DISCOVER BRITAIN WITH BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES Gthue ide SUMMER 2019

PARK LIFE Discover Britain’s National Parks

INSIDE BIZARRE STORIES FROM BRITISH HISTORY • SIX SPECIAL PLACES TO VISIT

THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN

A DICKENSIAN TOUR OF LONDON Downton Abbey at the movies l

The fun way to DISCOVER MORE OF LONDON, LIVERPOOL AND EDINBURGH

Quiz books with a difference

Come out on our themed tours in and around London, Liverpool and Edinburgh, each with challenging questions and detailed – often surprising – answers.

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

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

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3 NEWS History, Culture and Events Suited and Rebooted Ed Glinert, Manchester Green Badge Guide The upstairs and downstairs of Downton Abbey is back, this time with a big screen BRITAIN’S BEST GUIDES film version out this autumn. The movie takes place in 1927, telling the story of George V’s visit to the family home and the problems this causes for a household Blue Badge Tourist Guides are the official, professional tourist guides unprepared to cater for such a distinguished guest. of the United Kingdom – recognised The cast features Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham and Maggie Smith by the local tourist bodies and as the Dowager Countess. Locations include Highclere Castle, the Carnarvon VisitBritain. There are over 1,000 Blue Badge family home in Hampshire; Brampton in the Cotswolds, which doubles as the Guides in England, Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire village of Downton; and the Beamish Museum in County Durham Northern Ireland – each region and nation which showcases life in rural and industrial north-east England at the turn of has its own badge. They guide in all the UK’s the century. Find a Blue Badge Guide for a tour of these locations at major tourist attractions, as well as its cities britainsbestguides.org and countryside.

Green Badge Guides have expert local knowledge of particular towns and cities. White Badge Guides have detailed knowledge of their specific site. TYGER AT THE TATE In 2018 Guild guides ran over 100,000 tours, taking 1.8 million visitors to hundreds of places across Britain

British Guild of Tourist Guides is the national association of Britain’s guides. Since its foundation in 1950, the Guild has dedicated itself to raising and maintaining the highest professional standards and meeting our visitors’ needs. Newton – William Blake Our guides work in the UK’s museums, galleries, churches and lead walking, The largest William Blake exhibition in decades comes to London this autumn. Best known for cycling, coach, car and driver-guided tours the words to the anthemic hymn Jerusalem and the poem The Tyger, Blake was also a skilled throughout the country. Our members and prolific artist, never truly recognised in his lifetime. work in over 30 different languages. Tate Britain is exhibiting over 300 original watercolours, paintings and prints – as well as recreating the cramped domestic Soho room where Blake lived and worked. To find out more or to book: Other highlights include his image of Newton – the inspiration for Eduardo Paolozzi’s statue +44 20 7403 1115 outside the British Library – and the miniature painting Ghost of a Flea, painted following a www.britainsbestguides.org séance-induced vision in which the insect spoke to Blake.

4 from around the UK

Highclere Castle © Visit Britain Wood You Believe It Forest Live Concert

Forest Run

To celebrate the centenary, there will be events all around the This year marks the centenary of the Forestry Commission. It was country, including a special garden by Sarah Eberle at the Chelsea founded in September 1919, with a mission to restore the nation’s Flower Show illustrating the importance of protecting the nation’s woods and forests following the First World War. Today it is the woods and forests. There will be 10km runs in locations including country’s largest landowner, looking after over 1,500 forests around Sherwood Forest and the Forest of Dean, and a series of woodland the UK. concerts by artists such as Paul Weller and Tears For Fears. 5 MY FAVOURITE Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK

...MARKET Borough Market

...is Borough Market. It’s such a gem, tucked away under railway bridges on London’s busy Southbank. There has been a market here for over a thousand years, but the 21st century version combines the best of British – fish and chips, local beers, English apples – with Portuguese pastry and French cheese. You can imagine Shakespeare visiting the market as we know he was a parishioner at the local church, Southwalk Cathedral – maybe it’s where he came for a glass of excellent wine and fresh oysters. Olga Romano, London Blue Badge Guide, olga_tango @yahoo.com

...CASTLE

...is Stirling Castle. It offers wonderful views to all points of the compass, from the River Forth’s flood plain to the start of the Highlands. Scotland’s nationhood started

nearby: at Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge of Braveheart d n a l t

fame. Inside the castle there are living quarters and o c S

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historic buildings. It’s always a pleasure i s i V to take people here and introduce them to the castle’s ©

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history – especially its superb Great Hall and Royal Chapel. l t s a C

David Tucker, Scottish Blue Badge Tourist Guide g n i

dave.tucker @me.com l r e t S

Beaulieu ...is the Secret Army Exhibition at Beaulieu Motor Museum in ...EXHIBITION the New Forest. During the Second World War, Beaulieu acted as a secret training ground for undercover agents parachuted into Nazi- occupied France. Its display cases are like Q’s workshop in an early Bond movie with maps hidden in shaving brushes and pistols in cigarette cases. I am fascinated by the people who worked here, including Beaulieu graduate Nancy Wake, one of the Allies’ most highly decorated servicewomen and once the Gestapo’s most wanted person. Richard Madden, South East Blue Badge Guide, www.richardmadden.co.uk 6 ATTRACTIONS • THEATRES • TOUR OPERATORS • COACH COMPANIES • RIVER AND CRUISE LINES • HOTELS • TOURIST OFFICES & MORE! Register now to attend the BIGGEST event for group travel in 2019... an i’ completel fre!

