Poet, broadcaster, and writer on architecture, born in London, UK. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, but left university without a degree. He began to write for the Architectural Review and became general editor of the Shell Guides (1934). His first collection of verse was Mount Zion; or In Touch with the Infinite (1933). Other collections include New Bats in Old Belfries (1945), A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954), and Collected Poems (1958). His Summoned by Bells (1960) is an autobiography in verse. Nostalgic and wary of change, he preferred the countryside to the city, loved railways and churches, and was impassioned in his abhorrence of modern architecture. He was knighted (1969), and succeeded Cecil Day-Lewis as poet laureate in 1972.