South West England has two main draw-backs: it is popular and, as it’s on the west, it can suffer from wetness – particularly at its extremities. Other than that, it has pretty much everything, including mystery, prehistory, history, cuteness, grand…
Regular watchers of TV news will be familiar with the scene outside the Houses of Parliament, where journalists interview politicians on a patch of grass opposite Old Palace Yard, against a backdrop of Gothic architecture and the appropriately barbarian howls…
Last Updated on 26th September 2018I’ll never forget my first experience of Great Gable. It was during a geography field trip to the English Lakes, I was callow youth of 17 and, up to that point, the landscape opening up…
Last Updated on 7th February 2019You can’t imagine Edinburgh without Edinburgh Castle – it is one of the City’s landmarks, dominating the skyline, perched on a seemingly impregnable, daunting, volcanic rock at the end of The Royal Mile. On a…
We wanted to walk along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast and hunt for fossils. No, that’s not quite right: I wanted to walk along the Jurassic Coast and hunt for fossils; Head Office wanted to find a sun-drenched beach to lie on. …
Last Updated on 18th May 2017Silbury Hill is so regular in shape, so obviously artificial; yet it is large enough to be a natural feature. It stands some 130 feet (39.6 metres) high with a circumference at its base of…
Last Updated on 2nd January 2020Tumuli, tombs or burial chambers, in varying shapes and sizes, litter the British Isles. Long barrows are (roughly) rectangular tumuli, ranging from about 60 feet to more than 300 (28 – 100 metres) in length,…
Last Updated on 6th December 2016There was trouble at St Mary’s Abbey in York. Some of the monks felt that monastic practices had strayed too far from the original values set out by the blessed St Benedict. In 1132, influenced…
Last Updated on 21st June 2019Durham’s story is a fascinating piece of the story of England. It is partly a tale of saints and kings and moving bones, and it begins back in the 7th century. The founding of Durham…
Last Updated on 6th December 2016What’s at the end of the wall? The wall’s end? Walls – solid boundaries designed to keep people in – or out. There are famous walls, like the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China,…
Last Updated on 7th December 2016Edinburgh is a very photogenic city, the kind of place where it might once have been nice to buy a post card for a close friend or relative. People hardly ever send post cards anymore. …
Last Updated on 7th December 2016 Lulworth & Durdle sounds like a law firm. Commissioners for oaths; adversarial specialists; incompetence guaranteed – that sort of thing. I have known at least four firms that should have been called Bungle, Overcharge…