Sights in England
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Blackfriars
One of Britain's best-preserved 13th-century Dominican friaries.
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Berwick's Walls
You can walk almost the entire length of Berwick's hefty Elizabethan walls, begun in 1558 to reinforce an earlier set built during the reign of Edward II. The mile-long walk is a must, with wonderful, wide-open views. Only a small fragment remains of the once mighty border castle, most of the building having been replaced by the train station.
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Belas Knap
There’s easy access to the Cotswold Way from Winchcombe, and the 2½-mile hike to Belas Knap is one of the most scenic short walks in the region. Five-thousand-year-old Belas Knap is the best-preserved Neolithic burial chamber in the country. Visitors are not allowed inside, but the views down to Sudeley Castle and across the surrounding countryside are breathtaking.
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Beaches
Newquay is set amid some of the finest beaches on the North Coast. Fistral, west of Towan Head, is England's best-known surfing beach and the venue for the annual Boardmasters surfing festival. Below town are Great Western and Towan; a little further up the coast you'll find Tolcarne, Lusty Glaze, Porth and Watergate Bay. All these beaches are good for swimming and supervised by lifeguards in summer.
The stately rock towers of Bedruthan Steps, are a few miles further east towards Padstow; Crantock lies 3 miles to the southwest. Further west again is family-friendly Holywell Bay.
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Beaches
Falmouth has three main beaches. The nearest beach to town is busy Gyllyngvase, a short walk from the town centre, where you'll find plenty of flat sand and a decent beach cafe. Further around the headland, Swanpool and Maenporth are usually quieter. The regular Bus 500 from Falmouth stops at all three.
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Beaches
The largest town beaches are Porthmeor and Porthminster, but the tiny cove of Porthgwidden is also popular. Nearby, on a tiny peninsula of land known locally as the Island, sits the pre-14th–century Chapel of St Nicholas. Carbis Bay, to the southeast, is popular with families and sun seekers.
On the opposite side of the bay from St Ives, the receding tide reveals over 3 miles of golden beach at Gwithian and Godrevy Towans, both popular spots for kiteboarders and surfers. The lighthouse just offshore at Godrevy was the inspiration for Virginia Woolf's classic stream-of-consciousness novel To the Lighthouse.
Gwithian boasts some of the best beach breaks in Cornwall. The …
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Beaches
Torquay boasts no fewer than 20 beaches and a surprising 22 miles of coast. Holidaymakers flock to the central Torre Abbey Sands (covered by water at very high tides); the locals opt for the sand-and- shingle beaches beside the 240ft red-clay cliffs at Babbacombe. These can be accessed by a glorious 1920s funicular railway; a memorable trip in a tiny wooden carriage that shuttles up and down rails set into the cliff.
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Battle Abbey
Another day, another photogenic ruin? Hardly. On this spot raged the pivotal battle in the last successful invasion of England in 1066: an event with unparalleled impact on the country's subsequent social structure, architecture and well…pretty much everything. Four years after, the conquering Normans began constructing an abbey in the middle of the battlefield, a penance ordered by the Pope for the loss of life incurred here.
Only the foundations of the original church remain, the altar's position marked by a plaque – also supposedly the spot England's King Harold famously took an arrow in his eye. Other impressive monastic buildings survive and make for atmospheric…
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Barbican
To get an idea of what old Plymouth was like before the Blitz, head for the Barbican, a district of cobbled streets and Tudor and Jacobean buildings, many now converted into galleries, craft shops and restaurants.
The Pilgrim Fathers' Mayflower set sail for America from the Barbican on 16 September 1620. The Mayflower Steps mark the point of departure – track down the passenger list displayed on the side of Island House nearby. Scores of other famous voyages are also marked by plaques at the steps, including one led by Captain James Cook, who set out from the Barbican in 1768 in search of a southern continent.
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Barbara Hepworth Museum & Sculpture Garden
Barbara Hepworth (1903–75) was one of the leading abstract sculptors of the 20th century, and a key figure in the St Ives art scene; fittingly, her former studio has been transformed into a moving archive and museum. The studio itself has remained almost untouched since her death in a fire, and the adjoining garden contains some of her most famous sculptures. A joint ticket for Tate St Ives can be purchased for adult/child £8.75/4.50. Hepworth's work is scattered throughout St Ives; look for her sculptures outside the Guildhall and inside the 15th-century parish church of St Ia.
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Bamburgh Castle
Northumberland's most dramatic castle was built around a powerful 11th-century Norman keep by Henry II, although its name is a derivative of Bebbanburgh, after the wife of Anglo-Saxon ruler Aedelfrip, whose fortified home occupied this basalt outcrop 500 years earlier. The castle played a key role in the border wars of the 13th and 14th centuries, and in 1464 was the first English castle to fall as the result of a sustained artillery attack, by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, during the Wars of the Roses. It was restored in the 19th century by the great industrialist Lord Armstrong, who died before work was completed. The castle is still home to the Armstrong family.
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Bailiffgate Museum
The three floors at this often overlooked museum near the castle are taken up with interesting exhibitions on coal mining, the history of Alnwick, Border Reivers and the railways as well as locally themed temporary shows.
