Sights in England
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Dorset County Museum
The Thomas Hardy collection here is the biggest in the world, offering extraordinary insights into his creative process – reading his cramped handwriting, it's often possible to spot where he's crossed out one word and substituted another. There's also an atmospheric reconstruction of his study at Max Gate and a letter from Siegfried Sassoon, asking Hardy if Sassoon can dedicate his first book of poems to him.
As well as the superb Hardy exhibits, look out for Jurassic Coast fossils, especially the huge ichthyosaur and the 6ft fore paddle of a plesiosaur. Bronze and Iron Age finds from Maiden Castle include a treasure trove of coins and neck rings, while Roman artefacts…
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Walker Art Gallery
The city's foremost gallery is the national gallery for northern England, housing an outstanding collection of art from the 14th to the 21st centuries. Its strong suits are Pre-Raphaelite art, modern British art and sculpture – not to mention the rotating exhibits of contemporary expression. It's a family-friendly place, too: the ground-floor Big Art for Little People gallery is designed especially for under-eights and features interactive exhibits and games that will (hopefully) result in a life-long love affair with art.
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Leeds Castle
This immense moated pile is for many the world's most romantic castle, and it's certainly one of the most visited in Britain. While it looks formidable enough from the outside – a hefty structure balancing on two islands amid a large lake and sprawling estate – it's actually known as something of a 'ladies castle'. This stems from the fact that in its more than 1000 years of history, it has been home to a who's who of medieval queens, most famously Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
The castle was transformed from fortress to lavish palace over the centuries, and its last owner, the high-society hostess Lady Baillie, used it as a princely family home and…
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Danson House
This Palladian villa was built by one John Boyd, an East India Company director, in 1766. A 10-year restoration to bring the house back to its original Georgian style was completed in 2005, aided by the discovery of a series of fine watercolours of the interiors by the second owner’s daughter, Sarah Johnston, in 1805. Highlights include the dining room’s numerous reliefs and frescoes celebrating love and romance; the library and music room, with its functioning organ; the dizzying spiral staircase accessing the upper floors; and the Victorian kitchens (open only occasionally). The English-style garden is a delight, and on the large lake in Danson Park, which is flanked by…
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O2 (Millennium Dome)
The 380m-wide circular Millennium Dome (renamed O2) cost £750 million to build and more than £5 million a year just to keep it erect. It closed at the end of 2000, having failed miserably in its bid to attract 12 million visitors, and was until 2007 for the most part unemployed. Since then it has hosted big acts like Madonna, Prince, Justin Timberlake and Barbara Streisand in its 23, 000-seat 02 Arena and soul, pop and jazz bands in the 2350-seat IndigO2. Massive exhibitions (Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, The Human Body) and sporting events have made their temporary homes here and there’s a slew of bars, clubs and restaurants sheltering under what was…
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Dove Cottage
Originally an inn called The Dove and Olive, this tiny cottage just outside Grasmere is the most famous former home of William Wordsworth. He arrived here with his sister Dorothy in 1799 before being joined in 1802 by his new wife, Mary, and soon after, three children – John, Dora and Thomas – who were born here in 1803, 1804 and 1806.
The tiny cottage was a cramped but happy home for the growing family – a time memorably recounted in Dorothy's diary, later published as the Grasmere Journal – and after they were eventually forced to seek more space at nearby Allan House in 1808, the cottage was leased by Wordsworth's young friend Thomas de Quincey (author of …
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Cadbury World
Cadbury World, about 4 miles south of Birmingham in the village of Bournville, sets out to educate visitors about the history of cocoa and the Cadbury family, but sweetens the deal with free samples, displays of chocolate-making machines, and chocolate-themed rides. Opening hours vary through the year (bookings essential in July and August), so check the website before you visit.
Surrounding the chocolate works, pretty Bournville Village was built by the philanthropic Cadbury family to accommodate early-20th-century factory workers. In the centre of the village, Selly Manor is a bona fide 14th-century manor house, shifted brick and mortar from its original location by…
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Exeter Quay
The perfect place on a summer's day to forget you're in a city. The red stone warehouses that line the River Exe at Exeter Quay are home to antiques markets, pubs and restaurants, many with alfresco dining. There's been a quay on the site since Roman times, but by the 14th century the route to the sea had been cut off by an incredibly sharp piece of business practice.