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t e h & Quick and easy online registration is now open for you to visit n O y c e Britain’s biggest and most important group travel show! With t o K b n e ample free parking just outside the Marshall Arena. r to 2 il 0 M 19 K, • S M . tadium n so rd a h c i

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When: 10th October 2019 • Where: Marshall Arena, Stadium MK, Milton Keynes w: www.grouptravelshow.com t: 0843 178 1281 Celebrity appearances subject to change. *Terms and conditions apply.

INTERESTED IN EXHIBITING? CONTACT SHARON YANDELL ON 01908 613323 OR EMAIL [email protected]

ROGER BAILEY Heart of England (Midlands) Blue Badge Tourist Guide

Coventry Heart of England Green Badge Tourist Guide RoGER BailEy

Offers groups guided walking and coach tours of locations which include the following: Coventry – City of Culture for 2021 Birmingham – Commonwealth Games for 2022 Stratford upon Avon – William Shakespeare Cradle to Grave Oxford – City of writers and films/TV locations Leicester – King Richard III The Cotswolds and more …. Also conference support, familiarisation trips, airport and hotel transfers, shopping breaks and more….

Tel: 024 7669 1212 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] www.bluebadgetouristguide.co.uk

7 Curbar Edge © Peak District National Park e r u t a e F

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8 This year our national parks celebrate their 70th birthday. Sophie Campbell walks us through their story A GREAT STEP r wArD Do you ever think about them? I mean really think about has never been a criminal offence in this country, bar some them, as you sling on a backpack to walk across the recent anti-terror legislation). Three weeks later, 10,000 landscape, or stay in a B&B, or go to a remote pub, or walkers held a right-to-roam rally in Castleton, and slowly photograph the view in one of our national parks? Of but surely the tide began to turn. course, they’re there! It’s our land, isn’t it? There are now 15 national parks across the UK: 10 in Well, it wasn’t always that way – not until the National England, three in Wales, two in Scotland, though currently Parks and Access to the Countryside Act was passed in none in Northern Ireland. The first was the Peak District in 1949, enabling the designation of protected areas in the 1951, and the most recent was the South Downs National UK. And that was the result of persistent campaigning in Park in 2011. They make up five per cent of Britain, and the parliament from the 1880s, pressure from lobby groups and, government is conducting a review to see if we need more. in particular, the incident once described by the politician, Even London is becoming a ‘National Park City’, with a Roy Hattersley, as “the most successful direct action in festival from July 20-28. British history” – the mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. They’re an amazing resource for our health, rural That April, three groups of ramblers converged on a hill traditions, history, heritage, outdoor activities and the in the Dark Peak, Derbyshire, on land owned by the Duke sheer restorative power of nature. Time to get your walking of Devonshire, skirmishing with gamekeepers on the way. boots on – or at least head to a very picturesque national Several went to prison for assault (not for trespass, which park pub. o t o h P

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t PEAK DISTRICT NATIONAL PARK a e

F Our oldest national park is generously placed – easy to reach from Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and Sheffield. It’s split into the limestone region or White Peak to the south, surrounded by a horseshoe of forbidding gritstone, and the Dark Peak, to the north. SEE Haddon Hall, Bakewell: Prince Humperdinck’s castle from The Princess Bride is a 900-year-old fortified manor house, recently used in the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots. Its Long Gallery has tiny windowpanes ingeniously angled to catch the sun. EAT/DRINK The George at Alstonefield near Dovedale – good grub, good pub, fine wines.

Haddon Hall

WALK The George Pub, Dovedale The National Trust’s Kinder Trespass Walk yomps over the moors and tors of the High Peak, tough walking for eight miles. Gentler souls should potter from Ilam village down pretty Dovedale, in the White Peak, to the river stepping stones.

It’s not called the Peak District because of the mountains (there are none – only hills). The name probably Peak District © Visit Britain comes from the Anglo Saxon ‘Pecsaetan’, after a tribe 10 in the area. Goodwood House was enlarged by the first Duke of Richmond, son of King Charles II and his mistress, Louise de Kérouaille, nicknamed ‘Squintabella’ by Nell Gwyn. Fulking Escarpement, South Downs © Robert Maynard SOUTH DOWNS NATIONAL PARK

