Sights in England
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Life Science Centre
This educational centre, part of the portentously named International Centre for Life (a complex of institutes devoted to the study of genetic science), is one of the more interesting attractions in town. Through a series of several interactive displays and the latest technology, you (or your kids) can discover the incredible secrets of life.
The highlight is the Motion Ride, a motion simulator that, among other things, lets you 'feel' what it's like to score a goal at St James' Park and bungee jump from the Tyne Bridge. There's lots of thought-provoking arcade-style games, and if the information sometimes gets lost on the way, never mind, kids will love it.
reviewed
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Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park
Opened in 1841 this 13-hectare cemetery was the last of the ‘Magnificent Seven’, then-suburban cemeteries – including Highgate and Stoke Newington’s Abney Park – created by an act of Parliament in response to London’s rapid population growth and overcrowded burial grounds. Some 270,000 souls were laid to rest here until the cemetery was closed for burials in 1966 and turned into a park and local nature reserve in 2001. Today it is a quiet, restful site, its Victorian monuments slowly being consumed by vines. There are usually two-hour guided tours at 2pm on the third Sunday of the month.
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Mappa Mundi
The cathedral is best known for two ancient treasures housed here. The awe-inspiring 13th-century Mappa Mundi is a large calfskin vellum map intricately painted with the vivid (to modern eyes, wacky) world vision of the era's scholars and an enthralling pictorial encyclopaedia of the times.
It is the largest and best-preserved example of this type of cartography anywhere, but more than that it's a bewitching journey through the world as then envisioned, peopled by strange beings with eyes in their chest, roamed by basilisks and mythological monsters. Navigate your way through the barely recognisable mash of continents and you can even find Hereford itself.
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Linley Sambourne House
Tucked away behind Kensington High St, this was the home of Punch cartoonist and amateur photographer Linley Sambourne and his wife Marion from 1875 to 1914. It’s one of those houses whose owners never redecorated or threw anything away. What you see is pretty much the typical home of a comfortable middle-class Victorian family, with dark wood, Turkish carpets and rich stained glass throughout.
You can visit some nine rooms, by 90-minute guided tour only. (On the weekend, the guide on all but the first tour is in period costume.)
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White Cube Gallery
This central sister to the Hoxton original hosted Tracey Emin’s first exhibition in five years, ‘Those who suffer Love’, in 2009. Together with the massively publicised Damien Hirst ‘For the Love of God’ exhibition two years before, it brought back some of the publicity for the (now not-so-young) Young British Artists (YBAs). Housed in Mason’s Yard, a traditional courtyard with brick houses and an old pub, the White Cube looks like an ice block – white, straight-lined and angular. The two contrasting styles work well together and the courtyard often serves as a garden for the gallery on popular opening nights.
reviewed
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Verulamium Museum & Roman Ruins
A fantastic expose of everyday life under the Romans, the displays at Verulamium Museum include household objects, legionaries’ armour, statuary, jewellery, glassware and grave goods. The highlight, however, is the Mosaic Room, where five superb mosaic floors, uncovered between 1930 and 1955, are laid out, the most splendid of which is the Shell Mosaic. You can also see re-creations of Roman rooms, and learn about life in the settlement through interactive and audiovisual displays. Every second weekend, the museum is ‘invaded’ by Roman soldiers who demonstrate the tactics and tools of the Roman army.
Adjacent Verulamium Park has remains of a basilica, bathhouse and…
reviewed
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Courtauld Institute of Art
Immediately to your right as you enter the grounds of Somerset House from The Strand, you’ll find the Courtauld Institute of Art, a superb gallery connected to the Courtauld Institute of Arts, Britain’s foremost academy of art history. Have an uncrowded stroll between the walls of this wonderful place, and see work by Rubens, Botticelli, Cranach, Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Matisse, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec, to mention but a few. There are lunchtime talks on specific works or themes from the collection at 1.15pm every Monday and Friday. A little cafe and the plush Admiral 2 restaurant provide sustenance.
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Tullie House Museum
This museum ranges through the city's past, from its Celtic foundation through to the development of modern Carlisle. The highlight is the new Roman Frontier Gallery, which was opened in 2011 and uses a mix of archaeological exhibits and interactive displays to tell the story of the Roman occupation of Carlisle. There are some particularly fine busts and decorative headstones, as well as a showpiece bronze face-mask dating from the 1st century AD.