Those with vested interests in forcing trade to the port of Topsham to the south, built a weir across the river - severing the city's water link. Undeterred, John Trew built the first ship canal in Britain in 1563 to restore access to the sea. The quay has open-air jazz on Sundays between June and September,…
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Chelsea Old Church
This church stands behind a bronze monument to Thomas More (1477–1535). More’s body is thought to be buried somewhere within the church; his head, having been hung out on London Bridge, is now at rest far away in St Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury. Original features in the church include the Tudor More Chapel. At the western end of the south aisle don’t miss the only chained books in a London church (chained, of course, to stop anyone making off with them).
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British Empire & Commonwealth Museum
Bristol's slave-trading past is thoughtfully explored at the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum. Dealing with the history and consequences of British colonial conquest, the 16 galleries range over 500 years of British trade, exploration and exploitation, and while there's a conscious attempt at perspective, it's hard not to be moved by the stories of subjugation that underpinned Britain's imperial rise.
Highlights include sepia-toned films from the Empire's heyday and a collection of outfits worn by colonial administrators, Indian viceroys and tribal chiefs. Breaking the Chains, marking the bicentenary of the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1807, interweaves film, music and…
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Coleton Fishacre
For an enchanting glimpse of Jazz Age glamour, drop by this former home of the D'Oyly Carte family of theatre impresarios. Built in the 1920s, its gorgeous art deco embellishments include original Lalique tulip uplighters, comic bathroom tiles and a stunning saloon – complete with tinkling piano. The croquet terrace leads to deeply shelved subtropical gardens and suddenly revealed vistas of the sea. Hike the 4 miles along the cliffs from Kingswear, or drive.
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National Football Museum
It's the world's most popular game and Manchester is home to both the world's most popular and the world's richest teams, so it makes sense that a museum dedicated to the global charms of football should find its home here. Opened in July 2012, the museum is chock-a-block with the world's most extensive collections of memorabilia, trophies and other keepsakes of its storied past. Fans won't need convincing, but those unfamiliar with footy's appeal will learn much about the game's development, spread and success; as well as the multitude of names that have graced (and disgraced) its myriad pitches throughout the world. The most interesting bit is Football Plus, a series of…
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Ragged School Museum
Both adults and children are inevitably charmed by this combination of mock Victorian schoolroom – with hard wooden benches and desks, slates, chalk, inkwells and abacuses – re-created East End kitchen and social history museum below. ‘Ragged’ was a Victorian term used to refer to pupils’ usually torn, dirty and dishevelled clothes, and the museum celebrates the legacy of Dr Thomas Barnardo, who founded this school for destitute East End children in the 1870s. The school closed in 1908 but you can experience what it would have been like on the first Sunday of the month, when a Victorian lesson in which ‘pupils’ (adults and children alike) are taught reading, writing and…
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Emmanuel College
The 16th-century Emmanuel College (‘Emma’ to students) is famous for its exquisite chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The college features a prodigious collection of ducks, who roam the area freely and in early spring produce armies of bright yellow ducklings. Here, too, is a plaque commemorating John Harvard (BA 1632), a scholar here who later settled in New England and left his money to a certain Cambridge College in Massachusetts – now Harvard University.
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Treasurer's House
The Treasurer's House was home to the York Minster's medieval treasurers. Substantially rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, the 13 rooms here house a fine collection of furniture and provide a good insight into 18th-century life. The house is also the setting for one of the city's most enduring ghost stories: during the 1950s a plumber working in the basement swore he saw a band of Roman soldiers walking through the walls. His story remains popular if unproven – but you can explore the cellar to find out.
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Carlyle’s House
From 1834 until his death in 1881, the eminent Victorian essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle dwelled in this three-storey terrace house, bought by his parents when surrounded by open fields in what was then a deeply unfashionable part of town. The lovely Queen Ann house – built in 1708 – is magnificently preserved as it looked in 1895, when it became London’s first literary shrine. It’s not big but has been left much as it was when Carlyle was living here and Chopin, Tennyson and Dickens came to call.
Carlyle unsuccessfully soundproofed his attic room from the hullabaloo of street criers, organ grinders and Italian ice-cream sellers and against this acoustic…
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St Michael's Cathedral & Ruins
The pretty cathedral quarter is historically the richest part of the city. The wonderfully evocative cathedral ruins of St Michael's Church Cathedral, destroyed by Nazi incendiary bombs in the blitz of 14 November 1940, still stand as a permanent memorial. The 180 steps of its Gothic spire can be climbed for some panoramic views.
