Hi, I'm Alex, a travel writer based in London, I love writing about travel as much as traveling itself. I’m a scrappy researcher, and a hoarder of info, whether it's trivial or mind-blowing. I get a lot of joy doing justice to worthwhile places, and I’m always excited to share the stories behind them.
I have a real affection for Tarragona in Catalonia, from the golden sandy beaches to the mountains. I love Hamburg and its harbour and many waterways, especially in spring. And I'll always be drawn to the rolling countryside in the south of England, especially Wiltshire. I'll go anywhere with a great art museum, and ruins, ancient or medieval.
A town sculpted from pale limestone, Stamford became the first designated conservation area in all of England and Wales back in 1967. Stamford doesn’t have a dominant monument that you have to see as a priority, but rather there’s a whole streetscape of stone-built townhouses, churches, almshouses, cottages and imposing civic buildings to take in. …
Historically part of Essex but now in the Borough of Havering, Romford is one of the M25 region’s key commercial centres outside of Central London. Romford’s history of trade goes back to 1247 when it earned the right to hold a sheep market. The Market Place in the town centre is still taken over by …
On the Derwent River in the embrace of a deep wooded gorge, Matlock Bath is a scenic spa resort developed in the 18th century. Up to that time this almost Alpine landscape on the edge of the Peak District had been exploited for lead and limestone. And when the Heights of Abraham pleasure park was …
A market town with industry in its veins, Mansfield was a big source of coal up to the end of the 20th century. In the space of a generation, mining has all but disappeared, but telltale headstocks still stand in places like Clipstone and Pleasley where there’s an absorbing museum. There’s Tudor luxury too, at …
A town suspended in time, Louth is in East Lincolnshire on the cusp of the flowing landscapes of the Lincolnshire Wolds. Still a fixture of Louth’s town centre are local family-run amenities that are now rare other parts of the country. Louth has bakers, butchers and poultry shops, handed down through families since the Victorian …
Grazing the south end of Bodmin Moor, Liskeard is a market town that burgeoned in the 19th century during a copper mining boom. In this Victorian slate and granite townscape are more than a hundred houses designed by one man, Henry Rice, during that frenzy of development. There’s a medieval parish church, a spirited town …
The constituency of the current leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, Islington is a borough in his image. Very popular with young, progressive people, this area has a history of radical left-wing politics. The not so radical left-wingers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown made the deal that would define UK politics at the restaurant Granita …
The Brontës, one of the world’s most famous literary families lived in the West Yorkshire village of Haworth in the first half of the 19th century. Anne, Charlotte and Emily spent nearly all of their brief but productive lives at the Haworth Parsonage, where they wrote some masterpieces of English literature like Wuthering Heights and …
In the 1970s and 80s this sandstone mill town hiding in the steep Calder Valley was settled by artists, musicians, New Age practitioners and green activists. They were drawn to the raw beauty of the Yorkshire Pennines but also the cheap but handsome property, at old mills, warehouses, clothiers’ houses and the idiosyncratic double-decker homes …
The adorable market town of Hexham is a short march from Hadrian’s Wall and was built around an abbey founded by the Anglo-Saxons. The abbey’s earliest architecture has been preserved in the crypt, which was constructed 1,300 years ago with stone recycled from a Roman fort. Hexham Abbey presides over a photogenic market place, at …