Innehållsförteckning för December/January 2020 från Discover Britain

As it is getting increasingly colder outside, it is time to put your feet up and enjoy this new edition of Discover Britain. We have a bit of a theme of relaxation, beginning with our Relax like a Roman feature (p10). It is a little-known fact that it took Emperor Claudius’s invasion of 43 AD before we as a nation learned to unwind and developed a taste for spas, theatres and other lazy pursuits. Elsewhere in the issue, Martha Alexander goes in search of peace, quiet and local histories as she seeks out six of Britain’s most fascinating and forgotten small islands (p40), plus we have chosen five great wintry escapes (p84) – hotels and B&Bs that you will just love to hibernate in. If you have a favourite place…

Not many railway stations are named after a fictional character. But Waverley Station in Edinburgh takes its name from the title of Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, and its hero Edward Waverley, a fictional English gentleman caught up in the very real Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. It says a lot about the Scottish capital that its biggest monument is also to Sir Walter himself and the station at which the sleeper train arrives from London every morning is named after his Waverley novels. But then Edinburgh is a very literary city. The Scottish capital is not just tied to a single author either. Over the years, it has been the home and inspiration to writers as varied as the Dr Johnson biographer James Boswell, the poet Robbie Burns and the…

Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei brings her immersive brand of imaginative conceptual art to the Serpentine Gallery in Blueprints (4 March to 17 May 2020), alongside an ecological themed show by Italian design duo Studio Formafantasma. www.serpentinegalleries.org While The Orangery undergoes restoration, Kensington Palace Pavilion is the only place one can enjoy afternoon tea in the grounds of a royal palace. Book ahead to enjoy sandwiches, scones and cakes washed down with Pimm’s or sparkling wine. www.kensingtonpalacepavilion.co.uk Temporary exhibitions at Kensington Palace include Victoria:Womanand Crown (until 5 January 2020), a look at the real woman behind the public persona. The palace’s Queen’s State Apartments also re-open in April 2020, following extensive restorations. www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace…

Unusually for a major city, Birmingham has no river running through it. In medieval times, the centres of power in the English Midlands lay elsewhere, nestled in the valleys of the Severn, Trent and Avon. A market was established in Corn Cheaping on the site of the modern-day city’s Bull Ring shopping centre back in 1154 under Royal Charter, but Birmingham otherwise remained a modest settlement until the late 16th and 17th centuries. It was then that industry boomed, powered by iron merchants and fronting a commercial network that stretched west to Wales. During the English Civil War era, Birmingham developed a reputation as a place of free thinking, social mobility and multiculturalism, not to mention a haven for Puritans, Nonconformists and leaders of the Enlightenment. This helped it steal…

Crowning glory I was interested to see your brief mention of Bardsey Island in your last issue. One odd, little-known fact is that the islanders would elect their own king and queen and several islanders had this distinction. As the population dwindled this custom died away and the crown that was used has, apparently, ended up in Storiel Bangor museum – it was made of tin and decorated with “precious” stones! I happened to know about this as my mother’s family was originally from Wales and one of her ancestors held this office. The island has a long history as a place of pilgrimage. JV Corriden, via email Wonders for Wales Congratulations on the beautiful pictures and great write-up on Wales [Issue 211]. You did more for Wales than the…

Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born at 12 Picardy Place in Edinburgh’s New Town. Today the Georgian townhouse is home to a steak restaurant and boutique hotel while across the road sits The Conan Doyle, a real ale pub with a swinging sign depicting the man himself. www.picardyplace.co.uk Muriel Spark was born in the Edinburgh suburb of Bruntsfield. To mark The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie author’s centenary last year, a path in Bruntsfield Links park was named in her honour, while part of the Vennel, a tight passage off Grassmarket, was renamed the Jean Brodie Steps. The latter featured in the 1969 Jean Brodie film adaptation starring Dame Maggie Smith. When JK Rowling was struggling with the final Harry Potter book, she took a room at…

Many stately homes or other historic sites can claim to show what life was like in a certain era, yet that isn’t always strictly true. Whether they have been lived in by family members since, lovingly restored by a wealthy trust or recontextualised by curators, these places are often subtly tweaked with a modern perspective. It is rare, then, that one can find a significant location that is truly trapped in amber. Nevertheless, one of the most remarkably preserved historic sites of this kind can be found in the bustling heart of central London, tucked away on a Piccadilly side street just a few hundred metres away from Buckingham Palace itself. Built on a road bearing the same name, Down Street was an Edwardian London Underground station that would briefly…

Greenwich, London New photos of Britain’s answer to the Sistine Chapel are revealed Conceived more than 300 years ago to advertise Britain’s naval power, The Painted Hall inside Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College remains one of the most dazzling interiors in London, following an extensive restoration project over the last six years. Those unable to make the journey to see Sir James Thornhill’s masterpiece in person can now enjoy the fruits of the conservation project in a new book published by Merrell. The Painted Hall features new photographs of the ornate friezes that took Thornhill 19 years to paint, including this stunning view from the vestibule into the Lower Hall. www.merrellpublishers.com CAPE WRATH, SUTHERLAND Surveyor of lighthouses selects Britain’s best There are more than 600 lighthouses around the British coastline…

This December marks one hundred years since Britain’s first female MP took her seat in the House of Commons – the elected lower house of Parliament in the United Kingdom. We had to wait another 60 years for our first woman Prime Minister, Baroness Margaret Thatcher, but our first female sitting Member of Parliament (MP) was Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, also known as Viscountess Astor. She was 40 years old when elected, a remarkable, controversial woman with a strong jaw and opinions to match. Nancy was taking over the Plymouth seat from her husband Waldorf Astor, son and heir of one of the wealthiest men in the world. Nancy lived in a world of great affluence, yet won her seat in the House of Commons fairly. Her husband had been…

It’s a story familiar across the world: a young couple, eager to expand their marital home, decide to cut corners and get the job done quickly. Where this story differs is that the couple in question were the only joint monarchs in British history and, 330 years later, visitors are still flocking to their redbrick house. Shortly after King William III and Queen Mary II were crowned on 11 April 1689, the royal couple engaged St Paul’s Cathedral architect Sir Christopher Wren to renovate and extend Nottingham House. Wren was to turn this modest, two-storey Jacobean mansion, previously owned by the Earl of Nottingham, into Kensington Palace, a residence fit for a king and queen. However, time was of the essence and money was surprisingly spare. The landmark Bill of…

The story of Iron Bridge starts not with the completion of Abraham Darby III’s structure in 1779 but rather with a discovery made by his grandfather some 70 years previously. For while this 100-foot structure is rather modest by modern architectural standards, it is the historic significance of the project that endures, the culmination of experiments conducted by the original Abraham Darby, a former brass founder based in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire. Using a rudimentary blast furnace in 1709, Darby used locally-mined coal to create smelt iron for the first time. This would prove a vital step in the mass production of cast iron, which in turn became the backbone of the architecture and machinery of the Industrial Revolution. Many uses for the iron were established during the 18th century and by…