed building at the southern end of Kingsway, between Aldwych and Strand, London: home to the BBC World Service from 1941 until 2012		Bush House
Britain's second–largest castle, after Windsor (area approximately 30 acres)		Caerphilly
Popular nickname for the Leadenhall Building (122 Leadenhall Street, London – completed in 2014)		The Cheese Grater
Built in 1851 to house the Great Exhibition; moved (from Hyde Park to Penge Park in south London) in 1854, destroyed by fire in 1936		Crystal Palace
Gothic revival castle near Ayr, in south–west Scotland, designed by Robert Adam in the late 18th century; used as the home of Lord Summerisle in the 1973 film The Wicker Man; has a room dedicated to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower		Culzean Castle
Mons Meg – a 15th century bombard (cannon) – is on display at		Edinburgh Castle
The Scottish crown jewels are also kept in
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh – often considered to be his masterpiece – and built between 1879 and 1909; badly damaged by fire in 2014, and again in 2018		Glasgow School of Art
Brighton hotel bombed by the IRA during the Conservative Party conference in 1984		Grand Hotel
The Monument, London, commemorates		Great Fire of London
Scarborough hotel that collapsed into the sea in 1993		Holbeck Hall
Hotel next to Manchester United's Old Trafford ground, part–owned by five members of United's 'Class of '92' (Butt, Giggs, Scholes and the Nevilles): opened in 2015, the first in a planned global chain		Hotel Football
Late mediaeval fortress: given in 1553 (at the end of Edward VI's reign) to John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, the head of Edward's government; after his execution for enthroning his daughter–in–law Jane Grey, it was given by Elizabeth I in 1563 to his son, and her favourite, Robert Dudley (soon to become Earl of Leicester)		Kenilworth Castle
On the site of St. James's Palace, prior to Henry VIII's reign		Leper hospital
The original entrance to Buckingham Palace; moved in 1847–51 to the site where Tyburn gallows stood from the 12th century until 1783 (junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane and Bayswater Road)		Marble Arch
In 1957, the American Bar Association created a memorial (designed by Sir Edward Maufe) to		Magna Carta
Official name is the Central Criminal Court (of Justice); stands on the site formerly occupied by Newgate Prison		Old Bailey
Public house in Combe Martin, Devon: has four floors, with 13 rooms on each floor, and a total of 52 windows		Pack o' Cards
The building in which the Lords and the Commons meet (popularly known as the Houses of Parliament)		Palace of Westminster
Popular name, after the hill on which it stands, for the monument built in 1844 in memory of the 1st Earl of Durham – a half–size replica of an ancient Greek temple, now in the city of Sunderland, but plainly visible from the A1(M)		Penshaw Monument
Brighton has two, Blackpool has three		Piers
Public house in Prescot, Merseyside: named in honour of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, in whose constituency it stands		Pipe & Gannex
London's Monument stands in		Pudding Lane
Britain's most common pub name, according to most sources – although CAMRA (in 2006) had it second to The Crown, by some distance		Red Lion
14–storey block of flats in Newham, east London that collapsed in 1968, two months after completion		Ronan Point
Home of the Chelsea Pensioners; Chelsea Flower Show is held in its grounds		Royal Hospital, Chelsea
White Lodge, Richmond Park: former royal residence, now houses thet		Royal School of Ballet
Overlooks Loch Ness: on a headland beside the A82 road, 13 miles from Inverness and 1 mile from the village of Drumnadrochit		Urquhart Castle
Ornate public building in Manchester, opened in 1906 and closed in 1993: won the first BBC TV Restoration series in 2003		Victoria Baths
Originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068; sold to the Tussauds Group in 1978, after which it became a tourist attraction (see Merlin Entertainments); home to the world's largest trebuchet or catapult (built in 2005 to a Danish design)		Warwick Castle
Guy's Tower, Caesar's Tower (a.k.a. Poitier Tower), and the Watergate, Bear and Clarence Towers, are features of
The World's largest inhabited castle; Europe's longest–occupied royal palace		Windsor
Home of BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, since 2006 (used by the BBC since 1953): previously Western House, renamed in 2016		Wogan House

Britain: Lighthouses

At the westernmost tip of the Scilly Isles (listed by Guinness as the world's smallest island that has a building on it)		Bishop Rock
20 miles south–west of Plymouth; first built 1698 by Henry Winstanley; destroyed successively by storm, fire and erosion		Eddystone
Off the Fife coast – approx. 12 miles from the mouth of the Tay – completed in 1811, said to be the world's oldest surviving sea–washed lighthouse; based on the third Eddystone lighthouse, which was replaced around 1880 and now stands on Plymouth Hoe		Inchcape or Bell Rock
2km or 1.5 miles west of Land's End		Longships
Island off Unst, Shetland, that has Britain's most northerly lighthouse; often said to be Britain's most northerly island, although that honour actually belongs to Out Stack, about 1 mile further north; when the lighthouse was manned, this was Britain's most northerly inhabited island		Muckle Flugga
Britain's last manned lighthouse (Kent – went automatic 1998)		North Foreland
East of the Scilly Isles, 9 miles south–west of Land's End		Wolf Rock

