Civilisation/British Isles Geography

England

Bedfordshire

Cardington is best known in connection with the Cardington airship works founded by Short Brothers during World War I, which later became an RAF base

Wrest Park is a country estate located near Silsoe

Whipsnade Zoo, near Dunstable, is owned by the Zoological Society of London

Berkshire

Maidenhead Railway Bridge was designed by Brunel, and completed in 1839

Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in the aftermath of the Second Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War

Slough is home to Europe's largest trading estate

Newbury is home to the world headquarters of Vodafone

Walbury Hill is the highest hill in Berkshire and the highest natural point in South East England

Buckinghamshire

Concrete cows in Milton Keynes were created in 1978 by Canadian-born artist, Liz Leyh

Milton Keynes was made a new town in 1967. The shopping centre is a Grade II listed building. It has a Peace Pagoda

Bekonscot Model Village and Railway is a model village built in the 1920s in Beaconsfield

Cambridgeshire

The green space of Parker’s Piece in Cambridge hosted the first ever game of association football

Bridge of Sighs is a covered bridge at St John’s College, Cambridge University

Duroliponte was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia on the site of what is now the city of Cambridge

Kettle’s Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge

Silicon Fen is the name given to the region around Cambridge, which is home to a large number of high-tech businesses focusing on software, electronics, and biotechnology

Stilton is a village within the historic county boundaries of Huntingdonshire

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, Huntingdon and Peterborough merged with Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely to form the new non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is the longest guided busway in the world

Cheshire

Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family. It is one of the UK's largest zoos

Eastgate is a permanently open gate through the Chester city walls, on the site of the original entrance to the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix. It includes the Eastgate clock

Chester’s central shopping area includes its unique Rows or galleries (two levels of shops) which date from medieval times

Chester Racecourse, known as the Roodee, is according to official records the oldest racecourse still in use in England. Horse racing at Chester dates back to the early 16th century. It is also thought to be the smallest racecourse of significance in England. The site was once a harbour during the Roman settlement of the city

Cestrian is a person from Chester

Tatton Park is a historic estate near Knutsford. It contains a mansion, Tatton Hall, a manor house dating from medieval times, Tatton Old Hall, gardens, a farm and a deer park of 2,000 acres

Northwich has a salt museum

Anderton Boat Lift provides a 50 feet vertical link between two navigable waterways: the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal

Burtonwood, near Warrington, was the largest airfield in Europe during WWII with the most USAAF personnel and aircraft maintenance facilities

Cheshire Ring canal ring, which includes sections of six canals in and around Cheshire and Greater Manchester

National Waterways Museum is in Ellesmere Port

Beeston Castle is a former Royal castle and is managed by English Heritage

Cornwall

Eden Project was conceived by Tim Smit and designed by architect Nicholas Grimshaw and engineering firm Anthony Hunt and Associates

Lost Gardens of Heligan are near Mevagissey. The gardens were created by members of the Tremayne family, over a period from the mid-18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century

Minack Theatre is an open-air theatre, constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop jutting into the sea. The theatre is located near Porthcurno, four miles from Land's End. The theatre was the brainchild of Rowena Cade

St Austell is an important town in the china clay industry

Furry Dance (also known incorrectly as the Floral Dance) takes place in Helston

St Michael's Mount (from Cornish for ’grey rock in the woods’) is a tidal island 366 m off the Mount's Bay coast. Named after the Archangel St Michael. St Michael’s Mount is united with Marazion by a man-made causeway, passable only at mid to low tide

Eddystone Lighthouse is situated on the treacherous Eddystone Rocks, nine miles south west of Rame Head. The rocks are within the city limits of Plymouth. The current structure is the fourth lighthouse to be built on the site. The first and second lighthouses were both destroyed in accidents. The third lighthouse, also known as Smeaton's Tower, is perhaps the best known of the four, because of its influence on modern lighthouse design and its importance in the development of concrete as a building material. Its upper portions have been re-erected in Plymouth as a monument

