Place

Culham - the hottest place on the planet

Fancy a bit of atomic tourism? Somewhere hot for your holidays? Amazingly, it is possible to visit a place where boffins fire up a miniature sun and create energy from nuclear fusion. And it's near Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

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Margate's mysterious Shell Grotto

Under a hill in Margate, Kent is a strange folly - an ornate 70-foot long subterranean passageway and large altar room covered head-to-toe in seashell mosaic. And nobody is sure how old it is or has any idea of its original purpose.

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The Eden Project - global biospheres in Cornwall

The Eden Project, a haven of botanical delights nestled in a huge crater near St Austell in Cornwall, has got to be one of the horticultural wonders of the world. Two huge Biomes there house thousands of plant species - including the largest indoor rainforest in the world.

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No Man's Fort - a suitable spot for a Bond villain's lair

No Man’s Fort is a 23-bedroom luxury island retreat off the coast of Portsmouth. Built as a defensive fort by the Victorians, it is now a luxury hotel with a spa, restaurants, helipad, and events space.

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The Minack - an open air theatre built on a Cornish sea cliff

The dream of a determined woman, the Minack Theatre is one of the most picturesque performance sites in the world. Perched on the cliffs on a headland near Land's End in Cornwall, it was built largely with hand tools, and was the life's work of its creator.

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Glastonbury, town of ancient myth (and recent music)

Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset best known for the famous music festival that takes place nearby, as well as numerous Arthurian and Christian legends centred on the town and its distinctive hill, the Tor.

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Cornwall calling - Goonhilly's ears link up the world, and outer space

The array of satellite dishes at Goonhilly in southern Cornwall has been at the forefront of telecommunications history since it was built in the 1960s. It played a key role in the first transatlantic live TV transmission, conveyed telephone calls across the Atlantic, and is now an integral part of the space exploration programme.

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The Cavendish Laboratory - the birthplace of world-changing science

One of the most famous places in the world of science is the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge - which, since its opening in 1874, has had an extraordinary history of discovery and innovation in Physics.

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Strathpeffer - charming remnant of the spa era in Scotland

The village of Strathpeffer, north of Inverness, became one of Europe’s most popular health resorts between 1870 and 1939. Though the spa fad has passed, Strathpeffer has been left with some charming Victoria holiday architecture

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Dolbadarn Castle - a ruined north Wales fortress

Dolbadarn Castle is a fortification built by the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great during the early 13th century, at the base of the Llanberis Pass, in northern Wales. The castle was important both militarily and as a symbol of Llywelyn's power and authority.

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College Farm, Finchley - north London model home of the first bottled milk

The first ever bottled milk in the UK was produced in 1884, at College Farm in Finchley, North London, run by Express Dairies and regarded as one of the 'model farms' of the time and thereafter.

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La Hougue Bie - an ancient burial mound in Jersey

La Hougue Bie is a passage and burial chamber secreted beneath a mound of stones and earth in the Jersey parish of Grouville. It is thought to be around 6000 years old.

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Bamburgh Castle - a photographer's dream

The imposing Bamburgh castle could well be Britain's most-photographed, due to its stunning location on the wild Northumberland coast. With the stretch of sand in the foreground, it has been used in many films and television programmes as a backdrop for stories of invasion or battle.

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Yorkshire's Rhubarb Triangle - forcing the pace on a Spring treat

The Rhubarb Triangle is a 9-square-mile area of West Yorkshire, famous for producing early forced rhubarb in the dark. It grows nearly all of the rhubarb consumed in Britain, and, at one point, produced enough of the vegetable to satisfy almost the entire world's demand.

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Hack Green bunker - a Cold War secret, now revealed

For over 50 years, a number of vast underground complexes around Britain remained secret. They were nuclear protection bunkers, designed to accommodate government officials in the event of an atomic war. Several are now visitor attractions, including one that was hidden on the outskirts of a sleepy Cheshire town.

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Port Sunlight - a philanthropic approach to industry

Port Sunlight on the Wirral Peninsula is a 'model village' built by ‘soap king’ William Lever from 1887 for his production works, and to provide good quality housing for his employees. It is regarded as an architectural gem.

