In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the artist Thomas Hearne (1744 – 1817) and engraver William Byrne (1743–1805), began work recording and illustrating a series of historic monuments for The Antiquities of Great Britain. They produced two volumes of these works, the first in 1778 and the second in 1807, both of which were very popular and helped to bring new interest into medieval architecture.

Here are fifteen beautiful images of castles, abbeys, cathedrals and other medieval sites around England from the second volume of The Antiquities of Great Britain:


Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire

Warkworth Castle, Northumberland

Micklegate, City of York

Tynemouth Priory, Tyne and Wear

Peel Castle, Isle of Man

Byland Abbey, North Yorkshire

Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire

Wingfield Castle, Suffolk

Egremont Castle, Cumbria

Lancaster Castle, Lancashire

Lanercost Priory, Cumbria

The Abbey of St Mary, York

Donnington Castle, Berkshire

Furness Abbey, Cumbria

Beverstone Castle, Gloucestershire

Antiquities of Great Britain, : illustrated in views of monasteries, castles, and churches, now existing, by Thomas Hearne and William Byrne, published in 1807, has been digitized by Boston Public Library and can be downloaded at Archive.org.

See also