Hotel de Salm

The Hotel de Salm was originally built in 1782-88 by architect Pierre Rousseau for the prince of Salm-Kyrburg. It has been the headquarters of the Legion of Honour since 1804. The current building is a replica of the original, which was destroyed in a fire during the Paris Commune in 1871. The complex had been expanded in 1866-70 and again in 1922-25. 

The entrance to the courtyard is a triumphal arch within a screen of Ionic columns. It is very similar to an unexecuted design by Marie-Joseph Peyre, which was presented in 1763 for the Hotel de Condé. The prince of Condé later moved to the Palais-Bourbon and his old residence was replaced with a theatre for the Comedie-Francaise. This theatre has been known since 1797 as Theatre de l'Odeon. 

Incidentally, the Scottish architect Robert Adam had previously used a screen of columns for the London Admiralty in 1759.

The courtyard is thought to be inspired by Jacques Gondoin's School of Surgery from 1769-74. The portico has six Corinthian columns that fronts a relatively bare wall. It is decorated above the door with a frieze of garlands and a relief by Jean Guillaume Moitte depicting the Roman Festival of Pales, or Parilia.  

The former garden front overlooks the river and features a domed rotunda, capped with statues of Olympian gods and goddesses by Jean Guillaume Moitte. Rousseau also hired his brother-in-law Philippe-Laurent Roland, who designed the low relief on the pavilions of the entrance front on Rue de Lille. Both sculptors were later involved in the decoration of the Lemercier wing of the Louvre courtyard during the reign of Napoleon. The oval salon and planning of the rooms have been compared to the Hotel Thelusson by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux.

Colonial Architecture in Southeast Asia

The first Europeans to arrive to southeast Asia were the Portuguese. In 1511, they captured Malacca, an important trade centre in the region, and built a a fortress to protect against a Malay counter-attack. 

The Porta de Santiago is the only surviving remnant of this fortress, which became known as A Famosa, or Fortaleza Velha. This was one of four gates to the fortified enclosure.

The inscription Anno 1670 and logo of the Dutch East India Company were added after the Dutch ended Portuguese rule in Malacca in 1641. The fort was demolished after the British took Malacca in 1795 but the gate was fortunately spared.

Before kicking the Portuguese out of Malacca, the Dutch had established a trading post on Java by the early 17th century, which in 1621 was named Batavia. A square and city hall is first recorded in 1627 but the present facade is from about 1707-1710. Some of its features are reminiscent of Paleis Op de Dam, which is now a royal palace but was originally built as the city hall of Amsterdam.

French missionaries and traders were active in Vietnam since the 17th century, and the French got involved in Vietnamese politics and built the Saigon citadel in 1790. But the French conquest of the area really starts in 1859 when Saigon was taken. Its old Central Post Office was

 built in 1886-1891 to a design by architect Alfred Foulhoux.

The National Museum of Singapore was opened as the Raffles Library and Museum in 1887. The museum was founded in 1849 and the collection was previously housed in the Singapore Institution, which is considered the oldest school in Singapore. It was briefly moved to the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, which then existed as the city hall. The new building was commissioned in 1882 and was designed by architect Henry McCallum, but was built to a revised and scaled-down version by JF McNair. A modern annexe by W Architects was added in 2004-06, featuring a glass-clad rotunda inspired by IM Pei.

The former Attorney-Generals Chambers, which is now part of the Parliament Building in Singapore, was originally built in the 1880s, though the current design dates from 1906. The first building on the site seems to have been completed in 1839, as an annex to Maxwell's House (also known as the former Parliament House), which is considered the oldest surviving building in Singapore

India

The Writer's Building in Calcutta was originally built in 1776-80 to a design by Thomas Lyon. Its original purpose was to house the junior clerks of the East India Company which were known as writers. The building would later house a college and some of the parts of the building were also used for commercial purposes.

Images from the end of the 18th century shows a relatively plain block of white stucco with a central projection of Ionic columns.  Classical porticoes were first added to the centre and ends of the facade in 1821. The building was further enlarged and embellished in 1877-82 and 1889-1906, during which time it became the secretariat of the viceroy of India.

Built on the site of the former St Anne's church, the building is 150 metres long and covers the entire northern side of the former Dalhousie Square.

