T He Guides' Guide

DISCOVER BRITAIN WITH BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES GUIDEthe SUMMER 2017

THE ART OF TRAVEL The landscapes that inspired our great artists

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION The places and people that created the modern world

INSIDE Suffragette LEGENDS, LIES AND LORE HISTORY THAT ROCKS OUR GUIDES’ GUIDE TO WALES Stories Walking with dinosaurs on the Jurassic Coast 2 18 4 2Tour deForce 32 Tour deForce 28 The ArtofTravel 18 Legends, Lies andLore 16 Iron Men 8 The Guides’ Guide 6 What toseethissummer 4 British GuildofTourist Guides©2017 Publisher: E: [email protected] Editor: Email: theguide association for BlueBadgeGuides(thehighest guidingqualification inBritain.) national the This magazineisproduced by theBritishGuildofTourist Guides – Front Cover: StIves BayPhoto: NationalTrust Contents NLN ODNWLSNORTHERN WALES LONDON ENGLAND museum; walkinEddieRedmayne’s footsteps struggle for emancipation Blue BadgeGuideMaryCarroll marches usthrough women’s dinosaurs onDorset’s Jurassic Coast Blue BadgeGuideRichard Maddentakes usona walk with Fact andfictionfrom Britishhistory The people andplaces thatcreated theIndustrial Revolution reveal theirtop ten places to visitinWales From snow-capped peaksto mightyfortresses, ourguides Take avisitto The landscapes ofBritain thatinspired ourgreat artists Marc Zakian @ blue-badge.org.uk •www.britainsbestguides.org Poldark country; tour London’s most charming 32 IRELAND 8 [email protected] Andy Bettley T: 07846 979625 Display advertising: W: www.mypec.co.uk T: +44 113 257 9646 MYPEC Design andprint: CTADGREENBADGE SCOTLAND

ISSN: 2053-0439 TO ‘THEGUIDE’... blog, orby phoningouroffice. connect withusthrough Facebook, Twitter, our a relevant selectionfrom 1000 guides. Also search tools: ‘Find aGuide’ –connectingyou with ideas andlocalguides. to helpyou connectquicklywithpopulartour a ‘Find Tour’in Britain. There’s nowa search tool will helpyou findtheperfectguideforyour tours to ourwebsitewww.britainsbestguides.org that dinosaur issimplynotanoption. traditional printordigitally, beingatechnological Revolution. Whether you’re reading thesewords in are nowlivingthrough anexciting Third (digital) we of theSecond(electric)IndustrialRevolution – andharbinger First (steam)IndustrialRevolution – and peoplewhohelpedcreate ourmodernworld. to Great Exhibition, Marc introduces the places ‘Cottonopolis’, Royal Institution engines, clogsto mining tomanufacturing, shipcanalstosteam transforming societysincethe18thcentury. From theIndustrialRevolution Zakian’s feature – she bringstohertours. attention todetailandtheengagingtheatricality Mary’s passion forthesubjectinspires the a century agotowintherightforwomen tovote. Blue BadgeGuideMary Carroll’s story: campaigns thrilling appeal. planet andRichard’s interview captures their understanding thedevelopment oflifeonthis and antiquariansbrought aboutarevolution in Blue BadgeGuide, Richard Madden. Collectors ancient landscapemadeanimpression onlocal ruled. Readhowtheirfossilisedimprintonthis Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, where dinosaursonce many years. has becomeacanvas fortalentedartistsover paints pictures withwords thatshowhowBritain Hepworth’s Cornwall, SophieCampbell’s article East Anglia toLSLowry’s Salford viaBarbara captured by Britishartists. From John Constable’s and informyou ofthiscountry’s many delights! Welcome toourmagazine, intendedtoinspire British GuildofTourist Guides Mark King,Chairto the A WARM WELCOME entertaining company ofBritain’s bestguides! Discover more ofourgreat storiesinthe So I’mpleasedtotellyou aboutimprovements If Britainlays claimtobeingthecradle ofthe Yet anotherrevolution isthesubjectofMarc A different revolution isthesubjectofLondon Not asmany years thoughasthedenizensof This issueincludeslandscapesandcityscapes ‘Find A Tour’ works alongsideourmuch-used 3 NEWS History, Culture and Events PIRATE TV

locations including St Agnes Head – close to author Winston Graham’s home – as well as Botallack, Gwennap Head, and Penberth. The third series of the BBC’s Poldark While filming can mean blocked comes to UK screens in June. The 18th Sarah Milne-Day streets and inconvenience for locals, Yorkshire Blue Badge Guide century story of passion and pirating set the recompense is that their houses in the West Country has fans of the drama become more valuable. A study carried BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES visiting the filming locations. out by MyHomeMove revealed that an Part of the new series was filmed in the appearance in a TV programme can add Blue Badge Tourist Guides are the Somerset town of Wells, with its town hall thousands to property values. Shows such official, professional tourist guides standing in as a bank and the market as Poldark and Downton Abbey, known for of the United Kingdom – recognised square featuring, appropriately, as a their scenic settings, added up to 6% to by the local tourist bodies and market. The famous Cathedral Green the value of properties in the areas where VisitBritain. There are over 1000 Blue Badge also appeared as a backdrop. they were filmed. Guides in England, Scotland, Wales and The series is also filmed in Poldark’s For a Poldark tour of the West Country Northern Ireland – each region and nation home county of Cornwall, in various go to britainsbestguides.org has its own badge. They guide in all the UK’s major tourist attractions, as well as its cities and countryside.

Green Badge Guides have expert local knowledge of particular towns and cities. White Badge Guides have detailed knowledge of their specific site.

Institute of Tourist Guiding is responsible for setting and maintaining guiding standards across England, Northern Ireland and Jersey. The Institute’s blue, green and white badge qualifications are world renowned and represent a benchmark in quality and professionalism. To gain one of the Institute’s badges guides typically study for up to two years, taking a combination of written and practical examinations to ensure they reach the Institute’s high standards. Numerous kings, plenty of British Guild of Tourist Guides princes (including William is the national association of Britain’s and Harry), dozens of dukes, guides. Since its foundation in 1950, the barrel-loads of barons, Guild has dedicated itself to raising and gaggles of generals, 19 maintaining the highest professional British Prime Ministers and standards and meeting our visitors’ needs. several spies who watched Our guides work in the UK’s museums, them. What do they have in galleries, churches and lead walking, common? Eton College. cycling, coach, car and driver-guided tours The school has been closed throughout the country. Our members to visitors for the last three work in over 30 different languages. years, but now the boys’ To find out more or to book: School Days college is opening to the +44 20 7403 1115 www.britainsbestguides.org 4 View from the Medieval Tower from around the UK

