Clive Aslet

London

Journalist, writer, novelist. Former editor of Country Life. Author of The Birdcage, WW1 story set in Salonika, coming in paperback shortly. Parent

Articles

Glyndebourne House: The 'entrancing' home with an organ so enormous that 'it brought plaster crashing down from the ceiling when it was first played'

1 month ago | countrylife.co.uk | Clive Aslet

Glyndebourne is famous around the world as an opera house, with a country house at its heart. Today, guests who carry hampers to lake or ha-ha cannot but feel the charm of this convivial domestic setting, although the influence of it dims when they enter the auditorium itself — so sophisticated that it cannot simply be seen as an appurtenance to a family home.
Why King Charles III is fanatically devoted to the idea of home

1 month ago | tatler.com | Clive Aslet

We all know that King Charles III is big on architecture. Since he made the famous Carbuncle speech, attacking a proposed extension to the National Gallery, in the Orwellian year of 1984, it has been one of the great royal enthusiasms, along with organic farming, homoeopathy, wildflower meadows and the Book of Common Prayer. But when writing my new book, King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture, I realised how strongly his vision is focused on home.
Clive Aslet introduces his new book King Charles III: 40 Years of Architecture

1 month ago | houseandgarden.co.uk | Clive Aslet

On acquiring Highgrove, Prince Charles quickly began developing a garden; this photograph shows the famous Thyme Walk. The house itself also became increasingly engulfed in vegetation. GAP Photos/Highgrove Gardens - Robert SmithOccasionally, in a past existence, the Duchy of Cornwall would ask if I would follow the Prince of Wales, as he then was, as he visited his estates. I always accepted eagerly.
How King Charles saved British architecture from oblivion

2 months ago | telegraph.co.uk | Clive Aslet

From speaking against 'carbuncles' to creating a divisive 'toy town', there's no doubt the monarch has a passion for considered constructionEveryone knows that King Charles III is big on architecture. It is one of the great royal enthusiasms, along with the armed forces, organic farming, homoeopathy, wildflower meadows, the King James Bible and warning the world about climate change. However, the King's achievement has never been fully recognised; nor has it been taken as seriously as it should.
Without second homes, many Cornish villages would be dead

2 months ago | telegraph.co.uk | Clive Aslet
Sir Edwin Lutyens and the architecture of the biggest bank in the world

2 months ago | countrylife.co.uk | Clive Aslet

This is the second of two articles on Edwin Luytens and Reginald McKenna — the first part is here. By the time Reginald McKenna died in 1943, many people had forgotten that he had been First Lord of the Admiralty, Home Secretary and, for a year during the First World War, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Instead, he was known as the man who, for nearly quarter of a century, had been at the helm of the Midland Bank.
'There are architects and architects, but only one ARCHITECT': Sir Edwin Lutyens and the wartime Chancellor who helped launch his stellar career

Mar 30, 2025 | countrylife.co.uk | Clive Aslet

Of all the front-line British politicians during the First World War, Reginald McKenna is hardly the best known. Yet the year that he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1915–16, gave him an awesome responsibility, as conflict on a rapidly increasing scale could not have been pursued without money. If he is remembered at all, it is likely to be for his contribution to architecture.
Meet RenĂ© Olivieri, the American National Trust chair navigating an iconic British institution through transformative times

Jan 16, 2025 | spearswms.com | Clive Aslet

I have a new hero: René Olivieri, chair of the National Trust. He begins the interview by asking me about a book I once wrote. Fair enough, as we're in the former stables of Osterley Park, on the Heathrow side of London, where the main house is being readied to contain the late Sir Brinsley Ford's collection of Baroque paintings. But the idea that this busy man would remember my modest volume - hardly a bestseller - makes its way (as possibly calculated) straight to my heart.
Urban dwellers are the latest victims of the net zero crusade

Nov 11, 2024 | telegraph.co.uk | Clive Aslet

The Lillington and Longmoore Gardens estate is charging private residents for energy upgrades Fifty years ago, our Pimlico street was, in architectural terms, a happening place. This was not because of the stucco-fronted terraces built, like the rest of Pimlico, in about 1850 by the great 19th-century developer Thomas Cubitt, but a pioneering alternative to the hated high-rise blocks of flats that local authorities had been inflicting on London since the Second World War. In 1961, Westminster...
Samuel Lysons: The man who revealed the Roman Cotswolds

Sep 28, 2024 | countrylife.co.uk | Clive Aslet

The antiquarian Samuel Lysons played an important role in recording the Roman villas of the Cotswolds. Clive Aslet looks at his remarkable career and methods. For an archaeologist such as Samuel Lysons (1763–1819), the Cotswolds was a good place to be born.