NEWS: Wood You Believe It

13th July 2019

This year marks the centenary of the Forestry Commission. It was founded in September 1919, with a mission to restore the nation’s woods and forests following the First World War. Today it is the country’s largest landowner, looking after over 1,500 forests around the UK. To celebrate the centenary, there will be events all around […]

NEWS: TYGER AT THE TATE

13th July 2019

The largest William Blake exhibition in decades comes to London this autumn. Best known for the words to the anthemic hymn Jerusalem and the poem The Tyger, Blake was also a skilled and prolific artist, never truly recognised in his lifetime. Tate Britain is exhibiting over 300 original watercolours, paintings and prints – as well […]

NEWS: Suited and Rebooted

13th July 2019

The upstairs and downstairs of Downton Abbey is back, this time with a big screen film version out this autumn. The movie takes place in 1927, telling the story of George V’s visit to the family home and the problems this causes for a household unprepared to cater for such a distinguished guest. The cast […]

CHARLES DICKENS’ MAGIC LANTERN

13th July 2019

Blue Badge Guide Gina Mullett takes us on a Dickensian tour of London. “London made Charles Dickens, and Charles Dickens made London,” says Gina Mullett. “No other writer has been so influenced by the capital, or so defined its story, to the extent that ‘Dickensian’ is the default description for the harsh conditions of the […]

MY FAVOURITE…

7th July 2019

Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK …CATHEDRAL …is Chichester Cathedral. Outside is a statue of St Richard who wrote the prayer asking God that he might “know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly” – words which became very well known in the theme song of […]

HIGH CHURCH

5th July 2019

From an 800-year-old rat in a skull to a mobile saint, Blue Badge Guide Warwick Allen tells the story of Salisbury Cathedral. “Wiltshire is a county with history in every corner,” says Blue Badge Guide Warwick Allen. “You can’t move far here without stumbling across a Neolithic monument, an ancient hill fort, a ruined abbey […]

New Roman Times

4th July 2019

Marc Zakian looks at how the Romans changed Britain Running water, toilets, medicine, wine, education, public health, law and (obviously) roads. That is – according to the classic comedy film The Life of Brian – what the Romans did for us. But is it true? And what is the legacy of the 400-year Roman occupation […]

A great step forward

4th July 2019

This year our national parks celebrate their 70th birthday. Sophie Campbell walks us through their story. Do you ever think about them? I mean really think about them, as you sling on a backpack to walk across the landscape, or stay in a B&B, or go to a remote pub, or photograph the view in […]