Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2020 i Britain

75 years ago this May, the Second World War in Europe ended, to widespread jubilation. In our VE Day special issue, we mark this milestone with two dedicated features, Secrets of Bletchley Park (p55), telling the intriguing tale of British wartime codebreaking, and Churchill at home (p32), a look at the houses associated with the great wartime leader. This issue falls at another time of worldwide crisis, and I hope that these stories of sacrifice, courage and determination will act as reminders of how even the most challenging of adversaries can be overcome. Providing much inspiration in a similar vein is another great Briton, Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing, who was born 200 years ago this June (The Lady with the Lamp, p61). At such times, of course, we…

CULTURE En pointe Carlos Acosta, considered one of the world’s greatest male ballet dancers, is the newly appointed Director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. His tantalising autumn triple bill of ballet performances has just been announced and will fall across two venues: Sadler’s Wells in London (27—8 October) and the Birmingham Hippodrome (1—3 October). The mixed bill will include, among other performances, Uwe Scholz's Seventh Symphony, a huge work that fills the stage with 36 dancers in a celebration of Beethoven's music 250 years since the composer's birth. www.brb.org.uk ANNIVERSARY In-spire-ing The foundation stone of Salisbury Cathedral, one of Britain’s finest Gothic buildings, was laid an astonishing 800 years ago. The site was chosen in 1220 by firing an arrow in the direction the cathedral was to be built; the…

GETTING THERE Trains run from London Charing Cross to Hastings, via Battle (1hr 30min). For Rye and Winchelsea (1hr 10min), take the train from London St Pancras, changing at Ashford. www.thetrainline.com WHERE TO STAY A cosy, low-beamed B&B in the heart of Hastings’ Old Town, ancient Swan House blends period charm and designer chic, with vast sofas for curling up in front of the fire and a secluded garden terrace for summer breakfasts. There’s a whimsical feel to The Bell, a rustic former coaching inn in a pretty Wealden village. Luxurious touches, such as freestanding copper baths, abound. www.swanhousehastings.co.uk; www.thebellinticehurst.com WHERE TO EAT Imaginatively combined flavours pack a punch at The Bell’s restaurant, a real community hub. On Hastings’ fishing beach, Maggie’s is the place for fish and chips fresh…

BLENHEIM PALACE Blenheim Palace is usually open daily, but check the website for current times. With its house, gardens and maze, Blenheim is a full day out. A good place to stay nearby is Minster Mill, a luxuriously appointed Cotswolds hotel with an excellent restaurant. www.blenheimpalace.com; www.minstermill.co.uk CHARTWELL The house is open March to October; the grounds are open year-round. Check the website for current times. Two new rooms have opened to the public this year, one exploring the lives of the Churchill children, the other dedicated to Churchill’s tireless secretaries. The luxury B&B at Hever Castle is a lovely place to stay nearby. www.nationaltrust.org.uk; www.hevercastle.co.uk…

Oxford You can follow in the footsteps of the real Alice in Oxford by re-creating the boat-trip up the Thames to Godstow where Wonderland was born, or by visiting Christ Church College. Oxford City Museum also has some of Alice’s belongings on display. www.chch.ox.ac.uk; www.oxford.gov.uk/ museumofoxford V&A, London A new exhibition, Alice: Curioser and Curioser (opening 27 June), offers an immersive journey down the rabbit-hole, exploring the Oxford origins of the book, as well as the many adaptations in the 158 years since its creation. www.vam.ac.uk…

GETTING THERE London North Eastern Railway’s new fast train, Azuma, travels direct from London King’s Cross to Harrogate in 2 hours 50 minutes. The town centre is compact and easy to navigate on foot. Get your bearings on a historical walking tour with Harry at Free Walking Tour of Harrogate. www.lner.co.uk; www.freewalkingtourharrogate.com EAT, DRINK, SLEEP DoubleTree by Hilton Harrogate Majestic Hotel & Spa last year benefited from a £15m refurb. Opened in 1900, it was the first modern Victorian hotel built to accommodate Harrogate’s growing popularity, and was also Churchill’s hotel of choice. Now it is once more the height of refinement, with its own sparkling new spa. Harrogate has a thriving café culture, with more coffee shops and delis than you can visit in one weekend – but you…

Charles II and his Escape into Exile by Martyn R Beardsley (Pen & Sword Books Ltd, £19.99). Read of the invaluable help provided by the Penderel brothers, who sheltered the king. Backing Bletchley: The Codebreaking Outstations, From Eastcote To GCHQ by Ronald Koorm (Amberley Publishing, £20). Explore the complex relationship between Bletchley and its outstations. The Author Who Outsold Dickens: The Life and Work of W H Ainsworth (Pen & Sword Books Ltd, £25). Dickens’s only serious commercial rival until the late 1840s. Queen Victoria and the Romanovs by Coryne Hall (Amberley Publishing, £20). Extracts from Queen Victoria’s journals tell this fascinating story of family relations played out on a world stage. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (by Hallie Rubenhold, £9.99). In…

“What inexhaustible food for speculation do the streets of London afford!” wrote Charles Dickens in one of his sketches. The metropolis was his inspiration, his “magic lantern”, a brooding, breathing, pervasive presence in his novels. How astonished he would be if he could see our 21st-century Gotham City with its glass-and-steel behemoths, when even the iconic Tower Bridge was not built in his lifetime. Yet much from his day survives, accessible and unchanged. Any tour of Dickens’s London should start in Holborn, at 48 Doughty Street, the Georgian townhouse into which he moved with his wife, Catherine, and their firstborn, Charles, in 1837. Here he would write with a quill, by candlelight, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. Today it is the Charles Dickens Museum, where you can see…