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At-Bristol
Bristol's interactive science museum has several zones spanning space, technology and the human brain. In the Curiosity Zone you get to walk through a tornado, spin on a human gyroscope and strum the strings of a virtual harp. It's fun, imaginative and interactive, and should keep kids entertained for a few hours.
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Arundel Museum
Last spotted in a tiny room at the defunct tourist office, poor old Arundel Museum has been waiting for a new home to be erected on a plot by the river for years. The modern structure should have appeared by the time you arrive, but at the time of writing it was still a Lottery-funded hole in the ground.
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Arundel Ghost Experience
Hear hair-raising ghost stories and explore supposedly haunted prison cells by candlelight at this kids' attraction. Check the website for opening times as often closed.
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Arundel Castle
Originally built in the 11th century, all that's left of the first structure are the modest remains of the keep at its core. Thoroughly ruined during the English Civil War, most of what you see today is the result of passionate reconstruction by the eighth, 11th and 15th Dukes of Norfolk between 1718 and 1900. The current duke still lives in part of the castle. Highlights include the atmospheric keep, the massive Great Hall and the library, which has paintings by Gainsborough and Holbein. The castle does a good impression of Windsor Castle and St James' Palace in the popular 2009 film The Young Victoria, and is ocassionally closed for other film shoots.
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Art Gallery & Museum
Cheltenham's excellent Art Gallery & Museum is well worth a visit for its depiction of Cheltenham life through the ages. It also has wonderful displays on William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, as well as Dutch and British art, rare Chinese and English ceramics and a section on Edward Wilson's expedition to Antarctica. The museum was closed for redevelopment in 2011. Check the website for details on reopening.
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Ancient Houses
Saved in the nick of time by the National Trust, Greyfriars offers the chance to poke around a timber-framed merchant's house from 1480. The house is full of atmospheric wood-panelled rooms and backed by a pretty walled garden.
A few doors down, the mid-16th-century Tudor House is wonderfully warped; inside is a heritage centre run by local volunteers.
Also peek into the flamboyant Guildhall, created in 1722 by a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren who died in poverty while waiting for the city to pay him his dues.
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Alum Chine
This award-winning subtropical enclave dates from the 1920s, providing a taste of Bournemouth's golden age. Set 1.5 miles west from Bournemouth Pier, its plants come from the Canary Islands, New Zealand, Mexico and the Himalayas; their bright-red bracts, silver thistles and purple flowers frame views of a glittering sea.
In the centre of Bournemouth, the Pleasure Gardens stretch back for 1.5 miles from behind Bournemouth Pier in three colourful sweeps.
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Alnwick Garden
As spectacular a bit of green-thumb artistry as you'll see in England, this is one of the northeast's great success stories. Since the project began in 2000, the 4.8-hectare walled garden has been transformed from a derelict site into a spectacle that easily exceeds the grandeur of the castle's 19th-century gardens, a series of magnificent green spaces surrounding the breathtaking Grand Cascade – 120 separate jets spurting over 30,000L of water down 21 weirs for everyone to marvel at and kids to splash around in.
There are a half-dozen other gardens, including the Franco-Italian-influenced Ornamental Garden (with more than 15,000 plants), the Rose Garden and the…
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Alnwick Castle
The outwardly imposing ancestral home of the Duke of Northumberland and a favourite set for film-makers (it was Hogwarts for the first couple of Harry Potter films) has changed little since the 14th century. The interior is sumptuous and extravagant; the six rooms open to the public – staterooms, dining room, guard chamber and library – have an incredible display of Italian paintings, including Titian's Ecce Homo and many Canalettos.
A free Harry Potter tour runs every day at 2.30pm and includes details of other productions – period drama Elizabeth and the British comedy series Blackadder to name but two – to have used the castle as a backdrop.
The castle is set in…
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All Saints
In Newland, you can visit the 'Cathedral of the Forest', the 13th-century All Saints church, which was restored and partially rebuilt in the 19th century and houses some fine stained-glass windows, as well as a unique brass depicting a miner with a nelly (tallow candle) in his mouth, a pick in his hand and a billy (backpack) on his back.
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Abbey & Park
Now a picturesque ruin residing in beautiful gardens behind the cathedral, the once all-powerful abbey still impresses despite the townspeople having made off with much of the stone after the Dissolution. The Reformation also meant an end to the veneration of relics, and St Edmund's grave and bones have long since disappeared.
You enter the park via one of two well-preserved old gates: opposite the tourist office, the staunch mid-14th-century Great Gateis intricately decorated and ominously defensive, complete with battlements, portcullis and arrow slits. The other entrance sits further up Angel Hill, where a gargoyle-studded early-12th-century Norman Tower looms.
Just…
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36 Lime Street
The artistic, independent spirit of Ouseburn is particularly well represented in this artists cooperative, the largest of its kind in the northeast, featuring an interesting mix of artists, performers, designers and musicians. They all share a historic building designed by Newcastle's most important architect, John Dobson (1787–1865), who also designed Grey St and Central Station in the neoclassical style. As it's a working studio you can't just wander in, but there are regular exhibitions and open days; check the website for details.
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Winckley Square
Not far south of Fishergate, set around a landscaped park, is lovely Winckley Square. One of northern England's finest examples of a Georgian square, it was established in the 1830s. Stroll and admire the fine buildings - now professional offices, but once home to businessmen who grew rich on industrial-boom profits. Great restaurants surround the square.
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