Discover Britain

Having had the privilege to reside in the UK for several years and with a return every year, I continue to be frustrated by the endless range of historic opportunities that are available. It requires great discipline in order to tour and maintain foc

At 1,748 square miles, Cairngorms is the largest of the UK’s 15 National Parks. To put this in perspective, it’s twice the size of the Lake District National Park and bigger than the whole country of Luxembourg. With a little thought, however, the pa

Westminster Abbey’s medieval triforium has opened to the public for the first time in more than 700 years. Stained-glass panels and robes from HM The Queen’s 1953 Coronation are among 300 treasures on display in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee galleries.

For centuries, it had been thought that the scenes of plunder and ritual burial described in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf were artistic exaggerations. “For one warrior stripped the other, looted Ongentheow’s iron mail-coat, his hard sword-hilt,

Chivalry, exquisite tailoring, self-deprecating wit, extreme politeness. The reputation of British men – according to Hollywood, at least – paints an alluring portrait. However, despite a long-standing history of producing exemplary gentlemen, Britai

My new book looks at the homes of three Bloomsbury Group writers. They include Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst and Monk’s House, which belonged to Virginia Woolf. Monk’s House is more evocative of London in the 1920s than it is of other country ho

The 1960s were the decade when Bob Dylan sang of times a-changin’ and a Prime Minister promised a revolution forged in the white heat of technology. There was a new mood in Britain and the traditional symbols of authority were increasingly challenged

Liverpool was granted a Royal Charter in 1207, yet it was another 500 years before it emerged as a key port town. Ideally placed on the mouth of the River Mersey, routes between Ireland, the US and the Caribbean transported wool, iron, sugar and more

In 1977, Gertrude Hunt gave Leeds Castle in Kent a rather unusual gift: 60 dog collars. She made the donation to the former Norman stronghold in memory of her late husband, the historian John Hunt. The couple had both collected art and antiques, whic

This issue of Discover Britain is our museums special so we’ve been looking at the national treasures and eccentric collections that make the UK one of the world’s most cultured destinations. In keeping with the theme, we have a fantastic competition

In TS Eliot’s epic 1922 poem The Waste Land, he imagines zombie-like crowds shuffling across London Bridge “under the brown fog of a winter dawn”. While the poem throws up fragmented imagery, the poet’s choice of this particular River Thames span to

One of Britain’s Jacobean treasures, Hatfield House is an easy 20-minute train ride from central London, but spare a thought on your journey there for the two poor souls who, in 1786, carried a fragile model of a Chinese palace every step of the way

London is one of the world’s capitals of culture, thanks in no small part to the wealth of top-class museums on its doorstep. And not only do many of these museums boast rich collections accrued over the centuries, but they are also free for everyone

In many ways, a biologist’s job is often to create order from chaos. Through research and study, they must explain and classify a natural world that continues to evolve and diversify. And nowhere is the overwhelming scale of that task laid bare more

Bordering on both London and the France-facing coast, the position of this south-east English county has ensured that it has played a major part in our nation’s history. Colchester – or Camulodunum as it was – is the oldest recorded town in Britain a

British crime drama aficionados know this 1864 hotel primarily as the home of the Morse Bar, named after Colin Dexter’s fictional detective Inspector Morse and featured regularly in the popular TV adaptation of the books. For museum lovers, however,

Not simply an iconic symbol of Britain’s war efforts, the Royal Air Force (RAF) roundel was a life-saving design. At the outbreak of the First World War, Allied ground troops kept shooting at British planes, mistaking them for the enemy. To avoid fur