Indice dei contenuti per November - December 2022 in Britain

Situated on the banks of the River Dee, the 13th-century Maryculter House offers guests an experience like no other. The stunning hotel, one of Scotland’s oldest, has retained many of its original features, including its medieval Great Hall, dating back to 1460, and is central to the legends of the Knights Templar. Woven into the fabric of the place are tales of crusading knights and the Jacobite Rebellions, which are brought to life through some of the hotel’s unique guest experiences. One lucky reader and their guest will win a 2-night stay at this unique hotel, staying in a luxurious junior suite, decorated in elegant contemporary style and overlooking the hotel’s beautiful grounds. On one night our winners will enjoy a Taste of Aberdeenshire dinner with paired drinks at Poachers,…

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History is now and in England”, wrote T.S. Eliot in ‘Little Gidding’, last of his Four Quartets. And who could not “History have felt it, watching the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in the hallowed 12th-century space of Westminster Abbey? The pomp, the pageantry, the livery and plumes, the heroic, scarlet-clad Grenadier pallbearers, the heralds and pursuivants, the trumpets, the lone bagpiper’s lament… For ninety-six minutes, on the minute, in the Elizabeth Tower, the tenor bell had tolled. Ninety-eight Royal Navy Ratings of the Sovereign’s Guard had pulled the gun carriage bearing the lead-lined coffin; 40 came behind. They were flanked by service equerries, members of the King’s Body Guards of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, the Yeomen of the Guard and Royal Company of Archers. Behind walked…

Most English cathedral cities are much older than the cathedrals themselves, with histories reaching back into the Roman era or earlier. Salisbury is the exception that proves the rule: a medieval ‘new town’ laid out on a grid of streets alongside the cathedral in the 13th century. But one of the best views of city and cathedral is from the ramparts of Old Sarum, on a hillside not quite two miles to the north. Once an Iron Age hillfort, it was later the site of a medieval castle and the original cathedral, until the 13th century, when Bishop Richard Poore led the clergy down into the valley to build the present cathedral. This windy hilltop, now home only to some picturesque ruins, is where the centre of this cathedral city…

STAR LETTER THANK YOU MA’AM While watching the beautiful farewell to our beloved Queen Elizabeth II, and seeing your article on Paddington [Vol 90 Issue 5], I painted, during that incredibly moving weekend, my tribute to a much loved Queen. The TV skit brought our Queen so alive and unforgettable. The painting is called Thank you Ma’am…. for everything. And thank YOU! Katherine S. Brown, Toronto, Canada Our star letter wins The Shortest History of the Crown by Stephen Bates, a lively commentary on a 1,800-year story, providing dazzling insight into royal custom and ritual (£12.99, oldstreetpublishing.co.uk). MEMORIES OF THE TITANIC Your article on Belfast’s Titanic legacy [Vol 90 Issue 5] brought back memories of our Pirrie Family gathering centred around the 100th anniversary of the launch of the RMS…

Home to what is thought to be the longest unbroken stretch of timber-framed properties in England, the small medieval town of Sandwich in Kent attracts visitors from all over the world. The town’s connection with the food item has undoubtedly given the town a fair amount of fame. It was supposedly invented by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in around 1762. As the story goes, not wanting to interrupt his gambling for a meal, the Earl ordered his valet to bring him a snack of meat between two slices of bread – and the rest is history. But the town has a fascinating story of its own that dates back much further than the 4th Earl. Sitting evocatively amongst the atmospheric Kent marshes, just up the river from the…

BRITAIN: Tell us about this year’s Christmas theme at Castle Howard. CLW: This year’s theme is Into the Woods: A Fairy Tale Christmas. We’re exploring some of the best-loved fairy tales and creating our own narrative where different characters, such as Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Jack, and Rapunzel come together in a magical adventure through the dazzling festive splendour of Castle Howard, culminating in the story of Cinderella, which unfolds down the majestic Long Galley with video projection and bespoke soundscape that can be heard throughout the house… B: Where do your ideas come from? CLW: The beginning is always the immediate environment where the event will take place. We always try to complement, enhance and find synchronicity with the spaces so it feels that the designs…

OPENING Rome in a day One of Britain’s finest hotels, The Newt, a Georgian manor set in a magnificent 1000-acre country estate, has upped its offering with the opening of a reconstructed Romano-British villa found on the estate, dating back to 351 AD. Villa Ventorum, translating to ‘Villa of The Winds’, is the most ambitious reconstruction of a Roman villa ever undertaken in Britain. Visitors will enjoy a sensory experience of life in a Roman Britain household, including the sights, sounds and smells of its daily rituals, and you can even book a Roman food tasting to complete the experience. thenewtinsomerset. ANNIVERSARY King in the car park In 2012, having been lost for more than half a century, the remains of King Richard III, who was killed at the Battle…

On 8 September, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away peacefully at Balmoral Castle, her beloved holiday home in the Highlands. Just two days before she died, serving her nation until the very end, the Queen had held an audience with Britain’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, at the Scottish estate. When the Queen’s coffin left Balmoral, it passed slowly through the villages of Royal Deeside, allowing the thousands that lined the route to bid a final farewell to the country’s longest-serving monarch, and a woman whom many locals considered a dear neighbour. The Queen had visited the Scottish estate every summer, continuing the traditions of her own childhood. She and Prince Philip were able to live some semblance of a normal life here, often surrounded by their children and…

Procol Harum’s 1967 hit A Whiter Shade of Pale is one of the most haunting, enigmatic, elegiac songs in the history of pop music. Haunting, too, and enigmatic was the accompanying video, which shows band members roaming the ruins of a glorious Italianate mansion. Freestanding walls that once enclosed French Renaissance-style interiors shelter emptiness, open to the sky. No water plays in the magnificent Perseus and Andromeda Fountain. This is Witley Court, a spectacular monument to human grandiosity and excess. Built for politician and ironmaster Thomas Foley, who bought the estate in 1665, it remained in the Foley family for 180 years, growing over the generations into one of Europe’s foremost private palaces. Soaring porticoes were added by the Prince Regent’s architect, John Nash, a friend of another Thomas Foley,…

Chalk rivers, their clear, sparkling waters gliding over flinty gravel beds, are extremely rare. There are barely 200 of them worldwide, the lion’s share in southern and eastern England. Characterised by flower-filled water meadows, elegant weeping willows and gin-clear channels crowded with darting trout and grayling, their pastoral surroundings are as distinctly English as cricket and cream teas. Hampshire’s River Test is arguably Britain’s finest chalk river, and the valley through which it flows stretches from the chalk uplands of the Hampshire Downs to Southampton Water on the cusp of the English Channel. Within its watershed lies a patchwork of landscapes replete with the quintessential motifs of rural Hampshire: thatched cottages, flint-stone churches, curiously named pubs, and somnolent villages whose population counts haven’t changed much in a thousand years. While…