SEEDS OF Change Sitting in the shadow of the medieval Visitors can climb the 14th century might of Lambeth Palace is one of tower – opening to the public for the first London’s most charming museums. The time – and visit The Ark Gallery, a Garden Museum was built from the shell recreation of the Tradescants’ 17th of the deconsecrated church of St Mary- century cabinet of curiosities. Exhibits at-Lambeth, rescued from demolition in include the rediscovered tombstone of the 1970s when the 17th century tomb of Elias Ashmole (Oxford’s Ashmolean John Tradescant, Britain’s first great Museum is based on his collection), Britains Oldest Watering Can gardener and plant-hunter, was Britain’s oldest watering-can and discovered in the churchyard. Harold Gilman’s iconic ‘Portrait of a Now, following an 18 month Black Gardener’. £7.5 million re-development project, The museum features a new, themed the museum is reopening. The design garden, described as an ‘Eden’ of rare Photo: John Chase Photo: incorporates a new courtyard extension, plants. built without foundations due to the Open daily from 22nd May 20,000 bodies buried on the site, some 10.30-17.00 (Saturday 10.30-16.00) dating back 1000 years. www.gardenmuseum.org.uk

The Black Gardener by Harold Gilman Café

Lower School c1940 public with guided tours winning actor, Eddie offered by a skilled team of Redmayne) as well as the Blue Badge Guides. Upper and Lower School Founded in 1440 by King (with schoolrooms dating Henry VI for 70 poor scholars, from the 1500s), the Museum Eton has educated many of of Eton Life and the recently the characters who have opened Verey Art Gallery. shaped our nation. Tours Tours run on Friday follow their stories, with visits afternoons only, from May to to the school yard (where the 8 September 14.00-15.30 and game of Fives developed), the 16.00-17.30. £10 for adults, beautiful 15th century chapel under 17s free. Bookings at (choral alumni include Oscar www.etoncollege.com

5 ANGLESEY LLANDUDNO RHYL HOLYHEAD COLWYN BAY Wales offers visitors 7 8 a wonderful land- ANGLESEY 9 scape. From the BANGOR

snow-capped peaks LLANRWST CAERNARFON of Snowdonia, to BETWS-Y-COED the mighty fortress Snowdonia National Park CONWY CASTLE castles of Caernarfon 6 The Guides’ Guide Guides’ The and Caerphilly. Here is a guide to the top CORWEN 5 BALA ten places to visit, PWLLHELI from ten of Wales’ HARLECH ABERSOCH best guides. ABERDARON PORTMEIRION Croeso i cymru! SNOWDONIA BARMOUTH

Find more places to visit in Wales at CARNO www.walesbestguides.com NEWTOWN BORTH LLANIDLOES ABERYSTWYTH ST DAVID’S CATHEDRAL

LLANDRINDOD TREGARON WELLS

ABERPORTH BUILTH WELLS LAMPETER LLANWRTYD WALES COASTAL PATH WELLS LLANYBYDDER Pembrokeshire Coast National Park LLANDOVERY

