Innehållsförteckning för August/September 2019 från Discover Britain

Ramsey Island sits just half a mile off the “big toe” of Wales, the most westerly tip of the country that is closer to Wexford in Ireland than it is the Welsh capital of Cardiff. It is separated from the mainland by a reef of rocks and tidal rapids known as The Bitches which stretch out into Ramsey Sound and have been responsible for a number of fatal shipwrecks over the years. The island boasts an official population of two, yet the huge quantity of Atlantic grey seals and harbour porpoises living in the surrounding waters, not to mention the vast RSPB Nature Reserve contained within, makes this far from a lonely isle. Photographers, nature lovers and awestruck families regularly make the round-island boat trip, keen to spot guillemots, razorbills…

“Britain has a great history as a maritime nation” Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain was built in 1843. It was the first iron-hold transatlantic steamer designed to cross the Atlantic. To be responsible for it is very exciting. We’ve just been awarded the prize for Europe’s most welcoming museum. Britain has a great history as a maritime nation. The Mary Rose in Portsmouth is a pretty amazing place. The snapshot of life in Tudor times it provides is just unbelievable. I’d also recommend the HMS Caroline, a First World War ship in Northern Ireland, and the Newport Medieval Ship in Wales. I grew up in Topsham, Exeter where Sir Walter Raleigh is from. It’s beautiful, rural and great for walking. There are lots of coaching inns with log fires…

On Christmas Day in 1819, wearing a tatty dressing gown, crowned by dishevelled hair and masked by a long unkempt beard, King George III talked incessantly for 58 hours and sank into a coma; within little over a month, he would be dead. It was an undignified end for a monarch who had ruled Britain for more than half a century and was loved by his subjects. Yet the story of George III is defined by his “madness”; tales of blue urine and a vicious anger and extreme verbosity chase his memory. Centuries later, scientists and historians alike are unable to agree on specifically what ailment dogged him. This fixation on his mental health almost totally eclipses George’s virtues which include being a devoted husband, keen scientist and avid reader.…

Leeds was nothing more than a small Anglo-Saxon village of a few hundred people when the Domesday Book survey was held in 1086 and it remained that way throughout the Middle Ages. It wasn’t until Leeds became incorporated in 1626 that it truly began to blossom. The surrounding area is rich in coal and iron ore, yet it is the textiles industry that lead to the rapid expansion. Flemish weavers had passed on their skills and Leeds became an important wool town. Even two large cholera epidemics weren’t enough to prevent the population more than tripling in the first half of the 19th century. This was helped on by the advent of the railways and the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1816. The Victorian era also saw…

Trip down memory bridge How excited I was to receive issue 210 with Conwy Castle and bridge [above] on the cover. When living in the Conwy Valley in the 1940s and 1950s, I travelled across this bridge every day on my way to and from work. Traffic would be backed up for miles until a new bridge was built in 1958. The old bridge is now in care of the National Trust. Nancy Young, Hope, Canada Crumbling statues Regarding the Monument article [Issue 210], “officially” only six people died in the Great Fire of London, but I’ve read that, as the poor and middle-class deaths were never counted, it was more likely thousands. With such a devastating fire, this sounds plausible. Have experts weighed in on this? Jan Coleman, via…

Bampton, nestled on the brink of the Cotswolds and just 18 miles from Oxford, is thought to be one of the oldest towns in England. Set in Oxfordshire’s agricultural heartland, Bampton is a golden treasure of Jurassic limestone. Throughout the centuries, this modest town has undergone many a rebrand, from Bampton Castle to Bampton-in-the-Bush, but no title put Bampton quite on the map like Downton Abbey. Chosen as a key filming location of the world-famous ITV period drama series, Bampton graced our screens through six seasons, hosting weddings, funerals and fetes. Despite the series being set in a fictional country estate in Yorkshire, some 140 miles north, Bampton doubled as the village of Downton, set apart from the main estate (actually Highclere Castle in nearby Berkshire). So, as fans across…

For true devotees of antiques and fine art, there is a particular area of England, exuding olde-worlde charm from its every pore, that calls to them in their thousands each year. Throughout the summer months and beyond, flocks of visitors from across the UK are eagerly joined by those from as far afield as the USA, China and Australia. Located to the west of London, The Cotswolds is an 800-square-mile expanse of rolling countryside that runs across five counties: Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire. It’s also home to Britain’s largest concentration of antique and art dealers outside of the capital, including some 50 top dealers who comprise the Cotswolds Art and Antique Dealers’ Association (CADA). All in all, then, it’s a veritable treasure trove for those on the hunt…

