The church of All Hallows by the Tower, sometimes known as All Hallows Barking, is one of the most interesting in the City of London, with innumerable features and memorials. It is claimed to be the oldest of the City’s churches, founded as early as 675AD, and had a long association with Barking Abbey, a
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The Freddie Gilroy statue, full name Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers, is an enormous twice-life-size steel sculpture of a former brick maker and miner on Scarborough’s North Bay. It was created by Ray Lonsdale, a friend of the subject. Freddie Gilroy, when a young man, was one of the first Allied troops to enter
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Cleopatra’s Needle is one of several interesting monuments on London’s Embankment, not far from Westminster. It is an Egyptian obelisk, one of a pair originally made for the Pharaoh Thutmose III in c1500 BC, erected in Heliopolis and moved to Alexandria in 12 BC. The link to Cleopatra is spurious. It is a single piece
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St Oswald’s, Thornton in Lonsdale, is originally a Norman church built by the Mowbray family on the site of an Anglo-Saxon predecessor. The handsome tower is 15th century and the building was rebuilt 1933-35 after a fire. Inside are monuments dating from the 17th century and a 12th century slab possibly commemorating the 4th Baron
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The Battle of Naseby on 14th June 1645 was one of the most important in British history, ranking alongside Hastings and Bosworth. The outcome of the battle – which lasted just a couple of hours – was the defeat and virtual annihilation of King Charles I’s Royalist army by the Parliamentary forces led by Fairfax
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Arnside was a tiny fishing village and port until it grew as a holiday destination in Victorian times. Local boat builders, Crossfields, built a type of boat known as a Lancashire Nobby for the prawn fishers of Morecambe Bay. Crossfields also built ‘the Swallow’, owned by the author Arthur Ransome, who was a friend and
The Glenfinnan Monument marks the place where Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, raised his father’s standard at the head of Loch Shiel and began the 1745 Jacobite rebellion that ended in defeat at Culloden a year later. The monument was built in 1815, is 59 feet (18 metres) high and has a lone,
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Fotheringhay Castle was birthplace of the future King Richard III on 2 October 1452 and the place of execution for Mary, Queen of Scots on 8 February 1587, but sadly little remains of it. The first castle was probably built by Simon de Senlis (St Liz), Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, around the year 1100.
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Yordas, or Yorda’s, Cave (confused it shouldn’t be with Joda) is a naturally formed limestone cave in the Yorkshire Dales. It became something of a showcave during the 18th and 19th centuries and is a popular place to visit for walkers and holiday makers now – as well as serious cavers. At times of heavy
The Commando Memorial in the Scottish Highlands was unveiled by the late Queen Mother in 1952. In a dramatic setting, it commemorates all the officers and men of the Commandos who gave their lives in the Second World War, and who trained in the moors and mountains nearby. A garden of remembrance was subsequently added,
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The once great fortified Abbey of St Benet’s, or St Benet’s at Holme, covered an area of 38 acres, had extensive fishponds, owned 28 churches, had property in 76 parishes and the right to dig peat in 12 of them. Now the most visible remains are those of a gatehouse, with a ruined windmill built
Silbury Hill is the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe. It was built in around 2,400BC, roughly at the same time as some Egyptian pyramids, and is about 130 feet (39 metres) high and 1,640 feet (500 metres) round. Its purpose is completely unknown. One story (with variations) is that Silbury Hill was created when