Longships is the name given to a group of rocks situated 1.25 miles to the west of Land's End, in Penwit. A lighthouse is situated at Longships

Doctor Syntax’s head is the most westerly point of Land's End

Merry Maidens is a late Neolithic stone circle

Lanhydrock House is a late Victorian country house

Heights above sea level are calculated from the mean sea level at Newlyn

The Manacles is a reef off the Cornish coast

Porthcurno is a cable station

The Cribbar, also known as the Widow Maker, is a reef off Newquay. The Cribbar is best known for creating annual big waves, popular with surfers

Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor is one site that is claimed to be the home of the Lady of the Lake

Lizard Point is the most southerly point on mainland Great Britain

River Camel flows through Cornwall

Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly remain part of the ceremonial county of Cornwall, and some services have been combined with those of Cornwall. Since 1890 the islands have had a separate local authority

Isles of Scilly are known as ‘Islands of the Dead’ due to the large number of burial chambers

Bishop Rock is a small rock at the westernmost tip of the Isles of Scilly known for its lighthouse, and listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest island with a building on it in the world

Hugh Town is the main settlement on the Isles of Scilly. The town is situated on the island of St. Mary's, which is the largest of the Isles of Scilly

Tresco is the second largest island

Only five of the Isles of Scilly are inhabited

Southernmost settlement of the United Kingdom is Troy Town Farm on St. Agnes

Midway between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly is the supposed location of the mythical lost land of Lyonesse, referred to in Arthurian literature

Cumbria

The county of Cumbria was created in 1974 from the traditional counties of Cumberland and Westmorland

Kendal lies on the River Kent

Appleby was the county town of Westmorland

Windermere is the largest and longest lake in England

Belle Isle is the largest of 18 islands on Windermere

Derwent Island House is an 18th century Italianate house situated on Derwent Island, in Derwent Water, and in the ownership of the National Trust. It is open to the public five days a year

Ullswater is the second largest lake in England

Wastwater is the deepest lake in England

Windermere, Ullswater and Wastwater are all ribbon lakes, formed in a glacial trough after the retreat of ice at the start of the current interglacial

Bassenthwaite Lake is the only body of water in the Lake District to be technically defined as a "lake" and to use the word "lake" in its name

Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District

Thirlmere was constructed in the 19th century by the Manchester Corporation to provide the city of Manchester with water supplies. The 96 mile-long Thirlmere Aqueduct still provides water to the Manchester area and remains the longest tunnel in the world

Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly mountains in the Lake District

Striding Edge is a ridge on Helvellyn

Scafell Pike is the highest mountain in England, at an elevation of 978 metres (3,209 ft) above sea level

Sca Fell is the second highest mountain in England

Helvellyn is the third highest mountain in England

Skiddaw is a mountain overlooking Keswick

Hardknot Pass in the Lake District is one of the steepest roads in England

Kirkstone Pass is the Lake District's highest pass that is open to motor traffic

Ambleside is at the north end of Windermere

Castlerigg Stone circle is near Keswick

The highest waterfall in England, Cautley Spout, in Howgill Fells, is almost 600 ft high

Walney Island is an island at the western end of Morecambe Bay. It forms part of the town of Barrow-in-Furness

Long Meg and Her Daughters is a Bronze Age stone circle near Penrith

Banna, now known as Birdoswald Roman Fort, is one of the best preserved of the 16 forts along Hadrian's Wall

Glenridding and Pooley Bridge are villages at the ends of Ullswater

Gosforth Cross has elaborate carvings which have been interpreted as representing characters and scenes from Norse mythology

Windscale is near the village of Seascale

Calder Hall was the first UK nuclear power station, at Sellafield. Opened by the Queen in 1956

Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, or THORP, is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield. THORP is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and operated by Sellafield Ltd

St. Bees Head is the most westerly point of Northern England

Ruskin Museum is in Coniston

Cartmel is famous for sticky toffee pudding

In 2022 L’Enclume restaurant in Cartmel, run by chef Simon Rogan became the first restaurant in the UK outside London and the South-East to gain 3 Michelin stars

