Dr Anthony Geraghty, University of York

William III commissioned some of the finest buildings in England, including Hampton Court, Kensington Palace, and Greenwich Hospital. It was William's good fortune to employ Sir Christopher Wren, and it was during his reign that the dome of St Paul's Cathedral first graced the London sky-line.

William's earliest major commission is in Holland. In the 1680s he built himself a palace at Het Loo, which originally functioned as a hunting lodge. The palace is built of brick - a favourite Dutch material - and the design, although handsome, is relatively modest compared with other Baroque palaces.

Following his move to England, William decided to quit Whitehall Palace - the principal seat of Court for over a century - and move instead to Hampton Court. The King was asthmatic and the close proximity of the Thames exacerbated his health.

Sir Christopher Wren was asked to remodel Hampton Court. A handsome new courtyard was built at the south-east corner of the existing palace, containing suites of rooms - or apartments - for the King and Queen. The King's apartment was located in the south wing, while the Queen, had she survived, would have been accommodated in the adjoining east wing. Externally, Wren's additions are built of brick, matching the Tudor palace and evoking Het Loo.

It is important to remember that a seventeenth-century palace was much more than just a house. Hampton Court was the centre of power and intrigue, combining the modern roles of Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street. This is reflected in the layout of William's apartment, which consists of a sequence of rooms arranged in a straight line, beginning with a guard-chamber and culminating in a State Bedchamber and closet.

The more important the visitor the further they might proceed along this sequence or enfilade of rooms.

Only those most intimately connected with the king ever penetrated the inner sanctum of his bed-chamber. The rooms were sparsely furnished, for it was forbidden to sit in the presence of the king. William also had a suite of private apartments. These were located on the ground floor and are comparatively modest.

Hampton Court is located 13 miles from London. This was a morning's coach-ride away, and William needed a house closer to the centre of the capital.

In 1689 he purchased Nottingham House, a small villa in Kensington. This was renamed Kensington Palace and modestly extended - again in brick - by Sir Christopher Wren.

Following Mary's death in 1694, William abandoned work at Hampton Court and focussed his attention on Kensington Palace. In the following year he ordered further additions, including an appropriately palatial facade. William spent his remaining years at Kensington, and the palace has been in royal use ever since (most famously as home to Diana, Princess of Wales).

In 1694 William and Mary founded a Royal Naval Hospital for retired sailors. The project was intended to rival Charles II's military Hospitals at Chelsea and Kilmainham (Dublin), and Wren was encouraged to design on the grandest scale. His final design ingeniously incorporated the pre-existing buildings on the site by Inigo Jones and John Webb. When viewed from across the river, Greenwich Hospital, with its twin domes and magnificent rows of columns, is one of the great set-pieces of Britain and arguably William's finest act of architectural patronage.