English Heritage invites you to revisit your favourite childhood memories of Christmas in the picture-book setting of enchanting Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens. At Belsay on 26th-27th November 2010, go and brave the Hall after dark and gather in the library for spine tingling Victorian-inspired ghost stories. Special performances of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas take place on 18th-19th December 2010.
Useful link:
Hotels near Belsay Hall
If you are in Cumbria for the half term week or for Halloween which this year falls on a Sunday, then you might like to eat some dead man’s finger sausages at Ravenglass or do something a little less gross-sounding such as pumpkin-carving in Bowness-on-Windermere. Here’s a handful of just some of the events you’ll find taking place:
Muncaster Castle
24th-31st October 2010
Muncaster Castle is famous for its ghostly presences and therefore isn’t missing a chance to enjoy the Halloween festivities. They are running twilight garden tours with special sound effects and music. There’s also an owl tour, magic shows and a ghostly grotto.
Brockhole Lake District Visitor Centre
26th October 2010
It’s just spooky how much fun Brockhole can be! Activities for all the family, including a fancy dress parade, dress to scare. All ages, under 8 years accompanied. Just turn up.
Ravenglass & Eskdale Miniature Steam Railway
29th-30th October 2010
Do a spot of ghost-spotting whilst aboard La’al Ratty, the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway’s famous little steam train. They’ll also be serving up hot soup or ‘dead man’s finger’ sausages for supper, and giving out prizes for the best Halloween outfit.
Holker Hall
27th-29th October 2010
Holker Hall will be running some spooky walks through their deer park. Go in fancy dress if you wish. There will also be a lantern competition; bring your own lantern made from a pumpkin, turnip or marrow. During the day time, there will be craft activities and the cafés spooky food menu will include delicacies such as bat wings with swamp dip, worm burgers and more.
Ullswater Steamers
30th October 2010
There’s Halloween magic for all the family on a two-hour cruise. Fancy dress is optional and there will be magic tricks and balloon modelling courtesy of a local entertainer.
Carlisle Castle
25th-29th October 2010
Scary stories of ghosts and grim tales of Jacobite soldiers incarcerated in the dungeons. Join our guided tour to uncover the hidden history of Carlisle Castle.
Taffy Thomas, Storyteller
28th-29th October 2010
Head to Beetham Nurseries and the Storyteller’s Garden at Grasmere for some spooky tales. Taffy encourages you all to dress up in your Halloween costumes and bring your children, and grandchildren, for a real Halloween treat. Rest assured it won’t be too scary, just a lovely time for folks of all ages.
World of Beatrix Potter
30th-31st October 2010
The Peter Rabbit Garden will be aglow with pumpkin lanterns of all shapes and sizes. Try some of their pumpkin treats in the Tea Room.
Rheged
26th-29th October 2010
Head to Rheged to carve your own Halloween pumpkin lantern; they’ll provide your pumpkin and carving tools and be on hand to help you too. They even clear up all the mess!
Useful links:
Hotels in the Lake District
B&Bs in the Lake District
Campsites in the Lake District
Holiday cottages in the Lake District
Tourist attractions in the Lake District
Figures such as the Cerne Abbas Giant and Long Man of Wilmington are the most famous chalk figures, but there are many more scattered around southern England.
The older of the figures seem to mainly come in two sets – people and horses, and show there was a lot of dedication put into them considering they were cut out using very crude tools and with no way of viewing them from the air.
The oldest of these is believed to be the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire which has been dated as far back as 3000 years. Although the features might look a little abstract, the horse was probably meant to be some kind of ritual figure rather than an artistic representation.
The Long Man of Wilmington hasn’t been dated, but research suggests it may date from around the 11th or 12 Century and be the work of a local monk, although this is far from conclusive. The figure has obviously been seen as important by the people of the area since it has been re-cut and maintained over the centuries.
