From medieval manor houses to bold Brutalist flats, Britain's rich history of residential architecture is as diverse and enduring as its inhabitants. As photography evolved from the mid-19th century, the evolution of Brits and their homes was captured and preserved through the ages allowing us to marvel at them today.

Click or scroll on to discover incredible vintage photos exploring British homes through history. To enjoy these pictures on a desktop computer FULL SCREEN, click on the icon at the top right of the image...

This picture of Bradfield House in Uffculme, Devon was taken in 1852 and is one of the earliest photographs of a British country house. 

It's from a series of images taken during the extensive remodelling of the home by Bradfield's owner Sir John Walrond and architect John Hayward. The estate had been the seat of the Walrond family since the 13th century, and it still stands today. The earliest surviving part is the 16th-century hall, which has a soaring, ornate vaulted wooden ceiling.

The 19th-century narrow streets of old Glasgow (known as closes and wynds) made up some of the worst urban slums in Britain. Rife with cholera and typhoid, the slums were scheduled for demolition and the City Improvement Trust asked Fife-born photographer Thomas Annan to record the area as it passed into history. 

The collection of images is acknowledged as the first record of slum housing in the history of photography, according to National Galleries Scotland.

In comparison, these crofter's cottages on the Isle of Skye look almost idyllic but life battling the elements here would not have been easy. Many crofters (people living off small parcels of land) struggled due to poor soil, harsh weather and economic hardship, often supplementing their income with fishing or kelp harvesting.

The legacy of the Highland Clearances was still strongly felt, with many families forcibly evicted in previous decades by unscrupulous landowners. Emigration remained a reality, with people leaving for Canada, America and Australia in search of better opportunities.

Completed in 1881, the new Eaton Hall (pictured) embodied the immense wealth of the Victorian elite, hosting extravagant house parties where guests arrived with their own staff. The estate spanned 11,000 acres (around 4,450 hectares).

Designed by Alfred Waterhouse, who also built London’s Natural History Museum, the Victorian Gothic mansion had over 150 bedrooms, vast stables, extensive kennels and a chapel with a 183ft tower housing 28 bells. Demolished in 1961, it was replaced by a smaller house. At least 1,800 country houses were lost between 1880 and 1970, with some estimates as high as 3,000.

Queen Victoria was photographed here at the age of 77 sitting in a pony and trap outside Balmoral Castle, Scotland. She's surrounded by servants and family, including Czar Nicholas II of Russia, who was married to Victoria's granddaughter Princess Alexandra.

Victoria's husband Prince Albert bought the castle in 1852 and redeveloped it until 1856. He decorated it with a strong Scottish theme, adding tartan carpet, thistle chintzes and walls adorned with hunting trophies and weapons. 

Despite the rapid changes transforming Belfast, rural life in Northern Ireland continued at a slower pace well into the 20th century. This photo shows two men stopping for a chat outside a whitewashed cottage in Glenshesk, Ballycastle, County Antrim.

Thatched cottages like this one are an emblem of the island and in 1950 there were still around 40,000 in Northern Ireland. However, as of 2023, there were only 180 left, and just 74 of them were still used as homes.

A precursor to Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts design movement developed in England in the second half of the 19th century. Led by William Morris, it sought to capture the creative essence of medieval craftsmanship and reject mass-produced items made accessible since the Industrial Revolution. 

This Arts and Crafts dining room was decorated and furnished by furniture makers Wylie and Lochhead and exhibited at the Glasgow Exhibition in 1901. Wylie, a feather merchant, and Lochhead, an undertaker, united to become Scotland's most successful furniture makers.

Queen Victoria died in 1901 and was succeeded by her son Edward VII, who was almost 60 when he finally became king. His reign lasted just nine years before he died in 1910, but the Edwardian period left a strong stamp on British architecture and interior style. Thanks to a population boom, British suburbs are full of Edwardian homes in a range of Revival styles, from Tudor to Gothic.

This Neo-Baroque music room was added to Thornton Manor, Merseyside in 1902. 

These Welsh women in traditional dress attended a formal tea party in front of a stone and slate cottage in 1910. The costume includes tall black hats, bedgowns and woollen shawls, which were usually worn at formal events like Royal visits and cultural gatherings.

Once home to the largest quarry in the world, Welsh slate has covered roofs worldwide for centuries. The former quarry is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and known as the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales.

Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Despite hopes it would be over by Christmas, the conflict dragged on until November 1918. It affected every area of life, including architecture. As new factories sprang up across the country, permanent and temporary homes, cottages and hostels sprang up around them. 

This soldier was photographed visiting his family during Christmas leave in 1914. This small parlour is typically British, with an Edwardian fireplace and pristine lace curtains. Exotic potted plants – like the palm in the corner – had become popular during the previous decade.

Many of Britain's grand country houses were requisitioned during the First World War and turned into hospitals, supply depots and barracks.

Great Dixter in East Sussex served as a home for convalescent soldiers. The owner, Nathaniel Lloyd, had employed famed architect Edwin Lutyens to convert the house from a medieval manor just before the war. This room, with its beautiful roof beams and mullioned window, was a far cry from the horror of the front lines and must have been a peaceful place for soldiers to recover. 

In 1919, housing became a national responsibility and the government promised returning soldiers "homes fit for heroes". The Becontree estate provided new "healthier" homes for people previously living in London's East End slums. 

Built between 1921 and 1935, Becontree was the largest social housing estate in the UK; its 27,000 homes cover 3,000 acres (1,214ha) of Barking, Dagenham and Ilford in Essex, housing 120,000 people.

Peter Fisher moved to Becontree when he was four in 1926 and lived there for over 92 years. In an interview with the BBC, he said Becontree filled his family with "hope of a new world" and they delighted in having multiple rooms, a big kitchen, indoor bathrooms, fresh air to breathe and a large garden like this one.

British architecture of the 1920s and 1930s is synonymous with the Art Deco and Modernist movements. 

This strikingly chic block of interwar flats and shops stands on the corner of Lowndes Square in London's Belgravia. Chelsea House was built in 1934 on the site of the 1874 home of the Earl of Cadogan and designed by Scottish architect Thomas Tait. Best known for his Art Deco and Streamline Moderne creations, Tait also designed St Andrew's House, the headquarters of the Scottish Government in Edinburgh.

The 1930s was a period of dramatic change, encompassing an economic depression and the outbreak of the Second World War.

Art Deco and Modernist interiors were all the rage. Here, South African actress Dorice Fordred takes tea in her modern apartment in Chelsea, London. Her chic breakfast nook is a perfect example of the look.

Exotic zebra print, floor-to-ceiling mirrors and tubular chrome may have been popular in the high society circles of Britain's cities, but many people still lived in traditional homes and they had to be maintained.

Bishopswood, the Bishop of Portsmouth's palace, was almost hidden by enormous piles of reed as a thatcher and his two assistants replaced the roof. Located on the outskirts of Fareham, Hampshire, Bishopswood was believed to be the "only palace in the world with a thatched roof". 

These smart middle-class rowhouses in Ilford, Greater London were newly built when they were photographed in 1936.

An inter-war housing boom saw 4.3 million homes built between the 1920s and 1939. New houses were constructed on cheap land on the outskirts of towns and cities, creating new suburbs of terraced, semi-detached and bungalow homes. Unlike many homes of the period, they typically had a bathroom, an inside lavatory, a third bedroom and a relatively spacious garden. Luxury!

The 1930s saw the start of significant slum clearance programmes across Britain formalised by the Housing Act, which mandated local authorities to identify and demolish substandard housing. Although progress was interrupted by World War II, slum clearance resumed post-war and continued into the 1980s. Between 1955 and 1985, over 1.5 million houses were declared unfit or demolished, affecting more than 3.6 million people. ​

This photo shows the old and the new existing side by side, as a woman and her two daughters view old terraced housing from the roof of Hillcott House, a new block of council flats in Shoreditch, London.

The building boom stalled at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. One year later, the German Luftwaffe began their 8-month bombing campaign on London. At its worst, the Blitz lasted 57 consecutive days and nights and by the end, more than 28,000 people were killed and two million homes were destroyed or damaged – including this one.

Dancer Ena Squire-Brown was snapped as she left her bomb-damaged home to marry her RAF flying officer fiancé. Debris was piled in the front garden and rugs were placed on the path, presumably to level the pitted ground and prevent Ena from soiling her white shoes.

Around 3.6 million Anderson Air Raid Shelters were built during the war. Made from simple corrugated metal sheets, they were sunk into the ground and earth piled on top. With food rationed, many people grew vegetables in the soil above their shelter.

These neighbours in Islington, North London are piling earth around their shelters while the children – and their toy elephant – look on.

