The tiny, downland, Church of Coombes is one of the most extraordinary English churches I have ever seen. There are thousands of medieval churches in Britain, each one illuminating parts of our nation’s story. Though not a religious man, I…
Why hadn’t I heard of Holme Cultram?
“Do you want to go into the church?” The neatly dressed middle-aged lady beamed at us. It was a little late in the day and it seemed she was just about to lock up. “Well, if it’s not too much…
Roman Bignor
In contrast with the north and west of the island, the Roman way of life was more firmly entrenched in the south and east of Britain. One feature of this was the greater number of villas, rural buildings in…
Anniversaries in 2023
Which anniversaries are being marked in Britain in 2023? Below is a selection of fifty or so noteworthy occasions for your interest and amusement, from the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 to the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. Each one…
Looking back on 2022
A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to anyone who ventures onto the pages of A Bit About Britain – provided you have also bothered to stay and read something, of course. I am neither sufficiently organised nor…
Stocking fillers?
Someone remonstrated with me the other day, saying that I could do more to promote my books. Being the sort of chap that always takes advice, I have consequently embarked upon a brazen, crass, plug of the most vulgar kind. …
Spurn
Here is a dramatic tale – of shifting landscapes, lost settlements, abandoned military installations and wobbly legs. It features the spindly, exposed, crooked finger of Spurn Head on the East Yorkshire coast. Spurn is an enigmatic, fascinating and slightly scary…
IBCC – Recognition, Remembrance, Reconciliation
In 2015, a rust-weathered steel spire was erected on the skyline above the City of Lincoln. It is 102 feet, more than 31 metres, high – by no coincidence equivalent to the wingspan of a Second World War Lancaster bomber. …
British history timelines
Astonishingly, some people do not visit A Bit About Britain to read articles on the blog or find places to visit in Britain. Many of the most popular sections of the website are those dealing with different periods of British…
The ghosts of Wycoller
It is a wild, wind-blown, rain-lashed winter’s night. A spectral horse gallops up to the moss-covered ruins of old Wycoller Hall, the rider a man dressed in early 17th century fashion He slides swiftly from the saddle, enters the house…
Bearsden’s bathhouse
You may not expect to hear much about Roman hygiene in Scotland, but you’d be wrong. In Bearsden, a leafy suburb to the north of Glasgow, are the remains of a bathhouse and latrine that were in use more than…
Clun
I don’t really know why we went to Clun. It was there, of course, which I suppose is some sort of a reason to go anywhere at least once. Was the name vaguely familiar? It has a ruined castle, anyway,…
Royal Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey is part of a World Heritage Site. It has been at the centre of English, and British, state occasions – coronations, weddings, funerals, services of commemoration – since William the Conqueror was crowned there on Christmas Day 1066. …
St Giles’, High Kirk of Edinburgh
St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh is more properly known as the City Church, or High Kirk of Edinburgh, as well as the mother church of Presbyterianism. As a shining example of one of those confusing curiosities that we Brits love…