English Heritage has unveiled a new online archive of photographs of some of the most important architecture in England.

Designed to demonstrate the wealth of architectural treasures in the country to the rest of the world, the new website contains 315,000 digital images of buildings, structures and monuments listed as being of architectural and historical importance.

Likened to an "architectural poem", the archive took seven years and £7.4 million to put together, containing pictures of almost all the architectural listed sites in Britain taken by 2,200 volunteers. English Heritage hopes that the Images of England online resource will provide an important account of England's built history.

"The intention was to capture for ever a snapshot record of how England looks at the start of the 21st century," Simon Thurley, English Heritage chief executive, explained to the Telegraph. "It's a Domesday book for our times, a digital history of England that captures at one moment what our society values in its history and its architecture."

Photographs in the archive include images of castles, bandstands, cathedrals, phone boxes, milestones, bus shelters, railway stations, stately homes and bridges.