There have been a number of modern day takes on the white figure idea, including a conceptual art version completed in 2003 near Folkstone in Kent. The Folkestone White Horse as it’s known caused a lot of controversy and took from 1998 to 2002 to even get planning permission – something the creators of the Uffington White Horse presumably didn’t need to worry about.
In total there are believed to around 57 of these carvings, dating from various periods although a number were created during renewed interest in the 1800s. Most are situated around Dorset and Wiltshire areas, mostly because those are the only regions with the chalk type soil.
VisitScotland is encouraging visitors to follow in the webbed-footsteps of the record breaking number of geese flocking to parts of Scotland this autumn.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust and the RSPB have both reported the highest number of geese ever recorded in Montrose Bay and the Inner Hebridean island of Islay. Around 65,000 Pink Footed Geese have arrived at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Montrose Basin (15,000 more than last year), while nearly 29,000 Barnacle Geese and Greenland White Fronted Geese have been spotted at the RSPB Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve on Islay.
Late Autumn is one of the best times to see geese across Scotland, as hundreds of thousands of birds descend on the country for the winter months. The country is host to some of the biggest geese flocks in the UK, so there is no shortage of places to witness this, from Islay and the Aberdeenshire coast to the Montrose Basin or the Solway Firth.
Some of the geese have flown more than 1,200 km (746 miles) from their breeding grounds and will now spend the winter in Scotland. They leave Scotland around March or April, when they return to their northern and Artic breeding grounds.
Anyone visiting Montrose Basin can observe this amazing site from the Scottish Wildlife Trust visitor centre observation window. Visitors to the RSPB Loch Gruinart Nature Reserve can take part in weekly guided walks to catch a glimpse of the geese, alongside redwings and fieldfares and thousands of ducks.
At the Loch Leven National Nature Reserve in Perthshire, Scottish Natural Heritage will be hosting a dawn watch this weekend for people to witness one of the loch’s greatest wildlife spectacles. With the dawn, around 20,000 pink-footed geese will rise from their night-time roosts on the loch shore, providing a dramatic scene for spectators. The free event takes place on Sunday, 24th October 2010 from 7am to 9am, meeting at Kirkgate Park.
We go in search of the great icons of engineering created by the one and only Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Described as a genius of engineering and a self-publicist, there’s one thing about Brunel – he was as large a character as the projects which still bear his name. Without him many great feats of engineering simply wouldn’t have happened, so here are some of his greatest ideas which you can still see to this day.
1) The Wharncliffe Viaduct dating from 1837 isn’t the tallest or longest in the country, but the eight-arched brick structure is certainly pretty imposing especially as it has 3 sets of arches across it’s width. At 886 feet its also still quite long, and was one of Brunel’s first structures.
[Wharncliffe Viaduct Photo]
2) The Maidenhead Railway Bridge carries the Great Western Railway over the River Thames in Buckinghamshire. It’s remarkable for the flatness of the bridge arches which almost seem to defy the laws of bridge making, but having stood since 1838 it proved Isambard knew what he was doing.
[Maidenhead Railway Bridge photo]
3) Bristol Temple Meads Station is one of the greatest standing achievements of Brunel with what was at the time the widest unsupported arched roof in the world. The station has since been expanded, but the arch still looks magnificent.
[Bristol Temple Meads Station].
4) The Box Tunnel on the Great Western Railway was another first for Brunel, being the longest railway tunnel ever constructed in 1841. It was also one of the costliest projects in terms of lives with over 100 navies known to have died while digging it.
Another reason for this being a great achievement is Brunel started digging the tunnel from both ends and when the two met it was found they were only 2 inches out of alignment!
[The Box Tunnel photo]
5) The Thames Tunnel was created by Isambard and his father Mark and was the first tunnel to be successfully dug under a navigable river anywhere in the world. Originally used by pedestrians, the tunnel was later electrified and used as part of the Overground Railway in London.
