Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2020 i Discover Britain

Britain is home to more than its fair share of eccentrics. For a small island nation, our history books are packed with pleasingly daft behaviour. One need only look to John “Mad Jack” Mytton, the Regency MP who once arrived at a dinner party riding a bear and even set his own shirt on fire in a bid to cure the hiccups. As such, we have dedicated this issue of Discover Britain to one of our defining character traits: eccentricity. We begin by introducing you to England’s finest eccentrics via their surviving homes (p10), before detailing some rather unusual hotels (p20). Anyone fancy spending a night in a former prison cell? We also celebrate the real-life places that inspired Lewis Carroll’s search for Wonderland (p46), as well as marvelling at…

Eccentricity is defined as being unconventional to the point of being slightly strange, and the perception is that the English do it best. This belief has been held so fast by so many for so long that it’s something of a cliché. Yet the truth is, the English really do have a long and fruitful history of being eccentric. And it is perhaps among the aristocracy that this characteristic is most rampant. Why? Perhaps their glut of time and money allows them to live exactly as they’d like, unencumbered by trivial and tiresome matters like work. Membership of the upper class brings with it a sense of freedom to be entirely oneself and indulge every peccadillo without having to worry about who might be watching. Being eccentric is surely the…

Elizabeth Hall, Elizabeth Nash and Lady Barnard: Three names shroud the final direct descendent of William Shakespeare. Known as the Bard of the Avon, Shakespeare was born and spent his whole life in Stratford-upon-Avon in the West Midlands, but how did the family line of this great English playwright terminate just 54 years after his own death? The 350th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare’s only granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall, who died in 1670 aged 61, calls for the epilogue of the world-famous writer’s story to be told. This abrupt end to the Bard’s bloodline was surely not how he would have imagined it. Both of his surviving children, Susanna and Judith, were married prior to his death in 23 April 1616 and he had even lived to meet his first…

Experience a mind-bending journey into Wonderland at the V&A’s Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (opens 27 June). Featuring original illustrations and photographs as well as all manner of other Alice-inspired multimedia, this immersive and theatrical show promises to do proper justice to creative geniuses the world over. www.vam.ac.uk The Alice Town Trails in Llandudno will tell you about the ‘real’ Alice’s holidays to the Welsh seaside town. Narrated as if by Lewis Carroll, with the help of witty quips by the Mad Hatter, there are two ‘augmented reality’ tours and an origins app available to download for smartphones, or you can buy a paper map in the town. www.alicetowntrail.co.uk Mark Davies, author of Alice in Waterland and Alice’s Oxford on Foot, is the only Oxford guide endorsed by the Lewis Carroll…

Curiouser and curiouser I love your magazine and always read it from cover to cover as soon as it comes. And I love Oxford, where I spent a delightful week in a Christ Church dorm just last September. So, I was especially excited to read the article comparing Oxford and Cambridge. However, I came to an abrupt stop in the “Museums” paragraph where you claim the Ashmolean’s [pictured] “cabinet of curiosities was amassed by Elias Ashmole”. The cabinet was actually first called The Ark and was “amassed” by the John Tradescants I and II at their home in Lambeth during the 1600s. Mr Ashmole did publish a catalogue of the collection, but he acquired The Ark after John II’s death, and some say he stole it. In spite of John’s…

A visitor to the 18th-century Stuart court in exile in Rome, Italy, gave a glowing report of Charles Edward Stuart as tall, handsome and with the finest eyes ever seen. “But that which shines most in him… is the dignity that accompanies his every gesture; there is such an unspeakable majesty diffused through his whole mien.” To this day the popular image prevails of “Bonnie Prince Charlie” as the dashing hero who sought to reclaim the Stuart Crown; “the lad that’s born to be king” who, immortalised in traditional Scottish folk song Bonnie Prince Charlie was a lively, athletic yet headstrong young man convinced of his royal birthright The Skye Boat Song, escaped “over the sea” after his dreams were shattered at Culloden in 1746. But how did a half-Polish…

Cecil Beaton’s Bright Young Things at London’s National Portrait Gallery (12 March to 7 June 2020) celebrates the work of the English photographer who began work at Vogue in 1927. Stylish sepia portraits of artists, actors, socialites and more will sit beside paintings of others within Beaton’s glamorous circle. www.npg.org.uk The Candlelight Club lives up to its name, with a monthly night of cocktails, cabaret and swing bands, all set in a candle-lit speakeasy at a secret London location (ticket holders find out two days beforehand). Adherence to the dandies-and-flappers dress code adds to the Prohibition atmosphere. www.thecandlelightclub.com The Palm Court at the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane hotel was completed in 1927 and retains many original Art Deco features. Sample the nostalgic Nineteen Twen-Tea afternoon tea with a ‘1927’…

Born in 1543, Sir Thomas Tresham was a rich, well-read and ambitious man. His grandfather had left him great wealth, he studied law at the Middle Temple, and he was knighted aged just 32. He was also a strict Catholic, something that would define his life and legacy. Sir Thomas was arrested in 1581 for harbouring a Catholic priest and imprisoned for many years. He racked up thousands of pounds of fines for refusing to attend Church of England services. His eldest son Francis was one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 (in fact, the young Tresham is widely thought to be responsible for its failure, after he wrote to Lord Monteagle warning him to stay away). A more lasting…

Windsor, Berkshire Duke and Duchess of Sussex to step back from royal duties Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, have announced that they will be stepping back from their roles as senior members of the Royal family. This will involve the sixth in line to the throne repaying the Sovereign Grant used to refurbish the couple’s Frogmore Cottage home in the 655-acre Home Park of Windsor Castle. A statement from Buckingham Palace confirmed that “while they can no longer formally represent The Queen, the Sussexes have made clear that everything they do will continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty.” In a separate statement, Her Majesty The Queen acknowledged the move came as “a result of intense scrutiny” but said she was “pleased…

Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, was a man whose extraordinary dreams found expression both on the page and in his extraordinary home. “Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn’t,” he once wrote. “A sense of humour was provided to console him for what he is.” By his own logic, then, his richness of imagination must have compensated for a near-total absence of character. His letters, which number some 7,000 and chronicle the Georgian era with more colour than any of other correspondent of that period, beg to differ. A writer, art historian, modish man-about-town, Whig politician and collector, Walpole’s most celebrated literary creation was The Castle of Otranto, his gothic 1764 novel based on a nightmare he once had at his Strawberry Hill House.…

The English Romantic poet John Keats spent a few months in Winchester in 1819, leading him to pen his famous ode, To Autumn. He may have been simply escaping the din of his landlady’s daughter learning the violin, yet his Sunday strolls along the River Itchen inspired him to celebrate the city’s “seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness”. Last year was the 200th anniversary of that poem and Visit Winchester created a self-guided, two-mile walking tour, a map of which can be downloaded from their website. From the cathedral to the water meadows, it covers much of what is great and good about this oft-overlooked destination. Situated on the western tip of the South Downs National Park less than 30 miles from Stonehenge, Winchester as a settlement dates back to…