The Victoria Memorial in Calcutta was built in 1906-21 to a design by the architect William Emerson. Originally proposed in the year the queen died in 1901 as a grand monument and museum in the capital of British India, the capital was later transferred to Delhi six years into construction. Like the Taj Mahal, the building is clad in Makrana marble from Rajasthan. Emerson also designed to Crawford Market in Mumbai, and All Saints Cathedral and Muir College, both in Allahabad. Some of the detailing on the memorial is attributed to supervising architect Vincent Jerome Esch.

Humayun's tomb was built in 1569-70 by Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas. It was commissioned by the deceased Mughal emperor's first wife and chief consort and is considered the first garden-tomb in India. The tomb is located close to the old fort, which Humayun had renovated in 1533-38.  

Norwegian stave churches

BORGUND

The first written record of Borgund Stave Church is from 1342, but the actual building has been dated to the period 1150-1200. The timber was felled during the winter of 1180-81, according to tree-ring dating. It is one of the country's best preserved stave churches and has been used as model for the restoration of other churches of the same type. It was still in use as a church until 1868.

The new Borgund church was inaugurated in 1868, to a design by Christian Christie, who also built the nearby Hauge Church. The motivation to build a new church was in the interest of preservation but also because the old church had become too small.

The visitor centre was finished in 2005, by architects Askim Lantto. Other works by them include the Gurisenteret Outdoor stage and Visitor Centre on Edøy, which is close to a stone church dated to around 1190.

HEDDAL

Heddal is considered the largest of the Norwegian stave churches. It has been dated to the early 13th century. The earliest written record of it is from 1315.

Hotel de Carnavalet

Hotel de Carnavalet 

Hotel de Carnavalet was originally built in 1548-60 on commission by the president of the Parlement of Paris, Jacques de Ligneris. The name Carnavalet comes from its second owner, whose real name was Kernevenoy or Kernevenoch. 

The street front on Rue de Sevigné was rebuilt by the architect Francois Mansart in 1655-61, after the financier Claude Boisleve took over ownership of the house in 1654. Mansart incorporated the original entrance arch by building over and around it. The sculpted figures on the ground floor represent force and vigilance and are by the Flemish 17th-century sculptor Gerard van Opstal. Among his most famous work were three sculptures that were added to the now-demolished city gate Porte Sainte-Antoine, which was built in the 16th century and also featured sculpture by Jean Goujon. The low relief above the balcony on the corner of Rue des Francs Bourgeois is also by Opstal.

The rusticated entrance arch is from about 1550 and is commonly attributed to Pierre Lescot, though this is disputed. Rusticated arches, inspired by Italian models, had already been built at Fontainebleau -  at Grotte des Pins or Hotel de Ferrare - but is here much smoother in texture. The relief work seems to be from the same period, except the figure on the keystone, which was likely added after the house passed to Kernevenoy. The figure represents abundance and stands on top of a carnival mask, presumably as a pun on the name Carnavalet.

 The single storey entrance arch was originally flanked by two pavilions of equal appearance; including a mezzanine, pitched roofs and dormer windows. 

Walking through the arch, the visitor arrives to a courtyard, which was also rebuilt by Mansart in the 17th century but still retains some of the original features.  

This applies primarily to the main block, which in French is typically referred to as the corps de logis. It includes four relief sculptures by Jean Goujon from the mid-16th century. The figures are allegorical representations of the four seasons. The involvement by Goujon may be one of the reasons why the house has been associated with Pierre Lescot, as the sculptor and amateur architect famously collaborated on the Louvre.   

The corps de logis was restored by Victor Parmentier in 1866-70. This included the return to mullion and transom windows, though not the original dimensions. The balustrades and dormers were based on an engraving from around 1650 but this may not have been how it was actually built. Parmentier also replaced the 17th-century mansard with a new and steeply sloped roof, and removed some decorate medallions that had been added to the ground floor.  

The wing on the left was originally just a single-storey gallery, which screened off the courtyard from Rue des Francs Bourgeois. The second storey was added by Mansart, who also built a completely new wing on the opposite side where there formerly had been stables. The relief work by Opstal is in imitation of Goujon's originals and represent the elements on left and divinities on the right.

The bronze statue of Louis XIV was placed in the courtyard in 1890. It was first made in 1689 by Antoine Coysevox and previously stood in the courtyard of the city hall.