Brecon Beacons 4 ST DAVIDS National Park CARMARTHEN

HAVERFORDWEST THE ROYAL MINT

MILFORD HAVEN 3 PEMBROKE TENBY LLANELLI NEATH SWANSEA 2 THE GUIDES’ GUIDE TO WALES 6 BODNANT GARDENS

1 CARDIFF CASTLE Cardiff’s great fortress dominates the city centre. Once see. I always take visitors to Bettwys-y-Coed, which a medieval stronghold, what stands today is a Victorian is the perfect place to stroll, hike or climb. If I have neo-mediaeval extravaganza, says Blue Badge Guide young daredevils with me I go to Llechwydd slate Fiona Peel. It is easy to imagine the 3rd Marquess of mines as they can zip-wire along the longest, fastest Bute and his designer architect William Burges line and then hear stories of the hardships endured discussing the idiosyncratic design. Bute spoke 19 by the slate quarry workers. For the less energetic, MOLD languages and was passionate about symbolism and we take the easy way to the top of Mount Snowdon neo-mediaevalism. Every inch of the decoration by train; it is fun and not as smug as announcing reflects something of his interests. Thank heavens he you walked all the way up. Visit Snowdonia with was the richest man around and could afford the gold Noel: [email protected] leaf that abounds in the Arab Room. For a tour of the WREXHAM Castle contact: [email protected] 7 ANGLESEY 10 We call it ‘the mother of Wales’: Mon Mam Cymru. 2 THE ROYAL MINT The Romans knew it as their breadbasket. It’s also ‘Follow the money!’ says Wales Blue Badge Guide LLANGOLLEN home to wonderful prehistoric sites, such as the burial Robert Llewellyn. The trail will take you to the Royal chamber Bryn Celli Ddu. The geological formations on Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales. The behind-the- Anglesey are the earliest known in the UK. Modern scenes tour explores the sheer complexity of minting Anglesey has something for everyone, a Sea Zoo, a coins: from designing, metal working and striking up to wonderful mural by Rex Whistler at Plas Newyd – 750 coins a minute. Follow the history of British coin home of the Marquis of Anglesey – a hidden garden at making, find out how Isaac Newton spied on Plas Cadnant. To reach this farthest corner of Wales, counterfeiters, and strike your own coin. Get minted Telford and Stephenson both built amazing bridges with a tour: [email protected] over the Menai Straits. You should also make time to enjoy fantastic bird watching at South Stack or people 3 THE WALES COASTAL PATH watching around the concentric walls of Edward I’s PONTCYSYLLTE AQUEDUCT Walk along one of Britain’s finest coastal paths. Beaumaris Castle. Let Guide Lynne Bellis show you Roberta Roberts loves showing visitors its this magical island: [email protected] many wonderful viewing points and villages. Her favourite places include the inlets of Stackpole in 8 CONWY TOWN AND CASTLE Pembrokeshire and the stunning Barafundle, that Conwy never disappoints, says Wales Guide Carole Passport Magazine called a ‘visual overdose of beauty’. Startin. From the imposing World Heritage Site Further on is the amazing St Govan’s Chapel clinging medieval castle and intact town walls, to Britain’s to the rocks – the coastline’s ‘secret‘ as its military smallest house on the ancient quay – where there lived use means that it can only be accessed on certain a 6’ 2” fisherman (presumably with a stoop). Tucked in days. To tour the coast contact Roberta at: the town wall is Llywelyn’s Hall, where it is thought [email protected] that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, mediaeval Prince of Wales, once lived. The bustling High Street has nurtured and 4 ST DAVID’S CATHEDRAL AND CITY maintained Plas Mawr – the UK’s best preserved Tudor It may be the smallest city in the UK, but in mediaeval Town House – plus an Art Deco pub that has preserved times one pilgrimage to St David’s was equivalent of many of its 1920s features and serves local beers. two to Rome. It is worth a pilgrimage, says local guide You can see why it’s wonderful or ‘bendigedig‘, as Dai Davies. There is something very special about this we say in Wales. Join one of Carole’s tours: city, hidden away on the edge of West Wales. The [email protected] cathedral is almost invisible until you are very close, which was a good thing when the Vikings were on the 9 BODNANT GARDENS rampage! In the 6th century St David was looking for It is difficult to pick out a favourite garden as you could a place of quiet contemplation and you can still find it easily do a five day tour of Welsh gardens, says local here today. There are now good restaurants and even Guide Anne Harris. Bodnant is a magnificent Victorian a brilliant bug farm where you can have grub-based explosion of colour and planting. It was the first garden lunches. Walk out to wish at the well of St David’s to create an amazing laburnum arch that bursts into mother, St Non the patron saint of infirmities; she lurid yellow in early summer. Love it or hate it, it is healed my finger - or maybe it was the wonderful amazing. It is the studied carelessness of the garden coastal path and air that killed the germs. Visit with that engages the heart and eye. It all looks so natural Dai Davies: [email protected] but is the work of generations, enriched by the addiction our ancestors had for plant collecting when 5 PORTMEIRION they were exporting their goods of coal, slate and iron Wales has produced some amazing people, but none around the world. Let Anne show you this garden: quite like the creator of Portmeirion Village, says Guide [email protected] Alison Hypher. Clough Williams Ellis was an architect who made it his legacy to create a little Italianate town 10 PONTCYSYLLTE AQUEDUCT CARDIFF CASTLE hugging the Welsh coastline. The evening light in this In 1805, at the opening ceremony of the Pontcysyllte village is truly magical; you can stay in the big hotel at Aqueduct, over 8,000 people congregated under the bottom of the hill or in one of houses in the village, the structure known as the ‘stream in the sky,’ each with its own character. He left a painter’s palette while the ‘great and the good’ crossed the aqueduct of colours on the houses and details of design to by horse-drawn barges to the sound of celebratory delight the eye. It is no wonder that the iconic 60s TV brass bands. Nowadays the aqueduct – part of an PONTYPOOL show The Prisoner has immortalised this little eleven mile World Heritage Site – is the highest kingdom. Take time to visit his own garden just a few navigable canal in the world, standing at 127 feet miles away at Plas Brondanw, with its vistas into (37m) and 1007 feet (307m) in length. The aqueduct Snowdonia. Join Alison for a tour of Wales’ ‘little can be crossed on foot or by barge with only a rail Italy’:[email protected] or the edge of the water basin to prevent a deep dive to the river below. Combine a visit with walking NEWPORT 6 SNOWDONIA part of this beautiful shaded and tranquil canal To come to Wales and not visit Snowdonia would be like towpath that was once a thoroughfare for commercial 1 going to Stratford and not seeing a Shakespearian play, trade. Brave the aqueduct with Sarah Jones: CARDIFF says guide Noel Clawson. There is so much to [email protected] 7 8 Feature IRON MEN Newcomen Engine Ironbridge over theRiver Severn created themodern world to theplacesandpeoplethat Britain. Marc Zakianintroduces us The IndustrialRevolution beganin floodwaters. being sweptawaybyunderground tributers dug,thebiggertheir riskof The deeperthetutworkersand labyrinths ofcopperandtinmines. risked theirlivesinthedark overwhelm’d foraseasonofraines’. troubled by‘great floods, ‘very bleakandfullofmines’ Cornwall, acountyshedescribedas Ceilia’s journeytookherto medieval times. a landscapeunchangedsince fields andmuddy, unsignedroads – chronicled acountrysideofopen Britain’s firstfemaletravel-writer England. Ridingside-saddle, horseback for2,000milesacross In 1695CeliaFiennestravelledon AHEAD OFSTEAM In 1712theWest Country For centuriesCornishmenhad the country. machines operatingacross the 1700sthere were 2,000steam of theagesteam.Byend powered Englandandthebeginning the endofCeliaFiennes’horse- water byfire’ from thedankmines. engine, amachinethatwould‘raise first workablepiston-drivensteam offered salvation.Hedesignedthe ironmonger ThomasNewcomen The Newcomenenginesignalled Country Living Museum in Conygree Coalworks inthe West Midlands. The Black working replicaofthe working engine atthe built thefirstproper Dudley ishometoa original machine – Newcomen bclm.co.uk Abraham Darby III took over his grandfather’s Coalbrookdale foundry. In 1779 he built a 30-metre cast-iron bridge across the River Severn

This year Coalbrookdale is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the death of Abraham Darby I. The Ironbridge Gorge Museums tells the story of the Industrial Revolution in a series of unique collections that include a functioning Victorian town – complete with shops, schools, craftsmen and steam engines – ironbridge.org.uk

A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE Coalbrookdale Abraham Darby I was a Worcestershire Quaker with a fascination for furnaces. In 1708, after years of trial and error, Darby discovered the secrets of smelting iron in a blast furnace – perfecting the production of the metal that made the industrial revolution. Darby established an ironworks in the Shropshire valley of Coalbrookdale – filling the kitchens of England with affordable pots, pans, kettles and cutlery. Thomas Newcomen, who had struggled with expensive and unpredictable brass fittings, powered his machines with Darby’s reliable iron cylinders. Abraham Darby III took over his grandfather’s Coalbrookdale foundry. In 1779 he built a 30-metre cast-iron bridge across the River Severn. The world’s first iron bridge was so celebrated that the

area now takes its name. Museum Trust Gorge © Ironbridge

9 WATT’S THE ANSWER In the 1740s baby James Watt sat watching a boiling kettle in his family kitchen on the Firth of Clyde, spellbound by the

Feature steam forcing the lid to from the kettle top. These childhood observations inspired Watt to invent the steam engine. This story is, of course, legend. Steam machines were pumping before Watt was born. But the myth of little James and his mother’s kettle is so powerful that Watt and the steam engine are inseparable. James Watt Watt revolutionised the Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser boiler, making it five times more Smethwick engine efficient and – most importantly for thrift-minded industrialists – saving 75% on coal costs. He also developed a reliable system for measuring the strength of a steam engine; horsepower. In a world that depended on animals for transport and agriculture, people could visualise a machine doing the work of 20 horses. The engineer’s contribution to science and industry is marked by our measurement of the rate at which electricity is generated and consumed: watts. LUNATIC SCIENCE Once a month during the 18th century a group of men would meet by the light of the full moon. These natural philosophers, alchemists and entrepreneurs were determined to change the way we live. The Lunar Society – jokingly known as ‘lunarticks’ – lived near the booming city of Birmingham. Members included James Watt, Matthew Boulton, the potter Josiah Wedgwood and Joseph Priestley – discoverer of oxygen and inventor of soda water. The moon provided enough light for them to journey home safely. Matthew Boulton was a Brummie businessman who inherited his father’s ‘toy trade’ business, making buckles, coins and medals. He introduced machine processing, worker specialisation and mass production, building the first modern factory and the largest industrial complex in the world. Boulton invited James Watt to Birmingham and together Photos © Birmingham Museums Trust © Birmingham Museums Trust Photos they built the finest steam engines of the age, including the Smethwick Steam Engine. Developed in 1779, it is Boulton invited James Watt to the oldest working engine in the world and today is part of the Think Tank Museum in Birmingham – Birmingham and together they built birminghammuseums.org.uk/thinktank the finest steam engines of the age Boulton and Watt employed William Murdoch to pioneer gas lighting. He developed a process for ‘cleaning’ coal gas and piping it to street lights, factories and homes. Soho House The first gas lighting companies sprang up in London in 1812. Gas lamps allowed nightlife to flourish Clogs became popular and factories to in the Industrial Revolution. work longer Strong, cheap footwear was hours. The relics popular in the Lancashire mills of this industry (Lancastrians are known as are the ‘cloggies’). Clog dancing may have gasometers started with mill workers found across syncopating foot taps to the Britain and the rhythmic sounds of the loom 2,000 gas lights shuttles. still in use in London. 10 Trouble at Mill In 1779 a young textile worker, Ned Ludd, smashed two weaving looms. This protest gave birth to the Luddites who destroyed the machines that threatened their skilled jobs. Weavers burned mills and machinery in Nottingham, Yorkshire and Lancashire. The government responded by sending in the army and sentencing the Luddites to execution and transportation.

