The artist Ed Kluz has a fascination for the sites of lost buildings. Once-celebrated grand houses that were abandoned to ruin, burned or deliberately destroyed have become the haunting subject matter of his distinctive collages. Kluz studies old engravings, plans and descriptions in order to build a full mental picture of a house.

His lost houses conjure up the vanished buildings in all their pomp, existing not in the re-created landscape, but rather illuminated by theatrical lighting. In his talk for Royal Oak, Ed will plot the sources of inspiration behind his work; from his childhood years spent in early 19th-century farmhouse in the North Yorkshire Dales; to documenting the smouldering ruins of Clandon Park using charcoal from the fire itself. Among other English houses featured will be the enigmatic Chipping Campden House and William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey.