More than 13,000 photos were submitted to our 2023 competition. Below you can see all the winners of the UK competition, starting with Barmouth Bridge in Wales in first place. Click the images below for more details and high-resolution copies on Wikimedia Commons.
1st prize: Barmouth Bridge
Barmouth Bridge, Arthog by Chris Bryant. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
2nd prize: Marine Court
Marine Court, Hastings by Michael Coppins. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
3rd prize: Albert Memorial
Albert Memorial by Diego Delso. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
High Commended
Lauder Memorial, Invernoaden
Lauder Memorial, Invernoaden by Shirtatlas. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Cloister at Gloucester Cathedral
Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, Cloister Gloucester by Tilman2007. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Bank of England
Bank of England viewed from the junction of Princes St. with Lothbury St. by Valentin Poleac. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
The tulip staircase at the Queen’s House, National Maritime Museum
The tulip staircase at The Queen’s House, National Maritime Museum by Tilman2007. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
The Queen’s House and East Wing, National Maritime Museum
The Queen’s House and East Wing, National Maritime Museum by Tilman2007. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Olivers Wharf
Olivers Wharf, Tower Hamlets by Tilman2007. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
South Foreland Lighthouse
South Foreland Lighthouse, St. Margarets At Cliffe by Tilman2007. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Best image from England
Marine Court, Hastings by Michael Coppins. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Best image from Scotland
Lauder Memorial, Invernoaden by Shirtatlas. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Best image from Wales
Barmouth Bridge, Arthog by Chris Bryant. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
We’re pleased to announce the winners of the UK section of Wiki Loves Monuments. This year the judges have awarded first prize to this photo of Saint Thomas Becket Church in Fairfield, Romney Marsh by Barbara Keller. Click the images below for more details and high-resolution copies on Wikimedia Commons.
1st prize: Saint Thomas Becket Church in Fairfield, Romney Marsh
Saint Thomas Becket Church in Fairfield, Romney Marsh by Barbara Keller. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
2nd prize: Cairnfield, Eskdale
Cairnfield, Eskdale by Adam M Ibbotson. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.
We’re pleased to announce the winners of the UK section of Wiki Loves Monuments. This year the judges have awarded first prize to this photo of Calfaria Baptist Church’s interior by Mark Edwards.
Overall winner
Calfaria chapel by Mark Edwards, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0
UK winners
Click the title for access to more details and high resolution copies on Wikimedia Commons.
Wiki Takes Coventry participants in 2012. Photograph by Rock drum.
September has started which can only mean on thing: it is time for Wiki Loves Monuments 2020.
We want you to share your photos of historic sites.
The competition opens on 1 September (today) and closes at 23:59 on 30 September. To take part and be in a chance with winning you need to upload photos of historic sites to Wikimedia Commons. The photos can then be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles about these sites, reaching millions of people every year.
There have been some fantastic images in the past and we are really looking forward to this year’s competition. So please share your photos!
How can I take part?
Interactive map
We have a guide which walks you through each step of the process. In short, you need to have a Wikimedia account and then to upload your photographs of eligible historic sites and share them under an open licence. They can have been taken at any point – whether you go out and take new photos or sift through old albums to find something, they are all useful.
Are there prizes?
The best photograph overall will win £250, with £100 and £50 for second and third respectively. There are up to seven Highly Commended prizes, and prizes for the best images from each of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The top ten from the UK also go into the judging for the international competition, so get a chance at more prizes.
We also have a special prize for the best photograph of a site in Scotland, courtesy of Archaeology Scotland who are sponsoring it. The winner will receive a free 1-year membership of Archaeology Scotland including the Archaeology Scotland Magazine and access to their learning resources.
Is 2020 different?
In some ways, but if you have taken part in previous years it will feel very familiar. The upload tool is the same, you can use the same log in details, and the competition is still about historic sites.
The main difference is that in the past we’ve had special prizes for best photographs of interiors and shots of buildings in use. We’ve retired these prizes this year since lockdown restrictions make accessing building interiors more challenging and limit the use of some historic sites. You can still submit photographs of interiors, either old or new images. If you’re going to take new images, make sure you and the people around you are safe.
Tips!
We have a tips page to get you started and help you make the most out of your photographs.
You have until the end of 30 September to take part, so take some time to plan your photos, go through old albums, and share your favourites.
We’re pleased to announce the winners of the UK section of Wiki Loves Monuments. This year the judges have awarded first prize to this atmospheric image of Kilchurn Castle at sunrise taken by MHoser
Overall winner
Kilchurn Castle at sunrise by MHoser, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
UK winners
Click the title for access to more details and high resolution copies on Wikimedia Commons.
Kilchurn Castle at sunrise by MHoser, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The judges appreciated the wonderful colour-palette that the photographer has captured with the early-morning light, and the real skill and care that is evident in the composition.
Bass Rock with lighthouse and gannets by Ellievking1, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Although Bass Rock is a well-photographed subject, the judges picked this image out for its unusual and varied lighting which brings out the details of the upper rock surface, the clouds of birds in flight, and the photographic angle which allows the lighthouse to stand out clearly.
Sun setting on Commando Memorial by Jock in Northumberland, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The judges liked the use of a low camera angle and late afternoon sunshine to enhance the presence of this powerful monument. They also appreciated the photographer choosing a lesser-known site.
Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator of Wikimedia UK, talks about the Wiki Loves Monuments campaign and how it can inspire communities.
What is Wiki Loves Monuments all about?
Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo competition, organised by the Wikimedia Foundation, run by volunteers, and supported by chapters across the world, including Wikimedia UK. Pictures can be of listed buildings & scheduled monuments, with a particular focus in 2019 on images of buildings in use as well as building interiors. There are prizes for the best pictures from Scotland, Wales, England, NI, the UK, and internationally.
Best of all, these images are uploaded under an open licence, meaning that anyone, anywhere in the world, can use them for study, inspiration, or just for fun – and all free of charge. The photos are made available through Wikimedia Commons – the picture equivalent of Wikipedia – and can be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles, or for any other purpose, including education, as long as they’re properly credited back to the photographer.
Using our interactive map, you can search for places near you, and see the buildings and monuments in your area. A blue pin means that there’s already a picture of that place, a red one means that there isn’t.
You can – of course – upload a picture of a site that already has a picture, but there’s a certain satisfaction to be had in turning all those red pins blue… and in my country of Scotland there are quite a lot that haven’t been covered yet! In 2017, Scotland uploaded 2104 images. In 2018, it was 4417. I’m hoping that we can break 5000 this year….
Community Participation
So what do we mean by putting your community on the map? Last year, one of our Wikimedians in Residence, Delphine Dallison, encouraged librarians all over Scotland to submit pictures of their listed building libraries, or other nearby sites, to the international photo competition. So that’s one way.
But as well as taking part in the competition yourself, you could also engage others – particularly those interested in photography and local history – to take part in an event, maybe a heritage walk of your local area.
Chris Cherrington, our top prize winner for 2018, explains how he made his stunning image of Gloucester Cathedral cloisters.
Gloucester Cathedral cloisters by Christopher JT Cherrington, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
For higher resolutions, see the image page on Wikimedia Commons.
The image
My final image was a stitched panorama consisting of 4 angles, derived from a total of 26 original exposures.
In each of the 4 directions, I bracketed between 5 and 7 shots between -3EV and +3EV (the more raw data, the better!). The reason for the bracketing was the very large dynamic range between the details in the stained glass and the shadows in the cloisters.
Due to the absurd number of tourists (this is a very popular location, and the left-hand leg points towards the very popular cafe), there were a few individual exposures which were repeated to include the tourist movement. In these particular shots, I then used Photoshop to layer the exposures and selectively mask out the tourists.
This resulted in 4 angles of bracketed, tourist-free shots.
I then put each bracketed angle into Aurora 2018, which yielded remarkable results. So good, I didn’t need to resort to luminosity masking in Photoshop.
This yielded 4 images from which to construct the panorama.
To my surprise (and gratification), finally Lightroom made an excellent job of stitching these four images together.
Equipment
Camera: Nikon D7500
Lens: Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8
Tripod: Gitzo 2545T Series 2 Traveller
Head: Gitzo GH1382QD Series 1 Centre Ball Head
Koolehaoda Panoramic Head
Hoage 140mm Nodal slide
Nikon cable release
Adobe Lightroom Classic CC
Adobe Photoshop
Aurora 2018
About me
I’m now a 63 year old retiree, though how I ever found time to work, I’ll never know. I’ve always been interested in photography, starting out with SLRs (non-digital, of course) in the 1970s. Since 1990, though, it all lapsed due to other pressures and interests, confining me to the usual point-and-shoot pocket camera and latterly, phones.
It was only in August 2017, when I finally had retired fully, that I started to get “serious” about it again, hence the purchase of some mid-range equipment and a whole load of internet-based learning.
I’m a very keen choral singer, being a member of the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and the Philharmonia Chorus (London), but often do ad-hoc visits to various places for choral events. It was on one of these, in 2017, that I had reason to visit Gloucester Cathedral. Needless to say, I was blown away by the Cloisters, also being a Harry Potter fan. So, when I took up photography again some months later, I had it in mind to go back there and try to do justice to the incredible atmosphere, spirituality and workmanship of the place.
So, on a lovely, but cold, day in January 2018, I turned up there, paid my photographer’s fee and thoroughly “did” the place! The stats above are only for the image in question. In reality, I did four complete “sweeps” of the cloister panorama, totalling something like 80 shots, taking something like an hour and a quarter to capture. I was seated in a cloister adjacent to the south-west entrance and boy, was my bum cold by the time I’d finished!
In the short time since I have been taking photography seriously, I seem to have settled on two themes: Landscape and Historical buildings, particularly churches or cathedrals. I’m not particularly religious, but I do find that spending time in a sacred building makes me feel a real sense of connection with the amazing people who created these masterpieces. Although not as technically sophisticated as we now see ourselves, every one of these amazing artisans was a real person who lived, loved, suffered and lost, just as we do today. I consider myself honoured to be able to share their amazing talent with people everywhere.
We’re pleased to announce the winners of the UK section of the world’s biggest photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments. This year the judges have awarded first prize to this stunning image of Gloucester Cathedral cloisters taken by Christopher JT Cherrington.
The Cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral by Christopher Cherrington, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
Chris has written a short blog post explaining how he took his winning image.
UK winners
Click the title for access to more details and high resolution copies on Wikimedia Commons.
The Cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral by Christopher JT Cherrington, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
The judges noted the beautiful symmetrical two-way view along the intricately detailed cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral. The light within this interior space has been well controlled and camera settings used have preserved a huge amount of detail for our eyes to feast upon. A worthy winner of the UK competition.
Sunrise at West Pier (Brighton) by Christerajet, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
A very calm and serene image of Brighton’s West Pier at dawn came second in this years competition. The judges loved its clean and smooth graduations and the soft pre-dawn colours. A highly accomplished long exposure which is not only stunning in its viewpoint and technical clarity, but also in the way it generates an emotional response with the juxtaposition of a beautiful dawn and a derelict site.
Hardknott Roman Fort (Cumbria) by Markas1370, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
This is a brilliant use of a drone for the way it opens up new ways of seeing a location. The judges loved the fact that the image shows the fortifications in their entirety, occupying the strategic high ground, and includes the drama of the landscape that surrounds it.
Dinefwr castle at sunrise, by Daniel Phillips, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
Using a drone does not necessarily produce an interesting picture. It still requires a photographer’s eye, and an ability to overcome the technical limitations of many standard drone cameras to produce an engaging image. The judges chose this photograph of Dinefwr Castle in Carmarthenshire (a castle of the Welsh Princes, rather than a Norman castle) which manages to combine a visually exciting viewpoint with straightforward digital darkroom techniques to produce a striking and beautifully atmospheric picture.
Carreg Cennen Castle by Ken Day, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
The ruin of Carreg Cennen Castle and its physical context is captured beautifully – the hazy, tranquil essence of the area, and the dramatic, menacing presence of the castle itself. The site, a few miles from Llandeilo, has a very long history, but is associated mainly with the castle built here by the Welsh Princes of the Deheubarth, and later the Normans.
Paxton’s Tower by Matt Phillips, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0
This photograph of Paxton’s Tower is an example of an honest, pleasing-to-the-eye representation of a folly in Carmarthenshire. The photograph begs so many questions – who built it, why? Why is it placed so prominently on top of a hill? A little delving reveals a complicated historical web, taking in Scotland, entrepreneurship, empire building, exploitation, social climbing, war, political spite, philanthropy and much more.
No award was made in the Best image from Northern Ireland category.
Special prize
The most prolific photographer of “new” UK historic sites was Paul the Archivist, who uploaded more than 200 pictures of sites which hadn’t previously been represented in the database.
Shortlisted images
For the complete list of all the shortlisted images, as well as access to high-resolution copies, see the winners’ page on Wikimedia Commons.
Hello, maybe you’ve come to the Wiki Loves Monuments UK site because you followed the banner from Wikipedia. But now you’re confused… what’s Wiki Loves Monuments? And who is Wikimedia UK?
Wikimedia UK is a registered charity; we work with the Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia to enable people and organisations to contribute to a shared understanding of the world through the democratic creation, distribution and consumption of knowledge.
Wikimedia UK works in partnership with organisations from the cultural and education sectors to unlock content, remove barriers to knowledge, develop new ways of engaging with the public and enable learners to benefit fully from the educational potential of the Wikimedia projects.
We support the development of open knowledge in the UK: that’s knowledge that anyone is “free to use, reuse, and redistribute without legal, social or technological restriction”, according to the Wikipedia page for the term. Wikipedia itself is an open knowledge project, because all of the content on it is free for reuse – usually under open, Creative Commons licences, a type of free licence that allows others to reuse the content for any purpose as long as they attribute it.
Wiki Loves Monuments is the Wikimedia community’s annual photographic competition which encourages people to take and upload photos of listed buildings and scheduled monuments. Many Wikipedia articles covering such sites don’t have pictures to illustrate them because available images are ‘all rights reserved’, which we can’t use. If nobody has published a suitable image under an open licence, we won’t be able to illustrate the corresponding Wikipedia page.
Understanding copyright and open knowledge is part of digital literacy. Not all content is created with the intention of making a commercial profit. All of the media on Wikipedia and its sister sites is part of the Digital Commons, the store of media online that is free for all to use. Here’s a video we made that you might find useful:
Wikimedia UK supports the Wikimedia community who edit and improve Wikipedia and its sister sites. We promote the 5th biggest website online, but we are a small charity with only around 15 staff in the UK. That means we need your help. We rely on our community who help give training in editing Wikipedia, run events and do projects to improve content on Wikipedia. If you want to get involved, you can come to one of our events, or sign up to become a member of the charity for only £5 per year.
Being a member of Wikimedia UK means you can apply for small grants to do Wikimedia-based projects, and borrow equipment like cameras so that you can take photos for Wiki Loves Monuments. You will also receive our newsletter, and can attend our AGM and help decide on the future direction of the charity.
If you have any questions about our work, you can email info@wikimedia.org.uk, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to see updates about our work and interact with us. We look forward to meeting you!
By Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator at Wikimedia UK and formerly Wikimedian in Residence at Museums Galleries Scotland.
In 2015-16 I was the Wikimedian in Residence for Museums Galleries Scotland, training museum staff to edit Wikipedia, and generally being enthusiastic about open knowledge to anyone who would listen. These days I’m continuing that work in my new role as Scotland Programme Coordinator for Wikimedia UK, working with all kinds of organisations to open up Scotland’s culture and heritage to a global audience. And in September, that means Wiki Loves Monuments.
Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo competition – the world’s largest – that aims to make high quality openly licensed images of the world’s listed buildings and scheduled monuments available to anyone in the world, through Wikimedia Commons. And as you can see from this interactive map, there’s rather a lot of Scotland missing. I’d like to turn some of those red pins blue. Actually, I’d like to turn rather a lot of them blue. Which is where you come in.
Picturing Scotland
There are prizes for the top 3 images in Scotland (sponsored by Wikimedia UK and Archaeology Scotland), as well as the top 10 images in the UK. The latter then go forward to the international competition. Last year a Scottish image came second in the UK competition and I hope we can match that.
Encouraging the creation of openly-licensed cultural heritage resources is a natural extension of museums’ existing commitment to outreach. Helping to preserve those items for future generations. The recent fires at both the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, and the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art are tragic reminders of how quickly key parts of our history and culture can be lost. The New Palmyra project has shown how valuable digital reconstruction can be. Wikipedia is encouraging people to contribute to the movement to digitally reconstruct the contents of the Rio museum, by donating images to Wikimedia Commons.
Images on Wikimedia Commons are licensed most commonly under a CC-BY-SA license. (Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike), which means that anyone can use those images, as long as they attribute them to the person who took them, and share using the same license. This means that anyone – schools, students, and the general public, can access, learn from, and re-use these images for free. The images can also be used on any of Wikipedia’s sites – available in nearly 300 languages worldwide, and view-able by a global audience. Many museums are now releasing images of out of copyright works into the digital commons, like the Rijksmuseum, or the National Library of Wales (NLW) adding 10,000 images to Wikimedia Commons over the last 4 years. Over 455 million people have seen images from NLW that have been added to Wikipedia articles!
How you can get involved
Do you work in, or live near a listed building or scheduled monument? Have you visited any recently? Is there a picture of it in our database? (Again, you can use our interactive map to check.) Pictures don’t have to have been taken in September – just uploaded in September – to be eligible for the competition.