Upstairs, the Border Galleries cover the rest of the city's history, from the Bronze Age through to the Border Reivers, the Jacobite Rebellion and the Industrial Revolution. The Carlisle Life Gallery details the city's social…
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Hawkshead Grammar School
In centuries past, promising young gentleman were sent to Hawkshead's village school for their educational foundation. Among the former pupils was a certain William Wordsworth, who attended the school from 1779 to 1787. The curriculum was punishing: 10 hours' study a day, covering weighty subjects such as Latin, Greek, geometry, science and rhetoric. Hardly surprising young Willie (amongst others) felt the urge to carve his name into one of the desks.
Upstairs is a small exhibition exploring the history of the school.
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British Music Experience
This musical attraction in the O2 ‘bubble’ traces the history of British popular music from 1945 to the present day. There’s star-studded memorabilia: eye up Paul Weller’s custom-made pop art Rickenbacker 330 guitar, David Bowie’s Station to Station thin white duke togs and Duffy’s Rockferry jacket. Film yourself playing guitar or pick up dance moves from a virtual instructor before standing next to holograms performing before a massive cheering (filmed) audience.
reviewed
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Ancient House
A glorious 17th-century facade of sugary-white wedding-cake pargeting decorates the front of Ipswich's most famous building. Built in the 15th century, Ancient House (aka Sparrowe's House) is one of the finest examples of Restoration artistry you'll see and crawls with mythological creatures and characters.
There are four relief panels each representing the continents discovered at the time - Asia is an Oriental dome, America is a tobacco pipe, Europe is a Gothic church, and Africa has an African astride a crocodile (eh?)
The building now houses a not-so-ancient kitchen outfitters, but you can take a peek at the hammer-beam roof inside.
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cathedral
The city's red sandstone cathedral was originally constructed as a priory church in 1122. During the 1644-45 siege by Parliamentarian troops, two-thirds of the nave was torn down to help repair the city wall and castle. Serious restoration didn't begin until 1853, but a surprising amount survives, including the east window and part of the original Norman nave.
Notable features include the fine 14th-century east window, the 15th-century misericords, the lovely Brougham Triptych in the north transept, and some ornate choir carvings.
Surrounding the cathedral are other priory relics, including the 16th-century Fratry and the Prior's Tower.
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Clink Prison Museum
This one-time private jail in the park of Winchester Palace, a 32-hectare area known as the Liberty of the Clink and under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Winchester and not the City, was used to detain debtors, prostitutes, thieves and even actors.
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Lancaster Castle
Lancaster's imposing castle was originally built in 1150. Later additions include the Well Tower, more commonly known as the Witches' Tower because it was used to incarcerate the accused of the famous Pendle Witches Trial of 1612, and the impressive twin-towered gatehouse, both of which were added in the 14th century. Most of what you see today, however, dates from the 18th and 19th centuries, when the castle was substantially altered to suit its new, and still current, role as a prison.
You can only visit the castle as part of a 45-minute guided tour, but you do get a chance to experience what it was like to be locked up in the dungeon.
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Canary Wharf
Cesar Pelli’s 244m-high Canary Wharf Tower, which was built in 1991 at 1 Canada Sq and has been described as a ‘square prism with a pyramidal top’, presides over a veritable array of venues including a toytown and financial theme park. It’s surrounded by more recent towers housing HSBC and Citigroup, and offices for Bank of America, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and more. It took a long time for the place to come this far. Canary Wharf Tower, still the tallest building in the UK and one of the largest property developments in Europe, had to be saved from bankruptcy twice before it reached today’s levels of occupancy.
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BFI Southbank
Tucked almost out of sight under the arches of Waterloo Bridge is the British Film Institute, containing four cinemas that screen thousands of films each year, a gallery devoted to the moving image and the Mediatheque, where you watch film and TV highlights from the BFI National Archive. There’s also a gallery space with shows relating to film, a well-stocked film- and bookshop, a restaurant and a gorgeous cafe. The BFI is largely a repertory or art-house theatre, runs regular retrospectives and is the major venue for the Times BFI London Film Festival, which screens 300 films from 60 countries in the second half of October.
