Indholdsfortegnelse for June - July 2022 i Discover Britain

As a Londoner you might think I’d be accustomed to beautiful Georgian architecture – blasé about it even. However, as a recent trip to Bath proved, I’m not above taking tourist photos, and the Royal Crescent is still every bit as impressive to me as Grosvenor Square, which it impersonates in TV’s Bridgerton. There are lots of other locations throughout the pretty southwest city that feature on screen – in both the Regency-set smash hit show and a forthcoming adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion – and you can take an armchair tour of them with us on page 14. One Georgian building that has a cameo in Bridgerton that I’m yet to see in real-life is Castle Howard – a magnificent stately home, just outside York. This baroque masterpiece is…

Frivolous romp, period drama for the streaming age, American fantasy of Regency romance, or must-watch TV. Whatever you think of Bridgerton, the Netflix series that brings Julia Quinn’s Regency-set novels to screen, one thing the show gets right is its depiction of marriage, my guide Fred Mawer, tells me as we walk around Bath’s Georgian streets, where much of the first series was filmed. To women or girls in Regency England, securing the ‘right’ marriage would set you up for life, while reaching your mid-to-late twenties unmarried and with no proposals in sight could spell financial ruin. In the programme, of course, the action is set in London during the annual ‘season’ (which by this period, had shifted to the spring/summer months) when the upper classes would descend on the…

On 17 November 1584, English folk tucked into pies, puddings and cakes and participated in revelry and pastimes. Feasting and merrymaking sang in harmony with fireworks displays, bell-ringing and civic extravaganzas that included besieged wooden castles and mock battles. In the capital, Londoners paid 12 pence to enter Whitehall Palace’s tiltyard and watch knights, clad in splendid allegorical armoured costumes, joust in honour of the Queen. A visitor to England, Lupold von Wedel enthused over how knights entered in spectacular pageant cars drawn by horses “equipped like elephants” and were presented with curious allegorical devices and amusing poetry that made the Queen and her ladies in waiting laugh. The occasion was ‘Elizabeth’s day’, a day of great spectacle staged to celebrate Queen Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne 26 years…

Situated along the south Wales coast, 150 miles west of London, Cardiff has been used as a port since the Middle Ages and was the country’s main exporter of coal in the 19th century – bringing wealth and prosperity to the region. Today, thanks to this trading history, post-war immigration and its large student community, Cardiff is home to a welcoming, multicultural population that is fiercely proud of this fascinating, compact capital. The city’s vibrant nightlife, impressive shopping scene and lively sporting events (visit on a rugby match day or attend a game at the Principality Stadium and you’ll see what we mean) have always drawn a crowd, and recent years have seen a raft of new indie restaurants offering an unforgettable taste of Cardiff’s hospitality. Pair all this with…

1. Talk to the guides. They will know where the best place is to see puffins on any given day. 2. Autofocus is your friend. Puffins move quickly, and unless you’re a professional sports photographer, you’ll struggle in manual. If you’re using a compact camera, put it in sports mode. 3. Think about the background. Try to position yourself somewhere where you’ll get soft green plants or sparkling blue sea rather than dirty soil. Crouching down to the birds’ level helps. 4. Be patient. It takes a while to get your eye in and learn how they move and how to anticipate them. 5. Follow the rules. Tempting as it may be to get a little closer, never step off the path or you may crush a burrow.…

Justine Locker Head of On-site Visitor Experience at English Heritage I’ve had a long career already in leisure and tourism, across theme parks, resorts, and galleries. My role covers anything on site for all our pay-to enter sites across the country. It is a great way to work with all my favourite things – operations and customer service, as well as history and culture. It really is a dream job, to be honest. My mum is passionate about history, so I think my passion is probably an osmosis effect from her, I also read a lot of historical fiction. Culture, history, and art has always appealed to me, even when I worked at Alton Towers, we had Grade II-listed buildings and gardens. We are so lucky to be peppered with…

AUCKLAND CASTLE, COUNTY DURHAM A patriotic spectacle, Kynren – an Epic Tale of England, returns to the outdoor stage this summer Held on a farm near Auckland Castle, Kynren is an annual live historical extravaganza that tells the story of England from Boudica’s battles through the Romans, Vikings, Tudors, Stuarts, and Victorians in one incredible 90-minute show. Produced by 11Arches, a registered charity, and held since 2016, Kynren wraps up 2,000 years of history in one dazzling theatrical show, complete with pyrotechnics, and brings some of our legends to life. Gates to the evening event, which takes place each Saturday from 6 August to 10 September 2022, open two-and-a-half hours before the start of each show, allowing plenty of time for some food and drink as you listen to live…