[The Thames Tunnel photo]
6) The Hungerford Bridge in London was partly changed when it was bought by a railway company, but the lower structure is still the original bridge he designed. Rather fittingly, the chains which were once used to suspend the bridge were reused in the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which Brunel also designed.
7) Paddington Station is another great reminder of how Brunel used great iron works to span vast distances. Over 25 million people now use the station each year and Brunel overlooks them all as a statue in the main passenger area.
[Paddington Station photo]
8) The Clifton Suspension Bridge is possibly the one icon that almost everyone recognises although he never actually saw the finished bridge as it was only completed 5 years after he died. He won the design award for the bridge in 1831, but it wasn’t finished until 1864 due to financial problems.
The bridge is however one of the great achievements of the 19th Century at around 1,352 feet long and 245 feet above the river. It spans an impossible looking gap and has become an icon for Bristol.
[Clifton Suspension Bridge photo]
9) The SS Great Britain shows that although famous for bridges, Brunel could turn his hand to almost any engineering project. One of the most famous photographs of him is when he was standing beside the anchor chain of the ship, which was the first iron hulled ship to make transatlantic voyages.
[SS Great Britain photo]
10) The Royal Albert Bridge was the last great achievement of Brunel who died shortly after it was opened. The bridge spans the River Taymar outside Portsmouth connecting it to Cornwall. Shortly after his death, two large plaques were placed over the ends of the bridge bearing his name as a memorial to the great man.
[Royal Albert Bridge photo]
Footnote: If you like these, you might also like the book “Top 10 of Britain: 250 Quintessentially British Lists
More links:
The Brunel Museum
Visitor attractions around the UK
UK Hotels
Ghosts and ghouls haunt the North East England region this month in a host of Halloween events. From eerie walks in Guisborough forest to an evening of haunted rides and toffee apples at Hexham Spook Night, there is something for everyone!
Fear and Loathing in Newcastle – Centre for Life, Newcastle
22nd October 2010
A night of horror, fear and surprise – Halloween-themed fun with a science twist, face your phobias, discover the biology of vampirism and win a prize for the best fancy dress.
Hamsterley Forest – Broomstick Making Workshop
23rd October 2010
Hand craft your own broom in preparation for the approaching witching season. Two sessions 1100-1300 and 1400-1600. Sensible clothing and footwear essential.
Halloween Week – Calvert Trust, Kielder Water & Forest Park
25th October – 1st November 2010
Are you afraid of the dark? If so come and let your senses guide you through the dark nights in our haunted forest. Learn traditional turnip carving techniques and be prepared to be scared in the spookiest disco the Calvert’s ever seen. Fancy dress is essential to keep the local ghosts and ghouls away.
Victorian Tales of Fear - Belsay Hall
28th-30th October 2010
A selection of unsettling tales for Halloween, adapted into dramatic form from the works of Charles Dickens and M.R James.
Spoo-Quay, Hartlepool’s Maritime
29th October 2010
Spoo-Quay is now a well established annual event at Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience and usually sells out (so book early). Lots of evil entertainment, including magic, creepy crawlies, storytelling, music, circus skills and lots of ghosts and ghouls, crawling around the quayside. The unique surroundings of our attraction provide a suitably ’spoo-quay’ atmosphere, the centrepiece being HMS Trincomlee.
Halloween Haunting - Kielder Castle
30th October 2010
Northumberland’s best fright night at one of the region’s most haunted castles. Includes a tour of Kielder Castle’s haunted rooms and passages with more than one or two surprises waiting for you round the next corner.
Alnwick Ghost Festival
31st October 2010
A very unique and ‘First’ for the North of England. The festival will inform and teach the public about all things spooky. Starting 6.30pm until 11.00pm 31st October (Sunday Halloween night) in the town centre, The Northumberland Hall, market place, Alnwick. The night includes a limited amount of unusual stalls aimed at Ghosts, paranormal, spooky gifts and more. Dependant on numbers (and weather) there is planned a short ghost trail to meet and greet active ghosts in Alnwick.