Carlisle was a Roman settlement was named Luguvalium

Oxenholme Lake District is a railway station in Oxenholme, near Kendal. The station is situated on the West Coast Main Line and is also the start of the Windermere Branch Line to Windermere

Dent railway station on the Settle and Carlisle line is the highest operational main line station in England

Derbyshire

Derby was made a city by the Queen in 1977

Buxton has a Doric-style building called The Crescent, built on the orders of the 5th Duke of Devonshire

Buxton was known as Aquae Arnemetiae in Roman times

Flash, near Buxton, is the highest village in England

Ladybower Reservoir is in the Upper Derwent Valley

Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge in North East Derbyshire. It contains the only known examples of Paleolithic cave art in Britain

Titan is located at Castleton in the Peak District and is the largest shaft of any known United Kingdom cave, being some 141m tall

Treak Cliff Cavern is a cave near Castleton. It has been a designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for many years and by agreement with English Nature all the Blue John stone deposits on the visitor route are preserved. Blue John is a variety of fluorite

Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site. The modern factory, or 'mill', system was born here in the 18th century to accommodate the new technology for spinning cotton developed by Richard Arkwright

Eyam is a small village best known for being the ‘plague village’ that chose to isolate itself when the Black Death was found in the village in1665, rather than see the infection travel further north

Matlock is the administrative centre of Derbyshire

Royal Shrovetide Football Match is a "medieval football" game played annually on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in the town of Ashbourne

Devon

Torbay is a borough that includes the resort towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham

Westward Ho! Is a village near Bideford. The village name comes from the title of Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho!

National Marine Aquarium is in Plymouth

Her Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport) is the largest naval base in Western Europe and is the sole nuclear repair and refueling facility for the Royal Navy

Devonport was formerly named Plymouth Dock

White Lady Waterfall at Lydford Gorge is on the River Lyd

Great Hangman is the highest sea cliff in England and the highest point on the South West Coast Path

Plymouth was the most bombed UK city in World War II

The town of Axminster gives its name to a type of carpet

Kents Cavern is a cave system in Torquay, and is notable both for its archaeological and geological features

Isca Dumnoniorum was the Roman name for Exeter

The practice of carrying flaming tar barrels through the streets takes place in Ottery St Mary

Tarka Line is a railway line from Exeter to Barnstable

Lundy is the largest island in the Bristol Channel. Lundy is England’s only marine nature reserve. It is owned by the National Trust

High Willhays is the highest point in Devon and is the highest point in England south of the Brecon Beacons

Dorset

Bournemouth was founded in 1810 by Lewis Trogonwell

Bournemouth was part of Hampshire until 1974

Dorchester was the site of the trial of Bloody Assizes (1685) and Tolpuddle Martyrs (1833)

Lyme Regis was granted a royal charter by Edward I in 1284

The town walls of Wareham were likely built by Alfred the Great in the 9th century to defend the town from the Danes

Kimmeridge is a village in the Purbeck district. The village stands on Jurassic shale cliffs, and gives its name to the division of the Jurassic period in which the beds were laid down, because of the quality of the cliffs and the fossils they yield. It is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site

Old Harry Rocks are chalk stacks located on the Isle of Purbeck directly east of Studland and to the north of Swanage

Fleet Lagoon is between Chesil Beach and the mainland

Durnovaria was the Roman name for Dorchester

Made by a turf-cut outline filled with chalk, the Cerne Abbas Giant depicts a large, naked man, with a substantial erect penis, typically described as a giant wielding a club

Sandbanks is a small peninsula crossing the mouth of Poole Harbour. Sandbanks has, by area, the fourth highest land value in the world

An ancient sycamore tree on the village green at Tolpuddle, known as the Martyrs' Tree, is said to be the place where the Martyrs swore their oath

Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour is one of the few places in southern England where indigenous red squirrels survive

Lulworth Cove is on the Jurassic Coast

Durdle Door is a natural limestone arch near Lulworth

Durham

Durham was the first UK city to introduce a congestion charge

Hamsterley Forest is a commercial forest operated by the Forestry Commission

High Force is a waterfall on the River Tees

Caldron Snout is a waterfall on River Tees. It lies on the boundary between County Durham and Cumbria