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The Merry Maidens - Cornish neolithic stone circle

The Merry Maidens, and also known as Dawn's Men, is a late neolithic stone circle located 2 miles to the south of the village of St Buryan, in Cornwall. The stones are south west of Penzance, and not far from Land’s End. They are consist of a restored, Neolithic stone circle of nineteen stones made using local granite.

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Tresco's tropical gardens - on the Isles of Scilly

The semi-tropical Abbey Gardens, located on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, benefit from the warm flow of the Gulf stream, being set in the Atlantic 45km (28 miles) from Land's End. The 17-acre gardens were established by the nineteenth-century proprietor of the islands, Augustus Smith, around the ruins of a Benedictine Abbey.

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The original model village built in Beaconsfield

Bekonscot model village in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, is the oldest original model village in the world. First created in the 1920's by local resident Roland Callingham, it portrays aspects of England mostly dating from the 1930's. Not originally designed as a commercial enterprise, Bekonscot became an 'accidental' visitor attraction through press and public interest, and has been visited by more than 14,000,000 people.

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The Iron Bridge - early icon of the Industrial Revolution

Many of the iconic bridges of the world owe their existence to the achievement of the world’s first iron bridge, built in 1779 across the Severn Gorge, near Telford in Shropshire.

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Uffington White Horse - a symbol of Ancient Britain

The Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire is thought to be the oldest of the many chalk figures carved into hillsides around Britain, and is both of historical significance and a very interesting place to visit.

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Tooting Bec Lido - one of London's cool pools

Tooting Bec Lido in South London is the largest open-air fresh water swimming pool in the UK at 100m by 33m, and one of the recently revived lidos in London, now extremely popular as escapes on a hot day, and for dedicated open-air swimmers.

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Burlington Bunker - Corsham's secret city

No one would ever suspect that the much-filmed, honey-stoned market town of Corsham, in Wiltshire, would be the country's alternative seat of power outside London during a nuclear war.

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Tickle your tastebuds at the Brogdale National Fruit Collection

The National Fruit Collection in Brogdale Farm near Faversham in Kent, is one of the largest fruit collections in the world. It includes over 4000 named apple, pear, plum, cherry, bush fruit, vine and cob nut cultivars. It is both a remarkable botanical resource and a unique place to visit.

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The National Botanic Garden of Wales - a glasshouse wonder

The National Botanic Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire, is a relatively recent addition to the horticultural scene. It only opened in May 2000, and is now the most visited garden in Wales with an amazing collection of over 8000 different plant varieties.

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Rockall - a tiny disputed territory

Rockall is an uninhabitable granite islet situated in the North Atlantic Ocean (and a familiar name from the shipping forecast). The United Kingdom claims that Rockall lies within its exclusive economic zone and is part of its territory, but this claim is not recognised by several neighbouring countries.

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Highgate Cemetery - magnificent Victorian resting place

Highgate Cemetery is one of London's best known burial places. It was formed in the 19th century as part of the city of London's 'Magnificent Seven' park cemeteries to provide additional large burial grounds beyond the city's limits, due to overcrowded inner-city graveyards. Its famous inhabitants include writer George Eliot, philosopher and economist Karl Marx and painter Henry Moore.

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The London Array

The London Array, in the Thames Estuary, was, until recently, the world’s largest offshore wind farm - but could have been even bigger if it wasn't for some inconvenient birds.

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Hadrian's Wall

Erected by the Romans in AD 122 to keep the ‘barbarians’ out under the orders of Emperor Hadrian, this mighty stone wall once stretched nearly 80 miles (128km) from coast-to-coast in the north of England. It took three legions of men at least six years to complete.

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The lost gardens of Heligan: a Cornish treasure

The lost gardens of Heligan are located near Mevagissey, Cornwall. They are a rediscovered delight, typical of the 19th-century Gardenesque style - a term coined by Scottish botanist John Claudius Loudin, to describe a type of garden design that incorporates both formal and picturesque styles from the past.

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Culross - a beautiful royal burgh

The seaside village of Culross is considered as one of the most picturesque villages in Scotland. It is Scotland’s most complete example of a burgh of the 17th and 18th centuries and is often used as a film and television location.

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Bakewell - Home of Exceedingly Good Tarts

Bakewell in the Peak District of Derbyshire is home to around 4000 people. Though best known for its famed tart - the town's rich heritage goes back to Saxon times when it was known as Baedeca's Well and, later, Bathwell, due to the many springs in the area.

