Episodes & News
Episode 8: Glyndebourne: The House that Gave Birth to the Opera Festival
Picnic hampers, black tie, world-class opera — it’s the season for Glyndebourne, the festival that sired the happy, uniquely British phenomenon of country house opera. This week Clive and John discuss the house from which it all began (still central to the experience) as well as the headstrong, eccentric but visionary John Christie, founder of the festival in the 1930s.
Episode 7: The Tower of London: The Most Notorious Castle in England
The Tower of London is one of the great sights of the capital, a place that is as steeped in history as it has sometimes been, through the numerous executions it has witnessed, drenched in blood. In this week’s episode of Your Places or Mine, Dr John Goodall, Britain’s foremost historian of castle architecture, discusses this extraordinary fortification-cum-palace with Professor Clive Aslet, describing both its architectural features and the uses that it has served through the centuries.
Episode 6: A Marriage of Opposites
In his mid 20s, Lutyens fell passionately in love with Lady Emily Lytton, daughter of the Earl Lytton, a diplomat and Viceroy of India who had really wanted to be a poet. He pursued her ardently, writing letters that were romantic, delightful and often funny. Beating down opposition from Lady Emily’s family, they got marriage in 1897 but were an unlikely couple.
Episode 5: Huddy and Ned
Sir Edwin (Ned) Lutyens’s old friend Edward Hudson founded Country Life in 1897. A London printer, he was not a countryman, but commissioned three country houses as well as the Country Life office in Covent Garden. Convinced of Lutyens’s genius, he also ‘boomed’ him through the magazine and lost no opportunity to promote his career.
Episode 4: Home and Garden
The first of a series on the early-20th-century architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, this episode examines the relationship between the young Ned — gangly, witty, shy — and the craftswoman turned gardener Gertrude Jekyll, his senior by 25 years.
New Book: King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture
King Charles III’s affection for architecture is well-known, but the extent of his engagement has never been fully presented to the public. This is the first book to draw together the many threads, from the ‘carbuncle’ speech made at Hampton Court in 1984 until his accession to the throne. He has created model settlements such as Poundbury through the Duchy of Cornwall, Dumfries House in East Ayrshire has been made a beacon of social regeneration, and his educational initiatives have changed lives.
Episode 3: Medieval Majesty at the Heart of Parliament
Clive and John discuss one of the most spectacular medieval buildings in Britain, Westminster Hall. Originally built by William the Conqueror’s heir, the voracious William Rufus, it was a structure of immense ambition — said to be the biggest hall of its kind north of the Alps.
Episode 2: A Royal Passion
One of the greatest of HM the King’s many enthusiasms is architecture. He made his first pronouncements on the subject in 1984 with the famous ‘Carbuncle’ speech and has been championing the causes of tradition, community, Classicism and Transylvania ever since.
Episode 1: Mr Cubitt's District
In this first episode of Your Places or Mine, Clive and John are in London’s Pimlico, exploring the dynamic personality of the great Victorian builder Thomas Cubitt and the area’s struggle to become fashionable.