Belper Mill

knight of the realm with a fortune of £500,000 – around A TALE OF SPINNING £7 billion today. Medieval England was full of spinsters – women who Cottonopolis quickly became ‘canalopolis’. A modern spun fleece into yarn. The industrial revolution wiped out world needed modern transport, the pack mule was sent this cottage industry, leaving the etymological footnote of packing and replaced by the industrial canal. First came a word to describe unmarried females. the Bridgewater, built by the ‘Canal Duke’ of Bridgewater In 1769 Richard Arkwright patented the spinning frame. in 1761 to ship coal to Manchester’s mills – This turned the fast flowing rivers of the Pennines into halving the price of anthracite. power for mills. By combining water-powered machinery Soon thousands of mostly and semi-skilled sweated labour, Arkwright transformed a Irish navigational engineers medieval trade into a manufacturing industry. (navvies) were digging up Derwent Valley Families with children as young as seven worked at a golden age of canals Mills is a World Heritage Arkwright’s Lancashire and Derbyshire mills. Labouring that boomed between Site located along the River in 13-hour shifts, workers were woken at 5.00am and the 1770 and 1830. Huge Derwent in Derbyshire. It factory doors closed by 6.00am – anyone left outside lost a sums were invested includes Cromford, Belper, day’s pay. as 4,000 miles of Milford and Darley Abbey as well Arkwright opened the first steam driven mill on canals networked as more than 800 listed buildings Manchester’s Miller Street in in 1781. Four across Britain. But including mills, workers’ decades later ‘cottonopolis’ had become the the canal’s reign was housing and canals – first city of mass production, with over 100 brief. On the horizon derwentvalleymills.org mills spinning a third of the world’s was the iron horseman cotton. Arkwright died a of the apocalypse.

Cromford Mill

Inside Belper’s East Mill

North Mill at Darley 1868 Masson Mill in operation Belper’s North Mill Masson Mill from the River Derwent Sir Richard Arkwright 11 pipe hat, the cigar- MAKING TRACKS smoking Richard Trevithick was a Cornwall showman There is a theory miner’s son with a fascination for pioneered a that the Geordies are

Feature steam engines. His goal was to series of named after the railwayman develop Watt’s engines into high- increasingly and inventor. George ‘Geordie’ pressure boilers that could power a audacious Stephenson developed the pit rail engine. projects. lamp that became the symbol for In 1804 he realised his dream when The miners in the North East. The the world’s first locomotive railway Thames ‘Geordie’ lamp was so popular journey took place in the Pen-y-darron Tunnel was that people used its name Ironworks in Wales. The engine pulled the first to be to refer to locals. five wagons and 70 men on a 10 mile constructed journey – the modern railway was underneath a born. navigable river. Brunel Trevithick’s revolutionary invention worked alongside his father, won him little acclaim and less money. supervising construction in the The man who built the first railway muddy depths. Isambard nearly engine died penniless in a Kent hostel. drowned when the tunnel accidently The Cornishman was followed by flooded. Completed in 1843, the the Stephensons. ‘Geordie’ George tunnel is still in use, taking London George Stephenson’s Stephenson was an illiterate Overground trains under the river Safety lamp collieryman who built the first at Wapping. passenger steam railway in the world; As chief engineer on the Great the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Western Railway, Brunel built one of opened in 1830. It was powered by the the wonders of Victorian Britain. He Boxing Clever famous Rocket locomotive, and the rode on horseback for days to survey Brunel’s GWR Tunnel is at Box near most advanced steam train of its day the route; he designed most of the Bath. At nearly two miles long, it was became the template for locomotives stations (including Paddington); he completed in 1841. Some passengers for the following 150 years. insisted on building the longest feared that the air pressure inside the Stephenson pioneered the main railway tunnel in the world at Box; he tunnel would be so dangerous it would train routes across the north of demanded a double-gauge track so kill them and chose to leave the train England, earning him the nickname that passengers would ride in total before the tunnel and rejoin it on the ‘the father of the railways’. His son, comfort, earning the GWR the other side. According to legend, Brunel Robert Stephenson, continued the nickname ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’. deliberately aligned the tunnel so that work, establishing himself as a But Brunel was not satisfied with the rising sun shines through it on gentleman engineer and politician. His transporting passengers from London April 9, Brunel’s birthday. Westminster Abbey funeral was to Bristol. He wanted to take them attended by 3,000 people, heralding across the Atlantic. So, in 1843 he built the age of the celebrity engineer. the SS Great Britain, the first Brunel The superstar of passenger steamship to cross Victorian celebrity the Atlantic and the largest in George engineers was the world. Today, the great iron Stephenson’s rail Isambard Kingdom leviathan is preserved and open gauge of 4ft 8½in Brunel. A little over to visitors in Bristol docks became the standard 5ft tall in his stove (ssgreatbritain.org). gauge for the world’s railways. SS Great Britain Stephenson’s Rocket was built in 1829. The steam engine won the Rainhill Trials, held by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to choose the best design to power the railway. Today it is on display in London’s Science Museum – (sciencemuseum.org). There is also a working replica in the Railway Museum in York.