During the Ghost Festival there are film shows, demonstrations and talks to answer all your questions. Entrance for the Festival only is Adults £2.50, Children up to 12yrs free until.
Killhope Halloween Night
31st October 2010
Dead scary mine trips and Halloween ‘bites’. Do you dare venture underground tonight? Share the experience with a paranormal investigator. Places limited. Strictly 16 years plus.
Gruesome Gibside – Gibside, Tyne & Wear
Throughout Half-Term
Every day of Half Term, discover Gibside’s spooky side on a wild trail through the woodlands to find our yukky yurt. Make a potion, become a beastly bat and try some fiendish food! On 30th October 2010 children can enrol themselves into the School of Sorcery.
Useful links:
Hotels in North-East England
B&Bs in North-East England
Self-catering in North-East England
Tourist attractions in North-East England
The Victorians may have invented the mass seaside holiday, but it took a while for the idea of “stripping off” to become popular.
The masses may have launched themselves into the waters around what would become the seaside towns of Britain, but for the middle and upper classes the idea of stripping off into your bathing suit on the beach was simply unheard of.
This was a time before beach huts were invented, so the enterprising folks around the seaside resorts created the bathing machine. Essentially this was a horse drawn cart (generally) without the horse which would firstly be used as a changing room, and then often driven down to the water.
For the more adventurous they would then alight into the waters although early on the bathers would stay under canvas and simply sit dangling their legs into the seawater.
This carried on right into the 1900s when attitudes were changing slightly and becoming more relaxed, thus allowing the beach hut to be invented and people to take tea by the beach, and other pursuits. Of course today what used to be rented by the day has become a seriously expensive residence, with some beach huts costing more than a house!
In this tradition, the Telegraph have serialised the book Beach Huts and Bathing Machines
It might sound an odd thing to publicise, but being one of the wettest places in Britain does have some advantages, as we’ll note at the end of this article.
The wettest places in Britain:
1. The wettest place according to the Met Office is in Scotland at Dalness in Glen Etive, situated deep in the Highlands. This poor town receives a massive 130 inches or 3.3m of rain a year.
2. Seathwaite in Borrowdale* is famed as the wettest place in England, mostly due to it’s position at the head of the Borrowdale Valley near Keswick in the northern Lake District. The village receives 124 inches or 3.15m of rain a year which mostly flows down into Derwentwater.
3. Glenfinnan by Loch Shiel in the Scottish Highland is third on the list with an average rainfall of 118.98 inches or 3.02m of rain a year. This doesn’t put the locals off having a Highland Games there every year, and the grass does look particularly green.
4. On the other side of Scotland, Inverarnan by Loch Lomond comes in forth with a rainfall of 106 inches or 2.7m per year. However it needs all this rain as Loch Lomond is the 4th biggest “lake” in the country.
5. Inveruglas by Loch Lomond is only a few miles south of Inverarnan and thus gains the title for fifth wettest place in Britain with a rain average of 104.8 inches or 2.66m. Not surprisingly this is pretty similar, but maybe they get one days less rain a year. With all this rain it’s no wonder Loch Lomond is so large.
6. The first village in Wales on the list is Capel Curig in Gwynedd, just tipping in on the wrong side of 100 inches or 2.56m. It is on the northern side of Snowdonia which might help the rain, but is easy to get to from the A5 which runs almost straight past it, a little west of Betws-y-Coed.
7. Wythburn by Lake Thirlmere is between Ambleside and Keswick in the Lake District. The lake itself is actually a manmade reservoir mostly feeding the Manchester area with drinking water, so it really needs quite a lot of rain to stop the Manchester taps running dry. It receives around 99 inches or 2.5m a year.
As a sidepoint, the water is pumped to Manchester purely by gravity and is the longest gravity fed water system in the country. If you go behind Dove Cottage in Grasmere you might be able to hear it.