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Greatstone Sound Mirrors - oddball interwar defence technology

The remnants of a fascinating technological dead end can be seen near Dungeness in Kent. The Greatstone sound mirrors are three concrete “listening ears” built between 1928 and 1935 as part of Britain's national defence strategy.

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Rutland - Multum in parvo

The motto of Rutland, England's smallest county, is "multum in parvo", which translates as "much in little".

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The Gobbins - dramatic coastal walk in Northern Ireland

The Gobbins is a dramatically located cliff-face path at Islandmagee, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on the Causeway Coastal Route. It runs across bridges over the sea, past caves and through a tunnel, along The Gobbins cliffs.

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St. Dunstan-in-the-East - A hidden garden in a Blitzed London church

The Church of St. Dunstan-in-the-East was originally built in about 1100, and, after being rebuilt following severe damage in the Great Fire of 1666, it was decimated by the Blitz in 1941. Now, its ruins provide a secluded and charming secret garden, tucked away near Lower Thames Street in the City of London, halfway between the Tower and London Bridge.

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Flatford Mill - immortalised by Constable and now a national treasure

Flatford Mill is a Grade I Listed watermill on the River Stour, in Suffolk, immortalised by artist John Constable in 1816. The mill itself, according to the date-stone, was built in 1733, and is attached to a 17th-century miller's cottage, also Grade I Listed. One of the owners of the mill was the artist's father.

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Holy Austin Rock Houses

Sandstone caves at Kinver Edge, near Kidderminster, were home to 44 people until the 1960s. They became a tourist attraction over a century ago and still make a fascinating visit.

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Jodrell Bank Observatory - home of Cheshire's pioneering Lovell Telescope

Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire houses the remarkable Lovell Radio Telescope that was completed in 1957, as the largest steerable dish telescope in the world. It was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2019. Although the centre still operates as a working science site under the University of Manchester, visitors are encouraged, and there has even been an annual science & music festival held there.

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Still rolling - Margate's vintage Scenic Railway

The Scenic Railway is a vintage wooden roller coaster still running at the Dreamland Amusement Park in Margate. First opened in 1920, it is the oldest roller coaster in the UK, and one of only eight scenic railways in the world. It has been awarded Grade II* listed status.

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Tregothnan - home of Cornish tea!

With an increasing emphasis on buying local produce, the avid tea-drinkers of Britain can now buy the most British tea in history - grown on Britain's only tea plantation at Tregothnan estate near Truro, Cornwall.

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Avebury, Wiltshire - the largest stone circle in the world

Not far from Stonehenge, in the county of Wiltshire, lies the even larger Avebury stone circle. Though less complete - and a little less grand - than its more famous neighbour, Avebury boasts a more peaceful environment in which to contemplate antiquity, plus a handy country pub!

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Fan Bay Tunnels - deep into the White Cliffs of Dover

In 2015, the National Trust opened the Fan Bay Deep Shelter to the public for the first time. These are Churchill’s wartime tunnels under white cliffs of Dover, constructed in 1940/41 as accommodation for the gun battery above.

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Keyneston Mill Botanic Gardens - sending perfume oils to France

Bordering the River Stour in Dorset's Tarrant Valley is Keyneston Mill Botanic Gardens, with the claim to fame that the specialist oils it produces from its aromatic plants go to a master perfumery in Grasse, France - the acknowledged world perfume capital.

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Wigan Pier - don't expect sea breezes!

Wigan Pier is a former industrial location on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal which runs through the town of Wigan in Greater Manchester.

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St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount in Cornwall is a prominent feature just off the coast at Marazion. It is a smaller version of its namesake in Normandy, France - a rocky island crowned by a medieval church and castle. It is reachable by a man-made causeway of granite from the town at low tide.

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Barbican Conservatory - the City of London's indoor rainforest

The Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London is a rather mysterious place - hidden amongst an extensive (and expensive!) estate of flats, with labyrinthine bridges, lifts and walkways that give you little sense of how high or low you are, or in what direction you are travelling.

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A walled garden brought back to life at Easton, Lincolnshire

Walled gardens are a romantic feature of many historic houses and large country properties. Easton Walled Gardens, close to Grantham in Lincolnshire, have been brought back to their former glory, and celebrate over 20 years of restoration.