In June 1948, HMS Windrush docked in Essex, carrying hundreds of Caribbean passengers preparing for a new life in Britain. They were the first of the Windrush generation to arrive to help rebuild the UK and its economy following the war. 

Most of the first passengers were Jamaican, like Rudolph 'Nick' Collins, who was just 17 when this picture was taken. He spent five days living in this temporary reception centre in a converted air-raid shelter under Clapham South tube station in London before finding a job and a room to rent.

Millions of homes were destroyed during the war, and the booming birth rate that followed led to a severe housing crisis. People were reduced to living in tents, barns, train carriages and even pigsties. Britain needed around 750,000 new homes faster than they could be built.

Prefabricated homes were a quick fix and became a common sight, often remaining in use for decades longer than intended. Nissen Huts, which were invented during the First World War to house soldiers, were repurposed and whole streets of them sprang up, like this one at Duddingston Camp in Edinburgh. 

It seems impossible that the post-war boom of the 1950s – or even the war itself – reached this elderly couple on the island of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. 

Separated from the mainland by 39 miles (63km) of water, Islanders mainly made a living by crafting, fishing and hand-weaving Harris tweed. Here, Mr MacDonald mends his fishing nets, while his wife operates an old-fashioned spinning wheel.

Rows of terraced homes like these in Oakdale, a Welsh village about 10 miles (16km) north of Caerphilly, were a regular sight in Britain's coal-producing areas. 

In 1923, more than 2,000 men worked at the Oakdale Colliery, the chimneys of which we can see in the distance. However, following the end of the war, that number fell sharply, leaving once-busy streets eerily quiet. Oakdale finally closed in 1989.

Glasgow struggled after the Second World War, and the Gorbals area became one of the worst slums in Europe, housing around 40,000 people in dreadful conditions. It wasn't unusual to find up to eight people sharing a single room, 30 people sharing one toilet and 40 sharing a tap. As a result, disease was rife.

This scene shows a man pulling a handcart, which looks like it belongs in the Victorian era rather than the swinging sixties. Behind him, however, there are signs of change. The old tenements had been demolished during the 1950s and modern blocks of flats were taking their place.

The 1960s were a time of change; even the nation's oldest buildings couldn't escape it. In 1965, this 17th-century timbered house was shifted 100 yards across Hereford to make way for foundations to be built for a new shop. 

Seventeen months later, in November 1966, the house was photographed as it was manoeuvered back into place, where it was incorporated into the new building. The cost of the move came to £10,000, which would be almost £160,000 ($207k) today.

Perhaps inspired by French architect Le Corbusier's inspirational concrete structures, British town planners of the 1960s and 1970s embraced Brutalist buildings as a way to ease the perennial problem of overcrowding. The word 'Brutalism' refers to “béton brut” meaning raw concrete in French, not the style's unforgiving appearance.

While many of these bold, unapologetic designs were criticised as failed experiments that destroyed traditional neighbourhoods, their appeal has grown in recent years. This Brutalist block of flats stands on Field End Road in Hillingdon, London.

This model was photographed posing in front of Finnish architect Matti Suuronen's Futuro House in October 1968. Fuelled by the space race and the 20th century's rapid technological advancements, Futurism developed as a way to depict what life might be like in the future.

This UFO-style prefabricated pod was made from 16 fibreglass segments supported on four concrete piers and a concave steel frame. Fewer than 100 were built during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and around 65 still exist today.

The kitchen of this Shetland Islands cottage appears to double as a living room and manages to be both cosy and practical. Kettles and saucepans simmer on an old Rayburn-style range while a young boy watches an elderly woman – presumably his grandmother – knit a traditional Fair Isle jumper. 

The floral wallpaper and curtains and the rich wood and brass mantlepiece give the home a warm, welcoming feel.

While the 1970s are associated with colourful clothing, disco music and iconic TV shows like Charlie's Angels, the reality in Britain was much bleaker. High inflation, low employment, strikes and a poor economy led to nationwide hardship. 

This mural by street art pioneer Walter Kershaw was painted on the gable end of a house in Rochdale, Lancashire in 1975, and perfectly sums up the decade's conflicting narratives.

Everything in this photo, from the hairstyle to the wall tiles, will be a blast from the past for anyone who remembers the 1970s. This home belonged to a middle-income professional couple and their two children in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

Bold, busy patterns, bright colours and thick carpets were the height of fashion in rich earth tones like gold, brown, orange and avocado green.

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