The first thing you need to know about the Isle of Harris, located 40 miles off the northwest coast of the Scottish mainland, is that it isn’t actually an island. A glance at a map of the Outer Hebrides reveals that Harris is part of the same landmass as Lewis; together they form the third largest in the British Isles overall – after the mainland and Ireland). Named from the Old Norse, Na Hearadh, or “High Land”, Harris looks and feels like an ancient island, however, and boasts some of Scotland’s most remote, rugged and beautiful terrain. The ‘island’ is divided into north and south, the two conjoined by the thinnest of geological membranes, a narrow isthmus, at the tiny port of Tarbert. North Harris amounts to 72,900 acres of…

Throughout the ages, many royal feet have crossed Chillingham Castle’s imposing threshold and one of the earliest monarchs to visit was Henry III in 1245. This now-ancient stronghold was built on the site of a former monastery that also meant it was in a handy location for a stop en-route to Scotland, a fact that Edward I, referred to as the “Hammer of the Scots”, took advantage of when heading north of the border to take on the might of William Wallace’s army in 1298. The building was upgraded to the fully-fortified Chillingham Castle in 1344 when a “licence to crenelate” was issued, permitting battlements to be built. James VI of Scotland later dropped by to stay for a while at Chillingham when on his way to London to be…

If a man told you their trouble and strife was Brahms and fell down the apples and pears, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was talking nonsense. To a cockney, however, this would all make perfect sense. Cockney rhyming slang is a series of funny expressions that form a sort of secret language for natives of London’s East End. The phrase “trouble and strife” is cockney rhyming slang for “wife”, “Brahms” is short for “Brahms and Liszt” and means “pissed” (“drunk” to non-Brits), while “apples and pears” are “stairs”. The shortening of “Brahms” reveals another layer to the slang: a two-part phrase is often pared back so that the rhyme is disguised. So, for example, if you hear a cockney say they are having a “butcher’s”, they mean a “butcher’s…

The Cotswolds Antique Dealers Association holds its four-day fair, The CADA Art & Antique Fair, each year bringing together a rollcall of internationally recognised dealers. The next one is in Spring 2020 (dates tbc). www.cadafair.com The Antiques and Collectables Market is a weekly event at Cirencester Corn Hall where some 50 top dealers sell everything from jewellery and furniture, to vintage clothing and postcards. www.cornhallcirencester.org.uk Located inside a Grade II-listed building with gardens to the rear, Winchcombe Antiques Centre houses two floors of local dealers, and a tearoom with home-baked cakes. www.winchcombeantiquescentre.co.uk More than 80 dealers sell their wares in the 120,000 square-feet space of Chipping Norton’s Station Mill Antiques & Interiors, with everything from 19th-century mahogany furniture to mid-century textiles on offer. www.stationmill.com Explore antique jewellery, vintage clothing, furniture,…

PUTTING ON A SHOW Maintaining one’s status as a member of Britain’s high society in times gone by was a frightfully complicated achievement, requiring that one observes an unwritten etiquette that applied to all walks of life. This even extended to enjoying oneself with a trip to the theatre fraught with dress codes, queuing systems and expected ways to behave. Thankfully, a new exhibition at London’s Foundling Museum will place this fascinating aspect of 18th-century life in the spotlight. Two Last Nights! Show Business in Georgian Britain runs from 20 September to 5 January 2020 and delves into the inner workings of putting on a show. Insight into forgotten venues like the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and Foundling Museum’s own chapel will sit beside artwork, set designs, playbills and more. www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk…

TOP TIP STOURHEAD This 18th-century landscape garden on the Wiltshire-Somerset border was once referred to as “a living work of art”. It was designed in the Arcadian style by Henry Hoare II in the 1740s. The River Stour was dammed to form a magnificent lake, which reflects the beauty of the neoclassical temples within the gardens. Jane Austen fans may recognise Stourhead from the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It is at the garden’s Temple of Apollo that Mr Darcy first proposes to Elizabeth Bennett. Visitors to Stourhead, which is now owned by the National Trust, can walk around the 2,650-acre estate exploring grottoes and bridges, as well as chalk downs, ancient woods and parkland. The gardens are stunning all year round, but particularly in the spring when…