This newbie is our 10th and most populous national park vernacular buildings, crafts, agriculture and industry – and it with a dazzling variety of gentle southern scenery, from stages brilliant events. rolling downs to chalk cliffs. It’s mainly inland, just joining the sea by the Seven Sisters. The South Downs Way runs WALK through it like a spine. The Alice Holt in Hampshire is a 600-acre forest, the remains of a far larger woodland that once supplied timber SEE for English ships. The trees are glorious, and it’s easy-access, The Weald & Downland Living Museum at Singleton with cycling, walking and wheelchair-friendly and children’s opened in 1970, a charming reminder that the south east is trails (try the Gruffalo Trail). not all BMWs and golf courses. Its collections cover rescued

Weald and Downland Museum 11

e r u t a e F St Mary Church, Abergavenny

SEE The mind-bogglingly beautiful St Mary’s Priory Church in Abergavenny is Grade-I listed, has the second-largest collection of tombs of any UK church and has an intact 15th-century Tree of Jesse. Then nip into BRECON BEACONS NATIONAL PARK the lovely Broadleaf Books, just opposite.

A spectacular chunk of south Wales with four mountain

ranges and dramatic glacial geology. It was designated in n i a t i

1957, the last of the Welsh parks, and became an r B

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International Dark Sky Reserve in 2013. It’s dotted with s i V

churches, castles and hill forts. ©

Pen y Fan, Brecon Beacons t s u r T

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Brecon Beacons Cathedral Cave, a limestone cavern 500 feet below ground in the National Showcaves Centre for Wales, on the south edge

of the park, has a Cathedral Cave, Limestone Cavern wedding licence WALK The Offa’s Dyke Trail from Hay Bluff to 12th-century Llanthony Priory. It runs almost 2,000 feet above sea level, with sensational views, before dipping down to the priory. End at the pub in the crypt or, going the other way, the Blue Boar in Hay- on-Wye. Maen Llia Standing Stone Brecon Beacons

12 m o c . k c o t s

NORTH YORK MOORS r e t t u h S / r e m

It’s got everything this national park (typical Yorkshire): l u B

heather moorlands, managed for valuable red grouse; k r a

woodlands and rivers; monastic foundations, including M St Mary’s Lastingham, Yorkshire some fine abbeys; and a glorious coast of sweeping beaches © n and steep fishing villages. i a t i r B

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SEE s i V

The 24-mile long, 180-year old, volunteer-run North © Yorkshire Moors Railway crosses the moor between Pickering and Whitby. Its stations reflect particular eras, and 1922-styled Goathland is most famous for its role as Hogsmeade Station in Harry Potter. WALK Rosedale Chimney Bank is bang in the middle of the moor, with arches and a chimney that once belonged to an ironstone mine. It has a trail running along the railway that Goathland Station once carried ore, with fabulous views over the village of Rosedale Abbey in the valley. n i a t i r B

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North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Goathland

Cleveland Way, North Yorkshire Moors n i a t i r B

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The Yorkshire stages of the Tour de France 2014 avoided the infamous Chimney Bank hill climb – over 30% gradient in parts, while European climbs rarely exceed 10 per cent.

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DARTMOOR NATIONAL PARK a © e F These wild Devonshire moorlands erupt into dark granite outcrops known as ‘tors’, landmarks in their own right. It’s a mysterious place, with 5,000 hut circles, the longest stone row in the world on Stall Moor and Britain’s southernmost blanket bogs. SEE The Dartmoor Prison Museum, across the road from HMP Dartmoor and isolated mid-moor, is a real insight into incarceration since the 18th century (it once held French and American POWs). Easy to imagine the eerie escape sirens going off. EAT/DRINK Make for Widecombe-in-the-Moor, famous for its autumn fair, where the cottagey Rugglestone Inn and the Old Inn both serve good food (including cream teas) and have outdoor space enlivened by oinking and clucking farm animals.

Stone Row, Dartmoor

Dartmoor Prison from the air

WALK A five-mile circular walk takes in Haytor, Holwell Tor, Saddle Tor and Hound Tor. The latter, allegedly a hunter and his hounds turned to stone, is said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Rugglestone Inn, Dartmoor

There were three granite quarries on Dartmoor: Foggintor Quarry, now flooded into a deep lake, supplied the granite for Nelson’s Column and the London Bridge built in the 19th century.

14 Britain’s largest butterfly, the swallowtail, has two false eyes and two false antennae and lives only in Norfolk. Find it early on windless summer days at nature reserves – see Norfolk Wildlife Trust n i a t i r B

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Horsey Mere, Norfolk BROADS NATIONAL PARK

Unique among national parks, the Broads is one of our ‘boom’ in January and February) and a remaining wind largest inland navigation areas and our largest protected pump (with café) on one of its walls, now run by the wetland. Formed of early peat diggings across Norfolk and National Trust. Suffolk, it has nine national nature reserves and 28 sites of special scientific interest. WALK Follow Suffolk’s River Waveney from the Old Bridge in the SEE pretty market town of Beccles (check out the parish church) Horsey Mere, near the Norfolk coast, is the only broad to be through the wide open south broads, all marshes and dykes, called a ‘mere’ because it is walled. It has bitterns (the males to Geldeston Locks, where you can swim in the river. n

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LOCH LOMOND AND THE TROSSACHS