Rest of Europe

Commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806, following his victory at Austerlitz (at the height of his fortunes)			Arc de Triomphe
Built in 1961, demolished in 1989; officially known as the Anti–Fascist Protection Rampart			Berlin Wall
Building on Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street), Dublin: occupied by rebel forces on Easter Monday 1916, and used as their headquarters during the so–called Easter Rising			General Post Office
Complex of buildings in Paris – originally a home for retired soldiers – where many French war heroes, including Napoelon Bonaparte, are buried			Les Invalides
Former prison in Moscow that housed the headquarters of the KGB			Lublyanka
Monument in O'Connell Street, Dublin – blown up in 1966			Nelson's Pillar
Former church in Paris: burial place of French luminaries such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Zola, Marie Curie			Panthéon
High–class government–run hotels, formerly stately homes, castles and palaces	Spain		Paradors
	Portugal		Poussadas
Temple on the Acropolis of Athens, dedicated to the goddess Athena: the original home of the Elgin Marbles			Parthenon
Building in Paris that houses a Public Information Library, France's National Museum of Modern Art (Europe's largest museum for modern art), and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research; known locally as the Beaubourg (after the area in which it's located); completed 1977, and named after the French president who commissioned it			Pompidou Centre
Hotel in Lamotte–Beuvron (a small town in central France) that gave its name to a type of upside–down apple tart, created there accidentally in the 1880s			Hotel Tatin
French chateau said to have been the model for Perrault's Sleeping Beauty			Usse (Loire Valley)

USA

Building in Washington DC that houses the US Congress		The Capitol
Historic New York hotel where Dylan Thomas and Nancy Spungen both died, and where Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey; other residents have included Bob Dylan, Brendan Behan, Janis Joplin, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop		Chelsea Hotel
The Home Insurance Building – 180 feet (54.9 meters) high, and considered the world's first skyscraper (completed in 1885, demolished in 1931) was in (US city)		Chicago
New York skyscraper, built between 1928 and 1930; it was the world's tallest building, until it was eclipsed by the Empire State building the following year; the best–known work of architect William van Alen		Chrysler Building
Famous apartment block in New York, built in the 1880s, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976; John Lennon lived in it from 1973 and was shot outside it in 1980; the reason for the name is obscure		Dakota Building
Nickname of the Fuller Building, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York: built 1903, triangular section, one of the first skyscrapers (the English American Building, in Atlanta, Georgia, built 5 years earlier, has the same nickname)		Flatiron Building
Famous concert and sporting venue in New York: built in the 1960s over Pennsylvania Station		Madison Square Garden
Los Angeles hotel, 26 storeys, gutted in 1980 by one of the USA's worst–ever fires		MGM Grand
Headquarters of the US Department of Defense, for which its name has become a metonym: opened in 1943, it was the world's largest office building (150 acres) until 2023 when it was surpassed by the Surat Diamond Bourse – a diamond trade centre in Surat, Gujarat, India		The Pentagon
Mountain lodge on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon: a US National Historic Landmark, its exterior doubled as that of the Overlook Hotel in the 1980 film The Shining		Timberline Lodge

The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1653 by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, as a monument to his favourite wife, who had died in 1631 during the birth of their 14th child. Born Arjumand Bano Begum ('Begum' being an honorific title for a Muslim woman of high social status), she was in fact Jahan's first cousin. He renamed her Mumtaz Mahal, which means 'Chosen One of the Palace' or 'Jewel of the Palace'. The name 'Taj Mahal' literally means 'Crown of the Palace' – although it seems to me that the use of the word 'Mahal' is a direct reference to the lady herself, so a more appropriate translation might be 'Crown of Mumtaz Mahal'.

The above paragraph, which I put in mainly to explain the name, contains most of the information you're ever likely to need about the Taj Mahal. But here it is again, in bite–sized, quiz–type chunks:

City		Agra
On the southern bank of the		Yamuna River
Built		1632–53
Built by		Shah Jahan
As a monument to his favourite wife (of three)		Mumtaz Mahal
Name means		Crown of the Palace

Rest of the World

Stretches (according to some – e.g. Wikipedia) from the city of Dandong in the east to Lop Lake in the west

Great Wall of China

© Haydn Thompson 2017–23