Britain's Twenty Most Historic Floors

No, really. The list comes from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, part of their "History at Your Feet" campaign. ("A campaign to encourage everyone to be more aware of the importance of old floors.") The list includes the most obvious candidate, the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey (above).

But the rest is an eclectic assortment that ranges from Roman mosaics to the nineteenth century. Above, fourteenth-century tiles at All Saints Church, Icklingham, Norfolk.

Eighteenth-century marble floor in the neoclassical Chapel of St Peter and St Paul at the Old Royal Naval College, designed by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart and William Newton.

Warped wooden floor at St. Mary's Guildhall, Coventry, early fifteenth century.

Nineteenth-century encaustic floor tiles at the medieval church of St Jerome at Llangwm Uchaf in Monmouthshire, Wales. More at the SPAB's web site.