All you need is a camera (or indeed, camera phone), and a Wikimedia Commons account (very easy to set up, and if you already have a Wikipedia account, you don’t even need to do that), and you’re ready to go. There are full instructions here about how to make your submission. Check out the video below from Wikimedia UK which shows how simple it is to take part.
Do you have a group of volunteers in your museum who are interested in photography, or perhaps you have a heritage walk of your local area planned? Are some of your staff are keen photographers? Is a picture of your museum in the database? If not, now is a perfect chance to add one.
This post applies to the Monumental map – ie to the campaigns in countries that use the Monumental map based on Wikidata.
Help WLM contestants get the feedback they are looking for – turn the pins on the map from red to green.
On the map, monuments that aren’t yet on Wikidata show as a red pin. You can help those pins turn green as contestants upload pictures of ‘missing’ monuments. It doesn’t happen automatically, as manual checking is needed to make sure the image uploaded is actually suitable to be used as the primary Wikidata illustration.
To help, login to Magnus Manske’s newly-updated Wikidata File Candidates tool and make sure that the COMMONS and ON WIKIDATA options are selected.
Type in the Commons category you want to check, eg Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2018 United Kingdom. Use the cog button to show/hide options, and the refresh button beneath to run the query.
If there are any candidate images to be added to Wikidata, they’ll appear in a list. On the left are Wikidata items and on the right are the potential candidates. First, make sure the correct WD item has been matched by the tool. If not, remove the line item by clicking the red button on the left.
Then, to add a new primary WD click on ‘Image’. You should normally select only a single best and most representative picture, but you can select several if really essential. If there is a good representative internal shot, add that as well using the ‘Image of Interior’ option from the Photo button.
Click on the red cross on the left to tell the tool that you won’t be using the other images of that monument (this prevents those images being re-displayed to you later). If there is no suitable representative image at all, ignore the suggestions and just click the red cross.
Sometimes the WD item already has one or more images, in which case they will appear under a horizontal red line in the left column. That may be because the WD item has been changed since the tool did its last data-collection run, or because the existing image is, for example, an internal shot and the tool is presenting possible options for an additional representative image.
Once you’ve added one or more images to WD, the corresponding pin on the map will change from red to green within a few minutes.
This post applies to the WLM UK interactive map – ie the campaigns in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
Help WLM contestants get the feedback they are looking for – turn the pins on the WLM-UK map from red to blue.
On the interactive map, monuments that aren’t yet on Wikidata show as a red pin. You can help those pins turn blue as contestants upload pictures of ‘missing’ monuments. It doesn’t happen automatically, as manual checking is needed to make sure the image uploaded is actually suitable to be used as the primary Wikidata illustration.
To help, login to Magnus Manske’s newly-updated Wikidata File Candidates tool and make sure that the COMMONS and ON WIKIDATA options are selected.
Type in the Commons category you want to check, eg Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2018 United Kingdom. Use the cog button to show/hide options, and the refresh button beneath to run the query.
If there are any candidate images to be added to Wikidata, they’ll appear in a list. On the left are Wikidata items and on the right are the potential candidates. First, make sure the correct WD item has been matched by the tool. If not, remove the line item by clicking the red button on the left.
Then, to add a new primary WD click on ‘Image’. You should normally select only a single best and most representative picture, but you can select several if really essential. If there is a good representative internal shot, add that as well using the ‘Image of Interior’ option from the Photo button.
Click on the red cross on the left to tell the tool that you won’t be using the other images of that monument (this prevents those images being re-displayed to you later). If there is no suitable representative image at all, ignore the suggestions and just click the red cross.
Sometimes the WD item already has one or more images, in which case they will appear under a horizontal red line in the left column. That may be because the WD item has been changed since the tool did its last data-collection run, or because the existing image is, for example, an internal shot and the tool is presenting possible options for an additional representative image.
Once you’ve added one or more images to WD, the corresponding pin on the WLM-UK interactive map will change from red to blue within a few minutes.
We’re very pleased to announce that the UK is taking part in the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest again in 2018. Eligible subjects for you to photograph include all grades and categories of Listed buildings, plus Scheduled Monuments. See our eligible subjects page for details.
Photos for the contest can be taken at any time, so get shooting now ready to enter your images in September!
September has started which can only mean on thing: it is time for Wiki Loves Monuments 2020.
We also have a special prize for the best photograph of a site in Scotland, courtesy of 
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