The Battle of Hastings in 1066 changed the course of English history, and the Norman Conquest that followed was bloody enough that William the Conqueror vowed to build an abbey as penance. The site chosen was the battlefield itself, and the high altar of the church is believed to have been built at the spot …
A little sandstone town in Cumbria’s Eden Valley, Appleby centres on the historic Boroughgate, a street bursting with monuments. One name that will keep popping up here is Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676). She was the daughter of one of Queen Elizabeth’s maids of honour, and rebuilt Appleby after the English Civil War before founding St …
By the North Sea, the town of Aldeburgh is on the Suffolk coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and will forever be tied to Benjamin Britten. The composer, most famous for the opera Peter Grimes, moved here in the late-1940s and quickly thought up the Aldeburgh Festival, an enduring opera and classical music event every …
An agreeable Thames-side market town downriver from Oxford, Abingdon used to be the county town of Berkshire even though it has officially been in Oxfordshire since 1974. The 17th-century County Hall is a striking monument on the Town Square, and holds a compelling museum with a viewing platform on the roof. Abingdon grew up around …
Lying beside the Cumbrian iron ore field, Workington always had a smelting trade, but that blossomed into a heavy steel industry via the trailblazing Bessemer process in the 19th century. If you take a train in the UK there’s a good chance you’ll be travelling on rails manufactured in Workington, even if the industry has …
This market town and borough lies directly south-east of Reading, and has a few historic streets in its town centre ringed by modern developments and residential suburbs. Now, Wokingham isn’t exactly a touristy place, but there are lots of amenities for families, while the local Berkshire countryside abounds in green space at country parks and …
A town with a Bohemian personality, Totnes has a rep for its New Age community. In fact Totnes is so progressive it even has its own currency, the Totnes Pound, introduced in 2007 to support the local economy. Historically the town was already prospering before the Normans built a castle here in the late-1060s, and …
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 …