Painting by Graham Sutherland is being displayed at Blenheim Palace before being auctioned in June

An intimate study of Winston Churchill that has been in private hands for seven decades has gone on show in the room at Blenheim Palace in which Britain’s most famous prime minister was born, before being auctioned in June.

It was the work of Graham Sutherland, one of the most highly regarded artists of his time. Sutherland was commissioned to paint Churchill by the Houses of Parliament to mark the wartime leader’s 80th birthday in November 1954.

Sutherland’s portrait of Churchill will be on public view at Blenheim Palace from 16-21 April, and at Sotheby’s in London and New York before its sale.

Archaeologists and guides among critics who say scheme goes against what symbol of democracy should represent

Jackie and Malcolm Love stood amid a bevy of tourists in the heart of Athens taking in the Acropolis with a mixture of awe and admiration. The Greek capital’s greatest classical site was truly magnificent, they said, but the crowds had been such, even in April, that they preferred to experience it from a distance.

“We didn’t go, not with all those people,” said Jackie, looking up at the fifth-century monument from the cobbled boulevard below. “We didn’t think it’d be the best thing to do, did we?” she said, nudging her husband.

Five years after the inferno at the Paris cathedral, a new exhibition shows the rescued art treasures

There was a moment on 15 April 2019 as the flames consuming Notre Dame cathedral roared into the evening sky when it seemed all would be lost.

Firefighters prevented the blaze from reaching the bell towers – whose collapse would have almost certainly brought down the facade – and from destroying the bells, the Grand Organ and the Parisian monument’s stained-glass rosette windows.

Glyn Smith is first addition since 1920 to portraits commemorating staff at Erddig in Wrexham

A rare collection of portraits of domestic staff at a Welsh country house that spans more than 100 years has gained a modern addition with a striking photograph of its recently retired head gardener.

The collection at Erddig in Wrexham highlights a new appreciation of the back-breaking work carried out by servants and staff in the upstairs-downstairs world of country houses and stately homes. Kensington Palace recently hosted an exhibition of portraits of overlooked, and often overworked, back-room staff in royal households.

In unusual election pledge, Keane Duncan says he will use public money to buy 1867 hotel, forcibly if necessary

Built for wealthy Victorian holidaymakers as the biggest hotel in Europe, Scarborough’s iconic Grand has stood proud since 1867, perched high on the seafront, just metres above the sandy South Bay beach.

So for many in the town, it has been embarrassing to watch the Grade II-listed building suffer a sad reversal of fortunes in recent decades, becoming the “shame of Scarborough”.

Sèvres porcelain was among objects stolen from Château de Thoiry outside Paris in 1987

A rare jug and basin given by Marie Antoinette to one of her closest friends are being returned to a French chateau 37 years after their theft.

The Sèvres porcelain was taken by armed robbers from the Château de Thoiry, 30 miles west of Paris, in 1987. Detectives identified the ewer and bowl stolen after an antiques expert contacted them to check whether the ceramic ware was on a list of missing cultural objects.

Exclusive: four vases in New York auction traced to Gianfranco Becchina, convicted in 2011 of illegally dealing in antiquities

Christie’s has withdrawn four ancient Greek vases from Tuesday’s auction after a leading archaeologist discovered that each of them was linked to a convicted antiquities dealer.

Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, an affiliated archaeology lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in looted antiquities and trafficking networks, told the Guardian that damning evidence was within the auction house’s own correspondence with the dealer, which was seized by the police.

Railway nostalgia, the world’s oldest football, fenland skies and a little-known bard are among the highlights of Crewe, Stirling, Boston and Barnstaple

These oft-bypassed towns have all been, at some period in history, influential if not necessarily powerful; wealth-creating though hardly opulent; and vital to the nation’s wealth and security while never fully rewarded for it. Communications and trade once gave some urban centres the edge over others. Churches and marketplaces were social magnets. Today a brand-name art gallery, celebrity residents, or media chatter are most likely to generate appeal, however specious. What if estate agents sold houses using poetry, memories, polyglotism, ruins and rust?

Wooden structure in St John’s Wood joins 12 other surviving shelters out of the original 60 built between 1875 and 1950

The last of 13 surviving green cab shelters providing rest and refreshment to generations of drivers in London has been listed by Historic England in recognition of its architectural and historical significance.

The wooden shelters were built by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund from 1875 onwards, when cabs were horse-drawn. Many had a rail fixed to the exterior so cabbies could tether their horses while they refuelled with hearty plates of food and exchanged gossip with fellow drivers.