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Godlee Observatory
Maybe it's the vertiginous spiral staircase, but hardly anyone ever visits the fabulous Godlee Observatory, one of the most interesting places in town. Built In 1902, it is a fully functioning observatory with its original Grubb telescope in place; even the rope and wheels that move the telescope are original. Not only can you glimpse the heavens (if the weather allows), but the views of the city from the balcony are exceptional. It’s located at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). Alternatively, you’ll get great views of the city from the Hilton bar atop the city’s tallest skyscraper, the Beetham Tower.
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Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
You’ll need to have a special interest in Egyptian archaeology to enjoy this fairly academic museum. There are some 80,000 objects in the collection, one of the most impressive of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world, but the displays – glass boxes with row upon row of artefacts – don’t really do much to highlight them. The museum is named after Professor William Flinders Petrie (1853–1942), who uncovered many of the items during his excavations and donated the collection to the university in 1933.
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Christ's College
Over 500 years old and a grand old institution, Christ's is worth visiting if only for its gleaming Great Gate emblazoned with heraldic carving of spotted Beaufort yale (antelope-like creatures), Tudor roses and portcullis. Its founder, Lady Margaret Beaufort, hovers above like a guiding spirit. A stout oak door leads into First Court – one of Cambridge’s more picturesque Front Courts and the only circular one. Pressing on through the Second Court there is a gate to the Fellows' Garden, which contains a mulberry tree under which 17th-century poet John Milton reputedly wrote Lycidas. Charles Darwin also studied here, and his room has been restored as it would have been…
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Bishop's Palace
Built for Bishop in the 13th century, this moat-ringed palace is purportedly the oldest inhabited building in England. Inside, the palace's state rooms and ruined great hall are worth a look, but it's the shady gardens that are the real draw. The natural springs after which Wells is named bubble up in the palace's grounds. The swans in the moat have been trained to ring a bell outside one of the windows when they want to be fed.
reviewed
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Queen’s Chapel
This small chapel is where contemporary royals from Princess Diana to the Queen Mother have lain in their coffins in the run-up to their funerals. The church was originally built by Inigo Jones in the Palladian style and was the first post-Reformation church in England built for Roman Catholic worship.
It was once part of St James’s Palace but was separated after a fire. The simple interior has exquisite 17th-century fittings and is atmospherically illuminated by light streaming in through the large windows above the altar.
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The Deep
Hull's biggest tourist attraction is The Deep, a vast aquarium housed in a colossal, angular building that appears to lunge above the muddy waters of the Humber like a giant shark's head. Inside it's just as dramatic, with echoing commentaries and computer-generated interactive displays that guide you through the formation of the oceans and the evolution of sea life. The largest aquarium is 10m deep, filled with sharks, stingrays and colourful coral fishes, with moray eels draped over rocks like scarves of iridescent slime. A glass elevator plies up and down inside the tank, though you'll get a better view by taking the stairs. Don't miss the cafe on the very top floor,…
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Guards Museum
If you found the crowds at the Changing of the Guards tiresome and didn’t see a thing, get here for 10.50am on any day from April to August to see the guards getting into formation outside the museum, for their march up to Buckingham Palace.
In addition, you can check out the history of the five regiments of foot guards and their role in military campaigns from Waterloo onwards at this little museum. There are uniforms, oil paintings, medals, curios and memorabilia that belonged to the soldiers. Perhaps the biggest draw here is the huge collection of toy soldiers for sale in the shop.
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Elizabeth Gaskell House
About 3 miles south of the city centre is Elizabeth Gaskell House, a Grade II detached Regency-style villa that was the home of novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who lived here from 1850 to 1865 (and whose family continued to live here until 1913). It is a rare property: besides its unique literary associations (Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens were regular visitors), it is one of the few homes in Manchester whose interior has been carefully maintained and restored to its original elegance. The house has limited opening hours; to get here, take bus 50, 113, 130, 147, 191 or 197 from Piccadilly Gardens, or take the train to Ardwick.
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Durham Castle
Built as a standard motte-and-bailey fort in 1072, Durham Castle was the prince bishops' home until 1837, when it became the first college of the new university. It remains a university hall, and you can stay here.
The castle has been much altered over the centuries, as each successive prince bishop sought to put his particular imprint on the place, but heavy restoration and reconstruction were necessary anyway as the castle is built of soft stone on soft ground. Highlights of the 45-minute tour include the groaning 17th-century Black Staircase, the 16th-century chapel and the beautifully preserved Norman chapel (1080).
reviewed