Battle in East Sussex

10 July 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Abbey Green, former market square © geograph.org.uk - Simon Carey/cc-by-sa-2.0

Abbey Green, former market square © geograph.org.uk – Simon Carey/cc-by-sa-2.0

Battle is a small town and civil parish in the local government district of Rother in East Sussex. It lies 49 miles (79 km) south southeast of London, 28.5 miles (46 km) east of Brighton and 21 miles (34 km) east of the county town of Lewes. Nearby towns include Hastings to the southeast and Bexhill-On-Sea to the south. It is the site of the Battle of Hastings, where William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II to become William I in 1066.   read more…

The British Library

30 April 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  7 minutes

Model of the British Library © Mike Peel - www.mikepeel.net/cc-by-sa-2.5

Model of the British Library © Mike Peel – www.mikepeel.net/cc-by-sa-2.5

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from many countries, in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library’s collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 2000 BC. The British Library is the largest library in the world, with the second largest being the Library of Congress of the United States in Washington, D.C..   read more…

The Eden Project in Cornwall

12 April 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  5 minutes

Eden Project gardens and Humid Tropical Biome © geograph.org.uk - David Dixon/cc-by-sa-2.0

Eden Project gardens and Humid Tropical Biome © geograph.org.uk – David Dixon/cc-by-sa-2.0

The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall. Inside the artificial biomes are plants that are collected from all around the world. The project is located in a reclaimed Kaolinite pit, located 1.25 mi (2 kilometres) from the town of St Blazey and 5 kilometres (3 mi) from the larger town of St Austell.   read more…

The Somerset House in London

22 March 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

© Jan van der Crabben/cc-by-sa-2.0

© Jan van der Crabben/cc-by-sa-2.0

Somerset House is a large Neoclassical building situated on the south side of the Strand in central London overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The building, originally the site of a Tudor palace, was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776, and further extended with Victorian wings to the north and south. The East Wing forms part of the adjacent King’s College London.   read more…

Agatha Christie’s Greenway Estate

15 March 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Greenway House © MilborneOne/cc-by-sa-3.0

Greenway House © MilborneOne/cc-by-sa-3.0

Greenway is an estate on the River Dart near Galmpton in Devon. It was first mentioned in 1493 as “Greynway”, the crossing point of the Dart to Dittisham. In the late 16th century a Tudor mansion called Greenway Court was built by the Gilbert family. Greenway was the birthplace of Humphrey Gilbert. The present Georgian house was probably built in the late 18th century by Roope Harris Roope and extended by subsequent owners. The gardens may have been remodelled by landscape gardener Humphry Repton.   read more…

The Tate Gallery

5 March 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  13 minutes

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom’s national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art. It is a network of four art museums and a complementary website. One of the Tate’s most publicised art events is the awarding of the annual Turner Prize, which takes place at Tate Britain.   read more…

30 St Mary Axe in the City of London

1 March 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, London Reading Time:  7 minutes

© flickr.com - Edward Simpson/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Edward Simpson/cc-by-sa-2.0

30 St Mary Axe, widely known informally as “the Gherkin” and previously the Swiss Re Building, is a skyscraper in London’s main financial district, the City of London, completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, the tower is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on a street called St Mary Axe, on the site of the former Baltic Exchange, which was extensively damaged in 1992 by the explosion of a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA.   read more…

The British Museum

19 February 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Ham/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Ham/cc-by-sa-3.0

The British Museum is a museum in London dedicated to human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some 8 million works, is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of intense controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin.   read more…

Charing Cross, centre of London

5 February 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, London Reading Time:  5 minutes

Charing Cross © geograph.org.uk - Chris Downer/cc-by-sa-2.0

Charing Cross © geograph.org.uk – Chris Downer/cc-by-sa-2.0

Charing Cross denotes the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several local landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, one of the main London rail terminals.   read more…

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