The original features of the garden front (right) is not known but may have included some kind of rustication. The section to the left was built by architects Felix Roguet and Joseph-Antoine Bouvard after 1871. It includes a pavilion, which originally belonged to Hotel Desmarets, a building by an unknown architect from 1710. 

Elements of several buildings slated for demolition were added during this period, as Hotel Carnavalet had been bought by the city of Paris in 1866 and turned into a museum. This includes a frontispiece of the merchant draper's guild from 1660 by Jacques Brand. The archway on Rue des Francs Bourgeois was part of the Palais de la Cité and had been built in in 1552-56 by Guillaume le Breton. It is known as the Arc de Nazareth and spanned across the Rue de Nazareth, a street on Ile de la Cité which disappeared in 1883.

English palaces, mansions and stately homes

Knole House was originally built in 1456-86 for the archbishop of Canterbury on the site of a previous house. Works to extend the building continued into the 16th century, including the main facade. It was seized from the archbishops by Henry VIII, as was Otford Palace, and has been the seat of the earls and dukes of Dorset since 1603.  

Charlton House was built in 1607-12 for Adam Newton, Dean of Durham and tutor at the royal household. The architect is assumed to have been John Thorpe. A wing was added in 1877 by Norman Shaw and the chapel wing was rebuilt in non-matching bricks after bomb damage during WWII.

Kew Palace was originally built in 1631 as a private house for the Samuel Fortrey, but became a royal residence in 1734 though the crown only bought it in 1781, it previously being held on a lease. Plans for a large Palladian palace were presented in 1735 by William Kent but a new palace was only begun in 1802 to a design by James Wyatt. This was a castle-like building, which was never much liked and was demolished already in 1828.

Eltham Lodge, or the royal manor of Eltham, was built in 1663-64 to a design by the architect Hugh May in the style of Dutch classicism, such as in the example of the Mauritshuis at the Hague. The same architect also designed Cornbury House in Oxfordshire, in a similar style but larger and dressed in stone, and Berkeley House in Piccadilly. The latter was destroyed in a fire as early as 1733, while May's work at Cassiobury House in Hertfordshire has also been lost.

Ham House was originally built in 1610 for Thomas Vavasour, though the south front is largely the result of a rebuilding in the 1670s. The architect behind the original H-shaped plan was Robert Smythson.

Appuldurcombe House was begun in 1702 by architect John James on the site of a previous Tudor house but was still unfinished when the owner Robert Worsley died in 1747. The house was further extended in 1770s but has been an empty shell since WWII, due to a mine dropped close to it in 1943. The property began as a priory in 1100.  

Blenheim Palace was begun in 1705 and completed around 1722 as a reward to John Churchill, the duke of Marlborough, for his efforts in the War of the Spanish Succession and more specifically the battle of Blenheim. The duke choose John Vanbrugh as the architect, but Vanbrugh was latter banned from the site by Churchill's wife, who had always preferred Christopher Wren as architect and largely managed the project in her husband's stead. The work was carried on by Vanbrugh's associate Nicholas Hawksmoor but was beset by funding problems. Royal contributions had ceased in 1712, at which point the relations with the queen had deteriorated so much that the duke and duchess were forced into a two-year exile. Work was resumed in 1716 but was completed at the Marlboroughs' own expense.

The palatial front of Stoneleigh abbey was built in 1714-26 to a design by the architect Francis Smith.   The older buildings are from the second half of the 16th century, though the gatehouse is from the 14th century when the property was still an abbey. The Cistercian abbey was originally founded in 1154 but became a private estate after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.

Marble Hill House was built in 1724-29 to a design by Roger Morris and the amateur architect Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. The design is supposedly based on Palladio's Villa Cornaro and also served as model for plantation houses in the American colonies.

Moor Park Mansion was originally built in 1678-79, but the present facade is from 1720s by Giacomo Leoni, with assistance from the painter James Thornhill. The main body of the building was originally linked to service buildings on either side via by curved colonnades but this feature was removed in 1785.    

Holkham Hall was built in 1734-65 to a design by architect William Kent, working in cooperation with the aristocratic architecture enthusiasts: the earl of Burlington and Thomas Coke, who was made earl of Leicester in 1744. The land had been acquired by the Coke family bit by bit in the 17th century. Thomas Coke inherited it in 1718 but his plans to create a classical monument was delayed in the 1720s due his financial losses from the South Sea Bubble. 

