A building, collection or organisation in Britain that you can visit and see objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest.
Herb Garret sounds like it should be a band leader (perhaps of a similar vintage to the chap pictured below). In fact, the Herb Garret acts as a kind of anteroom to the Old Operating Theatre, perched in the roof of the baroque St Thomas’ church in London’s Southwark. The Operating Theatre is probably the […]
This is a Victorian operating theatre, where proceedings were watched by an audience of gawping students and operations were conducted without anaesthetic or antiseptic. I mean, you really can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like, can you? The Old Operating Theatre is reputedly Britain’s – some say Europe’s – oldest operating theatre.
The old operating theatre Read More »
I can’t remember how many times I’ve visited the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. The entrance is a statement, dominated by two massive gun barrels pointing straight at you, with the classical lines of a 19th century cupola-topped former hospital in the background. The guns are 15” barrels from Royal Navy battleships, HMS Roberts (on
Imperial War Museum Read More »
You can have a cup of tea (“the sugar’s in the spoon”), or more, sitting in the very spot where Laura and Alec fell in love. Carnforth Railway Station was ‘Milford Junction’, location for much of the action in the classic 1945 film, Brief Encounter. The war was still on, but the small Lancashire town
Have a brief encounter at a railway station Read More »
The Tower of London has been sitting on the north bank of the Thames, watching the tides of a great city ebb and flow, for around a thousand years. The city has grown up around it and it is part of it; it is impossible to imagine London without the Tower. Think of all that
Visit the Tower of London Read More »
You’ll find the small village of Dent, sometimes known locally as Dent Town, on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales. This was once part of Yorkshire’s West Riding but is now inside the county of Cumbria. The narrow roads through achingly beautiful Dentdale seem never-ending; it’s almost a relief to arrive amongst Dent’s old
The Vampire of Dent (and other stories) Read More »
They needed to break the deadlock. By the end of 1914, men had gone to ground in the wasteland of the Western Front. Perhaps, some thought, a breakthrough would come when the weather improved and cavalry could be used. But attacks through coils of barbed wire against well-defended dug-in positions, from which machine-gun and rapid
