Table of contents for June - July 2016 in Discover Britain

Visit The Palace of Holyroodhouse (www.royalcollection.org.uk) and Edinburgh Castle (www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk) with the Scottish Crown Jewels are a must-see for royal history. Then, also in the Old Town, explore the contrasting lives of ordinary folk at the People’s Story Museum (www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk), and of literary giants Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson at the Writers’ Museum (www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk). In the New Town, the Scott Monument (www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk) commemorating Sir Walter provides superb views over the city. The big date on the cultural calendar, this year from 5-29 August, is Edinburgh International Festival (www.eif.co.uk), where the giants of the arts have performed since 1947, with the famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe events (www.edfringe.com) forming the world’s largest performing arts extravaganza (right) during the same month. Eat and drink For gourmet tea and coffee,…

What do a red lion, blue boar and white hart have in common? No, it’s not the beginning of a joke you’ll hear in a bar, but you’ll find all three, and many more colourful creatures and people besides, on signs outside pubs throughout the UK – as much part of Britain’s heritage as the buildings themselves. “Pub signs are one of those iconic cultural things that speak of Britain louder than almost anything else,” says sign painter Andrew Grundon. David Roe, of the Inn Sign Society, agrees: “The sign has been an integral part of the traditional English pub and its predecessors – the inns, taverns and alehouses – for over a thousand years. Pub signs are part of our heritage. They are good examples of ‘accessible art’: the…

Today’s happy legacy of these historic traditions is a compelling series of social fixtures, whose customs outlive the Season’s formal role in the lives of the nobility. But as they have evolved, so newer events too have claimed stellar spots on the calendar. Here we round up the best of the old and the cream of the new. GOLDEN OLDIES The Chelsea Flower Show For the uninitiated, the Season must start in May with the Chelsea Flower Show (below). A great favourite with the Queen, the Royal Horticultural Society extravaganza at the Chelsea Royal Hospital is one event on the calendar at which sensible shoes are actively encouraged. At Chelsea, there’s a sporting chance of glimpsing Her Majesty among the manicured borders. Royal Ascot Put on your finest fascinator (though…

If London’s past is written in its buildings, the blue plaques that adorn them, commemorating their illustrious residents, are that tale’s punctuation. These colourful spots of history, on sites handsome and humble, link the people of the past, and their achievements, with the buildings of the present. Since the scheme’s inception 150 years ago, more than 900 plaques have been erected to honour notable – and notorious – men and women. Now run by English Heritage, the original vision has sparked countless imitations and gone through many transformations to become the iconic project it is today. The first of its kind in the world, it sprang to life in 1866 when the (Royal) Society of Arts sought “to increase the public estimation for places which have been the abodes of…

NOT IN THE SAME BOAT Summer is the time for messing about on the river in England’s oldest university cities, but did you know that Oxford and Cambridge favour different punting styles? Punts are famously propelled along by pushing a pole against the riverbed and were first used for ferrying cargo or as platforms for fishing in the Fens as their flat-bottomed design is perfect for shallow waters. In Cambridge, punters stand on raised platform, or till, towards the stern, or back, of the boat, a practice that is said to have developed to allow the first female students at Cambridge to punt without getting their long skirts wet. At Oxford, the traditional technique is to stand inside the boat, nearer to its centre, and punt with the till forwards,…

Barwheys is a stunning luxury farm complex to rent on an exclusive use basis in the rolling green hills of Ayrshire. Barwheys provides the perfect combination of 18th century charm and 21st century luxury. It was totally renovated in 2012 and has four buildings built around a courtyard – three houses providing beautiful en-suite accommodation and one ancient barn converted into a magnificent games hall, media centre and chill out zone. Barwheys sleeps up to 16 people in 8 beautiful bedrooms each with en suite facilities. Two double storey halls enable the whole party to cook, eat and play together and numerous sitting and dining areas inside and out provide space for our guests to relax in. Each of the three houses has a dramatic kitchen fitted out with Leibherer…

LONDON’S BURNING The effects of the 1666 blaze that rampaged for days through London’s streets can still clearly be seen on the skyline and the Great Fire remains a watershed moment in the city’s history. To mark the 350th anniversary of the fire this September, the Museum of London – which tells the changing story of the city from 450,000 BC to the present day – opens a major immersive and interactive exhibition exploring the dramatic events. Running from 23 July to 17 April 2017, Fire! Fire! will focus on life on the eve of the blaze, follow the fire’s path through a the city and show how London recovered from the devastation, as well as offering the chance to get close to rarely seen 17th-century artefacts such as a…

GLOUCESTERSHIRE From a Tudor stronghold and King Edward II’s resting place to current residents the Prince of Wales and Zara Phillips, the Cotswolds have always had the royal seal of approval. And no wonder: this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is a haven of quintessentially English country charm. Its rolling hills are bedecked by sheep – “wold’ is Old English for “upland common” – and its villages characterised by warm honey-coloured buildings created from local limestone. Cotswolds country covers five different counties, but the bulk of it is in Gloucestershire. In the medieval period, Cotswold wool was prized throughout Europe, which led to the construction of magnificent houses and churches, many of which are still standing in Gloucestershire. There are also remnants of earlier history, in the form of Roman…

1 Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa West Sussex Built in the 1920s, Bailiffscourt Hotel and Spa was created from authentic materials collected from derelict buildings dating back as far as the 13th century. Its story began when Lord Moyne, then Walter Guinness, charged antiquarian and architect Amyas Phillips to create a house in the medieval style favoured by his wife, Evelyn. Phillips went on to landscape the garden too and Lady Moyne lived there until her death in 1938. With narrow passageways, oak beams, flagstone floors and four-poster beds inside, and 30 acres of parkland, a moat and rose-filled courtyard beyond its walls, the captivating property is a short walk from pretty Climping Beach. www.hshotels.co.uk 2 The Victoria Inn Norfolk One of Britain’s most beautiful beaches, the golden sands of Holkham…

“For Charles II, Windsor was significant as the burial place of his father... The castle’s restoration, as well as that of the Garter, was symbolic” The most Romantique castle that is in the world,” according to Samuel Pepys, Windsor Castle looks precisely as a fairytale fortress should, most notably for its famous Round Tower. Standing a proud 40 metres above the town below, the central tower answers the question most commonly asked by visitors: is the Queen in? When the Royal Standard flies from the 15-metre flagpole, the answer is yes; when the Union Flag is up, the castle’s most famous resident is elsewhere. Windsor is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. It has been the home of no less than 39 monarchs since its foundation by…

Visit The Ticket Shop and Du Maurier Literary Centre (www.fowey.co.uk) features a display relating to Du Maurier, as well as a wide selection of reading material. Lynn Goold, who runs the literary centre, is both a wonderfully knowledgeable registered blue badge guide and a trustee of Fowey’s Du Maurier Festival, now renamed the Fowey Festival (www.foweyfestival.com), which takes place in May (always covering 13 May, Du Maurier’s birthday). For background on Fowey’s history as a china clay port, do visit the Wheal Martyn Museum (www.wheal-martyn.com). St Catherine’s Castle (www.english-heritage.org.uk), built by Henry VIII in the 1530s to defend Fowey harbour, is just under a mile’s walk from Readymoney Cove car park. For creative and cultural events across Cornwall, all year round, Cornwall 365 is an excellent starting point (www.cornwall365.org.uk). Eat…

In March 1958, 400 chaperoned girls lined up at Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, floating in on an ocean of toile and taffeta. The tableau was a familiar one to Her Majesty; the annual round of debutantes eager to curtsey at their formal presentation to her was a ritual deeply ingrained in British high society – and as one such deb, Jessica Mitford, put it, “coming out” was “the specific, upper-class version of a puberty rite.” It also spelled the beginning of what the upper crust call “the Season”, an endless social whirl of activities between the months of May and August, staged variously across sporting and society events – in ballrooms public and private – and for which participants would decamp from their country piles to take a…

There exists a popular misconception that every room in Buckingham Palace is a State Room of sorts; after all, it is a royal palace, rather than merely an extremely large and grand house. However, the famous State Rooms only make up 19 of the 775 rooms. To put that in perspective, there are more than four times as many bathrooms and more than 12 times as many bedrooms as there are the best-known rooms inside the building. Nonetheless, it is these that are synonymous with official entertaining and general court ceremonies, and which are open to the public from 23 July to 2 October this year. But what is it about the State Rooms that makes them unique in royal circles? Buckingham Palace as we know it was built in…

Paul Kirby’s most unusual passenger? A four-legged one. “A gentleman asked if I take dogs. When I said yes, he put his Labrador in the taxi on its own! Turns out he was divorced and shared custody with his ex. The whole way, I wondered if I’d end up at Battersea Dogs Home or telling my wife we’ve got a new addition to the family. But it was fine in the end – and the dog was one of my better-behaved passengers...” It’s all part of the job for Paul, who’s spent 25 years driving one of London’s iconic black cabs. “I’m a Londoner born and bred, and I liked the idea of being my own boss, plus the honour of joining the best taxi service in the world.” It…