It’s a leviathan of pub conversation — up there with hoary old arguments about the best movie never to win an Oscar and the funniest Monty Python member. What would qualify as the Seven Wonders of the Modern World? An international poll is seeking a definitive answer, inviting pub-goers (and others) from across the globe to vote for their favourite buildings, sculptures and structures via that most insubstantial of modern-day miracles, the internet.

The poll has already attracted 17m votes, and a shortlist of 21 will be announced at the end of this year. The current leaders of the poll include all the usual suspects — the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and so on — but not a sausage from Britain.

It’s not too late to pitch in and vote British. But which wonder would you elect? After all, our built heritage can match just about anywhere on the planet, stretching from the Ring of Brodgar to the Gherkin, from Stonehenge to Selfridges Birmingham, via Hadrian’s Wall, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Blackpool Tower. How do you narrow it down? We asked the experts.

To contribute to the international poll, visit www.n7w.com

Durham Cathedral

Proposed by Simon Jenkins, columnist, author and former deputy chairman of English Heritage. His books include England’s Thousand Best Churches

“FOR ME, the most sensational man-made structure in Britain is Durham Cathedral. It stands, with its monastery, castle, keep and citadel wall, on a bluff on a bend in the River Wear, embodying the Norman conquest of northern Europe. I don’t think anything of that period is its equal, not anywhere in the world.

“The building is overpowering today. Imagine how it would have seemed when it loomed over the huts and hovels of medieval Durham. This is power expressed in architecture, a building appropriate to the bishops palatinate, who enjoyed the king’s power over northern Britain well into the 19th century.

“What strikes you is this dark, towering mass of romanesque masonry, first Saxon, then Norman, with remarkably few later additions. It rises across its green, surrounded by the ruins of its monastery and the castle, now part of Durham University. Apart from gothic windows and the tower decoration, it’s entirely a building of the late 12th century. Everything about it moves me.

“Inside, the vast drum columns form a dark forest flanking the nave. Ancient murals still adorn the walls, the chapterhouse has exquisite Norman motifs and the ancient brass sanctuary ring still beckons fugitives on the door. I’ve seen Durham Cathedral in sun and snow. I’ve gazed up at it from the river and climbed its lantern. No question — it’s a true wonder of the world.”

See for yourself: you won’t have trouble locating Britain’s finest cathedral, especially if you arrive by train — as views from railway stations go, this one’s a stonker.

The cathedral itself (0191 386 4266) is open 9.30am-6.15pm (Sun 12.30-5pm), and admission is free, though viewing some of its booty requires a nod to Mammon. The Treasures of St Cuthbert exhibition (10am-4.30pm, Sun 2pm-4.30pm; £2) has a glowing illuminated copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels, while a puff up the 325 steps of the tower (Mon-Sat, 9.30am-4pm; £2) offers illuminating views of the city.

Durham’s other attractions include its castle, with guided tours at weekends (£5; 0191 334 3800); and, of course, the whole crag- top medieval quarter. Afterwards, sample life as a Norman lord at the Lumley Castle hotel (0191 389 1111, www.lumleycastle.com), in nearby Chester-le-Street; doubles from £165, room-only.

Rushton Triangular Lodge, Northants

Proposed by Lucinda Lambton, who has made 50 films on architecture and history for the BBC, including An Album of Curious Houses and the 26-part series Lucinda Lambton’s A to Z of Britain

“THE TRIANGULAR Lodge at Rushton is a sensationally strange little building. Little known in Britain, let alone lauded as one of our wonders, in my book it should rate as one of the world’s seven wonders.

“I first came across it by mistake, when researching a book on archi-tecture for animals. I’d heard the Lodge had been built for rabbits. When I arrived, I got a shock: not only was this no mere hutch, it seemed to be a building of singular importance.

“Its sharp, striped little sandstone body is smothered with symbols — it is a sermon in stone, a proclamation of faith. It was built in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Tresham, who, having been hounded for his Catholicism, created this covert declaration of his beliefs. It’s an exquisite Elizabethan conceit, designed to symbolise the Holy Trinity. I just love it.

“Everything about the tiny building revolves around the number three. Each side of the triangle has three storeys, each with a trio of fanciful trefoil windows. The three main rooms are hexagonal, and nine gables soar up to the sky, ablaze with stone flames and crowned with three-sided pinnacles. The triangular chimney is carved with symbols of the Mass. Wherever you look, it’s remarkable.