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Burgh Island Hotel - Art Deco hideaway in Devon

Burgh Island is a small island near Bigbury-on-Sea in south Devon, separated from the mainland by a tidal channel. It is notable for being the location of a grand Art Deco hotel, with associations to Agatha Christie, and for the bizarre 'sea tractor' that transports visitors over to the island at high tide.

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Babbacombe Model Village - a miniature pleasure

At one time, visiting a model village in Britain was a regular childhood treat, as there were many such villages lovingly created around the country, particularly near holiday resorts.

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Herstmonceux Observatory - a short but vibrant heyday

Now known as the Observatory Science Centre, the array of telescopes in the countryside near Herstmonceux, East Sussex, was for several decades the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory - when it moved out of central London to escape light pollution.

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Scott's Grotto in Ware

The pleasant Hertfordshire town of Ware, just north of London along the river Lee, has a surprising secret. In an unassuming residential part of town nestles what is thought to be the largest grotto in England.

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Cheddar in Somerset - home of the caves and gorgeous cheese

Cheddar in Somerset is, indeed, the source of the famous English cheese - but now a type made around the world. It lies on the south side of the Mendip hills between Weston-super-Mare and the tiny city of Wells.

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Whitaker Wright's underwater ballroom in Godalming, Surrey

Near Godalming, Surrey, lies a romantic hidden "ballroom" under a mansion lake. It was built by the famous swindler James Whitaker Wright with his ill-gotten gains, as a statement of his status in Victorian society. Whitaker Wright committed suicide with a cyanide pill at London's Royal Courts of Justice when he was subsequently convicted of fraud.

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Gruinard Island - home of a deadly anthrax experiment

Visible from the road to Mungasdale, Highland, on the west coast of Scotland, the small and treeless Gruiniard Island seems to have had a gloomy reputation for centuries. From the redoubt of thieves and pirates, to a home for a killer disease, the news has never been good.

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Barra Airport, Scotland - the world's only beach runway!

Barra Airport is a short-runway beach landing strip and airport in the shallow bay of Traigh Mhòr, on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The airport is believed to be the only one in the world where scheduled flights use a tidal beach as the runway.

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The Peace Maze in County Down

The Castlewellan Forest Park in County Down, Northern Ireland, has numerous attractions including the longest permanent hedge maze in Europe - planted by volunteers to celebrate peace and reconciliation.

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The abandoned homes of St Kilda

The now-ruined village on the island of Hirta, St Kilda, was once the base for a thriving community. It was abandoned in 1930, when more than 2,000 years of human habitation of these remote islands came to an end.

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The Needles on the Isle of Wight - make a point of seeing them!

The Needles are a row of three stacks of chalk, rising about 30m out of the English Channel, at the western end of the Isle of Wight, and marked by a lighthouse at their tip.

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St Davids - the smallest city in Britain and religious shrine

St Davids is a town with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, Wales's patron saint, and named after him.

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Europe's lost landscape

A lost land lies under the North Sea. Until 12,000 years ago, Britain was joined to the rest of Northern Europe by a vast expanse of hills, marshland, heavily wooded valleys, and swampy lagoons called D0ggerland.

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Scotland's Secret Bunker: Cold War-intended seat of government

An innocent Scottish farmhouse hides the entrance to RAF Troywood, a Cold War nuclear bunker 100ft underground. Had there been a nuclear war, Scotland would have been governed from here. Since being decommissioned, it can now be visited by the public.

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Skara Brae - the Scottish Pompeii

Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic village on Orkney's main island, and a much-visited ancient site, regarded by many as one of the most remarkable prehistoric monuments in Europe. It was accidentally revealed after being buried for 5,000 years.

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Portmeirion - a Mediterranean fantasy in Wales

On the coast of North Wales, a bizarre Mediterranean concoction can be found - a tiny village of pastel coloured Italianate houses and sub-tropical gardens beside a river estuary. This is Portmeirion, the creation of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who purchased the estate in 1925 as a “neglected wilderness” and then spent most of his life designing and building this fantasy world.

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A Yorkshire fairy story brought fame to Cottingley

Do you believe in fairies? If you'd been around in 1917, you may well have done. A lot of people did, particularly those in Cottingley, a village in West Yorkshire, between Shipley and Bingley. It is known for the Cottingley Fairies, which appeared in a series of convincing photographs taken there during that year.