12 Until 3 September 2017 £12 tickets for groups of 10 or more Call: 020 7942 4000 [email protected] Media Partner sciencemuseum.org.uk/robots

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13 Feature

The 1851 Great Exhibition featured wonders from across the world. It also exhibited innovations that never caught on, including furniture made of coal, a carriage pulled by The Great Exhibition kites and false teeth on a hinge. 20-acre glasshouse designed by life expectancy A BRIGHT IDEA gardener, Joseph Paxton, the ‘Crystal fell by five years. The second industrial revolution began Palace’ in London’s Hyde Park, the Some professions were poisonous. in a Mayfair basement. In the 1830s, exhibition was a celebration of the In the Victorian era mercury was used in in the Royal Institution’s laboratory, technology, wealth and prestige brought hat-making to finish felt. Hat-makers Michael Faraday invented the electric to Britain by the industrial revolution. exposed to the toxic metal developed motor – transforming electricity from Six million people visited, equivalent tremors and tics – giving rise to the a curiosity into a technology that to no less than one quarter of the expression ‘mad as a hatter’. changed the way we live. entire population of Britain. It was a Another dangerous trade was ‘white Faraday was a self-educated symbol of the extraordinary progress lead’, used in making tiles, ceramics bookbinder who preferred reading seen in the Victorian Age. During the and cosmetics. So many young women books to binding them. He convinced Queen’s reign Britain had gone from fell ill working in these finishing the gentleman scientist, Sir Humphrey horsepower to steam power, from factories that they became known as Davy, to employ him as an assistant at candlelight to gas and then electric ‘white cemeteries’. the Royal Institution. Historians light, from oil paintings to photographs Women and teenage girls working at remarked that ‘Faraday was Davy’s and on to moving pictures. the Bryant and May factory in east greatest discovery’ – no small claim, London regularly suffered from ‘phossy as Davy himself discovered five jaw’, a disease caused by exposure to chemical elements. STRIKE IN A MATCH the yellow phosphorus used to tip the Faraday is recognised as one of the match sticks. Symptoms included greatest scientists of the century, FACTORY swelling gums, brain damage and organ defining the laws of electricity, During the 1800s, thousands of people failure. In 1888 the matchgirls went on magnetism and the properties of light. left the countryside for jobs in the strike for better pay and working Every electric motor operating today is industrial cities. Many paid a heavy conditions. The company conceded, and based on Faraday’s discovery. price – toxic air, poor housing, long safeguarded the health of the Faraday worked on the planning of hours and dangerous machinery meant matchgirls. It was a landmark on the the great wonder of the Victorian age; that during the 1850s in Newcastle, road to better welfare for workers in the the Great Exhibition of 1851. Staged in a Manchester and Liverpool the average new industrial age.

Match girls strike Michael Faraday

To discover Britain’s industrial history with an expert Blue Badge Guide search www.britainsbestguides.org.uk selecting ‘Industrial heritage’ in the Faraday’s laboratory 14 box ‘Special Interest’. ADVERTISING FEATURE

Spectacular Aladdin COMES TO LONDON

Disney’s Aladdin has ‘landed show to life on the West End stage. high palace gates and a carpet that © Disney Meer. Deen van Theatre.Photographer Edward Aladdin, Prince triumphantly in London’s West The extraordinary creative team is takes flight and leaves audiences End’ (Daily Telegraph). This led by director and choreographer, spellbound. Night after night, it’s one ‘shining, shimmering spectacle’ Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, of the most complex technical (Huffington Post) is everything Dreamgirls). Music is by Alan Menken productions ever seen in the West End, you could wish for and more, and (Beauty and the Beast) with lyrics from and it takes a staggering 100 people to is dazzling audiences daily at the Howard Ashman (Beauty and the Beast), bring the magic alive every single beautiful Prince Edward Theatre’. Tim Rice (The Lion King) and Chad performance. It’s ‘sheer genie-us!’ (Evening Beguelin (Elf), who also wrote the The lead roles of Aladdin and Jasmine Standard). book. The show includes all the songs are taken by Matthew Croke and Jade Breathtaking sets, astonishing special from the classic Academy Award- Ewen, with Broadway’s Trevor Dion effects, over 350 lavish costumes – winning film including ‘Friend Like Me’, Nicholas making his London stage sparkling with over two million ‘A Whole New World’ and ‘Arabian Nights’. debut as the Genie. Swarovski crystals – and a fabulous cast The jaw-dropping set is a true Experience the unmissable ‘theatrical and orchestra bring the magic of the theatrical wonder, featuring 30ft magic’ that is Aladdin.

15 A Head Laughing Gas Jane Seymour, third wife of King Roland the Farter was a medieval flatulist. King Henry VIII, picked Henry II granted Roland an estate in Suffolk in return for performing one jump, one whistle out her wedding and one fart at the King’s court every Christmas. dress on the day her predecessor Anne Boleyn was beheaded. LEGEN The Con Con LIE

Arthur Furguson was an English con man. During the 1920s he ‘sold’ national monuments to American tourists, including Nelson’s Column for £6,000, Big Ben for £1,000 and a £2,000 bargain, Buckingham Palace. Furguson emigrated to the USA in 1925 where he promptly flogged the White House to a rancher for $100,000. When he tried to sell the Statue of Liberty, the fraudster was arrested and jailed. According to one investigator, however, there never was a Furguson. There FACTS AND are no records of his arrest, trial, or a grave in Los Angeles where he supposedly died in 1938. The earliest reference to Furguson dates from the 1970s. The legendary con man was, it seems, a big con.

Ribbet Speaking in Toad Frogs living in Norfolk have a local Ribbit accent. Britain’s only colony of northern pool frogs live in East Anglia. When researchers analysed recordings of their cousins in Norway and Sweden they discovered that the Norfolk frogs had a distinct regional croak. 16 Start Eggstrordinary In 1997 Brenda Eccles of Manchester put her dead husband Malcolm's ashes into a

giant egg-timer. It was his last 2007 Fairy © The Graphics wish that his wife would think of him every time she boiled an egg.

NDS

In England there are 518 pubs called ES, The D Red Lion AN the most popular pub name in the country.

FICTION FROM BRITISH HISTORY The bride wore In 1775 at a church in Winchester the widow Judith Redding removed NOTHING her clothes before she married Richard Elcock. This was a ‘smock wedding’, an 18th century tradition signifying that widowed brides would not bring any old debts to their new marriage.

17 The Stour estuary is one of the most atmospheric places in England Feature

Sophie Campbell visits the landscapes that inspired our great artists The Art of

www.britainsbestguides.org TRAVEL 18 ARTYFACTS Constable immortalised Willy Finishing touch Lott. The cottage where the farmer Make for Salisbury in Wiltshire and lived featured in some of the artist’s take a walk out through the water best known paintings. Willy could meadows for the wonderful view of the neither read nor write and, cathedral, all 404 feet of it, rising according to local legend, during his skywards, painted by Constable on 88 years never spent one night away numerous occasions. from his beloved home.

