Its walls enclose a still-intact 12th-century round tower, 13th-century Gothic cathedral and exquisite 12th-century Romanesque chapel.

BBC: Who was the real St Patrick?

Stephen Hall, the 2, 300-square-foot 15th century gothic reception area in the main wing.

FORBES: Banff Springs Eternal

Estaing is a fairytale village of just 600 people with a castle and a 16th-century Gothic bridge over the Lot River that has been awarded Unesco World Heritage status.

BBC: A road trip through provincial France

The High Court, inspired by a German castle, and the University of Mumbai, resembling a 15th-century French-Gothic triumph, are the stars of this setting.

BBC: Mumbai in a day

It is true that the surviving evidence of an intensely religious society is impressive: the superb gothic cathedrals of the 13th century, the fine poetry of the French and German epics, the leading universities of France, England and Italy, a whole world of sculpture and manuscript painting.

ECONOMIST: Medieval history

This magnificently restored 19th-century stone-and-brick neo-Gothic structure was built as a bank, but served most recently as the municipal conservatory.

FORBES: Amsterdam's Striking Conservatorium Hotel

The 18th-century landscaping, gardens and canal, the 19th-century plantations and vistas, and the neo-Gothic castle of Studley Royal Park, make this an outstanding site.

UNESCO: World Heritage

Inspired by the religious sobriety of the early-19th-century German painters who called themselves "Nazarenes, " by England's Gothic-revival movement and by the straightforward imagery of early-Renaissance painters like Giotto, they looked to the Bible, to the poetry of Keats and Tennyson and to Shakespeare for subject matter, proclaiming their intention to shun vulgar or sentimental subjects and to paint directly from nature.

WSJ: Victorian Avant-Garde | Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design | National Gallery of Art | By Barrymore Laurence Scherer