I’m at risk of always posting the same photographs of Castle Howard because whenever I go, which has recently been quite often, I enjoy the same things.

1. The magic of the walk out to the Temple of the Four Winds, which I particularly enjoyed this time having just read Wendy Bishop’s excellent PhD thesis on eighteenth-century lakes, which documents Vanbrugh’s early – indeed, pioneering – interest in creating lakes: first in his plans for Welbeck; then at Blenheim; and in 1725, just before his death, at Castle Howard:-

2. The four Sibyls which Historic England (and Wikipedia) say are by John Nost, but my Castle Howard book say are by Andries Carpentière who certainly supplied a lot of work to Castle Howard:-

3. The quality of the stone carving (see Christine Casey, Architecture and Artifice):-

And the antiquities:-