Places, people or events associated with Queen Victoria, or the Victorian period in Britain,
Portsmouth is my hometown. When growing up there, a walk along the seafront was a frequent occurrence. It is still often on the agenda when visiting today, so that’s what this is all about. There are ships to watch coming and going on the Solent, one of Britain’s busiest and best-known waterways, with the Isle
Along the seafront at Portsmouth Read More »
South East
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
Someone remonstrated with me the other day, saying that I could do more to promote my books. Being the sort of chap that always takes advice, I have consequently embarked upon a brazen, crass, plug of the most vulgar kind. Buy one of my books! No – buy two! If I publish another, buy that
Stocking fillers? Read More »
Books British Stuff News
Here is a dramatic tale – of shifting landscapes, lost settlements, abandoned military installations and wobbly legs. It features the spindly, exposed, crooked finger of Spurn Head on the East Yorkshire coast. Spurn is an enigmatic, fascinating and slightly scary place, a low-lying spit of glacial clay, sand and shingle, washed on one side by
Westminster Abbey is part of a World Heritage Site. It has been at the centre of English, and British, state occasions – coronations, weddings, funerals, services of commemoration – since William the Conqueror was crowned there on Christmas Day 1066. In fact, its roots are pre-Conquest. The powerful bishop, archbishop and later saint, Dunstan, established
Royal Westminster Abbey Read More »
British Stuff London
St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh is more properly known as the City Church, or High Kirk of Edinburgh, as well as the mother church of Presbyterianism. As a shining example of one of those confusing curiosities that we Brits love so much, it is not technically a cathedral at all, although most people still refer
St Giles’, High Kirk of Edinburgh Read More »
Scotland
Unlike Balmoral, which is a private home, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh is the Monarch’s official residence in Scotland. And parts of it are open to the public. So, assuming you don’t get to visit palaces too often, you should pop in when you’re next in town. It is situated at the eastern end
The Palace of Holyroodhouse Read More »
Scotland
Bourton-on-the-Water is one of Britain’s honeypot villages. Situated in the Cotswolds, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that straddles five counties (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire), Bourton-on-the-Water’s main claim to fame is that it is a very pretty village surrounded by lots of other very pretty villages. Perhaps ‘honeypot’ is an archaic term
Bourton-on-the-Water, model village Read More »
South West
Many people – mostly those that haven’t been there – believe that South East England is busy and crowded, with little remaining countryside of any note. They are right about it being busy – South East England is the most populous part of the UK – but they are wrong about the countryside. Leith Hill,
Time for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales. We will stroll from the old market town of Settle, up into the hills and do a circuit of around 5 miles. The route will take in the lonely starkness of Attermire Scar, the Victoria and Jubilee Caves and, along the way, encounter preparations for war. This
Attermire and the caves Read More »
Yorkshire and the Humber
Slaidburn is a village in Lancashire. It is one of those places that proves the north of England is not (or no longer) purely a place of dark satanic mills, clogs, cloth caps and Whippets; all pies and prejudice as Stuart Maconie might have put it. As a Southerner in exile, I grudgingly admit that
A bit about Slaidburn Read More »
North West England
A guest post by author, Anne Clare In spite of its name, ‘The Pig War’ didn’t have much to do with farm animals. Rather, the unfortunate demise of a pig who ventured into the wrong garden in 1859 almost led to an armed conflict between Britain and the United States.  As the pig was just the