This beautiful park, designated in 2002, stretches north from the Clyde Valley and covers 720 square miles of forest and hill country (the Trossachs boasts 21 Munros and 20 Corbetts) riven Robert MacGregor, by 22 significant lochs, the largest of which is Loch Lomond. aka Rob Roy, the SEE Jacobite-era brigand romanticised by Sir Plot a route using the Scenic Route Viewpoints dotted around Walter Scott, was the wilderness, designed by young architects to sit as lightly as possible on the landscape. For example, John Kennedy’s ‘Woven born by Loch Sound’ is a steel trellis cantilevered over the Falls of Falloch. Katrine and signed himself ‘Roy’ or WALK ‘Red’ in reference to A great start is the four-mile stroll from Bracklinn Falls car park, his hair on the south east edge of the park, which switchbacks around past the falls themselves and up on to Callander Crags, with wonderful views of the Trossachs to the west.

We have 1,000 guides across the country, and many of them specialise in walking and nature 15 tours in our national parks. Book your Blue Badge Guide at britainsbestguides.org OLD TWIT Twitter was invented 600 years ago. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer coined the word in a philosophy book written in the 1380s. Rather than a 140 terse characters, the book ran to over 100 pages.

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1 Yan 6 Tayter Baa Code 2 Tan 7 Layter 3 Tethera 8 Overa On hill farms in more remote parts 4 Peddera 9 Covera of Britain some farmers still count 5 Pit 10 Dix sheep using the ancient Celtic language. Yan Tan Tethera is a two-millennia-old counting system.

16 © istock.com / Sm0lt0n Blonds are better than brunettes when taking penalties. According to a 2014 statistical analysis of penalty taking by the late great cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking,

blond footballers are 15 per cent more likely to score in Fotolia / Moye Patrick © penalty shootouts than dark-haired players. Hair NET JAW

DROPPING vectorstock.com/UncleLeo Richard II is buried in Westminster Abbey. th century king’s The 14 Fotolia / NDS tomb was left partly open until a Westminster Юрий Слащев Юрий Слащев schoolboy stole his jawbone © in 1776. The jaw was returned in 1906. ES,AND iStock.com/bennyb

FICTION FROM BRITISH HISTORY

TIME FLIES In 1949 a flock of starlings slowed down the Big Ben clock

by 4½ minutes by sitting on the vectorstock.com/Baz777 iStock.com/tigerstrawberry minute hand.

17 iStock.com/merfin e r u t a e F NEW ROMAN TIMES Marc Zakian looks at how the Romans changed Britain

Running water, toilets, medicine, wine, education, public health, law and (obviously) roads. That is – according to the classic comedy film The Life of Brian – what the Romans did for us. But is it true? And what is the legacy of the 400-year Roman occupation of Britain? n o s d r a h c i

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HAIL CAESAR In 43AD, Emperor Claudius marched his army to the damp, dark edge of western Europe. Across the choppy English channel was Albion, a country ruled by belligerent Celtic tribes. Four legions – 22,000 soldiers – crossed the water. They rampaged their way up the River Thames, killing the Celtic king Togodumnus and claiming south-east England for the Roman THE ROMANS USED Empire. URINE AS A They named the new colony Britannia, MOUTHWASH AND establishing a capital city at Camulodunum – TO KEEP THEIR TEETH modern day Colchester. To frighten the locals, the WHITE AND CLEAN. Romans displayed a troop of military elephants in the city centre. Never seen before in Britain, to the cowed Celts these beasts appeared like magical other-world creatures, symbols of a new world order. Britain would never be the same again. 19 2 0

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Roman Soldier © WHAT THE ROMANS DID FOR WAR The success of the Roman Empire was based on military prowess. The ballista was a crossbow combined with a catapult, used to fire arrows and stones up to 300 metres – one arrow shot could kill two men. Mount the ballista on a cart and you have a four- wheeled carroballista – the prototype tank. Each legion was armed with 55 carroballistas, manned by specialist artillerymen. The onager – named after the wild ass because of its ‘kick’ – was a giant catapult that would launch 25kg stones into enemy lines. The imperial Roman soldier was a paid professional. A legionary had to be over 17 years old, a Roman citizen and was screened for height and strength. They served for 25 years and if they survived, they were pensioned off with a plot of farmland and a bonus of 13-years’ wages. Only half of them lived to retirement age. Old soldiers often retired together in military towns called ‘colonia’ – there were three in INE Roman Britain: Camulodunum, Lindum (Lincoln) and Glevum N CUIS ROMA ’S (Gloucester). A SOW LUDED INC WITH An auxiliary soldier was not a Roman citizen. Paid a third of a legionary’s FILLED WOMB A wage, auxiliaries guarded forts and frontiers and fought in battles, often in NS AND S’ BRAI PIG ACK OF the front line where it was most dangerous. OOD SN FAST-F OUSE. A soldier wearing body armour and carrying a shield, spear, dagger and a D DORM STUFFE gladius sword (giving us the word gladiator) was expected to march for 18.5 miles in five hours with a 20kg backpack. If a Roman legion showed cowardice in battle, they risked the punishment by decimation – literally destroying every 10th man. A cohort (480 soldiers) selected for decimation was divided into groups of 10. Each group drew lots, and the soldier who drew the shortest straw was executed by his nine remaining comrades, usually by stoning, clubbing or stabbing. ANCIE NT ROM CHARIO AN TEERS W MAKE OULD A SPOR OUT TS DRI OF POW NK D DERED UNG A GOAT ND VIN EGAR.

