Manchester’s eastern borough of Tameside has a story that is echoed across the region. From the late-18th century a group of farming communities grew into mill towns for the textile industry, interlinked by canals. Travelling west to east, the first hills of the Pennines hove into view, and settlements are built with the dark local …
On Merseyside, St Helens is a large town made up of local townships that coalesced during the Industrial Revolution. St Helens’ coal mines closed in the 20th century, and some, like Sutton Manor have become country parks. The town is maybe best known for glassmaking, leading the market for this industry in Victorian times. One …
On the edge of the West Midlands Green Belt, Stourbridge is a market town with long ties to the glassmaking industry. Glass had been manufactured here since the 1600s, but the trade accelerated in the 18th century with the construction of the Stourbridge Canal and the monumental Red House Glass Cone. This giant kiln is …
In the low-lying Fens, Spalding is a market town among reclaimed marshes. A lot of this reclaimed farmland is bright with tulips in spring, and like a true polder is divided by drainage ditches and channels. At the Pinchbeck Engine Museum you can see a mighty beam engine that used to keep this part of …
Leafy Sutton is one of the southernmost boroughs in the capital and can sometimes feel like countryside at ample parks and golf courses. Sutton High Street bucks this trend as one of Greater London’s shopping honeypots, with every big retailer, cuisines from all ends of the earth and a pub where the Rolling Stones got …
Across the Thames from the City of London, Southwark was the lowest bridging point on the Thames for hundreds of years. London Bridge here was indeed London’s only bridge until Westminster Bridge was built in 1750. Southwark was once a den of free traders, criminals and prostitutes, working outside of the City’s regulation. People would …
For a bucket and spade holiday on the Isle of Wight, Shanklin is a pretty resort that ticks every box. There’s a long, golden sandy beach skirted by an esplanade atop the seawall with a line of crazy golf courses, arcades, ice cream parlours and fish and chip shops. But Shanklin is more than just …
There may not be a prettier sight in England than the cottages and cobblestones of Gold Hill against the rambling North Dorset countryside. This view was immortalised by Ridley Scott in his Hovis ad of 1973. Shaftesbury and the Blackmore Vale is also Thomas Hardy country, appearing in novels like Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891). …
In heart-melting scenery at the southern end of the Yorkshire Dales, Settle is a lovable stone-built town on the River Ribble. The National Park will always be in your plans here in Settle, as you venture to waterfalls, cliffs, limestone gorges, far-flung caves and peaks over 700 metres. You don’t need to become a mountaineer …
A quaint old seaside resort on the Isle of Wight’s north-east coast, Ryde looks back to Portsmouth across the Solent. The town started attracting affluent tourists in the early 19th century, and has lots of palatial late-Georgian and Victorian architecture on streets sloping down to the waterfront Esplanade. Ryde’s beaches are long, clean and sandy, …