What's your favourite British landmark?

Post Reply New Topic

Britain is a place renowned for its architectural prowess. Demonstrate your own knowledge of it by extolling the virtues of your personal fave British landmark. Mine's Big Ben. Anyone for a bet that The Tower of London'll come out tops in the end? There's much, much more to say but I think it'd be quicker for all of us if I cut myself short there.

the leaning tower of london.

But does a landmark have to be architectural?

The White Cliffs of Dover... Albion!

Now if you want a building, on the other hand.
Hmm. The Eden Project, the Forth railway bridge, The Clifton suspension bridge,
St. Paul's Cathedral, Carnarvon castle... Just the one, really, just the one?

Ok. The sound mirrors of Denge.
http://www.ajg41.clara.co.uk/mirrors/dungeness.html

Now there's a literally off-the-wall idea.

London Bridge.

The castle at Dunblaine.

..."If we built a large wooden badger"...

definately The White Cliffs Of Dover.

I'm a British expat so I get all sentimental when I'm coming home and look out of the window of the plane to see London spread out below me and the Thames winding through it...Yeah, the Thames for me. It's also nice to come back over the Channel and see the White Cliffs. And I love the Uffington White Horse, largely because of Rosemary Sutcliff's book Sun Horse, Moon Horse. And being a devotee of church music I love St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral and...

Do you mean London Bridge, which is a "fairly dull edifice comprising three spans of pre-stressed concrete cantilevers" ( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge )and is really bland, or do you mean Tower Bridge, which is a Victorian gothic-revival masterpiece?

I ask for clarification because the two are often confused by people not from Britain - to the tune that the London Bridge opened in 1831 was bought by some American entrepreneur and rebuilt in Arizona. He thought he was buying Tower Bridge, but called it London Bridge.

Oh yeah, and to the point of this thread, I don't know what my favourite British Landmark is, there are so bloody many!

I love the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall - I used to hate them, thinking of them as concrete monstrosities, but actually they're pretty cool. Chester cathedral, the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool is amazing, as is the Catholic cathedral in Liverpool. I find stone circles pretty mindblowing, though stonehenge makes me sad because of the motoreay right near it, and not being able to have peace and quiet there cos it's so busy. The houses of parliament are so frilly and Victorian, and the clock tower that houses Big Ben is nice.

Basically I can't choose.

Robin

I am a U.S. citizen who has traveled to Britain a few times. I don't know what my favorite landmark is, but I have a few favorites:

1. Big Ben and the Parliament building
2. Trafalgar Square
3. Picadilly Circus
4. Westminster Abbey
5. Cathedrals in Canterbury, Salisbury, and York
6. Roman baths in Bath
7. Shakespeare places in Stratford-on-Avon

spaghetti junction

The Worm's Head on the Gower penninsula.

Can I interest you in a canal cruise to Salford junction, the one below the junction?




http://www.starling101.btinternet.co.uk ... alford.htm

(in a british accent) I'm not quite sure. I'm not from the land of great manners.

I've Never been there but, I like the former Battersea Power Station.

-- For those of you who don't know what this is, it was on the covers of Pink Floyd's "Animals", Hawkwind's "Quark Strangenes and Charm" releases, as well as the movie 1984, where it stood in as the headquarters for the Ministry of Love.

Pics can be seen here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/ ... er_station

The Urbis in Picadilly,Manchester,The Trafford Centre in Dumplington/Manchester and the Lowry Centre in Salford.

Picture of [part of] the Trafford Centre:
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/152/ ... zed8vd.jpg

Picture of The Lowry Centre:
http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/19/3 ... 3001za.jpg

Picture of the Urbis:
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5168/man044vi.jpg

...which must never be confused with the Hanging Gardens of Leeds, The Pyramids of Coventry, or The Great Wall of Belfast.