21

e r BUILDING THE WALL u

t The invading Romans moved north into Scotland. Unable to Vindolanda is the most famous of the wall’s 16 forts. a subdue the bellicose Picts, they retreated south to construct A cache of wooden writing tablets was discovered there in e

F one of history’s great monuments – Hadrian’s Wall. 1973, including letters home in which Roman officers Begun in 122AD, it took 15,000 soldiers six years to pleaded for relatives to send socks, vests, cloaks and complete. The wall runs for 73 miles from the River Tyne in underpants to keep them warm during the cold the east to Solway Firth in the west, with 16 large forts, Northumbrian winter. milecastles and lookout turrets. The wall marked the At Housesteads Roman Fort archaeologists uncovered a western edge of the empire – the place where Roman military treatment centre with small metal implements used ‘civilisation’ ended. for eye operations and a communal latrine. There was no Hadrian’s Wall was the largest structure in the classical toilet paper – Romans used a sponge on a stick – with water world, with 1,000 Roman soldiers patrolling its span. There piped from the top of the fort to flush the sewage away. were, however, very few actual ‘Romans’ stationed on the Today, around 10 per cent of the wall is still visible, and its wall. The military came from across the empire – Turkey, museums house some of the most important Roman Germany, Spain and Judea in the Middle East. During the remains in Europe. third century AD, a unit of north Africans was garrisoned at the western end of the wall, forming the first ever African community in Britain.

Hadrian’s Wall

TH E ROM 1 ANS 0,000 BUIL E B MILES T SOM USES WER RITAI OF R E PHALL N – W OADS OD-LUCK OF IDE A IN IDERED GO TEN W ND ST CONS E ITH RAIG . THEY WER THE PAVED HT, CHARMS MOD STRE N CHARMS FOLL ERN ETS. AS ROMA OW T A2 AN WORN UNG ST HE R D A5 CES OR H REET OMAN N NECKLA , WHI WAT O S WIND FRO LE TH LING OORWAYS A M YO E A59 IN D WARD RK RU AND A A WAY TO O N AL 1 CHIMES AS LD D ONG T IRITS. ERE ST HE OFF EVIL SP REET.

22 THE ROMANS GAVE US THE MILE. 1,000 IS MILLE IN LATIN AND 1,000 PACES AND MADE UP THE ROMAN MILE.

Latrine at Housesteads

A Roman Curse The Romans used a sponge on a stick – with water piped from the top of the fort to flush the sewage away

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PLUMBING TAKES ITS N AME FROM p LumBum – Roman Baths LATIN FOR LEAD – BECAUSE THE ROMANS CONSTRUCTED PIPES FROM LEAD. PAX ROMANA FROM GODS TO GOD Roman rule brought order and organisation to Britannia. Iron Age tribal centres were transformed into Roman settlements, and within a century most of the 20 or so large British towns had a full set of public buildings, regular street grids, market squares, basilicas (assembly rooms), Chi-Rho symbol temples, theatres, bathhouses, from Lullingstone amphitheatres and shops. Roman Villa, Kent Though the architecture was Roman, those in charge were not. The towns army who fought to bring him to were administered by local rulers who, power. In victory, he made in the space of a generation or two, Christianity the official religion of converted themselves from Celtic the Roman Empire – so you could

warriors into toga toting, Romanised n say that Britain was the birthplace of i a t i