Dunelmian is a person from Durham

East Riding of Yorkshire

Hull has distinctive cream telephone boxes which can be seen across the city. KCOM produces its own 'White Pages' telephone directory

In 2019, Hull became the first UK city to have full fibre broadband available for all residents

Wyke on Hull was renamed Kings town upon Hull by King Edward I in 1299

Spurn Head is a narrow sand spit on the tip of the coast that reaches into the North Sea and forms the north bank of the mouth of the Humber estuary

Holderness is an area of rich agricultural land, but was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages

Humber Bridge spans the Humber (the estuary formed by the rivers Trent and Ouse) between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Hessle on the north bank, connecting the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Humber Bridge opened in 1981. It is the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world which can be crossed on foot or by bicycle

Hornsea Wind Farm is sited 120 km off the east coast, and is planned to have a total capacity of up to 6 gigawatt

East Sussex

George V added the Regis suffix to Bognor

Long Man of Wilmington is at Windover Hill, in East Sussex. Holds two poles

Glyndebourne is near Lewes

Goodwood is associated with the Dukes of Richmond

The land on which Gatwick Airport stands was first developed as an aerodrome in the late 1920s. The Air Ministry approved commercial flights from the site in 1933, and the first terminal, "The Beehive" was built in 1935

Lewes is the administrative centre of East Sussex

Pevensey Castle is a medieval castle and former Roman Saxon Shore fort. Built around 290 AD, it was known to the Romans as Anderitum

Essex

Essex takes its name from the Old English for "East Saxons"

Maldon is famous for sea salt

Colchester is the oldest town in England. Granted city status in 2022

Colchester was famed for its oysters

Chelmsford was known as Caeseromagus in Roman times

The Rodings are a group of villages, the largest group in the country to bear a common name

Saffron Walden gets its name from the rare Crocus sativus, saffron crocus

Isle of Thanet is separated from the mainland by what became known as the Wantsum Channel, until the deposition of silt from the River Stour along the coast joined the Isle to the mainland

Canvey Island is separated from the mainland to the north and west by Benfleet, East Haven and Vange creeks

Camulodunum was the Roman name for Colchester

Colchester is on the River Colne

Wallasea Wetlands is sited on Wallasea Island

DP World London Gateway is a deep-water port in Thurrock opened in 2013

Gloucestershire

Crickley Hill is an important Neolithic and Iron Age site in the Cotswold Hills

Chedworth Roman Villa is one of the largest Roman villas in Britain

Westonbirt Arboretum is managed by the Forestry Commission. The arboretum was established in 1829 by Robert Stayner Holford

Tewkesbury Abbey is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Britain, and has probably the largest Romanesque crossing tower in Europe

Clearwell Caves are ancient iron mines in the Forest of Dean

Catherine Parr is buried at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe

Kemble airfield is now known as Cotswold Airport, and is used as an F1 test track

St Mary's Parish churchyard in Painswick is notable for its ancient and numerous yew trees

Bristol Temple Meads derives its name from the nearby Temple Church, which was built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century

Clifton Suspension Bridge spans the Avon Gorge, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Opened in 1864

The Roman name for Cirencester was Corinium, which is thought to have been associated with the ancient British tribe of the Dobunni

Cirencester is the home of the Royal Agricultural University, the oldest agricultural college, founded in 1840

During the Middle Ages, Tetbury became an important market for Cotswold wool and yarn

Highgrove House, the family residence of the Prince of Wales, is situated south west of Tetbury

Gatcombe Park is the country residence of Anne, Princess Royal located between the villages of Minchinhampton and Avening

Greater London

The administrative area was created on 1 April 1965 and has been the London region since 1 April 1994. It comprises the City of London and 32 London boroughs, of which 12 are Inner London and 20 Outer London boroughs. It covers 1,572 km² (607 sq miles) and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census

The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its powers were devolved to the London boroughs and other entities