“Tresham spent 15 years either in prison or in confinement for his beliefs. Thank the Lord they inspired this beautiful building. Its quality and rarity deserve worldwide fame.”

See for yourself: this particular wonder is improbably located between Kettering and Corby, beside a lane outside Rushton (open Thu-Mon, March 24 to October 31, 10am-5pm; £2; 01536 710761).

After puzzling out its secrets, pick up the Tresham Trail leaflet and drive east to Lyveden New Bield (open Wed-Sun, 10.30am-5pm, from April to October, and daily in August; £3.50; 01832 205358), his other great architectural conundrum. An elegant garden pavilion shaped like a Greek cross, it was abandoned, unfinished, when Tresham died, penniless, 400 years ago. But his water garden has been restored, and starred in the recent BBC series Hidden Gardens. From Lyveden, you can walk through Lilford Wood to Wadenhoe, and the supercosy King’s Head (lunch served noon-2pm; 01832 720024).

For a bedroom, keep driving until you hit the mellow market town of Oundle, where the Talbot Hotel (01832 273621, www.thetalbot-oundle.com; doubles from £95, B&B) has the staircase that another Catholic upstart, Mary, Queen of Scots, walked down to her execution.

Ribblehead Viaduct, N Yorks

Proposed by Will Alsop, British architecture’s maverick new star. He won the Stirling prize in 2000, and his vision for the urban north, SuperCity, is showing at Urbis, Manchester, until May 15. It includes plans to reforge Barnsley as a Tuscan hill town

“THE FIRST time I saw Ribblehead Viaduct, it completely took me by surprise. I was taken there by a friend on an unbelievably windy day — it just about took my car door off. And there in front of me was this truly extraordinary thing of massive scale, in a typical rolling Yorkshire Dales valley.

“A hundred men were killed building the Settle to Carlisle railway in the 1870s, and it’s poignant to think how all that pain and misery produced this incredible beauty. It was designed by engineers for functional reasons, but as a pure architectural achievement, I think its scale and grace stand up against virtually any built structure in the world.

“Its impact — 24 arches, fully 100ft high — is absolutely enhanced by its setting, and in turn it enhances its location. So often we’re afraid to despoil nature with man-made works — and if you were to try to build anything on that scale there today, no doubt there’d be some “Save the Valley” group up in arms about it. But Ribblehead is a perfect example of how the right structure can actually add to the drama and aesthetic appeal of a landscape.

“There’s no best way to approach the viaduct — every view is full of impact — and you can still ride over it on the Settle to Carlisle railway. But the best way of all to see it is to park your car and just walk over and stand underneath it.”

See for yourself: the Settle to Carlisle line survives mainly for tourists, and no wonder: it’s the most stupendous rail journey in England (a return from Settle to Ribblehead costs £4.60; timetable on 0845 748 4950 or at www.settle-carlisle.co.uk). It covers 72 monu- mental miles in all; free guided walks connect the stations.

Jump off at Ribblehead station (or drive there from Settle on the B6479) and take a footpath right under the arches: a five-mile circuit continues via Winterscales, Broadrake and Gunnerfleet Farm (OS Explorer map OL2). If you’re driving, don’t miss nearby White Scar Cave (£6.95; 01524 241244), Britain’s longest and most jaw-dropping show cave.

Stone Close (015396 25231), in Dent, has three cottagey B&B rooms (£21.50pp); or, for something grander, try Amerdale House, at Arncliffe (01756 770250, www.amerdalehouse.co.uk; doubles from £168, including dinner and breakfast).

Forth Bridge, Edinburgh

Proposed by Dan Cruickshank, presenter of the television series Britain’s Best Buildings. He is currently going Around the World in 80 Treasures on BBC2 (Mondays, 9pm)

“THIS WAS a wonder of the world when it was completed in 1890, and remains one of the most moving and beautiful structures ever — it’s still the second-largest cantilevered bridge anywhere. For me, it retains the power to astonish.

“Unlike the other engineering marvels of the 19th century, Fowler and Baker’s design makes no direct reference to past architecture. There’s no superfluous ornament: its mighty visual punch comes from the heroic, ruthless expression of its materials.

