200 Landmark time machines

Travel back in time on your holiday

Our 200 extraordinary historic buildings are time machines. We delved into our archives to find that, taken together, they share an incredible 52,000 years of history. Here we've collated images of some of your favourite Landmarks as they stand today and back in their heyday. Time travel in comfort from as little as £16 per person per night. Everyone is welcome.

Peter's Tower

Lympstone, Devon

Peters Tower has witnessed over 130 years of history from its commanding position on the Exe Estuary. Reaching over 70 feet high, the Tower was built in 1885 by Mr W.H.Peters as a memorial to his widow Mary Jane, ‘whose loss is much felt by all classes of society, especially by the poorer inhabitants of the parish’ according to The Devon and Exeter Daily Gazette. The much-loved local eye-catcher became a refuge for fishermen stranded by storms and squalls and is now a haven for Landmarkers.

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Alton Station

Alton, Staffordshire

Throngs of day-trippers stepped onto Alton Station's platform from the 1850s for the next century. They descended from the pottery towns to visit the famous gardens at Alton Towers. The station was part of the Churnet Valley branch line for the North Staffordshire Railway, whose stations were created in a range of styles such as Tudor and Jacobean. Alton was unique in being Italianate in design.

From £15pppn
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Tixall Gatehouse

Near Stafford, Staffordshire

Today the turreted gatehouse stands majestic yet curiously isolated aside from the sheep grazing the surrounding fields. Over its 450-year history the gatehouse has had two companions: Elizabethan stone and timber-framed Old Tixall Hall which was pulled down in the 1760s, and a later Georgian house built further to the east but demolished in 1927. The proud gatehouse has observed the landscape’s long history and the people living and working within it.

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North Street

Cromford, Derbyshire

Until the 1770s Cromford was a tiny hamlet in the isolated Derwent valley. A decade later, the peaceful setting had been transformed after Richard Arkwright built a cotton spinning mill. North Street would have housed much of his initial workforce, and represents one of the earliest examples of the terraced industrial housing that was to become so characteristic of industrial towns over the next century. Unfortunately, no records remain with names of the families who lived at Number 10, but life in and outside our Landmark would have been bustling and intense.

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The Ruin

Hackfall, Grewelthorpe

Despite becoming rather overgrown, the dramatic landscape over which the Ruin perches was a favourite tourist destination until the 1920s. Our little pavilion sits above the remnants of the outstanding 18th-century garden: ‘After a tedious ride… through fields and intricate by-lanes, I reached the little village of Gruelthorpe, and visited Hackfall, one of the most picturesque scenes in the north of England’, wrote Welsh naturalist, Thomas Pennant. 

From £38pppn
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Church Cottage

Llandygwydd, Cardiganshire

Our charity's mission to halt the loss of heritage is made particularly acute at Llandygwydd. Church Cottage stands alone, the landscape around it empty since the demolition of neighbouring St Tygwydd's Church in 2000. The cottage has a special place in Landmark’s history, as it was the very first building Landmark restored, opening to guests in 1967.

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Appleton Water Tower

Sandringham, Norfolk

In October 1871 the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, fell ill with typhoid – the illness that was believed to have killed his father Prince Albert. Following the Prince of Wales’ recovery, the water supply at his Norfolk home was reviewed and improved, resulting in the building of Appleton Water Tower. Princess Alexandra was amongst those who laid the foundation stone in 1877 and the Tower supplied clean water to the Sandringham estate for the following century. Fine views across the county from both the first-floor prospect room (now a bedroom/sitting room) and the roof have long been enjoyed by visiting guests.

From £33pppn
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The Grange

Ramsgate, Kent

Catholic-convert Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin is perhaps most famous for designing the rich interiors of the Houses of Parliament. From 1843, however, he was designing his own family home on a plot of land in Ramsgate, Kent. The Grange was joined by a series of buildings, including a presbytery, parish church and a monastery, all designed in the Gothic architectural style to facilitate his ideal of life in the Medieval Ages. Sadly Pugin died at only 40 years old in 1852, just two years after the jewel-bright interiors of the Grange were completed.

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Image: A True Prospect of St Augustine’s Church now erecting at Ramsgate in the Isle of Thanet, painted by Augustus Pugin in 1849.

Freston Tower

Near Ipswich, Suffolk

The striking red-brick six-storey Freston Tower was built in 1579 for wealthy Ipswich merchant Thomas Gooding. Plausibly commissioned ahead of Queen Elizabeth’s long anticipated visit to Ipswich in late August 1579, Freston was one of several tall brick towers built for Tudor merchants in the period. Giving splendid views of the merchants’ vessels passing in and out of port, the buildings functioned as lavish prospect towers suitable for entertaining.

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Image: Edwardian sightseers visit Freston Tower

Woodsford Castle

Near Dorchester, Dorset

In the 1850s a careful restoration of Woodsford Castle was carried out by John Hicks of Dorchester, assisted by builder Mr Hardy. Mr Hardy’s son, Thomas, later joined Hicks’ office to train as an architect – before finding fame as an author and poet. Situated in the heart of so-called ‘Hardy country,’ Woodsford is the surviving part of a much larger quadrangular 14th-century castle, twice close to ruination and twice saved from the threat.

From £18 pppn

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Image: Woodsford Castle in 1951