Indholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2025 i Discover Britain

Box Hill and Leith Hill, Surrey “They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in favour of a pleasant party.“ Chapter 43 of Emma, sees the principal character behaving very badly on a summer picnic excursion to Surrey’s Box Hill in the pretty North Downs. The two most recent adaptations, a 2009 BBC series starring Romola Garai and a 2020 film with Anya Taylor-Joy, actually used neighbouring Leith Hill for their close-up filming, with Box Hill simply a backdrop for the scenes. However, there’s still something magical about visiting a real place mentioned by Jane Austen in her novels, and visitors can picnic there just as the author would have imagined Emma and her friends doing. Perhaps…

Crossword no 244 Solutions in next issue Across 1 The Kent country home of Winston Churchill (9)6 The ____ is the tallest building in the UK (5) 9 The Forest of – is the setting of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (5)10 Enclosed medieval helmet (5)11 Unit of length used in the Middle Ages (3)12 Race of small people in the novels of JRR Tolkien (7) 13 The ____ are a row of chalk stacks off the Isle of Wight (7)14 A work of art painted on a wall (5)15 Formal social dance popular in Regency England (9)17 Scottish ghillie, a favourite of Queen Victoria (4,5)19 Popular whisky brand (5)21 Seaside village on the edge of the Gower peninsula (7)23 Prunus ____ is better known as blackthorn, or sloe (7)24…

In Winchester, the past is everywhere you look, from the streets of medieval and Georgian buildings to the city’s world-famous cathedral and 14th-century Winchester College, which is still a boarding school today. Located in the southern English county of Hampshire, Winchester has played an important part in English history for centuries – as far back as 871 it was crowned capital of Wessex by its king, Alfred the Great. The city has connections to Arthurian legend, too, as it’s said that the legendary King Arthur’s Round Table is the one you can see in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle. But as this table dates from the 13th century – several centuries after Arthur’s time, if the legends are true – it seems unlikely. Nevertheless, the hall, which has hosted…

Riverside Lechlade-on-Thames in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds is like the introverted sibling of nearby Bibury – one of the most photographed of all the Cotswolds towns and villages. But while Bibury competes with the likes of Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water to be named the Cotswolds’ most honeypot spot, pretty Lechlade has flown far under the tourist radar for much of the last century. It hasn’t always been this way. Lechlade, which has been settled since at least the Neolithic period (circa 2500BC), has a long and distinguished history. Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror gifted it to Henry de Ferrers, a loyal soldier who had accompanied him all the way from Normandy in 1066. In 1210, King John granted Lechlade a town charter, and by the time Catherine…

A decade ago, a new travel route launched in Scotland that was like a masterclass in branding. There was nothing much new to shout about in the rural Northwest Highlands region it covered, and yet the North Coast 500 route took off – shining a spotlight on an area that until then had remained far off the tourist trail. Not so anymore. Since 2015, visitor numbers to the region have soared and though there are mixed reports on the benefits to local businesses and residents, one thing is for sure: the brand exercise worked. It opened the world’s eyes to the many attractions – natural and otherwise – in this part of the British Isles. In October 2024, North Coast 500 Ltd, the company that promotes the route, began asking…

Once busy cargo-carriers of the Industrial Revolution, nowadays narrowboats cruise the 2,700 miles of connected waterways around England and Wales in a somewhat more leisurely manner. Many are steered by holidaymakers, some by liveaboard owners and traders. “You get an interesting and diverse bunch of people,” says Ginny Barlow, a trained signwriter who specialises in traditional canal boat art. She reels off food traders, a glassblower, a coal merchant, and “a lady who sells art and does bicycle repairs” among those she has recently seen moored up on the canals. For many years Ginny, too, lived on a narrowboat, but she is now land-based, and lives close to the attractive Kennet and Avon Canal at Bradford-on-Avon in the Cotswolds. It’s an ideal spot that is within reach of local boatyards…

Caught red handed Do you need any more photographs for your magazine? In particular, red squirrels at the Yorkshire Arboretum? If so, please feel free to use mine. Jacqueline Ayres, by email Editor replies: When it comes to wildlife photos, the more the merrier to my mind, Jacqueline. Beyond London I always look forward to my next issue of Discover Britain! I love London but England has so much to offer outside of the great city as you mentioned in the December 2024 issue. My husband and I were able to tour Leeds castle in 2015. A truly beautiful site. In September 2024, we visited Bath, Winchester and York. I think these smaller cities are delightful and worth at least a day’s visit. Your magazine has been a great help…

The delightful Hampshire cottage known as Jane Austen’s House is one of the foremost literary sites in the world, located in the picturesque village of Chawton. Jane lived here for most of the last eight years of her life, and it is where she wrote her six most famous novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Now a museum, this Grade I-listed building shares Austen’s treasures with her legion of fans who make the pilgrimage here from across the world. Wonderful collections of furniture sit beside paintings of her friends and family, personal letters, prized jewellery, first editions of her novels – even the charming writing table at which she wrote her books. Among the canon of English literature writers, Austen has been…

I did a PHD on how British naval officers are represented in 18th-century portraits in partnership with the National Maritime Museum. Now I am glad to be back working here, and part of my current remit is not just looking at paintings, prints and drawings, but also uniforms. The focus of our new exhibition is an 18th-century French customs uniform. It is a very important relic of Napoleonic and French history in itself. It is, we think, the most complete surviving customs uniform from that period. The reason it is here at the National Maritime Museum is because of its British connection, and a Royal Navy midshipman called Charles Hare, who joined the Navy aged just 11 in 1801. When Charles was 13 his ship was captured by the French…

The Battle of Hastings of 1066, the most famous date in English history, saw William, Duke of Normandy, defeat Anglo-Saxon King Harold II. It enforced William’s claim that he had been promised the Crown by Harold’s predecessor Edward the Confessor and, as one of Europe’s wealthiest states, England was certainly worth having. Between 1066 and 1154, four Norman kings dramatically re-shaped England’s physical, social, political and religious landscapes in ways still apparent today. Up to 1,000 castles were built to consolidate Norman power, including massive stone keeps “scarcely known in the English provinces”. Uprisings were ruthlessly crushed, notions of feudalism were strengthened, Norman-French infiltrated the spoken language, and the native aristocracy was dispossessed by a Norman elite (their landed descendants are still around). Likewise, the Church hierarchy was overhauled and…