Table of contents for April/May 2017 in Discover Britain

Our luxury holiday is the ultimate way to visit the UK. Starting with free international flights from your nearest gateway city (for all overseas entrants), the winner will enjoy the holiday of a lifetime, giving them and a partner the opportunity to take in many of Britain’s iconic landmarks while enjoying top-quality service. Luxury London Our winners will enjoy two nights at sophisticated Dukes, a charming luxury hotel in the heart of London’s upmarket Mayfair. Set in a majestic and historic building just five minutes from Buckingham Palace, Dukes also boasts a legendary bar – frequented by James Bond author Ian Fleming and said to be the inspiration for the classic line, “Shaken, not stirred”. You will also be treated to dinner at the hotel’s award-winning restaurant. We will also…

In those rare pockets of sunshine stitched into the lining of a typical English summertime, there is no finer place to while away the hours than the grand, neoclassical courtyard of Somerset House. As children drench themselves in the 55 jets of the Edmond J Safra Fountain Court, elderly couples sip tea on the al fresco seats of the various cafés, and 30-something culture-vultures dip in and out of the many galleries that line the courtyard, it is easy to imagine that all of London life is here. In truth, it has always been so. The four sides of the courtyard have provided a welcoming architectural embrace to all manner of different people, projects and institutions over the years. After Sir William Chambers was commissioned to design the current Somerset…

“Bodiam was built in 1385 for Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a supporter of Edward III, that most chivalric of kings” Rising like a ghost ship from its watery home, Bodiam is one of the most wistfully beautiful castles in Britain – a familiar sight from chocolate boxes and calendars or possibly, to some, from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail about the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The film is a spoof, of course, but Bodiam was, in fact, built in 1385 for a knight, Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a supporter of Edward III, that most chivalric of kings, though he acquired permission to build a castle – a licence to “crenellate”, as it was known – from Edward’s successor Richard II. This…

The January Man – A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville Named after a 1970s folk song, it is the author’s late father that truly inspires this uplifting book. Somerville is the walking columnist for The Times and he follows 12 routes, one for each month, which call his father to mind. In doing so, he creates both a lyrical paean to the British countryside and a means to understanding the stoic figure he called ‘Dad’. (Doubleday, £14.99) The Princess’s Garden – Royal Intrigue and the Untold Story of Kew by Vanessa Berridge The founding editor of our sister magazine, The English Garden, has produced an expertly drawn history of Kew that focuses on the origins of the botanical gardens under the guidance of Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, mother…

OPEN HOUSE One of the world’s most beautiful art galleries, Wightwick Manor and Gardens in Wolverhampton, has long housed an extraordinary collection of Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Craft movement works, including rare pieces from husband-and-wife Victorian artists, William and Evelyn De Morgan. Now the National Trust and De Morgan Foundation have partnered to launch a new gallery (the Old Malthouse has been completely refurbished) and exhibition, A Better, More Beautiful World? Opening 6 May, visitors will be drawn into the beautiful world of this luminary couple through Evelyn’s ethereal paintings and drawings and William’s ceramics, such as this lustre dish [right] depicting a galleon in full sail. www.nationaltrust.org.uk; www.demorgan.org.uk GRAND DESIGNS Explore the grandeur and colourful history of Brighton’s most famous palace in new exhibition, Visions of the Royal Pavilion…

For a small country, Wales is rich in beauty and in stories. As the poet Brian Harris wrote in his 1967 poem In Passing, “To be born in Wales… with music in your blood / And with poetry in your soul, / Is a privilege indeed. / Your inheritance is a land of Legend, / Of love and contrast.” From the proliferation of castles to its myth-filled mountains, from its patron saint, St David, who caused a hill to rise beneath him as he spoke to his followers, to the huge red dragon on its flag, one doesn’t need to know much about Wales to suspect it might have a story or two up its sleeve. Visit Wales has designated 2017 the Year of Legends and it promises to unfold…

LANDMARK OPENING “Location, location,” is the estate agent’s mantra and it certainly applies to the new Four Seasons Hotel at Ten Trinity Square. Situated in the heart of the city, it is just a few minutes walk from the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge and more. While the hotel makes an enviable base for seeing the sights, the Grade II listed building itself is something of a landmark: built in 1922 as the Port of London Authority headquarters, it mixes Corinthian columns with Art Deco interiors. Adventurous diners should make a beeline for the La Dame de Pic restaurant, helmed by Michelin-starred chef Anne-Sophie Pic and overlooking the fantastically named Seething Lane Gardens. www.fourseasons.com/tentrinity RESTORING SOANE’S BLUEPRINT A Discover Britain favourite, Sir John Soane’s Museum has housed…