“The bridge does have rich cultural roots, though. Its design was a response to the astonishingly difficult brief — to span at high level 1 miles of raw, wind-blown estuary. But it is also a monument to the Victorian obsession with natural history. The wonders of nature were seen as evidence of a benign and ingenious Creator, whose works were clues for man to follow. Not many people realise it, but the design, with its vast double- cantilever towers, was inspired by the skeletal structure of great mammals and dinosaurs. So it’s intended as a monument to God’s creation.

“I still think the Forth Bridge is in a league of its own. It shows how something of pure function can match the greatest ornamental treasures. Many believed the task impossible, but eight years of day-and-night construction proved that the hard men of the late- Victorian epoch could achieve anything. Those men of the old world built the new, and for me the Forth Bridge is the structure that marks the start of the modern world.”

See for yourself: in the southern shadow of the bridge lies the pretty conservation town of South Queensferry — only nine miles from Edinburgh, but worth a day’s exploration in its own right. It has a charming harbour and assorted historical curiosities: August’s Ferry Fair (www.ferryfair.co.uk) features one of Britain’s oddest customs, the Burry Man, in which a local stuck from head to toe with prickly burrs lurches unnervingly around the town. Nobody quite knows why.

The Hawes Inn (0131 331 1990; doubles from £59) was a favourite of Robert Louis Stevenson, and today offers cosy lunches, hearty rooms and a tiny museum of Stevenson memorabilia. Nearby, Hopetoun House (open daily, 10am-5.30pm, from March 25 to September 25; £7; 0131 331 2451) is one of Scotland’s stateliest stately homes.

There are beds aplenty in Edinburgh, but Orocco Pier (0131 331 1298, www.oroccopier.co.uk), in South Queensferry, offers smart modern food with the spectacularly lit Forth Bridge as your overdressed dining companion; its dapper double rooms start at £100.

Angel of the North, Tyne & Wear

Proposed by Jeanette Winterson, who has written eight novels, including Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Sexing the Cherry. She is a regular writer for The Times and a former columnist for Building Design magazine

“THE ANGEL of the North is beautiful — by that I mean it has form and purpose. I think public art in Britain is usually simplistic or insipid, or both. The Angel is complex and vital. Sighting it from the road or the train is a heart-lifting surprise. It stands over the landscape as protection and revelation, the guardian of travellers and settlers alike.

“It’s 65ft high, with a wingspan of 175ft, so it’s physically massive. What I also like is that it was made in a local foundry by 20 skilled men working full time for six months — so it celebrates the sweat and toil that made Tyneside great.

“But the Angel is no nostalgic monument to the past; Gateshead wanted a millennium sculpture, and Antony Gormley believes that the aeroplane is the icon of the 20th century. Invented right at the beginning of the last century, it achieved the age-old dream of powered flight. A millennium sculpture had to have wings.

“But, for me, for all its massy substance, it has an otherworldly quality about it, something common to art and sculpture that’s the real thing. Here is the object, but the object takes us through itself into the hidden places of the imagination. In a world dully obsessed with documentary drama, charade politics and reality TV, I think we need imagination. That’s why I’ve chosen the Angel of the North.”

See for yourself: with the monolithic Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art bossing the quayside, Norman Foster’s shiny new Sage concert hall beside it and the eye-catching Millennium Bridge winking away between them, Newcastle-Gateshead is well on the way to having seven wonders all of its own. It’s an obvious choice for an artsy UK city break. Baltic (free; 0191 478 1810) is currently showing shed-built spontaneous sculptures by Phyllida Barlow; while Sage Gateshead (0870 703 4555) has regular orchestral music from the resident Northern Sinfonia. Or you could just hit the town, dining at Café 21 (0191 222 0755), then touring the famously buzzy nightspots along the river.

For the Angel himself, take the signed exit from the A1 south of town. If you want to sleep with him, book room 15 at the Angel View Inn (0191 410 3219, www.angelviewinn.co.uk), a friendly, family-run hotel five minutes away, with doubles from £60, B&B.

Alternatively, Newcastle has perhaps the best of the Mal-maison chain (0191 245 5000; www.malmaison-newcastle.com; doubles £135, room-only).

The M1 Motorway

Proposed by Antony Gormley, Britain’s foremost contemporary sculptor. His work includes the Angel of the North and Field, comprising 35,000 terracotta figures, for which he won the Turner prize in 1994

“FOR ME, the M1 is the modern equivalent of the megalithic monuments of Stonehenge, the Ring of Brodgar or Silbury Hill. Those charted the movement of planetary bodies — whereas in modern life, we are obsessed with the movement of human bodies. The M1 is the spine of Britain, the classic motorway. It’s an unconscious monument, an inscription on the landscape, representing the modern obsession with connectivity and communication and speed.