gentlemen and women – citizens of a r Roman Catholicism. B

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60-million-strong empire covering s i V Statue of Constantine in York three continents. © THE END OF THE Britannia was the location for one of the most important transformations ROMAN ROAD in world history. In 410AD, the citizens of Britannia In 305AD, Emperor Constantius sent a letter to the Roman emperor, and his son, Constantine, came to asking him to come to their aid Britain. Constantius died in 306AD against the Saxon invaders. He wrote in York, and the Roman army in back telling them to “look to their Britain proclaimed his son emperor. own defences’’. Four hundred years Constantine adopted the Christian of imperial influence in Britannia was Chi-Rho symbol as a talisman for his ended. The country was on its own. 24 WHAT TO SEE IN ROMAN BRITAIN LONDON The Romans settled and named Londinium. By the first century AD, with 60,000 inhabitants, it had replaced Camulodunum as the capital city. THE ROMAN WALL Roman Wall From 200AD, London was defined by one structure – its six-metre high city wall. From Tower Hill in the east to Blackfriars station in the west, the wall stretched for two miles around the ancient city. Fragments of the wall still stand – one piece is in the Tower of London, another in a City of London car park. THE AMPHITHEATRE In 1988, after over 100 years of searching, archaeologists found London’s lost Roman amphitheatre hidden beneath Guildhall yard. Built in 70AD to accommodate 6,000 people for animal shows, public executions and gladiatorial combat, the remains can be visited via the Guildhall Art Gallery and include its original walls, drainage system and vomitorium – not where people were sick after a bloody spectacle but the entrance and exit ways. www.cityoflondon.gov.uk London Mithraeum TEMPLE OF MITHRAS In Wallbrook, in 1954, builders unearthed a Mithraic temple. Mithraism was a mystery religion that flourished throughout the Roman empire, especially among soldiers. A legend tells of three magi who followed a star to where Mithras was born on the winter solstice (Christmas), a god of light to be worshipped on Sundays. The remains of the temple are presented in the multimedia Bloomberg Roman museum. londonmithraeum.com There are world-leading Roman collections in the British Museum and the Museum of London. museumoflondon.org.uk BATH The city of Bath is the site of a huge first century AD bathing complex, developed around Britain’s only natural hot springs. The Romans adopted the local Celtic British Museum Courtyard and Roman Statue god, Sulis, and built Aquae Sulis, a luxury spa with hot and cold pools. Fast-

forward 2,000 years, and you can wander around the magnificent great bath and t s u r

visit the extensive museum telling the story of the bath and its visitors – including T

l a coins, hair pins and curse tablets thrown into the sacred waters. This year, a £5 n o i t million project introduces new areas, including a laconicum (dry sweating room) a N

and exercise courtyard. romanbaths.co.uk © COTSWOLDS The Romans created the Cotswolds by introducing the new breed of long-wool sheep that became the backbone of the local economy. Chedworth Roman Villa is one of the UK’s most extensive Roman ruins, with mosaics, a hypocaust, two bath houses and a temple. www.nationaltrust.org.uk Cirencester, known as Corinium Dobunnorum, was once the second largest Roman settlement in Britain. Chedworth Roman Villa The town’s Roman attractions include an extensive earthwork, remains of a large Roman amphitheatre and the Corinium Museum. coriniummuseum.org We have Blue Badge guides FISHBOURNE ROMAN PALACE throughout the UK who can Near Chichester is home to the remains of the largest residential Roman building guide you at Roman sites and ever discovered in Britain. Much of the palace has been excavated and is preserved, take you on tours in museums. along with an on-site museum and a part-reconstructed garden. sussexpast.co.uk To organise your tour, go to Also in West Sussex, Bignor Roman Villa is a large excavated Roman courtyard villa with world-class mosaic floors featuring depictions of Venus and reluctant britainsbestguides.org cherub gladiators, Ganymede being carried off by an eagle and the four seasons. bignorromanvilla.co.uk CHESTER Known to the Romans by the name of Castra Deva – ‘the military camp on the River Dee’ – Chester began life as a fort occupied by the 20th Legion. For more than three centuries it was one of the most important military bases in the Roman Empire. Visit remains of the amphitheatre and a garden with Roman tombstones and a temple. english-heritage.org.uk 25 Chester. Remains of Hypercaust 2 6 www.britainsbestguides.org Photos: Marc Zakian Tour de Force Blue Badge Guide Gina Mullett takes us on a Dickensian tour of London

CHARLES DICKENS’ MAGIC LANTERN

“London made Charles Dickens, and Charles Dickens made London,” says Gina Mullett. “No other writer has been so influenced by the capital, or so defined its story, to the extent that ‘Dickensian’ is the default description for the harsh conditions of the Victorian metropolis. “I recognise his descriptions of London from my own family’s lives. They were old East Enders: my great-grandad was a rag and bone man on Brick Lane and music hall singer Marie Lloyd was a distant cousin. Maybe that’s why when I first read his books I identified with his characters – particularly the women. As soon as I qualified as a Blue Badge Guide, I started offering Dickens walks. “Dickens’ London story began in 1822. He arrived at the age of 10 ‘packed like game’ in the damp straw of a coach’s upholstery at the Cross Keys Tavern on Wood Street. His father, John, had taken a job in the navy pay office, and the Dickens family settled in Camden Town. “John Dickens was a loving but irresponsible father. In 1824, following bankruptcy, he was sent to Marshalsea debtors’ prison. Charles had to leave school and take a job sticking labels on shoe polish bottles in Warren’s Blacking Factory. “Charles trudged the three miles across town from his lodgings in Camden to work at the dark, dank Thameside factory. On Sundays he would walk across London Bridge to visit his mother and father in the Marshalsea.

