We think the Music Room was built in around 1730 as a garden pavilion. The streets of Lancaster grew around it. The Baroque interior alone took 6,000 hours of craft skills to repair.

The Pigsty’s classical design was supposedly inspired by Squire Barry’s travels around the Mediterranean in the 1880s and offers striking views of Robin Hood’s Bay.

A Georgian folly within an outstanding Picturesque garden, the Ruin was built in about 1766. On the edge of a steep wooded gorge, it was one of several buildings scattered across the gardens.

This eighteenth-century Gothic summerhouse sits beside the River Esk near Carlisle. Remote and peaceful, the three large windows in the main room give striking views over the river.

This Gothic folly sits on the edge of the Gibside estate. It stands in the highest part of the park in a grassy clearing, looking down on an octagonal pool with views over the Derwent Valley.

Brinkburn Mill sits next to the River Coquet at the bottom of a thickly-wooded valley. A mill has been on this site since medieval times, with the present building dating to about 1800.

Situated in the rolling landscape behind Hadrian’s Wall, Causeway House was built in 1770 as a farmhouse. Causeway remains the only house in Northumberland still thatched in heather.

This gatehouse is all that is left of Cawood Castle, once a stronghold of the Archbishops of York. It was here that Cardinal Wolsey was arrested for treason on King Henry VIII’s orders in 1530.

This 18th-century tower gives striking views of the historic market town of Richmond. Inside, three single octagonal rooms are decorated in an elaborate cocktail of classical and Gothic styles.

Beamsley Hospital is a circular almshouse encircling a chapel. Queen Elizabeth I gave consent for the foundation of Beamsley and it provided shelter for women until the late twentieth century.

Cowside is an atmospheric base to explore the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a rare survivor from the past both for its unaltered state and the wall paintings in its parlour.

Morpeth Castle was originally a gatehouse, added in about 1350, at the entrance to the castle proper. Over the years, its guests have included Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.

This unaltered house shares the same views across Grasmere as Dove Cottage, the poet William Wordsworth’s home in the Lake District where he was inspired to write some of his finest poetry.

At the dawn of the Railway Age in 1830, Liverpool Road Station opened as the world’s first purpose-built, inter-city passenger railway terminus. After a careful and sensitive restoration, the ... Read more

Calverley Old Hall was the seat of minor Yorkshire magnates for over 500 years until it was sold in 1754. The village of Calverley is worth exploring, while Leeds and Bradford are nearby.