Innehållsförteckning för August - September 2024 från Discover Britain

You’re speeding along with Condor Ferries towards the island of Guernsey, having departed Poole Harbour a few hours before. The cliffs of Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, are just coming into view, when you spot something dark plunging into the water. At first you think it might be a northern gannet, the large seabird that nests in its thousands off Alderney’s coast, but then it jumps out of the water in a perfect arc. This is no gannet. “Dolphin!” you shout, as other passengers flock to the window to spot not just one but a pod of about 20 picture-book perfect bottlenose dolphins leaping in the Channel. It’s an ideal start to a Channel Island tour and one that’s more common than you might think. The Channel…

DISCOVER THE CHANNEL ISLANDS – ATTRACTIONS Sausmarez Manor, Guernsey Far more than just a manor house, this home, which has its origins in the 12th century but which boasts one of the finest Queen Anne-style facades in all the British Isles, is one of the islands’ best-kept secrets. Inside, visitors can learn about the history of the house and some of its former inhabitants, including Philip de Sausmarez, an 18th-century British naval officer who circumnavigated the globe 20 years before Captain Cook, on one of the excellent tours. Elsewhere, the grounds include subtropical gardens, a sculpture park, and a miniature-train, while in the Tudor Barn you can visit the last Guernsey Can artisan still making the copper milk jugs the traditional way. The jugs are so iconic that Guernsey gifted…

The four-star Somerville Hotel, dating from 1881, holds a prime position nestled in lush tropical gardens overlooking picturesque St Aubin, and is considered one of Jersey’s best country house hotels. The hotel has 59 elegantly-furnished ensuite bedrooms, with attractive artwork, soft furnishings and plenty of 21st-century comforts, including Freeview TV and tea/coffee-making facilities. Many rooms also enjoy stunning views across St Aubin’s Bay to Elizabeth Castle. In the evening, after a drink in the Voyager Curiosity Lounge Bar, guests can look forward to dining in the Tides Restaurant, one of the island’s oldest, where the varied menu highlights top quality, seasonal and locally-sourced ingredients. The Somerville is perfect for an indulgent stay, whether lounging in the gardens amongst the palm trees and agapanthus plants, or exploring quaint St Aubin and…

CRAFTS Scarcely altered since 1902, Hart Silversmiths is the very embodiment of the kind of traditional workshop you dream of stumbling upon in the honey-hued Cotswold town of Chipping Campden. Tools festoon racks and wooden benches pitted with the marks of decades, while overhead, paper invoices dangle on hooks from low-beamed ceilings. “I think the earliest invoice up there goes back to 1943,” says fourth-generation silversmith William Hart. “The family has been here over 100 years, using the same tools, techniques and traditions that have always been used,” he says. Hart Silversmiths’ workshop is the last operating remnant of the Guild of Handicraft established in 1888 by C R Ashbee, an architect, designer, and a leading light in the Arts & Crafts movement. The Guild aimed to revive the ideals…

MUSEUMS Hampstead is undoubtedly one of London’s more salubrious neighbourhoods, where beyond the greenery of the Heath and its sweeping views of the capital you will find avenues of oversized period houses, many double-fronted, which seem unfazed by the capital’s increasing population that has seen other areas squeezed with housing. It was here amid the hushed suburban atmosphere of London’s middle classes that Sigmund Freud’s son, Ernst, found a home for his parents and his youngest sister Anna in 1938, after they were forced to flee their native Austria as the Nazis tightened their grip on mainland Europe. Though they missed Vienna, it must have been some relief to the Freuds to find themselves in this quiet haven, where Ernst had extended an already large property at 20 Maresfield Gardens…

The custom of taking afternoon tea dates back to 1840 when Anna Russell, the Duchess of Bedford and a lady-in waiting to Queen Victoria, became hungry around four o’clock — roughly the midway point between lunch and dinner. The Duchess would order servants to bring her a tray of tea, bread, butter, and cake and she would often invite members of polite society to enjoy the refreshments with her. The popularity of afternoon tea spread and eventually filtered down through to the rich and fashionable households of London until, in 1865, The Langham became the first hotel to serve this aristocratic in-between meal to the public. These days, the format is generally the same wherever you take your afternoon tea – sandwiches followed by scones, then pastries – but one…

EXHIBITION Not-so-merry wives A new exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery brings together an extraordinary collection of paintings and items relating to the six wives of Henry VIII to tell the stories of the women so often overshadowed by their husband and their portrayals in popular culture. In Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens, running until 8 September 2024, visitors can see iconic portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger alongside contemporary photographs of waxworks of the queens, which look eerily life-like, and other rarer pieces, many of which haven’t been seen together in hundreds of years. Key items include a 16th-century painting of Katherine Parr (pictured) long believed lost; a portrait of Anne of Cleves by Edgar Degas; and an inscribed book of hours with Anne Boleyn’s signature…

DISCOVER THE CHANNEL ISLANDS – THE STATELY HOME With swathes of red silk damask spread across the walls and ceiling of a first-floor salon, metres of intricate Aubusson tapestry on sofas, walls and the ceiling of a downstairs sitting room, and an imposing oak room with secret inscriptions carved in bespoke furniture, the inside of Hauteville house is like a poem rendered in interior design. It’s no surprise to learn that the elaborate interiors of this otherwise unassuming Georgian townhouse in Guernsey’s capital St Peter Port, were conjured by one of the 19th-century’s most creative minds: the French author Victor Hugo. Here, at his sea-view desk, he completed his famous tome Les Misérables and wrote Toilers of the Sea, a novel dedicated to the island. Hugo’s journey to Guernsey began…

