| Thousands of years of civilisation (in the loosest sense of the word) have left their mark on Great Britain, and the island is littered with heritage from top to toe. Ranging from mystical druid sites such as Stonehenge to civic monuments and famous Buckingham Palace and the UNESCO World Heritage Site at New Lanark, there are innumerable gems to discover. Get out and about and explore the history that is indelibly etched in the land of these nations. |
Check-out the finest remains of Hadrian’s Wall that lie between Hexham and BramptonHadrian’s Wall Attractions Photos
Discover York’s Roman, Viking, Saxon and Medieval heritage & fascinating historyYork Attractions Photos
| Prehistoric Britain is the stuff of myth and legend - the countryside is dotted with mysterious relics, from the Neolithic burial chambers and stone circles of the Orkney and Shetland Isles or Callanish in the Hebrides to the massive structures of Stonehenge and Avebury Circle in the West Country. For Roman remains you could stick a pin in almost anywhere, but the Roman Baths in Bath and Roman villa at Fishbourne are beautifully preserved. St Albans and Cirencester were also important Roman cities and Hadrian's Wall with the forts of Housesteads and Vindolanda is glorious. York, or Jorvik, is a beautiful city and the old Viking capital. For the more mythically inclined, Ancient Avalon, where King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is thought to be around modern day Glastonbury, Merlin's cave lies in Tintagel in Cornwall and Cadbury Castle in Somerset is thought to have been Camelot itself. If castles are your thing, Wales has about 600, some just ruins, some beautifully preserved. Caernarfon Castle, Harlech Castle, Conwy Castle and Beaumaris Castle are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Scotland also has spectacular castles in breathtaking settings such as Dunnottar Castle, Urquhart Castle and Cawdor Castle. Medieval England can be found everywhere - look out for half timbered houses particularly in Lavenham, Canterbury, Ely and Sandwich; Stratford-upon-Avon has been particularly well preserved because of it's most famous son, William Shakespeare. To visit Britain's glorious industrial past, Ironbridge Gorge, near Telford is where the Industrial Revolution is thought to have started. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol is another great legacy from this period. For those with a historical interest there are also plenty of battlefields - Bannockburn near Stirling in Scotland and Battle, near Hastings are particularly important sites, but there are also visitor centres at Bosworth and Culloden. London of course is full of heritage sites, from Buckingham Palace to St Paul's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Inns of Court. Runnymede near Windsor is where King John signed the Magna Carta, laying the foundations for parliament. Learned Oxford and Cambridge with their universities are spectacularly beautiful stone cities as is Georgian Bath and many of the Victorian Spa towns. The Scottish university cities of Edinburgh, St Andrews and Glasgow also have wonderful historic buildings and museums. |
North of England
British Heritage