“I used to travel the M1 from Hampstead to school in Yorkshire in the early 1960s, and it was a journey of liberation and trepidation, going north into the moorland, the big skies. My favourite section is in South Yorkshire: the twin cooling towers beside the Tinsley Viaduct in Sheffield, then views of the Emley Moor transmitter tower, which is Grade II-listed and the tallest freestanding structure in Europe.

“Again, Emley Moor represents our 20th-century yearning for swifter communications, which in the digital age will soon be outmoded. And it’s so elegant, a single form made from a single material. In 2,000 years’ time, I think radio masts and motorways will be objects of speculation and wonder, comparable to Stonehenge today — or to the Long Man of Wilmington, the neolithic chalk figure on the Sussex Downs.

“That would also make my shortlist of British wonders: another inscription on the landscape, but in human form. There’s a remarkable view of it from the churchyard in Wilmington village, beneath one of Britain’s oldest trees. But, like the moai of Easter Island, the figure wasn’t really addressed to other humans, but to the sky: it is signalling to the unknown, and that’s what makes it so timeless and powerful.

“The Angel of the North is a transitional object, created between an industrial age and an age of information. Perhaps the Long Man is also a symbol of uncertainty, of a time when people were unsure what the future was going to bring.”

See for yourself: Antony Gormley’s M1 tour begins at junction 34, and motors north to junction 38, for Emley. The defunct Sheffield cooling towers, nicknamed Bill and Ben, have become an unofficial icon of the city — and, oddly enough, a design competition has been mooted to turn them into “Sheffield’s Angel of the North”. The slender concrete candlestick that is Emley Moor radio transmitter lies a mile south of the A637, near Huddersfield.

If you want to see the Long Man of Wilmington, the place to stay is the Crossways Hotel (01323 482455, www.crosswayshotel.co.uk; from £72pp, including dinner and breakfast).

An Turas Tiree, Hebrides

Proposed by Waldemar Januszczak, the Sunday Times art critic, twice named critic of the year at the British Press Awards. His television work includes Gauguin: The Full Story

“I’M NOT alone in thinking a ferry shelter can be a world-class wonder: An Turas was shortlisted for the Stirling prize in 2003. It’s an incredibly modern and progressive building in an extraordinary setting. “Tiree is the outermost of the Inner Hebrides, and the coastline is essentially wild and barren, but also very exciting. All great buildings are about more than themselves, and An Turas is fundamentally about how it reacts to the space it’s in. It is a long, clean white tunnel ribboning out to the sea, which is both above the rocks and in them. At the end is a slate-floored glass pod that gives you a huge panoramic view of the landscape: fantastic pristine beaches, gannets, seals and this big, powerful sea. It’s a building that lets you experience the landscape in a pure form.

“There’s something spiritually crucial about places like Tiree, and An Turas, which means “the journey”, is like a conductor for exploring that spiritual dimension. Travelling along the tunnel is like being taken back to a more primeval and exhilarating time — back to Britain’s ocean past. It’s a place that lends itself to big thoughts. I go back once a year for the sake of my soul.

“On the whole, cities have been well treated by architects, but the wider world is only lightly littered with interesting architecture. Building in nature should not be twee. I would argue that the fragility of its position is absolutely suited to its modernness. An Turas is a beautiful piece of minimal art in a beautiful part of the world.”

See for yourself: as architectural pilgrimages go, this is a biggie. For a start, it’ll take you almost four hours to get there on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry from Oban (five-day return £21.45; daily from March 25 to October 22; 0870 565 0000, www.calmac.co.uk). You can also fly from Glasgow (Mon-Sat; £112 return with Loganair; 0870 850 9850, www.ba.com), but the port should really be part of the adventure. Once you arrive? Windswept white beaches, wild machair, wilder crofters and impromptu ceilidhs in remote hostelries. Tiree has 800 people, two or three hotels (the best is Kirka- pol House, in a converted Victorian church: 01879 220729; £27pp, B&B) and a couple of prehistoric landmarks — the Ringing Stone, Dun Mor broch — straight out of Father Ted.

Researched and compiled by Vincent Crump and Joan Mullin

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