In a way it’s lazy. Why spend time looking for the most spectacular scenery to visit – be it billowing Downs or industrial landscape – when our great painters have already found it for you? Not only are their subjects pretty well guaranteed to be visually interesting, there’s the thrill of recognition when a tree they painted is still standing or a river still tinkling along. Add to that the intriguing puzzle of woods now grown up or open land built on, and it gives a sense of place – showing, quite literally, how our country has developed. Then there are the houses. Throughout history, artists have had an eye for picturesque (read ‘affordable’) property, often deftly combining studio space with domestic life. Whether one imagines Turner strolling along the seafront at Margate, or the febrile social life of the Sussex painters, or Constable’s modest beginnings in Dedham Vale – artists’ landscapes make a wonderful starting point for a beguiling tour. CONSTABLE’S EAST ANGLIA The Stour estuary is one of the most atmospheric places in England, with huge, empty marshes and golden reed beds threaded with water and rustling with wildfowl. Further upstream, the river forms the border between Essex and Suffolk where a wealthy 18th-century corn merchant called Golding Constable owned mills at Dedham and Flatford, and kept a ship at Mistley. His son, John, would use the area as a subject for his famously large paintings. Any visit should include three key sites: Flatford Mill, made famous by The Hay Wain and a series of paintings; the village of East Bergholt, where he was born (although sadly the house is gone); and Dedham, where he went to the Old Grammar School and painted St Mary’s Church no less than 26 times.

The Hay Wain, John Constable John Constable

19 The church has a Constable memorial window and Willy Lott’s grave is in the churchyard. There’s a ARTYFACTS great trail taking in all these sites on Turner would rub tobacco the National Trust Constable juice, snuff and stale beer Feature Country website (you can walk from onto his canvases to create Manningtree railway station). painterly effects. He was even known to spit on them. TURNER’S MARGATE There are many parts of England became important to him when he painted by JMW Turner. Beware, was sent there as a boy during his though, he was an arch-manipulator mother’s illness. The Turner of views for artistic purposes (take the Contemporary stands on the site of Fighting Temeraire, which, as London the boarding house owned by his Blue Badge Guides will tell you, faces long-term mistress, Sophia Booth. the wrong way on the Thames). Stroll through the Old Town to Margate, on the shoulder of Kent, capture a little of the atmosphere of

Timothy Spall as the artist in Mr Turner Petworth

Margate and the Turner Gallery ARTYFACTS In 2006, Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire was voted the British people’s favourite painting.

Margate became important to Turner when he was sent there as a boy during his mother’s illness 20 Finishing touch: You liked the paintings, now see the film. Mike Leigh’s biopic, Mr Turner was partly filmed at Petworth House in Sussex, frequently visited by Turner, who painted in an upstairs room you can visit. Its purpose-built art gallery has a number of his works.

Margate seashore Petworth House, Turner Room Statue of Whistler © National Trust ©Visit Britain ©Visit Britain

the Georgian seaport that Turner knew. foliage for half the year; peer through Look for the shell-like sculpture of Mrs summer leaves to see the American Booth on the Harbour Arm where the painter, artist’s bag at his feet, steamer arrived from London, the surveying his beloved river. wide expanse of the Main Sands and a He painted the Thames and its blue plaque on his former school, bridges almost obsessively. It was a Coleman’s. Drive to the Isle of Thanet, bridge that caused his downfall when whose skies he loved and whose he sued the critic John Ruskin for libel strikingly-ruined Reculver church over his comments on Nocturne in appeared in sketches and paintings. Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket. Whistler was a true Chelsea denizen, living on Lindsey Street before WHISTLER’S THAMES commissioning his own studio Nicholas Dimbleby’s statue of James residence, the White House, on Tite McNeill Whistler, on the corner of Street. He was bankrupted and had to Battersea Bridge and Cheyne Walk in move out to a rented studio in Tower southwest London, is hidden by House, also on Tite Street. 21 Feature

Finishing touch See Whistler’s bronze chest tomb in the burial ground of St Nicholas’s Church, Chiswick.

Battersea Bridge

The White House no longer stands, ARTYFACTS but nearby at 101 Cheyne Walk is the LOWRY’S SALFORD The Victorian art critic Ruskin hated Whistler’s original fireplace painted in Symphony The soaring glass and steel arts abstract canvasses, accusing him of ‘flinging a in White, No 2: The Little White Girl. All centre, The Lowry, sitting on Salford pot of paint in the public’s face’. Whistler sued this is about half an hour’s walk Quays (across the water from the for libel. The trial lawyer asked Whistler: “Did it downstream to Tate Britain, where BBC), is a reminder of Laurence take you much time to paint the Nocturne in you can see this painting and also one Stephen Lowry’s connections with Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?” of the notorious series, an oil of the city at the end of the Manchester Whistler replied: “Oh, I ‘knock one off’ in a Battersea Bridge called A Nocturne in Ship Canal (completed when he was couple of days. “The labour of two days is that for Blue and Gold. about seven years old). which you ask two hundred guineas?” raged the lawyer. “No,” said Whistler, “I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime”.

LS Lowry – Going to Work

22 The Lowry is a good place to debunk the ‘matchstick men’ label and look at his huge body of work on the industrial north west

Start here because it has a large Lowry was born in Stretford and the There is a second plaque at The Elms collection of his paintings – a good place town marks the artist’s birthplace with a on Stalybridge Road in Mottram, his to debunk the ‘matchstick men’ label plaque on the Old Trafford Community home and studio from 1948. Though and look at his huge body of work on Centre. In 1910 he joined Pall Mall Lowry claimed he ‘hated’The Elms, he the industrial north west. You can still see Property Company as a rent collector lived there until his death in 1976. the handsome red brick and terracotta and – despite his subsequent fame – There is a bronze statue of the artist a façade of Peel Hall in Peel Park, where he worked full time for them until he retired few yards from his house and his grave studied art at the Royal Technical in 1952. Lowry painted at home late into – a modest stone memorial with a College – now owned by the University the night, keeping his day job secret – cross – can be seen at the Southern of Salford. this only came to light after he died. Cemetery in Manchester.

The Lowry Centre, Manchester ARTYFACTS Lowry’s collection of clocks in his living room were all set at different times; he told some people that this Finishing touch was because he did not want to Lowry fans might hare off north-east to know the real time; to others he the Sunderland Museum, which has some claimed that it was to save him from wonderful Lowrys in its collection (look being deafened by their out for Dockside Sunderland, painted simultaneous chimes. 1962) and then to the Lowry Trail in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

23 Sussex Church

Towner Art Gallery One of the biggest Ravilious treats is the Store Tour at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. Every second Saturday at noon they slide out great racks of paintings and you can spot several