It was a dazzling, 18-day spectacle of jousts, masquerades and feasting amid a sea of specially built tents, banqueting houses and ‘portable palaces’. For King Henry VIII, François I of France and their courtiers it was also the party of a lifetime. Some 12,000 people attended and Henry’s contingent alone had brought food supplies of more than 2,000 sheep, 98,000 eggs, 13 swans and three porpoises, with nearly 200,000 litres of wine and 66,000 litres of beer to wash it all down. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the extraordinary Field of Cloth of Gold, so named for its extravagant splendour. Historic Royal Palaces is celebrating with an exhibition, Gold and Glory: Henry VIII and the French King, bringing together rare and priceless artefacts for the first time to…

• Paintings and statues of the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ invariably show Florence with the wrong type of lamp – at Scutari she would have used a folding Turkish lantern (not a Grecian oil lamp). • Florence was the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society in 1858. • Florence kept many pets, most famously an owl, Athena, which rode around on her shoulder or in her pocket. Sadly Athena ate Plato, Florence’s pet cicada. • It’s said that when Florence interviewed probationer nurses for the Nightingale School in the 1870s, she varied the sizes of teatime cake slices according to how poor or wealthy the women appeared.…

GETTING THERE Direct trains from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly take just over two hours. www.thetrainline.com WHERE TO STAY The Lowry Hotel offers five-star luxury but the King Street Townhouse with its infinity pool overlooking the Town Hall is the top choice for a splurge. Or bed down in a converted 19th-century textile warehouse at ABode, where tiles, parquet flooring and other original features remain intact. www.thelowryhotel.com; www.eclectichotels.co.uk; www.abodemanchester.co.uk WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK With a flourishing food and drink scene, you’ll be spoilt for choice. Head to food halls like Mackie Mayor, a restored Victorian meat market where you can feast on sublime steak or tasty tacos at communal tables. Alternatively make for the neighbourhood of Ancoats, once known as Little Italy and now home to the city’s best…

Were it not for Alice Pleasance Liddell, we might never have known of the madcap world of Wonderland, where White Rabbits wear waistcoats, Mad Hatters host tea parties and playing-card-Queens play croquet. Lewis Carroll’s dreamland has fired the imaginations of generations of British children, along with everyone from The Beatles to The Royal Ballet, as a new exhibition at London’s V&A is set to explore. But comparatively little fame is enjoyed by the real girl who inspired it all, and without whom one of the world’s best-loved stories might never have made it onto paper, let alone into print. Alice, the tiny, dark-haired daughter of the Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, first met Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, in April 1856 when she was almost four. He…

GETTING THERE There are direct rail services from London Euston to Bletchley (40min). Bletchley Park is a few minutes’ walk from the station. www.thetrainline.com ADMISSION Bletchley Park is usually open daily, but check the website for the latest information. www.bletchleypark.org.uk WHERE TO STAY The stylish Woburn Hotel has comfortable rooms and an excellent restaurant, Olivier’s. In the heart of pretty Woburn, it’s the ideal base from which to explore Bletchley, just seven miles away. www.thewoburnhotel.co.uk…

“Harrogate is the queerest place with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading and dining,” said Charles Dickens in 1858. More than 150 years later, Yorkshire’s Harrogate retains this carefree countenance, setting it apart from other northern English destinations. Harrogate became known as ‘The English Spa’ from 1571, when a man named William Slingsby tasted its waters and declared that they had the same mineral properties (and alleged curative powers) as those that had recently been discovered in Spa in Belgium. From then on Harrogate boomed as a spa resort, attracting wealthy visitors who had the cash to splash and spare time to dedicate to a weekend of R&R. Royals the world over, including Queen Victoria, jumped on the bandwagon (try the toffee the…

GETTING THERE There is no station at St Davids but trains run to Haverfordwest from Swansea, which is 2hr 45min from London Paddington. Parking can sometimes be tricky in smaller places so make use of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Bus network, which operates a handy seven-day service in summer. www.thetrainline.com; www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk WHERE TO STAY Close to St Davids, the former Victorian convent of Penrhiw Hotel makes a comfortable rural base, right in the heart of the national park but only ten minutes from the cathedral. Further down the bay and slightly inland, Mill Haven Place is a good self-catering option with three well-equipped cottages. www.penrhiwhotel.com; www.millhavenplace.co.uk WHERE TO EAT The Refectory offers homemade, good-value meals in a calming, light-flooded space within St Davids Cathedral. For a drink, you can’t beat sipping…

The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is Scotland’s highest knightly order, in Britain second only to the Order of the Garter. Some suggest it was begun by James III (1488-1513) who adopted the thistle as a royal badge, but it is more likely to have been founded by King James VII (James II of England) in 1687 as a reward for support from his Scottish peers. There are only ever 16 Knights or Ladies of the Thistle, appointed directly by Her Majesty the Queen on the rare occasion that a vacancy opens. The new Knight or Lady, clad in dark green velvet robe and white plumed hat, is installed at a special service in an extra-special place. The Thistle Chapel nestles quietly in the southeastern corner…