Innehållsförteckning för Sep/Oct 2023 från Britain

Heritage cities are not in short supply in Britain, but I confess to having a soft spot for Bath. From the steamy Roman Baths and sweeping Georgian terraces to the modern-day delights of pampering spas and afternoon teas, it’s surely one of Britain’s loveliest places. Turn to our Bath guide (p75) for expert tips on how to make the most of a weekend in the city. This issue is something of a castles special, with an array of magnificent examples gracing these pages. We explore the ancient fortresses of Pembrokeshire (p14) and follow the trail of Tudor castles and romantic ruins in Kent (p56). There’s even the chance to stay in one of our favourites, Hever, in our new competition (p63), and be king or queen of your own castle…

The Newt, Somerset Garden-lovers rhapsodise about The Newt in Somerset, a bucolic estate set around a handsome Georgian manor. Successive green-fingered enthusiasts have shaped the gardens over two centuries, from the Victorian horticulturalist Margaret Hobhouse to Patrice Taravella, whose beautiful plantings have given the gardens a new lease of life in recent years. Whether you stay in ochre-coloured Hadspen House itself or in the luxuriously converted stables next door, you’ll want to spend as much time as possible in the beautiful gardens. Wander the Parabola, a curved, walled garden at the heart of the estate harbouring an apple tree maze (you can sample the fruit in the hotel’s homemade ‘cyder’); play badminton on the lawn, surrounded by a cloud-like yew hedge affectionately nicknamed ‘Old Knobbly’ by the hotel’s gardeners; or…

DAY 1 BATH TIME Start your day at the place where it all began. The Romans built a magnificent complex of baths here in around 70 AD, arranged around a sacred spring and a temple dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva. Walk along the time-worn paving slabs that border the steaming, colonnaded Great Bath (right). The spring water still gushes up at a constant 46C here, and it’s easy to imagine the baths full of wallowing, gossiping Romans. Roman remnants in the fascinating attached museum include the gilt bronze head of the goddess Sulis Minerva, the pediment of the ancient temple (previous page) and 130 curse tablets, thrown into the sacred spring by disgruntled Romans some 2,000 years ago. ARCHITECTURAL AMBLE The city’s other unmissable sight is Bath Abbey, a…

Beefeaters. Pearly kings. Bobbies on the beat. London has many ‘living landmarks’, as delightful to catch a glimpse of as Buckingham Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral or Nelson’s Column. Few, however, come with as much pride as the Chelsea Pensioner. Usually spotted around their home, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the scarlet coats and black peaked caps of these revered Army veterans are symbols of a lifetime of duty. The story of the Chelsea Pensioners begins over three centuries ago. In 1681, King Charles II was distressed at the increasing casualties of war and recognised that the country owed them a debt of gratitude. Many had lost limbs, some were just broken by old age and infirmity. Charles invited architect Sir Christopher Wren to design a gigantic almshouse for these veteran soldiers.…

Back in 2021, amid post-Christmas Covid restrictions, maths teacher Mike Burke made a discovery that would cast a new light on history. He was doing a sweep of the front garden of his home in St Just, Cornwall, with the metal detector his wife had given him a year before. So far, he had turned up nothing significant, but what he found that day was truly exciting – an intaglio ring, thought to be Roman, from the 1st or 2nd century AD, with an image of the goddess Ceres engraved into a chalcedony gemstone. “I still get shivers,” Mr Burke told the press as he waited for authentication, which would challenge the belief that the Romans never reached west Cornwall. Like many people, the Burkes were fans of BBC 4’s…

BRITAIN: When did your passion for heraldry start? AJ: It started when I was about six years old. I used to watch old films like The Black Shield of Falworth and Knights of the Round Table, and the heraldry on the horses and shields and the coats of arms in these films captured my imagination. I started to draw shields and knights, and all I ever wanted was sketchbooks and pencils for Christmas – I just drew and drew and drew. I never really thought about doing it as a career because I didn’t even know you could do heraldry as an art form. It just didn’t occur to me. B: How did you start your training? AJ: I was working a summer job with my grandfather who did the…

FILM Queen of the screen Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. So goes the rhyme about Henry VIII’s sixth wives, each with their own tragic story to tell. But it’s the sixth and last, Katherine Parr, the survivor, that history remembers the least. A new film, Firebrand, to be released in cinemas at the end of this year, is set to change that. It will tell the dark story of Henry’s tense relationship with Katherine Parr, focusing on the period when Protestant Katherine was named regent for Henry when he was fighting overseas. In Henry’s absence Katherine pushes for a new future based on her radical beliefs, but when he returns, his fury turns on the Protestant radicals, and Katherine finds herself fighting for her survival. Jude Law plays the…

When Henry Tudor clinched victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, he was said to be “without power, without money, without right to the crown of England, and without any reputation but what his person and deportment obtained for him”. In the volatile Wars of the Roses between the aristocratic Houses of York and Lancaster descended from Plantagenet King Edward III, it seemed unlikely that this latest crown-grabber would last very long. Yet, against the odds, Henry VII reigned for nearly 24 years and established a scintillating Tudor dynasty that ruled for more than a century. Our popular image of Henry comes from a 1505 portrait – the earliest painting in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection – showing a lean, pale-faced, enigmatic man whose…

We tend to think we know the Victorians: sombre, sanctimonious and easily scandalised, constrained by tight corsets and stiff upper-lips; their Britain one of smog, slums and dark Satanic mills, reigned over by a mournful sovereign. It’s how we see them in Charles Dickens novels, Sunday-night dramas and sepia-tinted photographs of our stern, unsmiling ancestors. But a fascinating new exhibition opening at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum this autumn, Colour Revolution, wants us to think again – to see the Victorians not in the monochrome misery of our imagining, but in the vivid multi-colour of their reality. “We’ve got bright purple shoes, bright pink and orange striped socks for men…and this beautiful lady’s day dress that, when you see it in daylight, is like electric purple, a colour we don’t associate with…

There are many compelling reasons to visit the Suffolk foodie town of Bury St Edmunds. Tourists come to see the ruins of the Abbey built to house the remains of St Edmund, martyred King of the East Angles and patron saint of medieval England. They come to relax in the renowned Abbey Gardens, with its fragrant roses and medicinal herbs. St Edmundsbury Cathedral has been a place of pilgrimage for a thousand years. But it is a far more diminutive attraction that draws people from around the world to this “handsome town of thriving and cleanly appearance”, as Charles Dickens described it. On a street of long-established shops named The Traverse, on a corner site, stands The Nutshell, a beer house since 1873, with a bar room measuring just 15ft…