Romano-British culture is swept aside by foreign invaders. Some history books tell you that the Romans left Britain in 410 AD; full stop. But we must not think that the Romans packed their suitcases, hopped on the first convenient galley to Calais – and that was it, the next bunch of invaders, the Saxons, moved …
What did the Romans ever do for Britain – apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, law, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health… It is sometimes hard to believe that Britain was once part of the Roman world. The Romans conquered all of what is now England (though the extent of Roman …
From nothing to the Roman occupation Once upon a very long time ago, but not necessarily at the same time, Britain was inhabited by extremely large lizards, woolly rhinos, mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, giant cattle called aurochs, enormous bears, deer with antlers as long as a person – indeed, all manner of wild animals not often …
There’s a kind of benign magic about Avebury; it’s the sort of place where you can have fun communing with your ancestors. Like faded signposts painted in a language we do not understand, the remains they have left behind are scattered across the countryside in these parts. They point to unknown places and alien lives. …
I wonder how many pints of ale have been supped here? Let me see: if just twenty people drank a modest 4 pints every night, that would be, er, 29,200 pints a year – 2,920,000 for every century. But the revenue generated by that amount of beer would not be enough to make the place …
What have William the Conqueror, Shakespeare, Peter Rabbit, the Big Friendly Giant, Bobby Moore and David Cameron all got in common? Answer: they were all associated with anniversaries in 2016. Of course, some anniversaries were very kindly highlighted by publicists, who ultimately decide which momentous dates will be remembered in Britain. 950th anniversary of the …
We travelled to Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s Sussex home for 34 years, through the impossibly pretty village of Burwash, all whitewash and weatherboard. You reach the house down what Kipling described as “an enlarged rabbit-hole of a lane” to arrive in what is now a car park. I wondered how it had all looked when the …
Here is your mission today, should you choose to accept it: take the ferry across Ullswater from Glenridding to Howtown and walk back. It’s a low-level stroll of about 7 miles (11km), so you don’t need to be Sherpa Tenzing to tackle it, but you do need to be able to cope with the distance, …