24 RAVILIOUS’S EAST SUSSEX in Eastbourne. is theStore Tour atthe Towner Gallery the paraphernalia ofwar. landscapes oftheSouthDownsand Sussex –andlaterEssextherolling the utterlyEnglishlandscapeof in Eastbourneandhiswork evokes The artistEricRavilious grew up Every secondSaturday atnoonthey One ofthebiggestRavilious treats wonderful circuit thatincludesthe on display. where most ofhiswork willbe from May 27toSeptember172017, and Co:thePattern ofFriendship opening amajorexhibition, not onpermanentdisplay. They are you canspotseveral Ravilious works slide outgreat racks ofpaintingsand Drivers canputtogethera Ravilious stayedatonetimeandwhoheld‘openhouse’ exhibitions Ravilious blue plaqueonBankHouseinCastleHedinghamandvisitGreat during the1950s.AlsounmissableisFryGalleryinSaffron The artistEricRavilious grew , Bardfield, hometoaninformalcolonyofartists–including Essex isanothergoodRaviliouspilgrimagespot.Lookforthe Edward Bawdenandhiswife,withwhomEricTirzah Walden, whichisfree andopenfrom ApriltoOctober. English landscape ofSussex up inEastbourne andhis work evokesthe utterly Beachy Head. of coursethemightychalkcliffs from Glynde railway station);and Firle Beacon(you canwalk toboth Peggy Angus andamagnetforartists; the cottagehomeofhisfriend making himlooklikeaskier;Furlongs, Windover Hill, withhislongsticks guardian oftheSouthDownson chalk Long Manof Wilmington – Finishing touch Finishing Beachy Head

25 © Visit Britain IAL EC P S ADE RATES

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Finishing touch As a girl, Hepworth was mesmerised by Robin Hood’s Bay on the coast of North Yorkshire where her family spent their summer holidays. That should be a good enough excuse to head north for a walk on the curving, rocky beach with its steep cliffs, then visit the Hepworth Wakefield (in her native city) and the nearby Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

HEPWORTH’S ST IVES Hepworth moved to St Ives with ARTYFACTS Ben Nicholson and their young triplets In 2012 St Ives School in There’s something magical about the to escape wartime London and set Cornwall discovered that a Barbara Hepworth Museum and up this studio at Trewyn in 1949, paperweight on the head Sculpture Garden in St Ives in working here until her death in 1975. teacher’s desk was an original Cornwall; partly because of its It’s a hop, skip and a jump from the Barbara Hepworth sculpture compactness, partly because of the studio to Tate St Ives gallery and the worth over £100,000. garden bursting with Cornish sub- artists’ studios and shops down on tropical plants and punctuated by the The Wharf. organic shapes of her sculptures; and partly because it still has, after all these For an art tour with an expert Blue Badge Guide visit: britainsbestguides.org years, a sense of her presence.

Tate, St Ives

27 Blue Badge Guide and Telegraph

Tour de Force Tour journalist Richard Madden takes us on a walk with dinosaurs HISTO www.britainsbestguides.org Photos: Marc Zakian Marc Photos: www.britainsbestguides.org

28 RY THAT ROCKS

It was a schoolboy train journey through passing my train window. How fantastic! ‘England’s Jurassic Park’ that turned A slow-motion time machine on the south Richard Madden into a fossil fan. “I coast holding the secrets of 250 million detested school geology lessons,” he says. years of history.” “What could be more boring than a A decade later, Richard’s fascination bunch of rocks. with fossils brought him to Charmouth “But during coastline rail trips from Beach. “I discovered an ammonite there. home in Cornwall to school in Sussex, I It’s humbling to come across these was seduced by the mysteries of the millions-of-years-old snail-like molluscs ancient seashore. I’d heard about frozen in stone – hold one in your dinosaurs, thinking they lived somewhere hands and you will see the world in a in the tropics, but was amazed to discover different way. I’ve treasured mine at that they were preserved inside the cliffs home ever since.”

I’d heard about dinosaurs, thinking they lived somewhere in the tropics, but was amazed to discover that they were preserved inside the cliffs passing my train window

29 Durdle Door Durdle Door is the symbol of the As the Telegraph newspaper’s coast – a rock arch reaching out walking correspondent, Richard has into the seas that created it walked and written extensively about the South West Coast Path and the 95 through time and erosion mile stretch from Devon to Dorset is a particular favourite: “Our coastline has many personalities. An encounter with the Jurassic Coast is like meeting an elder statesman and discovering their life story.” Richard is now a Blue Badge Guide and has developed a series of tours to the Jurassic Coast. “I like to start at Golden Cap, at 200 metres it’s the highest point on the south coast, named after its golden sandstone rock that glows in the summer sun. On a good day you can see for tens of miles in each direction. “You’re looking down millions of years of history. Time is layered out in cliffsides – to the west are red rocks that were formed in ancient deserts around 250 million years ago. It’s the signature stone of Devon where the cliffs were first studied, giving the name to a geological period, Devonian. “And then there’s nearby Lyme Regis, the spiritual home of English fossil hunting. It’s a tradition that started with the wonderful Mary Anning. Born in 1799, she had no education, but taught herself to read and write and went on to become an expert fossil hunter. “She made her living by selling to collectors. Hunting for fossils was dangerous and in 1833 Mary was nearly killed by a landslide that buried her black-and-white terrier, Tray. “Anning spent hours cleaning fossils with nails and documenting her finds. She knew more about geology than many of the wealthy fossilists who

Lyme Regis beach

30 Lulworth Cove Mary Anning

traded with her, but it was always shaped like ram’s horns – some up to a houses trapped in time. the gentlemen geologists who took foot long. You can pick them up from “At the southerly tip of the Jurassic the credit. the shoreline, but never hammer them Coast is the Isle of Portland, connected “Mary died aged only 48 and was out of the rock or cliffsides. The best to the mainland by Chesil Beach. Just buried in a local churchyard. Today time to find fossils is in winter when about every part of Britain contains a she is recognised as Britain’s first you get the biggest cliff erosions. piece of Portland as the white © Visit Britain Photos palaeontologist. She has a whole “Durdle Door is the symbol of the limestone mined here has graced some section dedicated to her finds in coast – a rock arch reaching out into of our finest buildings – from St Paul’s London’s Natural History Museum and the seas that created it through time Cathedral to the Liverpool waterfront. The Royal Society named her as one of and erosion. The arch is a mile to the “Excitingly, Portland is planning its the ten British women who have most west of Lulworth Cove, which in turn is own real life Jurassic Park. The idea is to influenced the history of science. famous for its nearby fossil forest, the build a giant roof over one of the remains of an ancient submerged island’s 40m deep quarries to create a Lyme Regis is the woodland from Jurassic times. This dinosaur-themed museum. This spiritual home surreal landscape is distinctive for its Jurassic project would be an inspiring strange ‘algal burrs’ like gaping mouths symbol for a coastline that turned me of English fossil where prehistoric tree trunks once from a bored schoolboy into a keen stood. amateur fossilist and tourist guide. The hunting “East of Durdle Door is Tyneham Jurassic Coast is Britain’s own time “She found many samples at Lyme Village, the coastline’s modern fossil. machine. Visit and be transported.” Regis’s ammonite ‘graveyard’ at Time stopped here in 1943 when it was Monmouth Beach. Walk here at low closed off for army training and the For a tour with Richard Madden go to tide and you will see thousands of villagers forced to leave. On some www.richardmadden.co.uk ammonites scattered in the rocks. weekends you can visit the ghost Tweet him @GuideUKSouth These 150 million year old fossils are village to see the church and ruined