Osterley House was originally an Elizabethan mansion from the 1570s that was remodelled by the architect Robert Adam in the 1760s. 

Althorp House was first built in 1508 and had by 1586 been extended to its current shape. It may have been replaced with a new building in the 17th-century and is depicted in 1677 as baroque design in red brick. The current facade is from 1788 by the architect Henry Holland, who encased the building in grey tiles and added four giant pilasters to the front. The house is famous as the childhood home of Princess Diana.

La Defense

La Defense is named after a statue that was completed in 1883 but is now a business district consisting mostly of modern high-rise buildings. The statue was sculpted by Louis-Ernest Barrias in honour of the soldiers who defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. It previously stood at the centre of the rond-point de Courbevoie, a roundabout which terminated the historic axis of Paris. The statue was removed in 1964 and was placed at its current location in 1983.   

At the start of the 1950s, the rond-point de Courbevoie was still surrounded by old houses and factories, which neighboured shantytowns and the odd farm. Various ideas had been presented for the redevelopment of the area, but things first started to move with the construction of a new exhibition centre in 1956-58, which would later become the Centre for New Industries and Technologies (CNIT). The architects behind the project were Robert Camelot, Jean de Mailly and Bernhard Zehrfuss, as well as engineers Jean Prouvé and Nicolas Esquillan. The building has been described as the largest unsupported concrete span enclosed space in the world. The three points of the structure are 218 metres apart. The interior was completely refurbished in 1988 and 2009.

The first new office building in the area, Tour Esso, was completed in 1964 but was demolished in 1993 and replaced with Coeur Defense in 2001 (right).

The public body EPAD was created in 1958 to develop a master plan for the area and to manage the acquisition of land and the process of relocation of previous inhabitants. The plan was adopted in 1964, and included a series of towers, which were to measure 42x24 metres in plan and reach about 100 metres in height. The first of these towers, originally named Tour Nobel, was completed in 1966 to a design by architects Jean de Mailly and Jacques Depussé. The tower is 105 metres and has since been renamed Initiale and later RTE-Nexity. It was one of the first in France to use curved glass at the corners of the building.  

The residential block on the right is the oldest of its kind in La Defense and was completed in 1957, one year before CNIT, and was also by architect Jean de Mailly. It originally consisted of four slabs surmounted on an office block in an E-shape, but this has since been reduced to an L-shape with the removal of two of the slabs. 

The second tower, originally named Tour Aquitaine (right), was completed in 1967 to a design by brothers Luc and Xavier Arsene-Henry, and Bernard Schoeller; but was reclad in 2014. 

This makes Tour Europe, from 1969, the second oldest high-rise design in La Defense. It is the first of a series of towers by the the team of architects Delb, Chesneau and Verola. It is 99-metre reinforced concrete structure. Tour Aquitaine has had various names and is now called Tour Blanche.

The EPAD masterplan also included low-rise residential units with central courtyards, such as the one built in front of Tour Europe in 1969 by architects Camelot and Finelli.

Architects Delb, Chesneau, Verola and Lalande completed a second tower in 1970, known as Tour Atlantique. The tower is 95 metres and was the first to be built within the circular boulevard around La Defense on the Puteaux side. 

It was joined by Tour Credit Lyonnais (immediate right) in 1971. This was originally a design by Dubuisson and Jausserand but the facade has been replaced and the structure was expanded during a refurbishment in 2002-07 by Valode and Pistre. The tower is now known as Tour Opus 12.

Two more towers were completed in 1971. Tour Aurore was designed by architects Claude Damery, Pierre Vetter and Gilbert Weil, but is now slated for demolition. The plan is to replace it with a 202-metre tower dubbed Tour Air2. Tour CGI, originally known as Tour EDF-GDF, was a design by by architects Gravereaux, Saubet, Arsac and Cassagne but its current facade is from 2002-03 by Kohn Pedersen Fox. The tower on the right is Tour Manhattan from 1975, by Michel Hebert and Michel Proux. Several residential units were built in front of these towers, including the two concrete buildings known collectively as Residence Vision 80. This consists of a mid-rise block reaching 47 metres in height and a lower block stretching 120 metres long. They were completed in 1973 after a competition held by EPAD was won by the architect Jean Pierre Jouve. A third concrete block was built at the foot of Tour Aurore in 1978, by Alberto Penso.  

