On the North Sea between the Orwell and Deben Estuaries, Felixstowe is a coastal town with both an Edwardian spa resort and a major shipping port. The Port of Felixstowe is the busiest in the UK, with almost half of Britain’s containerised trade passing through every year. This huge enterprise is on the Orwell Estuary, …
This compact market town on the northern cusp of the Cotswolds was once controlled by the third largest abbey in England. Almost 500 years after Evesham Abbey was suppressed, its legacy survives at an Almonry (now a museum), two local churches, a tithe barn and in the remnants of the abbey church tower. Evesham rests …
Ringed by the first spurs of the Chiltern Hills, Dunstable is a market town in the far south of Bedfordshire. The post-war town centre is a regional shopping destination, but there’s real history awaiting you at Dunstable Priory, which has lots of Norman stonework, and at the Priory House Heritage Centre, which includes the vaults …
A polished Victorian seaside resort, Clevedon is draped over seven limestone hills next to the Bristol Channel. The coast is rocky, with low cliffs and pebble beaches next to public walking trails like Poets’ Walk, which guides you to the church where the poet Arthur Hallam is buried. In the late-1920s the town built a …
The Staffordshire town of Cannock is on the southern boundary of the Cannock Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with similar protections to a National Park. So a lot of the interest for visitors lies in the countryside, where you’ll come by visitor centres, birch woodland, pine plantations, large tracts of heathland and a …
This large town outside Birmingham was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and is often called the “capital of the Black Country”. The Black Country got its name from soot caused by iron foundries, coking plants and glass factories. For context, the Titanic’s millions of nails and gigantic anchor were manufactured in this …
In the Middle Ages Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire was one of England’s ten largest towns, swelled by a burgeoning wool trade. Beverley Minster attests to the wealth of that time, and at 102 metres is longer than many English cathedrals. The shops and townhouses in the upmarket centre of Beverley are mostly …
Once closely linked with England’s steel industry, Corby was known as “Little Scotland” in the 20th century when thousands of steelworking families from Glasgow settled in the town. That industry has disappeared since the 1970s, and now country parks and ponds sit where steelworks and quarries used to be. The town suffered with the loss …
Few place names in the world carry quite the same cachet as Chelsea. This area in West London has always been affluent, and in the 18th and 19th centuries even had a private road for the king, literally the King’s Road. That was ordered by Charles II, who also founded the Royal Hospital Chelsea as …
A well-heeled town in Buckinghamshire on the east flank of the Chiltern Hills, Beaconsfield has a new and old part. The Old Town to the south is at a crossroads, and each of the broad converging streets is fronted by rows of Georgian brick facades, old coaching inns and mock-Tudor houses. This is the cultured …