There are fewer finer approaches to a stately home than to Castle Howard, 15 miles from York. The road runs in and out of gatehouses for a mile and a half before it reaches Sir John Vanbrugh’s great Baroque triumph, its golden cupola lantern glinting in the sun. For over 300 years, Castle Howard has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family. It was begun in 1699 when Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, a member of the fashionable Kit Cat Club, asked the dramatist John Vanbrugh to design him a new house. Undeterred by this, his first architectural commission, Vanbrugh, working with Nicholas Hawksmoor, began work on Carlisle’s new house. The domed central block – the first of its kind in a private residence –…

This year 21 June marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere when the earth is at its maximum tilt towards the sun and days are at their longest. We call it ‘midsummer’ in Britain and while that is chronologically correct – the sun will not be as high again in the sky for another 12 months – our damp maritime climate tends to make this date feel like the beginning of summer rather than its midpoint. However, from late June onwards Britain warms up. We take boats out on lakes and rivers, we opt for shorts and sundresses regardless of the weather forecast, and we picnic at the seaside even if, at any moment, rain clouds may send us scurrying back to our cars. The longest day and all…

She became an active campaigner for conservation, buying up large areas of land in her beloved Lake District Today, conservation is a subject that is taken very seriously. We have national parks protecting areas of biodiversity, laws that forbid or manage certain behaviours, and long-term projects aimed to not only protect our landscapes and wildlife, but in many cases restore them to their natural state. This was not the case in Beatrix Potter’s time. Born in 1866 into an upper-middle-class household, in London’s Kensington, the circles in which she moved – at least for the first half of her life – were more concerned with displaying the natural world in their homes (the more exotic the better) than they were in conserving it. But as a new exhibition at London’s…

On the eve of the Second World War, an Anglo-Saxon royal burial site was discovered in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, and the glittering treasures found beneath the soil are some of the richest archaeological evidence for early English medieval society ever found. It was in 1939 that Sutton Hoo landowner, Edith Pretty, asked local archaeologist Basil Brown to investigate the largest of several mounds in her garden, which she believed housed treasure. Mr Brown soon realised that the site needed more attention and further experts were brought in. Brushing away layers of soil, the team unearthed the shape of a ship, and within the ship, an Anglo-Saxon burial chamber filled with vast riches. The face of the helmet forms a dragon, with its wings the eyebrows and tail the moustache The…

For many visitors, Bath is all about Austen. If you want to learn more about the author’s links to the city, then a visit to the Jane Austen Centre (janeausten.co.uk) on Queen Street (near one of the houses Jane stayed in) is a must. Jane is known to have attended balls at the city’s Assembly Rooms (nationaltrust.org.uk/bath-assembly-rooms), designed by John Wood the Younger, which were the height of fashion in the Georgian era, with a tearoom on one side and a ballroom on the other and they feature in Persuasion, including in a key scene where Anne Elliot’s love interest Captain Wentworth storms off in an apparent jealous rage. No.1 Royal Crescent, which reopened with a new immersive experience in 2021, hosts a monthly Jane Austen-themed tour (no1royalcrescent.org.uk) and don’t…

Five miles north of Kent’s capital, Canterbury, the historic town of Whitstable has been defined by its oysters for thousands of years. After the Romans conquered parts of Britain in AD43, the invading army discovered a taste for the Kentish molluscs, which they promptly shipped back to Italy. Considered ‘poor man’s food’ for centuries, the harbour town’s oysters now have a world-renowned reputation, which is celebrated every year at the Whitstable Oyster Festival. The four-day event was revived in the 1980s, though an oyster festival of sorts was held here as far back as Norman times. This year’s festival takes place from 27-30 August, the start of the Whitstable Native oyster season, though non-native Pacific oysters, grown in trestles at sea, are available year round. The celebration kicks off with…

Kincraig Neck, one of Scotland’s most spectacular old volcanoes, is made up of vast columns of jointed basalt rock, rising out of the sea, like an array of organ pipes. It is Fife’s equivalent to Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway: a stunning array of hexagonal structures formed millions of years ago when Scotland was a hotbed of geological and volcanic activity. This activity has shaped much of today’s landscape. Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh and the city’s castle rock are extinct volcanoes, while seen across the Firth of Forth from Fife, the Sidlaw Hills are also the remains of once towering mountains of fire. The grandly named Kingdom of Fife is a pretty peninsula sandwiched between the Firth of Forth in the south, and the Firth of Tay in the north. In…