Sommaire pour August - September 2016 de Discover Britain

Where to stay? Devon’s multi award winning Cofton Country Holidays, located near the pretty coastline at Dawlish Warren boasts eight high-end holiday cottages, all newly refurbished for 2016. The collection includes three luxury cottages with hot tubs as well as five sumptuous cottages close to Cofton’s family-focused facilities. Guests visiting the 4-star graded holiday park can look forward to a host of on-site facilities including heated indoor and outdoor pools, gym, restaurant, pub, fitness studio, sauna room plus more Set within 80 acres of glorious Devon countryside, Cofton has breath taking surroundings and an enviable variety of wildlife that has been nurtured through Cofton’s commitment to the environment. Cofton Holiday Park, South Devon. www.coftonholidays.co.uk And while you’re here For food lovers we have our famous DARTMOUTH FOOD FESTIVAL on 21-23…

The greatest rivalry in northern England is between its two greatest cities, Manchester and Liverpool. While Mancunians point to the city’s importance in the Industrial Revolution, its unofficial status as Britain’s second urban centre and the countless British icons who have emerged from it – from leader in the women’s suffrage movement Emmeline Pankhurst to Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell – Liverpool has a simple riposte: “Yes, but we have the Beatles.” This undeniable piece of one-upmanship would count for little if the city from which John, Paul, Ringo and George had emerged was simply a monolithic block. Instead, it’s a place rich in historical and cultural interest that’s endlessly fascinating to visit, and imbued with a people whose civic pride is only equalled by their warmth and wit. Unlike the…

“The extension of the railway in the mid-19th century enabled ordinary city dwellers to enjoy a day excursion to the riverside” The Thames is England’s national waterway, an iconic river that flows for 215 miles from the misty, windswept marshlands of the estuary, through London’s teeming metropolis and on to the lush, tranquil water meadows of Oxfordshire. Within the contours of this remarkable river lie around 190 islands, some tiny, harbouring just a few trees, while others are several acres in size. Known as eyots or aits, many of the islands were historically used for growing osier willows, which were cultivated for basket making and other crafts. The islands’ function developed from the fact they were inaccessible to cattle that grazed on the osier shoots. The willows were usually cut…

HIDDEN HISTORY TRAVEL Written into the landscape, and underlying the character and identity of everywhere, is the story of humankind and our interaction with the natural world. Combine beautiful locations with fascinating insights from archaeology and history through our guided tours, gentle walks and interesting talks. Hidden History Travel explores a range of destinations in Britain, Europe and the Mediterranean. T: +44 (0)121 444 1854 | enquiries@hiddenhistory.co.uk | www.hiddenhistory.co.uk FOOT TRAILS Discover authentic, customised, independent walking tours of Britain with Foot Trails, award-winning experts in South West England. Get off the beaten track and explore villages, castles, churches, country pubs and rolling hills with customised walking tours with your own maps, word directions, stories and histories to find your way around areas including Devon, The Cotswolds, Bath and Dorset. T:…

The view of St Michael’s Mount is quite simply one of the loveliest in the UK. The tiny granite island just off the toe of Cornwall, near the southernmost point of mainland Britain, is known by locals as the Mount and its castle has been occupied by the same family, the St Aubyns, since 1659. Once a hill with marshy forest below, the tidal island was created around 2,000BC when the woodland was flooded by the sea and cut off from the mainland – at very low tides the remains of tree trunks from this period can be glimpsed. Today, depending on the tides, the Mount can be accessed by boat or across the causeway on foot. But whether viewed over shimmering sea or gleaming sand, the picturesque castle resembles…

There are the myths and then there’s the reality. North Herefordshire’s half-timbered black and white buildings, dubbed “unrivalled in England” by architectural historian Alec Clifton-Taylor, are integral to the fabric of this rural landscape. But what explains such a prolific display of these ancient buildings? There are lots of romantic notions, including a widely held belief that the array of structures – from great halls to humble barns – were created from the recovered timbers of the wrecked Spanish Armada. It’s a fabulous story but, unfortunately, just that. However, the reality is nonetheless fascinating. An abundance of oak woodlands provided a staple supply of construction materials to Britons between the 13th and 17th centuries and the durable qualities of the timber have helped these buildings survive. But it was the…