With much of the ancient town all but invisible beneath the North Sea’s murky depths, today the Suffolk village of Dunwich has a population of less than 200 – way down on the figure of 3,000 who lived here at the time of Domesday when it was among the largest settlements in 11th-century England. Popularly but erroneously said to have been engulfed overnight by a single, Biblical storm, at some undefined point in the Middle Ages, the decline of the once-thriving medieval port was a much slower and more gradual process. Indeed, those of us living close to England’s east coast can see for ourselves the pace of erosion and, in reality, the last of the town’s eight or nine churches managed to cling on until just after the Great…

THEATRES It would take a daring playwright to do justice to the tumultuous course of Britain’s many regional theatres. The drama would open in the late 1700s with the regions cast as hopeless underdogs trailing behind big, bad London, where playhouses had already been hogging the limelight for nearly 200 years, since Shakespeare and his friends burst onto the stage. The regions started their fight back boldly with the 1,600-seat Old Vic in Bristol opening in 1766, followed by a host of small theatres in the north. These venues looked like they might all run forever but their history wouldn’t make a proper drama if it didn’t feature conflicts. By the 1830s, there was a lull in business and the curtain came down on dozens of them, while others were…

MY BRITAIN To actually come and stand in front of something that an artist touched 200, 300, 500 years ago, that’s phenomenal Francesca Whitlum-Cooper Curator at the National Gallery, London I grew up in High Barnet in north London and studied art history completely by accident. After doing my undergraduate degree at Cambridge, the Dean of Studies at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where I did my Master’s and PhD, told me, “You must do this course. I think it’s something you’d be really good at.” Afterwards, I did five months at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), then worked at the Frick Collection for a year, both in New York, before joining the National Gallery in 2015. I love working here. Academia is great with all that time you…

Crossword no 241 Solutions in next issue Across 1 ___Castle, real-life Downton Abbey (9)6 The Gog ___Hills near Cambridge. (5)9 William ___, who led a Scottish rebellion against King Edward I (7)10 ___Castle in Somerset – motte and bailey castle turned country house (7)11 Official in Anglo-Saxon England (5)12 The London ___is one of the capital’s most popular landmarks (3)13 The Pilgrimage of ___– uprising against Henry VIII’s religious policies (5)14 Medieval firearm that was loaded through the muzzle (7)16 The Shell ___, best-selling 1987 novel by Rosamunde Pilcher (7)18 Deciduous trees found in the UK (7)20 & 8 London’s largest World Heritage Site, Kew’s Royal ___ ___(7,7)22 Author of Robinson Crusoe Daniel ___(5)24 War of Jenkins’___, 18th-century conflict between England and Spain (3)25 Thick growths of small, stunted shrubs and…

Downton revisited There was a lot of excitement on our Facebook page recently when we shared photos from our behind-the-scenes feature at the ‘real’ Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle, as news of a third Downton Abbey film broke. Here’s some of what you had to say: Denise Shelby Highclere is a fascinating castle and the operation they have going on there [is great]. It is very interesting to learn about it all. Jacqueline Collins I have started watching them all over again for the I-don’t-know-what-number of times! Valentine Francisconi I love Downton Abbey , I love it, and I love Highclere Castle. Pauline Butterworth I can watch any episode of Downton Abbey anytime, it doesn’t have to be in sequence, and I loved our visit to Highclere Castle last summer, it’s…

Head to St Aubin’s in Jersey on a Saturday morning and you’ll spot a shiny blue vintage Citroen HY van parked up in front of St Brelade’s Parish Hall, looking out over the yachts in the marina. Inside this van you’ll find Gabby Mason, with her blonde curls tumbling down her shoulders and her hands probably inside the belly of a fish. This is the pop-up fish shop of Jade-S Fisheries, which sells the fresh local catch brought in by Gabby’s partner Leyton Hunnisett. Gabby, 31, never wanted to go to work in a suit and heels. She’d grown up on the beaches of Jersey, swimming in the sea at Archirondel and learning to sail. “Believe it, or not, my first word was ‘fish’,” laughs Gabby. “My brother had a…

Hugging the slopes that rise back from the sea, St Peter Port is a spectacular sight when you approach by boat. The steep-roofed houses, seemingly piled on top of each other, drop down to the bustling port where yachts, ferries and fishing craft jostle for space. ‘Town’, as the locals call it, is the hub of the island – an endearingly quaint centre of steep lanes and stairways, cobbled shopping streets strewn with bunting and tantalising glimpses down to the harbour and castle. The island location just off the Cherbourg Peninsula, the equable climate (the sunniest in the British Isles) and the street names in Guernésiais (stemming from Norman French) give the town a distinct Gallic air. It is the fusion of French and English cultures, along with fine beaches,…

The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa, Bath You can’t get much closer to the Bridgerton action than at The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa, whose exterior featured in many scenes from the series. The Georgian arc of the Royal Crescent stood in for London, and the family Featherington’s house is actually the No.1 Royal Crescent museum, just along from the hotel, which is open to visitors and dressed much as it would have been in the 18th century. The five-star hotel’s stylish rooms manage to expertly combine Regency opulence (think four-poster beds and velvet sofas) with contemporary design touches. Many bedrooms boast floor-to-ceiling views over the crescent lawn, and some suites even have their own private living room – perfect for entertaining any suitors who have come to ask for…

HISTORY In Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State, Caroline Burt and Richard Partington draw on original accounts and arresting new research to present a lively, sweeping history of the royal dynasty that preceded the Tudors, focusing on a period of high drama between 1199 and 1399 that included civil war, deposition, and regicide. Here, the authors give us a brief biography of the six monarchs who ruled England during these two centuries, whose ambitions, egos and varying abilities helped create the English state. KING JOHN (1199-1216) King John’s reputation as one of England’s cruellest and most tyrannical kings is well justified. His crimes included starving to death the wife and children of one of his greatest nobles, as well as ordering the murder of his…