Discover Britain

This issue I managed to unleash myself from my desk for a short time and indulge in one of my favourite pastimes: exploring Britain’s quaint corners. First up was a family trip to Norfolk (p42) in which we visited some old haunts while discovering so

I just wanted to let you know how much I have loved reading Discover Britain and Scotland [our sister mag – Ed]. My husband, father, his wife, and I went on a wonderful trip in 2019. We spent two weeks in Scotland and a week in London. We tried to se

This winter, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, will bring together over 100 artworks from one of Tudor England’s most revered artists: Holbein the Younger. Holbein at the Tudor Court, from 10 November 2023 to 14 April 2024, is the Royal Colle

Located on the Norfolk coast, near the village of Holkham, Holkham Hall is one of the most treasured stately homes in Britain – an 18th-century neo-Palladian country house that borrows from the Roman antiquity-style of architecture with columns and s

Suffolk is home to some of England’s oldest and most extraordinary medieval timber-framed buildings. These ancient beauties may now be leaning precipitously, but they’re a tangible connection to a lost world – a time when East Anglia was the powerhou

The coast of Norfolk stretches for nearly 100 miles from the Wash in the west to Hopton-on-Sea, south of Great Yarmouth. The coastline itself is abundant with flora and fauna, including the seal colonies and birdlife for which the county is famous. I

Straddling the River Cam, which gives the city its name, Cambridge is as resplendent and fine an English city as one could find. Easily rivalling its boat race opponent of Oxford for splendour and history, Cambridge is the suffix in the ‘Oxbridge’ am

To the east of Cambridgeshire and the north of Suffolk, Norfolk is the third county making up what is known as East Anglia. It’s a county that has traditionally relied as much on its fishing industry as it has agriculture, jutting out in the North Se

Once a magnificent stronghold of the powerful Dukes of Norfolk, 12th-century Framlingham Castle is a wonderfully imposing moated fortress with impressive medieval battlements and almost a thousand years of stories to tell. Built in the wake of the No

Suffolk is a beautiful English county, brimming with old, pretty, wool towns, and quiet rural villages, all separated by verdant green countryside. Bury St Edmunds is one of the region’s largest historic towns and home to Bury St Edmunds Abbey, once

The Cotswolds is renowned for its beech woods, some of which are so significant that they are designated as National Nature Reserves (NNR). This includes the Cotswold Commons and Beechwoods NNR in the heart of the Cotswolds at Cranham, near Stroud. I

Christopher Wren, that most famous of architects, was a passionate Londoner, lauded above all for designing St Paul’s Cathedral, whose iconic dome adds grandeur to the capital’s skyline. This year marks the centenary of his death and as the many exhi

When Ian G Brennan was appointed Sculptor to the Most Noble Order of the Garter and the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1989, he was told that the main criterion of the job was “to be able to carve anything”. More than 140 heraldic woodcarvings

While transporting the coffin of a young man across wild fells, a pony suddenly bolts off from its party into the Cumbrian wilderness. Neither the coffin nor cart can be found. Several months later, that boy’s mother dies, and another small horse beg

As London’s oft-quoted wordsmith, Samuel Johnson, declared back in the 18th century: “There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.” There are now around 3,500 of them in the

Solutions in next issue 6 Leader of the Conservative Party from 1923 to 1937 (7)8 Historic village in the Hart district of Hampshire with the ruins of a 13th-century castle (6)9 Small coastal town and fishing port in south-east Cornwall (4)10 County

From the control tower windows, I can see overgrown air strips unfurl among the silent Norfolk fields of beet and wheat. Behind me, on the ground, green Nissen huts encapsulate the story of Americans whose planes once roared through the East Anglian