It exercises the office of the zephyrs, and cools the glowing breast. It saves the blush of modesty by showing all we wish to see, yet hiding all we desire to conceal,” reads a sign in a discreet place in the UK’s only fan museum. There is, as visitors to the museum quickly learn, much more to fans than keeping cool. “Of course they have their roots in their functional capacity: to agitate air, to create breezes, to cool you down,” explains Jacob Moss, the museum’s curator. “But if that was their only purpose, they would have remained rather rudimentary in design and decoration. “If you think of the fans that were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun, for example, they were wrought in gold and fixed with beautiful ostrich…

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” Roald Dahl – who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in September this year – certainly knew a thing or two about magic. The man who delighted generations of chortling children with new, fabulously adult-flummoxing phrases such as “frobscottle” (a delicious fizzy drink in which the bubbles travel down instead of up), “jumpsquiffling” (huge) and “frothbuggling” (silly) remained, for the entirety of his 74-year life, closely acquainted with his own boundlessly child-like imagination. The crucial cornerstone of the gleefully grotesque dreamworld he inhabited was his own childhood, spent variously in Wales and at school in Derbyshire.…

Cornwall is a county of contrasts, from its rugged north coast to the gentler climes of its southern shores. Now Discover Britain readers have the opportunity to explore both in our exclusive competition. The prize for two includes a two-night stay and a three-course dinner at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, in north Cornwall, as well as a one-day cookery course at Rick Stein’s Cookery School. Plus, Discover Britain has teamed up with The Nare, an English country house hotel by the sea, overlooking Carne beach on the Roseland Peninsula. Considered the most comfortable hotel in Cornwall for the last 25 years, the hotel combines classic comforts with time-honoured luxury and is offering a one-night stay for our lucky pair. St Michael’s Mount has also offered a pair of…

EAST MEETS WEST The former home of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton, in Kensington, now a museum, is one of London’s most remarkable 19th-century buildings. Born in Scarborough in 1830, Lord Leighton travelled widely, and the design and decoration of the Leighton House Museum reflect his diverse influences – most famously in the Arab Hall with its golden dome and intricate mosaics. The museum has a rich collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures by Leighton and his contemporaries, such as Millais, Watts and Whistler. The artist’s studio was once among the most fashionable in London with Queen Victoria, who bought Leighton’s first major painting, calling on the artist in 1859. www.rbkc.gov.uk 60 YEARS YOUNG The Royal Court blazed on to the London scene in 1956 and ripped up the…

Modern-day London might be one of the largest cities in the world, but zoom in for a closer look, and the capital will reveal itself as a patchwork of enclaves which have retained distinct personalities based on histories as long and fascinating as the super-city that now envelopes them. EAST IS EAST East of central London and to the north of the original City of London is Clerkenwell. Today characterised by its Georgian houses, historic pubs and artisan vibe, its contemporary character can be traced back to a time when it serviced the needs of its urban neighbour whether practical, political, spiritual or physical. First recorded by William Fitzstephen in 1174, the Clerks’ Well from which its name derives was visited by young men from the city and for centuries…

WILTSHIRE Famous for its enigmatic stone circles and ancient barrows, Wiltshire’s remarkable landscape and ever-changing skies have long attracted mystics and artists. Much of this landlocked south-western county lies on chalk, which gives the landscape its distinctive rolling downlands and unforgettable white horses. The largest chalk area, Salisbury Plain, is most famous as the location of the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury, but has also been used as farmland and for training by the British Army, which has left its own mark on the county’s history. Wiltshire boasts not one but three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with the Cotswolds in the north-west, Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs in the south-west and the North Wessex Downs in the east. Sometimes known as Moonrakers, people from Wiltshire gained their…

“He drove a carriage harnessed to six zebras to Buckingham Palace” At the age of seven, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild declared: “Mama, Papa, I am going to make a museum.” His prophecy proved accurate; by the age of ten, his zoological collection, featuring beetles, butterflies, birds, fish and mammals, was on display in a garden shed. By 13, Walter was in correspondence with prominent zoological experts and had employed a full-time adult assistant to help him catalogue the thousands of insects and other creatures he had started to collect. Walter’s start in life, as heir to the famous Rothschild banking fortune, offered advantages, although it came with certain expectations too. Born in 1868, the shy, but physically imposing, child was something of a disappointment to his father, the first Lord…