Find places to visit in Britain by name, location, type of attraction, or other keyword.
This listings directory of over 950 entries is being phased out.
It now excludes places and things of interest in the North of England, including Yorkshire.
These can be found in ABAB’s Places.
Places to visit in England’s East Midlands are currently being moved to ABAB’s Places.
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Lacock Abbey was established between 1229 and 1232 by Lady Ela, Countess of Salisbury. After the Reformation, it became a family home in the hands of the Sharingtons, followed by the Talbots. The most famous Talbot, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) was an accomplished scientist and inventor of the negative/positive photographic process. Thus, Lacock is often plugged as "the birthplace of photography". There are wonderful gardens and grounds set amongst rolling Wiltshire countryside. The ground floor of the abbey has been well preserved - including the cloisters - and parts have featured in several film and TV productionss, including Harry Potter and Wolf Hall. The first floor is a Gothic Victorian home. Also on site is the Fox Talbot Museum, dedicated to photography.
Nr Chippenham
Longleat House was built for Sir John Thynn in the 16th century on the site of a former Augustinian Priory. It is currently the seat of the Marquesses of Bath and still the private residence of the Thynn family. The house is set within 900 acres of Capability Brown landscaped gardens and is widely regarded as one of the best examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain, as well as one of the most beautiful stately homes open to the public.
Visitors can see the Great Hall, scene of lavish banquets with 35 feet high walls adorned by giant paintings, libraries filled with over 40,000 books, some of them rare, a dining room laid out ready to host the next VIP guests and the 90 feet long Saloon with its exquisite Flemish tapestries. It is also possible to see Lord Bath’s ‘famous & fabulous’ Murals.
In 1966, Longleat Safari Park opened as the first drive-through safari park outside Africa. It is now home to over 500 animals, including giraffes, monkeys, rhino, lions, tigers (no bears?), cheetahs and wolves.
There are different ticket types. Historic House members will need to pay to access the Safari Park and other outdoor attractions.
Image credit: Historic Houses
Lulworth Cove is a beauty spot, part of Dorset's Jurassic Coast. It is a perfect horseshoe shape and a short(ish) walk from other local geological and scenic attractions, including Durdle Door - a natural limestone arch (pictured).
Lulworth
Lynton and Lynmouth are really two villages forming a single town on the edge of Exmoor, on the north Devon coast. Lynmouth began as a pretty fishing village and, when there was no longer any space to build there, it expanded to Lynton 700 feet above it on the clifftop. The two are connected by the water-gravity-powered Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway. Lynton is mainly 19th and 20th century, Lynmouth is a little older and was favoured by the artist Thomas Gainsborough and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. However, it was wrecked by a devastating flood in August 1952, when 34 people died and hundreds made homeless. Some of the village was never rebuilt. Nevertheless, it is an attractive place and popular with tourists. It is also walking country. The South West Coast Path and Tarka Trail pass through it and the views from the cliffs are wonderful.
Enormous - according to English Heritage equivalent to 50 football pitches - Iron Age hillfort with multiple and complex ramparts and ditches. This was ancient Dorchester! Here, Vespasian's highly trained Roman troops overcame the British defenders, the Durotriges tribe, one of whom ended up with a ballista in his spine. There's not much to see, but quite a lot to marvel and wonder at.
Photo by Major George Allen (1891–1940) (Ashmolean Museum) public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Dorchester
Writer Thomas Hardy's house from 1885 until his death in 1928. It was here that he wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles and the Mayor of Casterbridge. The house was designed by Hardy himself - he was a trained architect - and later extended. Hardy also laid out the gardens.
Dorchester
The model village at Bourton-on-the-Water is a replica of the real village, built in the 1930s at 1/9th scale using real local materials, such as Cotswold stone, by local craftsmen. It now has Grade II listed status and even includes a model of itself. It is located at the rear of the Old New Inn, whose owners had the idea of creating the village to attract custom.
Bourton-on-the-Water
Montacute is one of the foremost Elizabethan mansions in England, set in 300 acres in Somerset and built of local sandstone by Sir Edward Phelips. It has the longest long gallery in England, which is used by the National Portrait Gallery to show portraits contemporary with the house.
It is a popular film location - Montacute was Greenwich Palace in BBC TV's Wolf Hall.
Muchelney Abbey was a Benedictine house, founded in 939AD - though religious buildings were on the site as early as the 8th, or possibly 7th, century. It was dissolved in 1538 and many of its materials were re-used in the adjacent parish church of St Peter and St Paul, and other local buildings. Most abbey buildings survive in outline only, but the monk's thatched lavatory building (reredorter) is exceptionally complete, there is a section of cloister and the abbot's early Tudor lodgings are virtually intact. Spot the Tudor rose painted on a ceiling more than 400 years ago.
Nr Langport
Old Harry Rocks are three chalk formations, including a stack and a stump, located at Handfast Point, on the Isle of Purbeck, about 1 mile from Studland. They mark the most easterly point of the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are various walks nearby.
Post code is for Studland.
Studland
If your favourite attraction is not listed yet, and you have a good quality digital photograph of it that you are able to freely send, please get in touch.