Love Letters to Buildings
Read the love letters from well-known faces about their favourite places.
Share Your Love of Buildings this Valentine’s Day
As Valentine's Day approaches we want you to share the buildings and places close to your heart.
They are the backdrop to our lives, the setting of treasured memories and the familiar sight that says you’re almost home; the unique buildings we live and work among have a special place in our hearts.
This February, we want you to share that love and celebrate the places that shape us. From local landmarks to national icons, Historic England wants to hear about the buildings you cherish and why.
Where is it that makes your heart sing, or stops you in your tracks, every time?
Whether a fleeting romance or a long-held affection, this week we want you to share photos, memories and odes to the #BuildingsYouLove on social media and celebrate the wonderful, distinct places across the country that we hold dear.
Need inspiration?
We asked public figures including musician Nile Rodgers, broadcaster Dan Snow, presenter Mary-Ann Ochota and illustrator Chris Riddell to reveal the architectural loves of their lives.
Their love letters tell of our deep connection to the buildings and places around us, and how they inspire us and stay with us.
Find your architectural match
Our matchmaking quiz will pick which architectural style is your best fit, and reveal a little more about the defining characteristics of each building type.
Find out if you’re most suited to Tudor, Victorian, Georgian, Art Deco or Brutalist architecture, or prefer an eclectic mix.
Quiz: find your architectural soulmate
Looking for a building to set your heart on fire? Then let our quiz match you to a place that will give you goosebumps.
England is home to an incredible range of distinctive buildings from clock-towers and corner pubs to sweeping terraces and tiny cottages. We want people to call to mind their special places, look again at the buildings around them, and celebrate them. It’s about time the buildings we can’t live without get a share of the love this Valentine’s Day.
Duncan Wilson, Historic England’s Chief Executive
2019: A Focus on Loss and Destruction
This is the first activity in our Loss and Destruction season.
Throughout 2019 Historic England is looking at why our collective history and heritage is so important to us all, and why it needs to be looked after.
We’re looking at buildings and places that are at risk because of neglect, lack of use or conflict. We’re asking people to look again at the buildings and places in their communities, and question what would happen if they were lost.
What Remains, an exhibition jointly curated in partnership with Imperial War Museums will open at IWM London as part of Culture Under Attack (5 July 2019 – 5 January 2020) and explore the deliberate destruction of cultural places, the objects and stories that bring them to life, and the rebuilding of culture that follows.
Historic England is developing further exciting public programming as part of the Loss and Destruction season to be announced in due course.