Old Harry

31 Tour de Force Tour

THE MARCH Mary Carroll walks us through the suffragettes’ struggle to win the vote www.britainsbestguides.org Photos: Marc Zakian Marc Photos: www.britainsbestguides.org

32 It was Mary Poppins who radicalised emancipation. I wanted to bring the beautiful character in modern history. Mary Carroll. “I remember watching campaigners to life so I teamed up So, I tried to destroy the picture of the the film on TV as a child and being with two other Blue Badge Guides – most beautiful woman in mythology.’ furious,” she recalls. “It hadn’t occurred Moira Dearnley and Catherine Then we slash the copy of the to me that there was a time when Cartwright – to develop an ‘interactive painting. The crowd is both amazed women couldn’t vote. Mrs Banks, the walk’ combining guiding with scenes and shocked, particularly when we tell film’s suffragette mother, became my and characters – a cross between street them that that following the incident childhood hero – she was out on the theatre and history. women were forbidden to enter the streets belting out her ‘Sister “Our ‘walk’ covers a decade of British Museum unless accompanied Suffragette’ protest song and history in one and a half hours. We tell by a man! demanding votes for women.” the story of how women won the vote, “The picture slashing often attracts Mary’s synchronicity with the the tactics they used and the the attention of the police. They see our costumes and banners and think we are going to start a demonstration. We ask them if they will join us for the votes for women march – our irony is not always appreciated. “Trafalgar Square has been the backdrop to many of the great moments in political history. In 1908 Mrs Pankhurst defiantly clambered OF PROGRESS onto Nelson’s Column and urged her supporters to ‘rush the House of Commons’. We give out copies of her suffragettes continued when she personalities involved – all done with rallying leaflet to inspire our crowd. started working as an actress. “I kept fast moving scenarios, songs and jokes. “This is followed by a scene being cast as Emmeline Pankhurst” she “We begin with one of the most illustrating women training for says. “I played her in street theatre notorious incidents in women’s protests. We ‘practise’ throwing stones shows, educational plays, community suffrage, unfurling a copy of the iconic at windows – something Mrs performances – Mrs Pankhurst and me painting The Rokeby Venus outside the Pankhurst never mastered – and draw were destined to keep meeting.” National Gallery. In March 1914 Mary clandestine chalk messages on the When Mary qualified as a Blue Raleigh Richardson entered the gallery pavement – a quick way of alerting Badge Guide in 2010, she once again and slashed the painting seven times women to a rally. turned to her suffragette alter ego. “As with a meat cleaver. “At a post-box on Northumberland a history guide I was keen to tell the “We read Mary’s defiant statement: Avenue we stage an act of defiance story of women’s struggle for ‘Emmeline Pankhurst is the most frequently used by individual 33 Tour de force Tour Black Friday Ada Wright The Women’s March 2017 Emmeline Pankhurst addresses crowd

suffragettes – setting fire to a votes. In November 1910, a bill the victory for women’s rights. In letterbox. They would pour in petrol reached Westminster to give the vote 1918 Westminster passed an act and throw in a match – apologies to to some one million women. Prime granting the vote to eight million the postmen in the West End who Minister Asquith quashed the bill women over the age of 30. The have come across cardboard prop and 300 women descended on following year Nancy Astor became matches on their rounds. Westminster in defiance. Some 200 of the first woman MP to take her seat “The postal service was used to them were physically assaulted in a in parliament. 2018 will be the 100th protest the Prime Minister’s six-hour struggle with the police. anniversary of women’s suffrage.” opposition to the women’s “There is evidence that the Prime In February, this year Mary and movement. Two suffragettes turned Minister encouraged the police to her team donned their costumes to themselves into ‘human letters’ brutalise the women. One officer lead the women’s march in London. addressed to Asquith, but the police pulled up a woman’s skirt and threw “We need to protect our rights and blocked them from being ‘delivered’ her into the crowd shouting ‘treat make sure that women across the to Number 10. her as you wish’. The Daily Mirror world get the vote. What the “Outside Scotland Yard we hand featured a picture of a woman on the Pankhursts did is, unfortunately, as out song sheets so everyone can learn ground surrounded by men and relevant today as it was a century the Women’s March. ‘Shoulder to police. The government demanded it ago. Our walk celebrates their Shoulder, Friend to Friend’ has a very be removed from the front page. struggle and reminds people that the high bit in the middle – we joke that “The protest became known as fight is not yet over.” it was written so that men couldn’t Black Friday. Three women died as a sing it. result of injuries from the police Find out about the suffragette walks at “Parliament Square is where we action including Mary Clark, www.womenonthewalk.co.uk or visit follow the story of the darkest Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister. www.britainsbestguides.org moment in the fight for women’s “In Parliament Square we mark

There is evidence that the Prime Minister encouraged the police to brutalise the women www.britainsbestguides.org

34 Suffragettes demonstrating outside the Police Court ADVERTISING FEATURE

VISIT PARLIAMENT German-born Jeff Chalker spent 18 months studying to be a professional Blue Badge Guide. Having qualified in 2010, he says, “I’ve been learning to guide ever since!”

Jeff began guiding at the Houses of Parliament in Much of the building’s appeal comes from its 2011 and leads tours in German as well as English. quirky traditions and from Jeff’s experience, the He is passionate about the building and rituals surrounding the State Opening are always recommends it as a ‘must-visit’ attraction. “The popular. “For example, since the Gunpowder Plot Palace of Westminster is probably London’s most in 1605, the Yeomen of the Guard search the recognised landmark. It is home to one of the cellars before every State Opening, and also a oldest and most influential institutions in the member of the Commons is sent to Buckingham world. Many visitors come from countries whose Palace as a hostage against the safe return of systems of government are modelled on ours. the Queen.” “Britain is rich in sites of historical and cultural Guiding in English can be challenging as interest, but Parliament is unique in also being the groups often consist of different nationalities with setting for current political events. The tour is full differing language abilities. “Guiding in a foreign of highlights, which could be the beauty of the language is easier, as everyone is likely to have interiors, the history, or a connection with last the same level of comprehension.” And the night’s news on the television. My favourite room question Jeff is most frequently asked? “People is Members Lobby. Being next to the Commons, it often ask what would happen if the Queen is easy to imagine it crowded with backbenchers, refused to give assent to a Bill. No monarch has ministers and whips. Visitors like to see the pigeon- refused assent for over 300 years, so if it happened holes with all 650 MP’s names on display.” now it would cause a constitutional crisis!” Blue Badge Guided Tours of the Houses of Parliament are available every Saturday and on most weekdays between late July and early October.

To book tickets go to www.parliament.uk/visit or call 020 7219 4114.

35 The fun way to DISCOVER MORE OF LONDON

This is a quiz book with a difference Come out on 22 themed tours in and around London, each with challenging questions and detailed – often surprising – answers.

These are no ordinary tours and this is not your usual quiz, because London is no ordinary city.

The ideal gift is now on sale in your local bookshop and online. Available in paperback and e-book.

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