The story of the Witches of Pendle is one of the most sinister and troubling tales to come out of Lancashire. It does not feature cackling old hags riding broomsticks across the night sky, but real living beings, victims of time and circumstance. The broad facts are well-known locally, but lest you be unaware, in […]
The Witches of Pendle Read More »
North West England
Britain has had an affection for tea and coffee for a similar length of time, but despite (apparently) 95 million cups of coffee being drunk every day in the UK, it is ubiquitous good tea that it is famed for, rather than coffee. It is a different story just across the Channel and throughout mainland
Stowe is one of those marvellous monuments to profligacy. It is a great 17th and 18th century mansion, now a school, surrounded by an exquisite landscape that nature only had a passing hand in creating. Stowe School is a public school, and therefore private. The gardens were given to the National Trust, so privately owned,
My regular reader will know that the A Bit About Britain website has received a little makeover. Some things were not working as they should before, but they should do now. The site also looks a bit different, though it still contains most of the original rubbish. The Home Page, in particular, has been changed
You know you’re getting on in years when your kids suggest visiting a garden for pleasure. It’s even worse when they know the names of the plants. Anyway, after far too long apart, the Memsahib and I made the great trek in a south-easterly direction to meet the no longer nippers for a weekend. The
Sometime ago, I posted an article about a nondescript memorial on a country lane in Hampshire to a Royal Air Force pilot who crashed and died nearby in 1940. It may not have been a very grand memorial, but it touched me that someone – unrelated to the young man – had taken the trouble
F/O James Tillett is still remembered Read More »
News South East
We set off with friends David and Cecile (and Hamish the dog) to visit Swaledale’s corpse trail. It is one of their favourite walks and the views are terrific. You may know of Yorkshire’s Swaledale, but I suppose I had better explain what a corpse trail is: so here goes. Once upon a very long
Swaledale meadows and the corpse way Read More »
Yorkshire and the Humber
We did. A few other people came along too. Actually, we didn’t only go to London; we went to Slough. And Windsor. And London again. As the Coronation of Charles III was a moment in time, it seems appropriate to share a few inadequate photographs of this experience with you, dear reader, as well as
We went to London for the Coronation Read More »
British Stuff Events London South East
The coronation of their Majesties The King and his Queen Consort on 6 May 2023 provides a wonderful opportunity to take a look at the institution of monarchy. Of course, the United Kingdom has had a brand new squeaky-clean monarch since 8 September 2022, when the late Queen died. That is the way with the
A meeting of the Ways and Means Committee decided that a visit to Ravenglass and its steam railway was required. Dissent would not be brooked. Reports of riding the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway were examined. Indeed, a stationary lurking locomotive had even been spotted a couple of times, at Ravenglass and Eskdale (respectively). But the
Ravenglass to Eskdale and return Read More »
North West England
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 am a long-standing member of the “Oh Look, There’s a Church, Let’s Go in” Club
“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 trouble…”. Visiting Holme Cultram was one of those happy accidents. I had never heard of
Why hadn’t I heard of Holme Cultram? Read More »
North West England