The world's greatest man-made wonders - according to you

The Temple of Ramasses II in Abu Simbel
The Temple of Ramasses II in Abu Simbel Credit: Fotolia/AP

This week's winner

Meeting Shelley’s traveller from an antique land

As a schoolboy in the Fifties, I had to learn and recite Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”. This poem has fascinated me ever since. After retirement in 1996, on holiday in Luxor, I of course had to “look on my Works ye Mighty and despair”. The remains of Ozymandias are in the Temple of Ramesses II, a short taxi ride from the hotel I stayed in. 

I marvelled at the engineering, construction and transport of 1,000 tons of pink granite across 170 miles of desert from Aswan. I stood in wonder as I finally came, if not face to face, then at least feet to foot with this fabulous being.

Little did I realise, 40 years on, that same schoolboy would be in the desert, where “nothing beside remains around the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away”. Of such events holiday memories are made.

Ken Atkinson, from Doncaster, wins a £300 Kirker Holiday voucher and a bottle of champagne 

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Ethiopia’s mysterious stone-hewn Jerusalem

Imagine excavating a church below ground level from a single piece of rock. Lalibela in Ethiopia has not just one, but 11 rock-hewn, monolithic churches. Built by King Lalibela in the 12th century, they were his re-creation of Jerusalem so citizens wouldn’t have to journey to the city.

A church built into the rock in Lalibela
A church built into the rock in Lalibela Credit: Fotolia/AP

Our guide, Eskedar, led us down a steep, rough path and we explored the north-eastern cluster. Bet Medhane Alem covered 800 sq m and had 72 pillars, while the wall paintings in Bet Maryam were still visible. In the south-east, Bet Abba Libanos is said to have been built overnight by Lalibela’s wife, assisted by angels. Finally there is the isolated Bet Giyorgis, designed in the shape of a symmetrical cruciform tower.

The churches are still used for worship and seeing them full of white-robed priests and followers on Timkat, the Ethiopian Epiphany, was an unforgettable experience.

Roy Messenger, London

An ancient wonder right on our doorstep

I have seen the Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and the mosaics in St Mark’s in Venice, all awe-inspiring; but the most astonishing place I have visited is the Shell Temple/Grotto in Margate, Kent. This mysterious underground space is covered with figures and symbols made from shells pressed into cement mixed not with water but with animal or fish oils. One corner was bomb-damaged, but very little restoration has been needed. Discovered by schoolboys in 1835, its age is uncertain and nobody knows who constructed it. Most authorities agree it is pre-Roman, probably Phoenician. 

"The eight wonder of the world"
"The eighth wonder of the world" Credit: Alamy

The writer Marie Corelli called it the eighth wonder of the world, and it’s on our doorstep. Go and see it.

Annabel Bailey, Berkshire

Inspiration and hope in Bosnia

The Old Bridge (Stari Most) at Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a Unesco World Heritage Site and a fine stone monument even without the history and significance it holds. A bridge that symbolically joins East and West, it is set amid Eastern Ottoman and Western European architecture and showcases peaceful collaboration between Eastern Orthodox Serbs, Sephardic Jews and Bosniak Muslims.

The bridge is made all the more poignant by its destruction in the Nineties war and the reunification of the city in 2004 when it was rebuilt. It is a symbol of inspiration and hope.

David Faria, Cambridge

Stari Most, or Old Bridge, in the city of Mostar
Stari Most, or Old Bridge, in the city of Mostar Credit: Fotolia/AP

A breathtaking shrine to Buddhism in Japan

By far the most impressive man-made wonder I have seen is the Todaiji temple in Nara, Japan. It’s the largest wooden building in the world and, glimpsing it from a distance, it takes a while to catch your breath. When you get nearer, you see the most awe-inspiring statue in the country and possibly the world, the Daibutsu, or Giant Buddha. It never fails to impress.

There are many huge man-made wonders, of course, but this is on a more human scale and resonates with devotion and determination.

David Pearce, Kent

Empty echoes of brutalism in the Baltic

The Thirties Nazi beach resort of Prora, on Germany’s Baltic island, Rügen, is the longest building complex in the world. It is inspiring in a melancholy way rather than uplifting, a purposeless shell that was never used, all human effort wasted, a 2½-mile stretch of brutal concrete.

Its prize-winning architecture was intended to house 20,000 workers on holidays provided by the regime. All rooms overlook the sparkling Baltic and perfect beaches. Ballrooms, swimming pools, dance halls and restaurants were all part of the plan.

The Nazis sure knew how to make holiday accommodation
The Nazis sure knew how to make holiday accommodation Credit: Fotolia/AP

Prora was never occupied; the outbreak of war saw the deployment of the building teams to missile installations along the coast instead. Now housing a museum, new holiday developments and the largest youth hostel in Germany, it is still largely deserted – and creatively graffitied.

You can wander through Prora, the sad wind sighing in the pines and lizards scuttling in the sand. Walk the lonely beach, searching for slivers of amber, poignant relics of the past.

Liz Kolbeck, Manchester

A cathedral to the sea at Chatham Dockyard

No 3 Covered Slip – not the most inspiring name – at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, is unique. In 1838 the original open slipway was covered with an immense building to protect wooden ships during construction and was the largest wide-span timber structure in Europe.

The cathedral-like building always takes my breath away. From the landward side, the curve-ended roof set with row upon row of roof lights is spectacular, but once inside the full splendour and craftsmanship are revealed. A climb to the newer mezzanine floor (there is a lift) brings you close to the amazing roof – a complicated arrangement of trusses arching overhead interspersed with hundreds of windows that cast patterns of light on the floor.

Hilary Spon, Kent

No 3 Covered Slip at Chatham Dockyard
No 3 Covered Slip at Chatham Dockyard Credit: Alamy

Iran’s millennia-old monument to a lost world

During the Seventies, when I was working at an international school in Tehran, the city was full of American Peace Corps volunteers. At weekends I used to accompany one of them while he was out working in the countryside.

Once we stopped on the outskirts of a remote town and I was transfixed by the sight of a tall, windowless hexagonal red brick tower with a conical roof, standing on a man-made hill. Local people told us it was the tomb of Kabus, who died in 1007. They said his body hung from the ceiling inside a glass coffin for more than a thousand years, and that a lamp used to flash from the roof. I love that story.

Damaris Vivienne Graham, Devon

An Italian church made from tin cans and plasterboard

“You must see our Italian Chapel,” said the Orkney ferryman as we lurched across the Pentland Firth. Italian prisoners of war made it from two Nissen huts and clad the inside with plasterboard, painted with such skill that I had to touch it to discover that it was not carved stonework. Delicately ornate candle-holders on close inspection reveal their origin: food tins, apparently corned beef. The prisoners were, however, allowed to use concrete left over from their work of building causeways between Orcadian islets. It forms an impressive ecclesiastical facade. 

Notre Dame may impress, but it can’t match this testament to conflict giving way to faith and reconciliation.

John Samson, Edinburgh

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