Britain

I was delighted to see a photograph of Stogursey Castle in your July magazine [Vol 87 Issue 3]. The picture was entitled “thatched cottage in Somerset’s Quantock Hills” but it is actually much more than that. The cottage is built between the two ruin

Heritage Open Days – England’s largest festival of history and culture – is celebrating its 25th anniversary, with thousands of free events taking place from 13 to 22 September. Book onto a behind-the-scenes tour of the Prince Philip Maritime Collect

The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook by Annie Gray (White Lion Publishing, £25), released in September, is full of delicious recipes from both above and below stairs. 1 bottle (750ml) Champagne or other sparkling wine 2 envelopes (about 5 tsp) powd

If the walls of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the predominantly Victorian Houses of Parliament, could talk, their 1,000-year tale would be epic in scope and unparalleled in incident. For, more than any other single building, its stone walls, d

On 6 September 1769 crowds descended on Stratford-upon-Avon for a groundbreaking event: a three-day Jubilee in honour of William Shakespeare. Not only was it the first major celebration of the Bard’s life and works but it also completely transformed

In the new Downton Abbey film, veteran housekeeper Mrs Hughes is unequivocal in briefing staff: “I want every surface in this house to gleam and sparkle,” she tells them, and this, says Dr Mac Graham, historian of Holkham Hall, is exactly the effect

On 30 January 1649, 48-year-old King Charles I said goodbye to his children at St James’s Palace and was escorted to Banqueting House on London’s Whitehall. It was a bitterly cold day and he fortified himself with a little bread and claret. Then he s

Hippocrates knew how to live. The ancient Greek philosopher declared that “the way to health is to have an aromatic bath and scented massage every day.” Alas, we cannot all indulge so frequently, but increasing numbers of us see regular spa visits as

One lucky winner and their guest will enjoy a luxurious two-night stay at St Michaels Resort in Cornwall, staying in a Large Beach House room with access to the resort’s new destination spa, a full Cornish breakfast each morning and dinner both eveni

On 31 October 1855 the poet, playwright and novelist Victor Hugo arrived in windswept Guernsey, in desperate search of exile. Banished from his native France for aggravating Napoleon III with his outspoken republican views, he had wandered “from coas

As the storm clouds of the Second World War gathered ominously over Europe, in the peaceful, rolling countryside of Suffolk an amateur archaeologist unearthed the final resting place of an ancient warrior king, rewriting the story of English history.

Picture an idyllic English seaside town. A broad, sandy beach backed by beach huts in ice-cream hues. A bunting-bedecked high street overlooked by a working lighthouse. A place of village greens, flagpoles and floral displays. Such a place exists, an

On discovering lush river and meadow landscapes around ‘Wychford’, the aspiring poet Guy in novelist Compton Mackenzie’s Guy and Pauline (1915) declared: “By gad, if I can’t write here, I ought to be shot.” More familiar to us today for works such as

Cornwall's bustling capital, Truro, once stood at the confluence of three rivers, the Kenwyn, Allen and Tinney – hence the name, derived from the Cornish word Tri-veru (three rivers). Originally an Iron Age settlement, during the 12th century a castl

In the 19th and early 20th centuries the parish of Govan, Glasgow, was dominated by shipbuilding, employing thousands in the shipyards lining the river Clyde. From its sturdy, municipal buildings most people might assume this was the district’s heyda