Innehållsförteckning för August - September - 2025 från Discover Britain

The sound of the sea is one of superlatives – thundering, booming and roaring as it smacks into the beach beyond the dense, leafless bushes bordering the path where I’m standing. Yet for all its ferocity, the occasional salt-laden wafts reaching my nose are surprisingly subtle. This is the same salt that lightly coated the ‘rich claret’ wild blackberries sampled by Raynor Winn – a detail which inspired the title of her 2018 best-selling memoir, The Salt Path – which she picked just a few miles farther along the South West Coast Path from here. Today, however, the path is unexpectedly overpowered by the pungent aroma of wild garlic. “It’s wild leek,” corrects Mel McGregor, our guide, when I ask why it doesn’t have the broader, darker green leaves I…

I left the borderlands of North Cornwall and North Devon aged 19, heading out into the world. “It’s boring, there’s nothing to do. I want some excitement,” I said, but within 10 years, I was back, drawn like a magnet to this region’s rugged shores and rainy days. Back then it wasn’t clear what was drawing me back, but now with age and just a little pinch of maturity I am clearer than ever. While Devon and Cornwall has its share of mystery and legends throughout, I believe North Cornwall has the lion’s share. Here, stories of Piskie folk, smugglers and pirates, and Will ‘o the Wisps, set around stone circles of unknown origin and foreboding moors, are like the foundations on which the area was built. In modern times,…

Wood is a natural insulator, so [wooden-soled] clogs keep your feet warm in winter and cool in summer, and that is where the term ‘clever clogs’ comes from,” says Geraint Parfitt. The clog maker is regaling tales he tells visitors to St Fagans National Museum of History in South Wales, where he has been making clogs and demonstrating his craft for 24 years. He’s now one of just two makers of traditional hand-carved clogs in the country. “Pop your clogs [the informal expression for when someone dies – Ed.] came from the term ‘popping’ used in the north as another word for ‘pawning’ something when you wanted money,” Geraint continues. “So, when you died, your family would pop your clogs. There is a rich etymology and oral history around crafts…

HISTORIC PALACES Medieval mysteries revealed A brand-new permanent display at the Tower of London will lift the lid on the lives of the kings and queens who lived here during the medieval era, including King Henry III and King Edward I, as well as members of their royal households. Visitors to the Medieval Palace, one of the oldest parts of the Tower of London, can take an immersive tour through 13th-century royal apartments to learn more about this often overlooked period of British history at no extra cost. Charles Farris, public historian at Historic Royal Palaces, which looks after the Tower, said: “This was a pivotal period in the history of the Tower of London. During the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, the Tower expanded to become the…

Gurnard’s Head, near St Ives Part of a small group of pubs with rooms designed to make you pause and take in your surroundings, The Gurnard’s Head is perfect for guests looking to slow down and experience the real Cornwall. Located between St Ives and St Just, on a stretch of coastline that looks out over the rather volatile Atlantic, it’s a place for cheek-pinching coastal walks, sitting down and watching the skies for birdlife, and yomping through countryside before returning to your cosy sanctuary for good food, done well. With Roberts radios, Bramley toiletries and fresh-cut flowers, the rooms are very welcoming, but the absolute highlight is the Vispring beds, which are so good guests are constantly enquiring about them. Open all year round, recommended day trips in the…

In the small village of St Ive, in rural Cornwall, stands a rectory house, built in the Victorian era, where a young girl grew up to be hailed a hero thousands of miles away in South Africa, only to be largely forgotten in her British homeland. It was her work during and after the Second Anglo-Boer War that led many South Africans to hold Emily Hobhouse in such high esteem that when she died in 1926, a state funeral was held for her there. Today, young South Africans still grow up learning about Emily Hobhouse, however, she remains an unknown figure to most British people. Now a new visitor attraction in the home where she grew up, The Story of Emily museum, reveals in vivid detail the life of this…

Don your dinner jackets, prepare your pearls and get ready to dive back into the deliciously scandalous world of the British aristocracy as we make a return to Downton Abbey this autumn. After six seasons and two major motion pictures, the world thought the curtains had finally been drawn on the story of the Crawley family, until news broke of a third and final film Downton Abbey: The Grande Finale, to be released in September 2025. From the first episode of season 1, which set the action on the day the Titanic sank in 1912, fans of the TV show and films have followed the Crawley family, their acquaintances and their household, through the trauma of the First World War to the glamour and changing social order of the 1920s.…

Crossword no 247 Solutions in next issue Across 1Historic Welsh town, birthplace of King Henry VII (8)5 English painter best known for his paintings of horses (6)10 Beautiful national park in Hampshire (3,6)11 ____ Springfield, British pop singer (5)12 Former industrial town in North Lanarkshire (7)14 Victorian seaside resort on the Isle of Wight (7)16 Firth of ____, ocean inlet on Scotland’s west coast (5)17 Charlotte Brontë’s final novel (8)19 The northernmost inhabited Channel Island (8)21 In legend, ____ and Hengist led the first Anglo-Saxons to Britain (5)24 The Rime of the Ancient ____, famous poem by Coleridge (7)25 ____ Yat, popular tourist village on the River Wye (7)26 In Scotland, a person who owns a large estate (5)28 Legendary queen of King Arthur (9)30 Tommy ____, slang term for a…

I’m a local girl. I grew up in Hayle, in west Cornwall, and drove past the island of St Michael’s Mount every day when I went to school in Penzance. I grew to appreciate this island on the landscape as I got older, and how unique and special it was. In my late twenties, I applied for a summer guiding job and have been coming back here every summer since. Eventually, I became a permanent member of staff, and I am now the visitor services manager. When it comes to being a tour guide and hosting people, my background in theatre (which I studied at Truro and Exmouth universities) is the perfect translatable skill. Starting as an island guide, I worked in the village welcoming people and processing tickets. Over…

This year marks Bradford’s tenure as the UK’s City of Culture, an accolade that celebrates the area’s rich cultural landscape as well as accentuating some of its more natural assets. Located in West Yorkshire, in the foothills of the Pennines, it is a place of bracing beauty, where green pastures meet wild moorland and valleys, all interspersed by a network of rivers and pretty mill towns. Once a modest rural town, thanks to an abundance of natural resources, such as coal and ore, Bradford became the fastest growing city of the Industrial Revolution and today its perimeters extend far beyond the city centre. From the open moors that inspired one of the greatest works of English literature to a utopian model town that has evolved to become a wonderful arts…

The Tudor dynasty, with its cast of headstrong characters and charismatic image-makers, enthrals to this day: the stuff of countless books and films. The dynasty’s 117-year rule (1485–1603) unleashed the English Reformation and Renaissance, and turbo-charged a spirit of nationalism and power. It was also the period when Wales was annexed to England. Founder of the dynasty, Henry VII, the usurper king of Bosworth, shrewdly married Elizabeth of York and put to bed the Wars of the Roses, restored order and the nation’s coffers. Yet the death of his teenage heir Arthur, named for the legendary king from whom Tudor descent was claimed, upended carefully laid royal plans. Taking his elder brother’s place, Henry VIII set history on a rollercoaster as he tore through six wives in pursuit of a…