Articles about the different regions and nations of Britain.
Does your breakfast have a nationality? Should breakfasts be stateless? Travelling around this great land of ours, it is common to see the option of ‘full [insert adjective as applicable] breakfast’ available on hotel menus. Thus: full English, full Scottish, full Welsh – or even full Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Devonshire, Nether Bottom – whatever seems appropriately …
A bit of London background London is one of the world’s top tourist destinations, receiving about 30 million visitors each year, and is often the only part of Britain that overseas visitors see. Which is a pity, because in so many ways it is unlike any other part of Britain. For a start, it is …
Including Bristol and Bath, the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and the Isles of Scilly. I keep returning to the West Country. Somerset’s worth visiting for the place names alone – where else would you find such choice tongue pleasers as Wyke Champflower, Huish Episcopi, Shepton Beauchamp, Great Shitting (I made that …
Including the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. The South East is the most heavily populated region in England. It has more businesses, including international HQs, than anywhere else in the UK and is the most prosperous and cosmopolitan region outside London. It owes …
Including the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. A radio disc jockey once did a dedication for someone living in Bury Street, Edmunds. Without wishing to offend the delightful town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, perhaps this illustrates the fact that England’s eastern extremity is a little cut-off; you don’t go …
Including the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. What can you say about the East Midlands, an area that spawned Tennyson, DH Lawrence, Margaret Thatcher and the legend of Robin Hood? Sherwood Forest is still there, though it’s a little smaller now; and did you know they’re building a brand-new forest, the …
Including the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire. Just to confuse the unwary, the English West Midlands is a region that also includes a county called the West Midlands. The West Midlands (county) is largely urban and includes Britain’s second city, Birmingham – so it’s in the West Midlands twice. Don’t …
There are 22 ‘counties’ or ‘principal areas’ in Wales. Most modern guides differentiate between ‘North’, ‘Mid’ and ‘South’ Wales – though some don’t offer any regional breakdown at all. For the time being, that’s the approach taken by A Bit About Britain. Though politically joined with England since 1535 (see here for a bit about …
Including the counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Riding, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Yorkshire is often referred to as ‘God’s own county’. It is (by British standards) huge and the whole region straddles the north of England, from the east coast to only about ½ an hour’s drive from the …
Including the counties of Co Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and the Tees Valley. To visit North East England is to enter the old kingdom of Northumbria, formed when Bernicia – which stretched way into what is now Scotland – unified with Deira to the south, between the Tees and the Humber. North East England …
Including the counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. North West England extends from the attractive market towns of Cheshire, through the vast urban areas around Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley, to the wilds of Cumbria in the north – the ancient kingdom of Rheged, where place names reflect its turbulent, multi-racial, …
Scotland is a nation within a state, one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. It retains its own unique identity, has its own parliament and its own laws. So it’s not surprising that it looks and feels different to its more populous neighbour, England, to the south. Familiar enough to be …