The Greater London Authority (GLA) was established in 2000

Royal London boroughs – Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Greenwich, Windsor and Maidenhead

Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner

Wellington Arch, also known as Constitution Arch or (originally) the Green Park Arch, is a triumphal arch located to the south of Hyde Park. Built nearby between 1826 and 1830 to a design by Decimus Burton, it was moved to its present position in 1882–83. It once supported an equestrian statue of the 1st Duke of Wellington

HMS Belfast is moored near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978

First bridge across the Thames was near Vauxhall, c. 1500 BC, where three rivers met

Romans built a bridge on the site of London Bridge c. 50 AD

Medieval London Bridge built by Peter de Colechurch in 1209. A chapel was built in the middle of the bridge and there were shops on both sides of the bridge

London Bridge is the oldest station in London. Opened in 1836

Westminster Bridge was the second bridge built across Thames (1750), after London Bridge

Big Ben is the world's largest four-faced, chiming clock and the third largest free-standing clock tower in the world. The main bell is officially known as the Great Bell. Completed in 1859. The designers were Edmund Beckett Denison and George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Construction was entrusted to clockmaker Edward John Dent

Big Ben is in the Elizabeth Tower. It may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the installation of the Great Bell

Tower Bridge was designed by Horace Jones. John Wolfe-Barry was the structural engineer. Opened in 1894. Bascule bridge

London and Greenwich Railway was opened between 1836 and 1838. It was the first steam railway to have a terminus in the capital, the first of any to be built specifically for passenger service, and the first example of an elevated railway

Westminster Hall is the oldest building in Parliament and almost the only part of the ancient Palace of Westminster which survives in almost its original form. The Hall was built in 1097 under William II

Westminster Abbey is also The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster

Henry VII Chapel is part of Westminster Abbey

The British tomb of The Unknown Warrior holds an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during World War I. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920, the earliest such tomb honouring the unknown dead of WWI

Tower of London is also Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress

The Tower of London is often identified with the White Tower, the original stark square fortress built by William the Conqueror in 1078

White Tower is the oldest part of Tower of London

The Bloody Tower acquired its name in the 16th century, as it was believed to be the site of the murder of the Princes in the Tower

The Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula (‘St Peter in chains’) is the parish church of the Tower of London, dating from 1520

Old Bailey is the name of the street where the Old Bailey stands, on the site of Newgate prison. On the dome above the Old Bailey stands a bronze statue of Lady Justice, executed by British sculptor F. W. Pomeroy. She holds a sword in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left hand

Newgate – now the site of the Old Bailey

Amen Corner is located off Ave Maria Lane, just to the west of St Paul's Cathedral and between the Old Bailey and Paternoster Square

Albemarle Street was the first one-way street in London

Leicester Square is named after the Earl of Leicester

Queen’s Hall in Langham Place was destroyed by a bomb in 1941

College Green is a small grass-covered public area diagonally opposite the Palace of Westminster, and is a common place for TV reporters to interview MPs

St Stephen’s entrance is where people queue to get into Commons public galleries

Somerset House is the HQ of Inland Revenue

Black Museum is a collection of criminal memorabilia kept at New Scotland Yard

East Front of Buckingham Palace was originally constructed by Edward Blore and completed in 1850. It acquired its present appearance following a remodeling, in 1913, by Sir Aston Webb. SW1A 1AA – postcode of Buckingham Palace

London Palladium is on Argyle Street

Statues in Parliament Square – Churchill, Lloyd George, Smuts, Palmerston, Derby, Disraeli, Peel, Canning, Lincoln, Mandela, Gandhi (unveiled in 2015)

Green Park was used as a dueling ground

Launched in 1991, The Green Plaque Scheme draws attention to particular buildings in Westminster associated with people of renown who have made lasting contributions to society

