The North Oxfordshire market town of Banbury is a prosperous manufacturing centre and the UK base of brands like Douwe Egberts. Banbury has always been a place where things get made, from plush fabrics hundreds of years ago to narrow boats on the Oxford Canal, which came to the town in the 1770s. Before that …
As the second smallest country in the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland is the smallest), Wales packs a punch despite its compact size. Castles form a significant part of Welsh history as well as landscape. There are well over 400 castles in Wales making it the country with most castles per square mile than any other …
Officially the sunniest town in Britain, Bognor Regis is an old-school seaside resort in West Sussex. The first tourists arrived in the 18th century, and King George V convalesced from surgery here in the late-1920s, which is how the town gained its royal Regis suffix. Ever since the Butlin’s holiday camp opened in 1960 Bognor …
An irresistible market town, Arundel is on the steep west side of the Arun Valley as it drops to the river. High on the chalk ridge are Arundel Castle, seat of the Howards for nearly 1,000 years, and a Gothic Revival cathedral that could have been teleported here from northern France. Arundel has lots of …
A well-heeled residential district in Southwest London, Wimbledon has a fame that goes well beyond British borders for a certain tennis tournament in July. The Championships is unlike any other event in the ATP or WTA tours, standing for history and tradition, and strawberries and cream. If you miss the tournament you can always come …
Under the southern slopes of the Kent Downs, Ashford is a town near the very centre of Kent. Thanks to this location the town became the meeting point of five different railway lines, stimulating growth and employment in the 19th century. When the Channel Tunnel was finished in the mid-1990s Ashford also got an international …
As posh as it gets in London, Kensington is about staggering wealth, boutiques, rows of elegant townhouses, a royal palace and lots of European embassies. Kensington is also a cultural quarter extraordinaire, with three of the UK’s best museums on a single street. The Natural History Museum and Victoria & Albert are world leaders in …
The home of black pudding, this town to the north of Manchester has a lot more going for it than sausage. Of course, meat-eaters have to sample that black pudding at Bury’s award-winning market as a priority. But there’s also a rich cultural menu, at the Bury Art Museum and live music venues like the …
A few short miles north of Oxford, Bicester is a market town with a pretty centre. People have been trading in the heart of the town for almost 800 years, but nowadays Bicester is associated with a more exclusive kind of commerce. On the edge of town, Bicester Village is a designer outlet mall that …
A New Town in West Sussex, Crawley’s recent fortunes have been tied to Gatwick International Airport a few miles north. Before the middle of the 20th century Crawley was a small market town constellated by little villages that are now suburbs. For visitors Crawley has parks crammed with facilities, and a town centre with every …