“The Thames, like the city it pumps through, harbours a wealth of historic treasures” The opening lines of Rudyard Kipling’s The River’s Tale set out unambiguously the poet’s love of the Thames: Twenty bridges from Tower to KewWanted to know what the river knew,Twenty bridges or twenty-two,For they were young, and the Thames was oldAnd this is the tale that the river told. More than a century later and it is impossible not to concur. The River Thames is London’s liquid lifeblood; the artery that snakes its way through the city and bisects it into a north-south divide has forever quietly served the capital, despite its own fluctuating fortunes. In the Middle Ages, the Thames brought fresh water and fish; by the 19th century, it was little more than an…

With seven miles of golden sands and sparkling sea, the vibrant cosmopolitan town of Bournemouth has it all. Explore a vast variety of shops, restaurants and holiday accommodation, seafront hotels, quality B&Bs, a rich history and endless countryside with beautiful, award-winning gardens. Much acclaimed in the Victorian era for its pine-scented air and medicinal seawater, Bournemouth established its reputation in the 19th-century as a rejuvenating destination. Investment and regeneration mean that it remains the quintessential British resort town, complete with the historic pier, the promenade with 2,000 beach huts – including England’s first – and more Blue Flag beaches than any other. The history and culture of Bournemouth is still prevalent to this day and the beautifully landscaped gardens that run from the town centre to the beach still bloom…

“The Sackville family acquired Knole in 1603 and transformed an archbishop’s palace into a show house for their treasures” In her 1922 book Knole and the Sackvilles, the poet, novelist and garden designer Vita Sackville-West described her family home thus: “It is, above all, an English house. It has the tone of England; it melts into the green of the garden turf, into the tawnier green of the park beyond, into the blue of the pale English sky…” To this day the mellow-stone country house at Sevenoaks, Kent appears in perfect harmony with its 1,000-acre medieval deer park. Born at Knole in 1892, Vita recalled how occasionally a stag would stray into the banqueting hall, “puzzled but still dignified”, and admitted that even she, “after a lifetime of familiarity”, found…

Small Cottage, Hilmarton Dating from 1660, this beautiful two-bed cottage in Wiltshire is ideally located for visiting Lacock Abbey, Avebury Stone Circle and the North Wessex Downs. www.chooseacottage.co.uk The Museum Inn, Farnham In a Dorset village dotted with thatch, this 17th-century, Pitt Rivers-built inn [right] has eight double rooms and a separate thatched cottage that sleeps 16. www.museuminn.co.uk Hathaway Hamlet, Stratford-upon-Avon Sleep less than 200 metres from Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in this similar period property that comes complete with four-poster bed and inglenook fireplace. www.cottages.com…

In many places, the iconic red phoneboxes have found second lives as tiny cafés, shops and libraries It’s hard to imagine a more potent symbol of Britain’s identity than the red telephone box. It feels as if they have always dotted the nation, a reminder of the stability of the establishment, their design obvious and unchallenged. But, in fact, the creation of the public phonebox (or, more correctly, ‘kiosk’) was rather more problematic, as Nigel Linge and Andy Sutton explain in their new book, The British Phonebox. The early years of the phone network saw independent companies providing services locally, and it wasn’t until they were brought under the umbrella of the National Telephone Company in 1892 that a network of lines connecting cities was created. The first public call…

London in the 1960s was a heady time to be alive. After the buttoned-down austerity of the previous decade, the economy was booming and a cultural revolution took place in fashion, art, music and more. There was a shift from old to new, as the focus turned to youth. Helped by a post-war baby boom and the end of compulsory National Service, this was the era of the teenager, free to do as they wished – and where better to come than the nation’s capital? By 1967, London was at its peak cultural influence on the international stage. While the Summer of Love in San Francisco saw everyone turn on, tune in and drop out, the English capital buzzed with the possibilities of youth. The previous year, Time magazine had…

The Ritz was always this mythical place,” recalls Michael O’Dowdall, who has been a doorman at the iconic London hotel for just over 10 years. “It was somewhere special for special people to go to – I never dreamed I’d be part of it.” Michael is a born-and-bred Londoner and counts himself as a Cockney. “Cockney folklore says you have to born within the sound of Bow Bells,” he explains. “Growing up, I had the usual ambitions of wanting to be a footballer or an astronaut, but I’ve always been an outgoing kind of chap, so doing something that lets me meet different people every day suits me perfectly. Michael has been working doors since the late 1980s. “My cousin’s husband worked at the casino in Marble Arch, and he…