Equestrian statue of King Charles I was cast by the French sculptor Hubert Le Sueur in 1638, before the English Civil War. Following the war it was sold by Parliament to John Rivet, a metalsmith, to be broken down. However Rivet hid the statue until the Restoration, when it was placed on a pedestal at its current location in Charing Cross. On the pavement a few feet behind the equestrian statue of Charles I there is a plaque:  ‘On the site now occupied by the statue of King Charles was erected the original Queen Eleanor's Cross, a replica of which stands in front of Charing Cross station. Mileages from London are measured from the site of the original cross’

Pelicans in St James’s Park introduced in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador

Albert Memorial was designed by George Gilbert Scott in 1872

Golden Boy of Pye Corner is a monument near Smithfield, where the Great Fire of London stopped in 1666

Marble Arch was designed in 1828 by John Nash as a triumphal entrance. When the palace was extended in the 1840s, the arch was moved to form an entrance to Hyde Park

London Wall was the defensive wall built by the Romans around Londinium

Cripplegate was a city gate in the London Wall and a name for the region of the City of London outside the gate. The area was almost entirely destroyed by bombing in World War II and today is the site of the Barbican Estate and Barbican Centre

Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982

Strand referred to the shallow bank of the once much wider River Thames, before the construction of the Victoria Embankment

Parish church of St Paul in Covent Garden is known as ‘the actor’s church’

Clarence House was built between 1825 and 1827 to a design by John Nash. It was commissioned by Prince William, Duke of Clarence, who became William IV in 1830

Clarence House is the official residence of Prince Charles

Horse Guards Parade was formerly the site of the Palace of Whitehall's tiltyard, where tournaments (including jousting) were held in the time of Henry VIII. It was also the scene of annual celebrations of the birthday of Queen Elizabeth I

Savoy Court is the only street in the United Kingdom where vehicles are required to drive on the right

Cleopatra’s Needle erected in 1878 on Victoria Embankment. Obelisk to Tuthmose III

Euston is oldest mainline London terminus, and was opened in 1837

Fenchurch Street was the first station to be constructed within walls of City of London, in 1841. It does not have a direct link to the London Underground

Paddington Station was completed in 1854

Originally, the Pool of London was the stretch of the River Thames forming the south side of the City of London. The term was later used more generally to refer to the stretch of the river in between London Bridge and Rotherhithe, which constituted the furthest reach that could be reached by a tall-masted vessel

Vauxhall Bridge has a statue holding a model of St Paul’s

Hyde Park was created in 1536 by Henry VIII for hunting. He acquired the manor of Hyde from the canons of Westminster Abbey, who had held it since before the Norman Conquest; it was enclosed as a deer park and remained a private hunting ground until James I permitted limited access to gentlefolk, appointing a ranger to take charge. Charles I created the Ring, and in 1637 he opened the park to the general public

Post Office Tower was built in 1965. Telecom Tower restaurant and observation gallery closed in 1980

Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park was designed by American landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson

Queen Elizabeth gates in Hyde Park opened in 1993

Denmark Street was Britain's "Tin Pan Alley" housing numerous music publishers' offices

7/7 memorial in Hyde Park consists of 52 steel pillars

The central quadrangle of the British Museum was redeveloped to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, commonly referred to simply as the Great Court, during the late 1990s. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. The court has a tessellated glass roof by Foster and Partners (Architects) and Buro Happold (Engineers) covering the entire court and surrounds the original circular British Museum Reading Room in the centre, now a museum. It is the largest covered square in Europe

Hunterian Museum is at the Royal College of Surgeons

St Bride's Church was designed by Christopher Wren in 1672 in Fleet Street. It has a long association with journalists and newspapers. Known as the ‘wedding cake’

St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is a Church of England church located on Queen Victoria Street. Rebuilt by Wren

One of the clock bells of St Paul’s Cathedral is called Great Tom. The largest monument in the cathedral is that to the Duke of Wellington by Alfred Stevens. The marble sarcophagus which holds the remains of Nelson was made for Cardinal Wolsey but was disused as the cardinal fell from favour. St Paul’s Cathedral is the cathedral of the Diocese of London. The south-west tower of St Paul’s contains four bells of which Great Paul, cast in 1881 by Taylor’s Bell Foundry of Loughborough, at 16½ tons was the largest bell in the British Isles until the casting of the Olympic Bell for the 2012 London Olympics