EPAD came under increasing pressure to allow taller buildings in the early 1970s. The state had made huge investments in infrastructure; including new roads, an RER express train station and an elevated pedestrian plaza; and needed to attract higher prices for the land it sold off to private investors. A new masterplan was therefore adopted in 1972, ushering in a second generation of towers. After completing Tour Atlantique in 1970; architects Delb, Chesnau, Verola and Lalande designed Tour Franklin in 1972 and Tour Winterthur in 1973. 

The Y-shaped building in front of Winterthur was only completed in 1983 by Jean Balladur and occupies a space which in 2008 was considered for a new 297-metre tall building by Norman Foster.

The first towers of the second generation only reached to 120 metres but the revised masterplan actually allowed towers of up to 200 metres, presenting opportunities for taller buildings by insurance companies Gan and UAP. The UAP tower by Pierre Dufau originally stretched to 159 metres before it was rebuilt as the 225-metre Tour First in 2011. Tour Gan by Harrison & Abramovitz reached 179 metres to the roof and caused a quite stir during construction in 1972-74 due to its high visibility from central Paris.   

Built during the same period as the controversial Tour Gan, though at a further distance from the city, Tour Fiat was also completed in 1974, to a design by architects Roger Sabot and Francois Jullien. Its planned twin tower was cancelled due to the oil crisis and the second tower was only completed in 1985 to a different design. This time Roger Sabot teamed up with WZMH architects.  The two towers are now known as Tour Areva and Tour Total and are with their 184 and 187 metres still among the tallest in La Defense.

Before the completion of Tour Total, two new towers known collectively as Tour Pascal has ushered in the return of construction after the oil crisis. The buildings are joined by a walkway and were originally headquarters for IBM. Five years later, a third and fourth tower were completed in 1988 by the same architect: Henri La Fonta. They have been named Tour Voltaire but the four towers follow the same granite design and were conceived as single ensemble. Voltaire was originally offices for the merchant bank Banque Worms, which was nationalised in 1982, later re-privatised but finally wound up in 2004.

      

The idea of closing off the historic axis of Paris was first suggested in 1969 by architect Leoh Ming Pei and competitions were organised in the early and late 1970s, but it was only in 1982 that a definite project was chosen. President Mitterrand had called for a building of monumental character and the design by Otto von Spreckelsen and engineer Erik Reitzel was conceived as a modern take on the triumphal arch. Construction began in 1985 and was completed in 1989, though Spreckelsen resigned in 1986 and was suceeded by Paul Andreu. 

On the site opposite CNIT, it was decided to build a shopping centre in 1972, which was finally inaugurated as Les Quatre Temps in 1981 (left). Originating with a project by Leoh Ming Pei, which also featured a tower at the centre of the historic axis, the final design was by architects Lagneau and Dimitrijevic.

The twin towers of Chassagne and Alicante were completed in 1995, to a design by architects Andrault, Parat and Ayoub. The towers dominate a whole new section of La Defense created in the 1990s, which was originally knows as quartier Valmy but is now so dominated by the bank Société Générale that its now mostly known under that name. The bank, which had previously had its offices in Tour Ariane from 1975, built a third tower in 2008 to a design by architect Christian Portzamparc. 

The view from the steps of the Grande Arche is dominated by two towers, both completed in 2001. Coeur Defense (left) was designed by architect Jean-Paul Viguier and replaced Tour Esso, while Tour EDF (left) is by by Pei Cobb Freed and partners. The smaller tower to the left of EDF is of the first generation and was originally built in 1973 as a twin to Tour Atlantique but the facade was redesigned in 2004.

The towers Tour Egée and Tour Adria were built in 1999-2002 by architects Michel Andrault and Nicolas Ayoub. They are located in Faubourg de l'Arche, a part of La Defense that only began to be cleared for construction in 1988. The bridge linking the development to the rest of La Defense was completed in 1999. 

The four last buildings of Faubourg de l'Arche were built in 2005-2010, including Tour T1 by architects Valode and Piste. The 185-metre skyscraper is the third tallest in La Defense and has been entirely occupied by the energy company Engie (previously GDF Suez) since 2010. On its right, Tour Esplanade, also known as Tour Sequoia, was built in 1989-90 by architects Ayoub, Andrault and Parat.

