Posts about England
Terry’s videos make me want to turn off my computer and head for the British hills immediately: whether to a well-known place like the Lake District or to places which will be new to me.
Helvellyn – the third highest peak in the English Lake District and therefore the third highest in England – has long been a goal of mine. The peak draws me much more than the higher Scafells, with a famous ascent via the rocky and precipitous Striding Edge and what must be a breath-taking view from the…
A wonderful, high-resolution hyperlapse video of London by Italian photographer Mattia Bicchi.
Visitors to London may expect that travelling by Tube is quicker than going on foot. It’s certainly quicker than travelling through London by taxi or by car. But is the train actually quicker than this athlete?
A terrific hike and a personal achievement in the central-western Lake District on our anniversary.
I’m not especially knowledgeable about aircraft but there’s something about plane flypasts which give me goosebumps.
Beautiful time-lapse films from the south west of England by Italian photographer Mattia Bicchi.
When scouting destinations and views prior to my recent trip to London, I came across an potentially interesting-looking rooftop amongst some shots which photographer Ben Roberts, who I follow on Instagram, had shared on social media platforms. A quick question to find out where it is (and a nice friendly answer!) led me to the comparatively new…
St. Dunstan-in-the-East was a church in the City of London, built in 1100, extended in the fourteenth century and repaired just over thirty years before the Great Fire of London, after which a large steeple to a design by Sir Christopher Wren was added. Despite largely surviving the fire, the structure was found to be unsafe in…
Although there are plenty of monuments (with a small “m”) around London, there is only one Monument (with a large “M”): that to the Great Fire of London. The Great Fire of London, which raged through 400 acres of the city within the original Roman walls in September 1666, destroyed almost 90% of the city and left most of…
Visitors to London can buy tickets to ascend The Shard by express lift and enjoy the views across London from near the top of Western Europe’s tallest building. I received a ticket as a gift last year and so when I was in London a few weeks ago, I organized to visit. The view from the…
The Southbank Centre has long been one of the places to which I return when in London, thanks to a proliferation of arts venues, large spaces free of traffic, plenty of street performers, and a wide range of nooks, crannies, corners and walls in which light – both natural and artificial – are constantly changing. Although…
The marketplace beneath the big railway viaduct near The Shard is Borough Market: one of London’s oldest. According to its own self-promotion, the market dates back to the twelfth century, when it was located at the southern end of the original London Bridge. Traders travel from far and wide to visit the market; a close…
The church of St. Mary-le-Bow in London sits halfway between St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Bank of England, on the historic road known as Cheapside. The church is widely accepted by many Londoners as being the true centre of London: tradition indicates that in order to be a true “Cockney” (Londoner), one must have been born…
The plot of land which has become Bonnington Square Gardens was cleared by a bomb during the Second World War and stood empty until the 1970s, when the local council made a weak attempt at turning it into a playground, before abandoning it to wild grass and stinging nettles. The council were reminded of its…
There’s plenty of history within a short distance of this part of Whitechapel; the next on my short list is at the junction of Fulbourne Road, in the midst of the Whitechapel Market. The upstairs rooms of a building adjacent to the thriving street market on this junction – now a clothing store with a…
Walk along the north side of the river Thames at Lambeth and only the comparatively new wooden boat sculptures will even make you notice White Hart Dock. It’s an enclosed pool of tidal water, fed from the river, which dates back to the 14th century. Now filled with little else than rubbish, it was once…
I have spent a lot of time walking around London over the past week, with the intention of finding new sights and things of interest instead of just repeating the same old sights I’ve seen and visited a million times before. One of them was unexpected, as I walked from Stockwell back to the West…
London is so big, that it’s difficult to know what to see when visiting for just a short time. I visited in order to take some documentary “street photographs” in summer 2012 and amongst the places I visited was the Barbican Estate: a largely brick and concrete, Brutalist estate in the City of London. I was repeatedly drawn…