Symbolically adjoining the old cathedral's sandstone walls is the Sir Basil Spence-designed cathedral, a modern, almost Gothic, architectural masterpiece. It includes a giant Graham Sutherland tapestry of Christ, glorious stained-glass nave windows (best seen from the altar), and a towering etched glass front. Look out for the Jacob Epstein…
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Gonville & Caius College
Known locally as Caius (pronounced ‘keys’), Gonville and Caius was founded twice, first by a priest called Gonville, in 1348, and then again in 1557 by Dr Caius (his given name was Keys – it was common for academics to use the Latin form of their names), a brilliant physician who supposedly spoilt his legacy by insisting in the statutes that the college admit no 'deaf, dumb, deformed, lame, chronic invalids, or Welshmen'! Fortunately for the college, his policy didn't last long, and the megastar of astrophysics, Stephen Hawking, was a fellow here until 2009. Other notable ex-students include Francis Crick of Crick & Watson who discovered DNA, and Edward Wilson of the…
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National Army Museum
This museum’s four levels tell the history of the British army from the perspective of its servicemen and servicewomen. Standout pieces include the life and times of the ‘Redcoat’, the tactical battle at Waterloo between victor and vanquished and the skeleton of Napoleon’s horse. In the Conflicts of Interest, 1969–Present section on level 4, hunt down the distinctly Darth Vaderish ‘Fedayeen’ helmet from 2003, worn by members of a paramilitary unit loyal to Saddam Hussein.
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Firepower (Royal Artillery Museum)
Loud and reeking of adrenaline – kids can’t get enough of it – Firepower is an explosive display of the evolution of artillery. The History Gallery traces artillery’s development from catapults to nuclear warheads, while the multimedia, smoke-filled Field of Fire immerses you in the experience of artillery gunners from WWI to Bosnia in a 15-minute extravaganza. There’s a Gunnery Hall packed with weapons and vehicles from the 20th century and the chance to take shots on a firing range, and take charge of a remote-control tank in the Camo Zone (£1.50 each, or £4.50 for four).
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St James’s Piccadilly
The only church Christopher Wren built from scratch and on a new site (most of the other London churches are replacements for ones razed in the Great Fire), this simple building is exceedingly easy on the eye and substitutes what some might call the pompous flourishes of Wren’s most famous churches with a warm and elegant user-friendliness. The spire, although designed by Wren, was added only in 1968. This is a particularly sociable church; it houses a counselling service, stages lunchtime and evening concerts, provides shelter for an antiques market (10am to 5pm Tuesday) and an arts and crafts fair (10am to 6pm Wednesday to Saturday), has Caffé Nero attached on the side,…
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Keats Hous
Reopened mid-2009 following redevelopment, this elegant Regency house was home to the golden boy of the Romantic poets from 1818 to 1820. Never short of generous mates, Keats was persuaded to take refuge here by Charles Armitage Brown, and it was here that he met his fiancée Fanny Brawne, who was literally the girl next door.
Keats wrote his most celebrated poem, Ode to a Nightingale, while sitting under a plum tree in the garden, no longer there, in 1819. The house is sparsely furnished but does a good job of conveying what daily life would have been like in Keats’ day.
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Kennington Park
This unprepossessing space of green has a great rabble-rousing tradition. Originally a common, where all were permitted entry, it served as a speakers’ corner for South London. During the 18th century, Jacobite rebels trying to restore the Stuart monarchy were hanged, drawn and quartered here, and in the 18th and 19th centuries preachers used to deliver hellfire-and-brimstone speeches to large audiences; John Wesley, founder of Methodism and an antislavery advocate, is said to have attracted some 30,000 followers. After the great Chartist rally on 10 April 1848, where millions of working-class people turned out to demand the same voting rights as the middle classes, the…
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Clifton Suspension Bridge
Clifton's most famous (and photographed) landmark is a Brunel masterpiece, the 76m-high Clifton Suspension Bridge, which spans the Avon Gorge from Clifton over to Leigh Woods in northern Somerset. Construction began in 1836, but sadly Brunel died before the bridge's completion in 1864. It was mainly designed to carry light horse-drawn traffic and foot passengers, but these days around 12,000 cars cross it every day – testament to the quality of the construction and the vision of Brunel's design.
It's free to walk or cycle across the bridge; car drivers pay a 50p toll. There's a visitor information point near the tower on the Leigh Woods side. Free guided tours (£3) of…
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Lowry
Looking more like a shiny steel ship than an arts centre, the Lowry is the quays’ most notable success. It attracts more than one million visitors a year to its myriad functions, which include everything from art exhibits and performances to bars, restaurants and, inevitably, shops. You can even get married in the place. The complex is home to more than 300 paintings and drawings by northern England’s favourite artist, LS Lowry (1887–1976), who was born in nearby Stretford. He became famous for his humanistic depictions of industrial landscapes and northern towns, and gave his name to the complex. It has two theatres – the 1750-capacity Lyric and 460-capacity Quays –…
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