Tour UAP from 1974 was transformed into Tour First in 2007-2011 by architects Kohn, Pedersen and Fox; making it the tallest building in La Defense, at 231 metres including the antenna. Tour D2 (right) is one of the most recent towers in La Defense, completed in 2015 by architects Anthony Bechu and Tom Sheehan, at 171 metres. It replaced a previous building known as Tour Veritas, which was demolished in 2011.   

Tour Carpe Diem was built in 2010-13 to a design by architect Robert Stern. It has carried the logo of the Thales Group since January 2015 and the company occupies the top seven floors of the building. At a height of 162 metres, it was the first project to be completed as part of the La Defense renewal plan adopted in 2006. Just peaking out above Tour Europe to the left of Carpe Diem can be seen Tour CBX by Kohn Pedersen Fox from 2005.    

Tour Majunga was built in 2011-14 to a design by architect Jean-Paul Viguier after the group Unibail-Rodamco acquired the site in 2006.

On its right can be seen the 152-metre Tour Ariane from 1975 by architects Mailly and Zammit and on its left Tour Michelet (Total) from 1985.  

Burghley House

Burghley House was built for Sir William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. The house is located on the outskirts of Stamford, the first town in England and Wales to be designated a conservation area. It is sometimes referred to as the stone city due to the consistent use of local limestone. The town was largely untouched by the industrial revolution due Cecil's descendants' opposition to railway construction in the area. The building of Burghley house began in 1558, but was interrupted in 1564 when Cecil started building a second and even bigger house in Hertfordshire (Theobalds). Construction of Burghley House resumed in 1573, two years after Cecil had been made Baron Burghley, and the house was largely complete in 1587. 

The house is said to be modelled on the privy lodgings of Richmond Palace, and the west front features the traditional Tudor motif of gatehouse with towers at the flanks. The most striking part of the house, however, is the courtyard. Burghley was built on the foundations of an earlier house, and the plan of the courtyard may have come about as part of adjusting to the previous structure. The courtyard is consequently similar to a medieval cloister in plan. It is decorated with classical columns and pilasters and is more profuse in decoration than the outer facades. The central feature is the clock tower, which is decorated like a three-storey classical frontispiece topped with a spire-like pyramid-shaped top (apparently meant to be an obelisk). There is also a bay window stuck a bit incongruously between the pilasters of the second storey. 

 It is believed that William Cecil originally built a different west front, but was unhappy with the result and subsequently had it torn down and replaced with the current. The central gateway has gilded wrought iron gates made by Jean Tijou, a Huguenot ironworker. The gates were added for John Cecil, the fifth earl of Exeter, but were probably completed some time after the earl's death, in 1710. 

The south front originally had a gallery, or loggia, at ground level. These were filled in by the late 17th century and a new central doorway was added to the facade. This was possibly due to damage sustained during the civil war. Further changes were made on behalf of Brownlow Cecil, the 9th earl of Exeter, in the 18th century. The landscape architect Capability Brown carried out several alterations to the house. On the south front, he levelled the roofline 

The central bay of the north front has an oriel-shape similar to Thornbury Castle. This was always the main entrance to the house, despite what the design of the west front suggests. This was also probably where the previous house stood. The marble statue portrays young Bacchus and was originally placed inside. The move came after Capability Brown had demolished a north-west wing in 1765. This was done to allow better views of the new parkland with its avenues of limes trees, but it also erased the E-shaped footprint of the house, which William Cecil created to honour Queen Elizabeth. Brown also constructed stables, an orangery and a gothic garden summerhouse. The chimney stacks are designed to look like pairs of Doric columns.

Most of the interior is remodelled in baroque style, completed in the late 17th century for John Cecil, the 5th earl, and much of the house's vast art collection stems from this time. Some of the carvings are done by Grinling Gibbons.  

The Great hall, part of the east range, is one of the few intact Elizabethan interiors. This part of the building was designed to house domestic apartments and seems to have been heavily altered in the later stages of building, having an asymmetric effect on the south front. The oak hammerbeam roof is covered with local Collyweston slate, but the weight seems to have caused structural problems and some of the windows had to be filled in.

The Great hall seen from the Orangery Court

William Cecil's second house, Theobalds, was inherited by his son Robert Cecil, earl of Salisbury, but was given to James I in exchange for Hatfield Palace. Robert Cecil subsequently built Hatfield House and Theobalds was demolished during the English civil war, in 1650