27 under the pen name Boz. These vignettes of London life e

c were published in newspapers before being collected into r a book. o

F “During this period Dickens met and fell disastrously in

e love with Maria Beadnell. Maria’s City banker father

d disapproved of the lowly legal clerk, while her mother

r continually referred to him as Mr Dicken. Maria finally

u rejected the devastated Charles, who took revenge by o writing her into David Copperfield as the beautiful but T childish Dora. “Twenty years later Maria contacted Dickens. Her husband’s business had failed, and she sought help from the wealthy and famous writer. They met, but romance was not rekindled – Dickens rather cruelly reporting her as Marshalsea Prison ‘toothless, fat, old and ugly’. “He did, however, find love with the daughter of a fellow “He was scarred by the experience, remarking: ‘It’s journalist, Catherine Hogarth. The couple married at St wonderful to me how I could so easily have been cast away Luke’s Church in Chelsea and set up home in Doughty at such an age… I suffered exquisitely.’ Away from middle- Street. Today this elegant Georgian house in Holborn – the class comforts, he pictured himself as a ‘little labouring only surviving London Dickens’ residence – is a museum hind’, working alongside poor children with no education. celebrating the writer’s life. One of them ‘in a ragged apron and a paper cap’ was Bob “Dickens’ fortunes continued to rise. He was serialising Fagin – a name Dickens used in Oliver Twist. Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist for the growing number of “In 1825, an inheritance allowed John Dickens to clear his literate Victorians in his tuppenny weekly magazine debts and leave prison. Charles expected to escape the Household Words. Everybody read Dickens, even Queen humiliation of the factory, but his mother insisted he stay on Victoria who loved Oliver Twist. Charles was celebrity of his to earn money. Though he eventually returned to school, he times – wealthy, famous and successful. never forgave his mother. “Fictional stories ran alongside social reportage, with “At 15 Dickens took a job as a legal clerk in the City. He Dickens chronicling the struggle of the working poor: one had little respect for the lawyers, who were motivated by article recounted the tragic story of a woman who lost her money, not justice. He satirised their avarice in Bleak House, arm in an factory accident. the story of a legal case that continues for generations. “In 1849, Dickens joined a crowd of 30,000 at “Dickens’ literary career started with a series of sketches Horsemonger Lane Gaol in south London to witness a Dickens’ House, Doughty Street

“Dickens’ fortunes continued to n a i

k rise. He was serialising Pickwick a Z

c Papers and Oliver Twist for the r a M

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magazine Household Words ”

g r o . s e d i u g t s e b s n i a t i r b .

w Dickens at his Desk w w

28 with Ellen, but his secret was nearly exposed when travelling with her on a train that crashed in Kent. Dickens tended to the dying and injured but left the scene to avoid being seen with his mistress. “Five years later to the day, in 1870, he died of a stroke in his home – some biographers believe brought about by the stress of his secret affair. It was Dickens’ wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, but Queen Victoria insisted he be given Horsemonger Lane Gaol a place in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey – a great London building for a great London writer. public hanging. Sickened and haunted by the event, he “Fifteen novels and five novellas place Dickens among the campaigned for the hangings at Newgate Prison – now the great pantheon of English storytellers. Much of this was site of the Old Bailey – to be taken off the streets. In 1868, inspired by his life in London, the city he called his ‘magic the authorities finally relented and moved the executions lantern’. The great man shone a light in every corner.” inside. “The horror of Newgate is reflected in Fagin’s last night alive in Oliver Twist. From Oliver Twist to Pickwick Papers prisons formed a constant theme in his stories, and Dickens spent years working to change the system. “Dickens also worked to reform Smithfield Market. The massive growth of the Victorian city turned this ancient open-air cattle market into an urban bloodbath. He hated seeing the animals suffer and following a campaign live slaughter at Smithfield ended. “In 1857, Dickens – who loved the theatre – directed a play by his friend, the author Wilkie Collins. During the production he fell in love with the 18-year-old actress Ellen Ternan. The celebrated author could not risk a scandal, so he maintained the illusion of a happy family life while ostracising his wife – now the mother of 10 children – by building a dividing wall in their bedroom. “Dickens set off on a punishing tour of public readings around the country. This allowed him to escape London For a Dickens tour with Gina Mullett go to ginamullett @hotmail.co.uk “During the production he fell in love with the 18-year-old actress Ellen Ternan”

Ellen Ternan Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise

29 e

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T Badge Guide Warwick Allen tells the story of Salisbury Cathedral HIGH CHURCH

g r o . s e d i u g t s e b s n i a t i r b . w w w

30 “Wiltshire is a county with history in every corner,” says Blue Badge Guide Warwick Allen. “You can’t move far here without stumbling across a Neolithic monument, an ancient hill fort, a ruined abbey or a stately home. But the jewel in the county crown is Salisbury Cathedral. “The grand building, famous for its 404ft spire – the tallest in Britain – is not the original church. That stood in Old Sarum, a flattened hill-top fort that began as an Iron Age settlement, developed as a Roman encampment and Saxon fort before reaching its glory as a Norman bastion. “In 1070, William the Conqueror raised a royal fort at Sarum, and the clergy built a cathedral inside the base walls. It must have been an imposing sight to look up the hill to see a citadel towering over the landscape. Climb up today, stand on the edge of the ditches, and there is a fantastic view across the valley. “But this mighty castle had a big problem. It was too cramped. The army and clergy were squabbling over space and resources, and Sarum gained a reputation for being noisy and cold during the Wiltshire winters. A new home was needed. “According to legend, Richard Poore, the cathedral bishop, fired an arrow from the fort, declaring that ‘where this lands I will build my new church’. The arrow struck a white stag that staggered on and died where the new cathedral was founded – some two miles from Sarum. The truth is that the church owned land by the river, so it was built there. “Work started in 1220 and was completed 38 years later. The masons accomplished a medieval miracle as most large churches take centuries to evolve, with changes bolted on over time. Salisbury’s only addition came a century after completion – its cloud-busting spire. 31 Salisbury Cathedral e c r o F

