Piers Court, the house where Evelyn Waugh wrote his nostalgic masterpiece Brideshead Revisited, was used as a safe house for Royalists during the Civil War. He lived there from 1937 to 1956 – apart from during the war years when it was taken over by nuns.
December 16, 2022
It seems a sad state of affairs for a famed house whose previous owners — who bought Piers Court in 2010 — had done much to enhance a place described by Pevsner as ‘dignified and elegant’, which, behind its classical 18th-century façade, caters for both formal entertaining and informal family living. The standard of fixtures and fittings is really something – as this picture of one of the bathrooms demonstrates.
MemorySeekers (December 2022) – Whitby is a seaside town in Yorkshire, northern England, split by the River Esk. On the East Cliff, overlooking the North Sea, the ruined Gothic Whitby Abbey was Bram Stoker’s inspiration for “Dracula”. Nearby is the Church of St. Mary, reached by 199 steps. The Captain Cook Memorial Museum, in the house where Cook once lived, displays paintings and maps. West of town is West Cliff Beach, lined with beach huts.
London, city, capital of the United Kingdom. It is among the oldest of the world’s great cities—its history spanning nearly two millennia—and one of the most cosmopolitan. By far Britain’s largest metropolis, it is also the country’s economic, transportation, and cultural centre.
London is situated in southeastern England, lying astride the River Thames some 50 miles (80 km) upstream from its estuary on the North Sea. In satellite photographs the metropolis can be seen to sit compactly in a Green Belt of open land, with its principal ring highway (the M25 motorway) threaded around it at a radius of about 20 miles (30 km) from the city centre.
The growth of the built-up area was halted by strict town planning controls in the mid-1950s. Its physical limits more or less correspond to the administrative and statistical boundaries separating the metropolitan county of Greater London from the “home counties” of Kent, Surrey, and Berkshire (in clockwise order) to the south of the river and Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Essex to the north.
The historic counties of Kent, Hertfordshire, and Essex extend in area beyond the current administrative counties with the same names to include substantial parts of the metropolitan county of Greater London, which was formed in 1965. Most of Greater London south of the Thames belongs to the historic county of Surrey, while most of Greater London north of the Thames belongs historically to the county of Middlesex. Area Greater London, 607 square miles (1,572 square km). Pop. (2001) Greater London, 7,172,091; (2011 prelim.) Greater London, 8,173,941.
The overall winner, by William Davies: ‘Brecon in Winter’, Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. Dawn sunlight warms up a winter’s morning in the Brecon Beacons.
‘Rough and Tumble’ Photo by Lloyd Lane Photography (www.lloydlane.uk), runner-up in the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year.
Tryfan by Aled Lewis. A photo of the iconic Tryfan in Snowdonia National Park.
‘Sycamore Gap Sun and Moon’, by Brian Eyler. Sycamore Gap Sun and Moon. Northumberland, England.
The Yorkshire Dales is home to outstanding scenery, great castles, abbeys and a breathtakingly peaceful atmosphere. At its heart are two very special protected areas – Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – as well as it having the Forest of Bowland AONB and North Pennines AONB as its close neighbours. These protected areas are truly not to be missed.
“Yorkshire Dales, a home to 20000 people and 600000 sheep. The Dales is group of river valley in north England, each valley having its own character. This short film shows variety of seasons in the Dales and typical Yorkshire Dales landscape, such as drystone walls, wildflower meadows and limestone pavements.”
DW Euromaxx – After years of renovation work, London’s famous landmark finally sounds again: Big Ben! We take you on a tour of the inside of the tower and reveal five secrets about it. This much in advance: The tower is not called Big Ben…
Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the striking clock at the northeast end of the Palace of Westminster. The nickname is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and to the entire clock tower.
In 2012, the official name of the tower was changed to “Elizabeth Tower” to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond (60th year as queen) Jubilee.
ScarboroughTourist – The Scarborough & Whitby Railway was a railway line from Scarborough to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The line followed a difficult but scenic route along the North Yorkshire coast.
The line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching Axe. The route, now a multi-use path, is known as “The Cinder Track”
The track was subsequently lifted in 1968, although speculation about a potential potash mine near Hawsker meant that the track from there to Whitby remained in place until 1972.
The line is now used as a bridleway for cycles, pedestrians and horses, known as the “Scarborough to Whitby Rail Trail”, “Scarborough to Whitby Cinder Track”, or simply “The Cinder Track”.
In the 1980s an area of the former line in the Northstead district of Scarborough was briefly used as football and cricket pitches.
In 2018 plans to spend £3.5 million to repair and improve the Cinder Track were backed by the borough council. The plans would see the route resurfaced, drainage improved and the creation of a new management body to oversee the development of the track. There is also the possibility of introducing a visitor centre, cafe and pay and display parking to generate ongoing funding to maintain the route. Work upgrading the track began in January 2020 and the first stage is now complete.
A country of political instability, low growth and subordination to the bond markets
In 2012 liz truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, two of the authors of a pamphlet called “Britannia Unchained”, used Italy as a warning. Bloated public services, low growth, poor productivity: the problems of Italy and other southern European countries were also present in Britain. Ten years later, in their botched attempt to forge a different path, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng have helped make the comparison inescapable. Britain is still blighted by disappointing growth and regional inequality. But it is also hobbled by chronic political instability and under the thumb of the bond markets. Welcome to Britaly.
The bus takes about 1.5 hours and takes us on a journey past some breathtaking views of coastal scenery and charming towns such as Newhaven, Peacehaven and Seaford, before arriving in Brighton, a seaside metropolitan located in the Southeast coast of England.
Eastbourne is a resort town on England’s southeast coast. On the seafront are Victorian hotels, the 19th-century Eastbourne Pier and a 1930s bandstand. Towner Art Gallery includes modern British works. Nearby, Redoubt Fortress, built during the Napoleonic Wars, has a military museum. Southwest along the coast, in South Downs National Park, are the tall chalk cliffs of Beachy Head and its striped 1902 lighthouse.
Brighton is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. Brighton is 47 miles south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods.
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