8. Chapel Stile in Cumbria is tucked away in the Langdale Valley, a little to the west of Ambleside. Being located in the valley, it catches probably more than it’s fair share of rain but the views in this area more than make up for the occasional soaking.
9. Tyndrum and Crianlarich near Stirling in Scotland come in ninth, which isn’t too surprising as the villages are only about 20 miles north of Loch Lomond. Average rain is around 98 inches or 2.4m.
10. Lochgoilhead in Argyll on the western Highlands of Scotland finish off the list with a mere 97 inches or 2.4m of rain. This is probably responsible for much of the filling of Loch Goil which flows into Loch Long and out to the Clyde estuary.
In conclusion: One of the big advantages of living around some of the wetter areas is the temperate climate which not only keeps the weather more stable, but also means these areas keep being green when the rest of the country is being parched.
However I can assure anyone who’s worried that at least with the Lake District, the majority of it does get a lot of dry Summer weather and we top up Lake Windermere and co. during the Winter from the surrounding hills…and a giant hosepipe from Seathwaite.
* Talking of Seathwaite, there’s a story that many years ago a major tyre company wanted to test a new wet weather tyre so they offered free tyres to the residents of Seathwaite. Only problem was, that year the north west of England had a drought and no rain fell in Seathwaite all Summer!
If wettest isn’t your thing, you could try the warmest places in the UK.
More links:
The Met Office
Visitor attractions in the Lake District (indoor and outdoor)
Hotels in the English Lake District
Holiday cottages in the Lake District
Visitor attractions in Highlands of Scotland
Hotels in Highlands of Scotland
The Telegraph have produced a list of the warmest places in the UK for a holiday, mostly focused around the south of the UK.
See what you think about the list (temps are average annual temperature per year):
1. St Helier Harbour on Jersey – 12.1°C (53.8°F)
2. St Mary’s Airport, Isles of Scilly – 11.9°C (53.4°F)
3. St Helier on Jersey – 11.8°C (53.2°F)
4. Lancresse on Guernsey – 11.8°C (53.2°F)
5. Central London – 11.7°C (53.1°F)
6. Round Island on the Isles of Scilly – 11.7°C (53.1°F)
7. St Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly – 11.6°C (52.9°F)
8. Pendennis Point in Cornwall – 11.4°C (52.5°F)
9. St James’s Park in London – 11.4°C (52.5°F)°C°F
There are 5 places which tie for the number 10 slot with an average temperature of 11.3°C (52.3°F):
Greenwich in London
Isle of Grain in Kent
Penlee Gardens in Penzance, Cornwall
Portland in Dorset
Ryde on the Isle of Wight
The full list of warmest places including pictures of nice warm places is on the Telegraph web site.
Oh and little note to the Telegraph travel dept – “Britain” does not include the Channel Islands, which is only under the United Kingdom.
Extra resources:
Hotels in Channel Islands
Visitor attractions in the Channel Islands
Hotels in the West Country
Visitor attractions in the West Country
As an example of Georgian garden design, its hard to find anything superior to Hestercombe Gardens in Somerset.
The original gardens were created between 1750 & 1786 by the owner Coplestone Warre Bampfylde, and subsequent owners have added their own touches to the gardens including the Victorian Terrace, Edwardian Formal Garden and The Formal Garden from the early 1900s.
By the late 20th Century however the gardens had been mostly forgotten and become overgrown, until Philip White rediscovered them and began the massive task of restoring them.
Today the gardens are for the most part back to their former glory and showing off why they are considered some of the best in the country. The classical geometric lines of the Georgian part looks like they just popped out of a Jane Austin novel, along with the magnificent buildings.
You can see the gardens better from the Hestercombe photo gallery on the web site.
Further Taunton Links:
Visitor attractions in Taunton
Holiday cottages in Taunton
Hotels in Taunton
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