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Magna Carta

“You can only wonder at the builders’ bravado: if you stand pride of place. Saints were big business in St beneath the spire and look up at the supporting pillars, they Osmond’s day, with thousands of people curve. Supports were added, otherwise it would have fallen making their way to Salisbury – a sort of over – collapsing spires were a feature of medieval churches. ecclesiastic tourist trade. “If that wasn’t perilous enough, the cathedral has “Pilgrims would sleep, pray and touch the foundations that are only four feet deep. It’s built on the gravel relics of the saint. Some would even try to flood plain of the River Avon, the watery base holding it in run off with a piece of bone to start a new place. If it dries out, the whole church will come tumbling shine. St Osmond’s tomb was destroyed in down, so every day a church warden lifts a small stone in the the Reformation, but the slab that covered nave and sticks a five-foot dipping stick into the foundations his body was saved. to make sure there’s water beneath. “The church’s greatest treasure, however, is its copy of “The first person buried in the church was William Magna Carta. This is a precious parchment as only four copies Longspee. A brother and adviser to the king, he was of the original 1215 version survive, and Salisbury’s is the best shipwrecked after fighting in France and died on his return to preserved. This document marked the first time there had England in 1226 – rumoured to have been poisoned by a rival been an attempt to officially limit the powers of the king, and nobleman, Hubert de Burgh. the charter has a central role in British and international “In the late 1700s, the church authorities opened human rights. Longspee’s tomb and discovered the preserved corpse of a rat “My favourite clause, number 39, states that ‘no free man in his skull containing traces of arsenic. The 800-year-old shall be seized or imprisoned… or outlawed or exiled… nor rodent is exhibited in the Salisbury Museum. will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do “St Osmond who had been dead for 120 years when he was so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of buried in the cathedral. Originally interred in Old Sarum, his the land’. This established the right to trial and the rule of law. body was brought to the new cathedral and his shrine given This small document has influenced the English speaking

Old Sarum Salisbury Cathedral by John Constable ©

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32 Oldest Working Clock Richard Poore world and beyond – parliament quotes it, and school students “Stepping out from the church, study it. “Near the entrance to the church is an object that look up at the magnificent west symbolises the timelessness of the building: the oldest working mechanical clock in the world, dating from 1386. It’s front. The setting is unique, not one you could use at home: it has no face and rings on the radiating a sense of timeless calm hour – to date it has ticked more than 4.4 billion times. “Stepping out from the church, look up at the magnificent watched over by dozens of saints” west front. The setting is unique, radiating a sense of timeless calm watched over by dozens of saints whose statues cover the front of the church. It’s such a stunning vista that the artists Constable and Turner were compelled to paint it.” For a tour with Warwick Allen go to wallen05 @gmail.com

Cathedral Nave

33 MY FAVOURITE Blue Badge Guides show you their favourite places around the UK

...CATHEDRAL ...PAINTING ...i s Chichester Cathedral. Outside is a statue of St Richard who wrote the prayer asking God that he ...is the 15th century Doom Painting in might “know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, St Thomas’s church Salisbury. It has follow thee more nearly” – words which became very survived the Reformation and two coats well known in the theme song of the musical Godspell. of whitewash. This vibrant image includes Inside the cathedral are artworks by Marc Chagall, some local characters who would have Graham Sutherland and John Piper, as well as the been known to the congregation 500 years Arundel tomb, immortalised in Philip Larkin’s much- ago, particularly an alewife who ran two loved poem with the lines “what will survive of us is pubs and probably the local brothel. The love”. For me, no cathedral in Britain mixes the painting watches over the modern life of modern and the medieval as well as Chichester – the church: services, music concerts and and none gives a warmer welcome. even an opera – including the premiere of a moving piece about a boy who escaped Edwin Lerner, London Blue Badge Guide, a train bound for Auschwitz. The Doom eddielernertourguide.co.uk Painting’s message of good and evil is still resonant today. Hazel Docherty, London Blue Badge Guide, hazeldoc @btinternet.com

...MUSEUM ...is the Coventry Music Museum. This unique collection tells the story of the local music scene, including Coventry’s Two-Tone, a mix of ska and punk rock that swept through British music during the 70s and 80s. Other favourites include the suit worn by singer Paul King in the video of the chart classic Love and Pride, a music wall of fame and a memorabilia shop. A great day out for nostalgic music fans. Roger Bailey, Heart of England Blue Badge Tourist Guide, Coventry Museum bluebadgecov @aol.com 34 The UK’s largest driver-guiding agency

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