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Princess Diana's London memorial fountain

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial is a fountain dedicated to the memory of the much-loved former royal.

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Hyde Park Pet Cemetery - a Victorian curiosity

The Hyde Park pet cemetery is a disused burial ground for animals in London. Established in 1881 in the garden of Victoria Lodge, home of one of the park keepers, the cemetery became popular after the burial of a dog belonging to Sarah Fairbrother, wife of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge.

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Abbotsbury - Dorset's unique swannery

Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset is the only managed colony of swans in the world where you are able to enjoy the experience of walking through the heart of hundreds of nesting and free-flying Mute Swans. The location, in a lagoon just inside the Dorset coast, further enhances a visit to this beautiful and tranquil place.

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Gretna Green - home of romantic runaway marriages

Gretna Green, just across the border from England in Dumfriesshire is famous for its blacksmiths shop, where weddings of runaway couples were once undertaken. The first village in Scotland, it attracted couples who wanted to bypass the jurisdiction of the 1754 Marriage Act.

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A rope with a view - the Carrick-a-Rede Bridge

Visitors with a good head for heights should enjoy the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in Northern Ireland. They can experience the thrill of swaying with the wind as they cross an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on foot, whilst taking in the stunning views along the Causeway Coastal Route, an area of outstanding natural beauty.

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Charing Cross

Charing Cross Road and Charing Cross Railway Station in London are named after a medieval symbol of love and grief.

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Stott Hall Farm - not quite the sleepy country retreat

Anyone wishing to escape the rat race and embrace a rural idyll should, perhaps, forget any thoughts of buying Stott Hall Farm in West Yorkshire. This unique property sits in the middle of the M62 motorway!

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Tyneham village - Dorset time capsule

The small village of Tyneham just inland from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset was 'temporarily' evacuated in November 1943 so that British forces could train there in preparation for D-Day. Though the villagers were told their departure would only be for 28 days, they have never been allowed to return, and so it remains frozen in time.

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Westminster Hall- a dramatic national ceremonial space , steeped in significance

Nearly a thousand years old, the massive, imposing and dramatic Westminster Hall, is the oldest surviving part of the Palace of Westminster and scene of many significant events in British history. When erected in 1097 by King William II ('William Rufus'), it was the largest hall in Europe.

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Iona - Scotland's ancient Christian heart

The tiny Scottish island of Iona is thought to be the first Christian site in Scotland and was the burial place of many early Scottish kings including Macbeth. The late Labour Party leader John Smith was also buried here in the Abbey cemetery in 1994.

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Belas Knap - a burial site as old as the pyramids

Above the Cotswold town of Winchcombe, on the Cotswold Way footpath, is the ancient long barrow of Belas Knap. And you can actually go inside it!

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A Cotswold Model Village - perfection in miniature

Within the grounds of the Old New Inn in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, is the only grade II listed model village in the country. It is a perfect representation of the village in the 1930s - at 1:9 scale.

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Woolsthorpe Manor - where gravity was discovered

Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth is a village in a quiet corner of Lincolnshire, near Grantham. It contains Woolsthorpe Manor, the family home of Isaac Newton, who realised the nature of gravity here, when he saw an apple fall from an apple tree in the orchard.

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Buxton, Derbyshire's elegant spa town

The spa town of Buxton is in Derbyshire, on the edge of thePeak District National Park. It is England's highest market town, sited at some 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level.

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The Drakelow Tunnels

Drakelow Tunnels are a former Top Secret underground military complex beneath Kingsford Country Park north of Kidderminster, Worcestershire. The complex is now open to the public and apparently haunted.

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Ludlow - "The Perfect Historic Town"

Described (quite reasonably) as "the perfect historic town" by its own PR, Ludlow in south Shropshire offers fine examples of architecture from the Medieval, Tudor and Georgian periods, a castle, outdoor markets, heaps of history, and a great location beneath the Shropshire Hills AONB.

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The mysterious Royston Cave

Beneath a crossroads in the Hertfordshire town of Royston lies a man made cave. There was no record of its existence until it was accidentally discovered in 1742. Within the cave are mysterious carvings, and one theory is that this was a sacred place for the Knights Templar.

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