Trafalgar Square was originally to be called King William the Fourth’s Square. The first three plinths have statues of George IV, Henry Havelock and Charles James Napier. Fourth plinth used for a succession of works by contemporary artists, including Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, and Marc Quinn

Canary Wharf contains the UK's three tallest buildings: One Canada Square at 771 ft; and the HSBC Tower and the Citigroup Centre joint second tallest at 654 ft

Canary Wharf takes its name from a quay that imported from Canary Islands

Canary Wharf railway station is part of the Crossrail project. It was designed by Fosters

St James's Park is the oldest Royal Park in London

Finsbury Circus is the largest public open space within the City's boundaries

St Mary-le-Bow is a church on Cheapside. According to tradition a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of Bow Bells (which refers to this church's bells rather than St Mary and Holy Trinity, Bow Road, in Bow)

St Martin-in-the-Fields is an English Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since the medieval period. The present building was constructed in a Neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–24

Downing Street is named after George Downing, MP who served as Postmaster-General in Cromwell’s army

Ayrton light is the light at the top of the Clock Tower in the Palace of Westminster

Mermaid Tavern, near St Paul’s – visited by poets, including Shakespeare. Meeting place of the ‘Friday Street Club’, a literary club founded in 1603 by Walter Raleigh. Burned down in the Great Fire of London

Mermaid Theatre was a theatre at Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars, in the City of London and the first built there since the time of Shakespeare. The 20th century theatre was the life's work of actor Bernard Miles

Kings Cross was known as Battle Bridge until a statue of George IV was erected in 1835

Burlington Arcade was built to the order of Lord George Cavendish, younger brother of the 5th Duke of Devonshire, who had inherited the adjacent Burlington House. The Arcade opened in 1819

Chamber of Horrors is at Madame Tussauds

Waterloo Station opened in 1848. 19 platforms

The first bridge on the site of Waterloo Bridge was designed in 1809 by John Rennie for the Strand Bridge Company and opened in 1817 as a toll bridge. The new bridge was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott and opened in 1945

Design Museum is near Tower Bridge. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. It was founded in 1989 and claims to be the first museum of modern design

Bethlem's origins are traced to its foundation in 1247, during the reign of Henry III, as the Priory of the New Order of St Mary of Bethlem in the city of London. The original location of the priory was in the parish of St Botolph, just beyond London's wall and where Liverpool Street station now stands

Bethlem was first as a priory for the sisters and brethren of the Order of the Star of Bethlehem, from where the building took its name. Its first site was in Bishopsgate

London Library is the world's largest independent lending library. It is located in the St James area of the City of Westminster and was founded in 1841 by a group of men who included Thomas Carlyle

55 Broadway is a building overlooking St. James's Park. It was designed by Charles Holden and built in 1929. It was built as a headquarters building for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, the main forerunner of London Underground

Tower 42 was originally known as the National Westminster Tower. The tower, designed by Richard Seifert and opened in 1981, is located at 25 Old Broad Street

30 St Mary Axe (known informally as The Gherkin and previously as the Swiss Re Building) was opened in 2004. It stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange

20 Fenchurch Street is a 38-storey skyscraper on Fenchurch Street. It has been nicknamed ‘The Walkie-Talkie’ because of its distinctive shape.  Completed in 2014, the building is 160 m tall. Costing over £200 million, it is designed by architect Rafael Vinoly

The Pinnacle or TwentyTwo (known informally as the Helter-Skelter and formerly called the Bishopsgate Tower) is a 62-storey 278 m (912 ft) skyscraper. Construction started on the site at 22-24 Bishopsgate in 2008 but not completed until 2020 due to the Great Recession.

122 Leadenhall Street was completed in 2014. The skyscraper was designed by Richard Rogers and is known as ‘The Cheesegrater’ because of its distinctive wedge shape. It is also known as the Leadenhall Building. It stands 225m (738ft) tall and has 45 floors.

52-54 Lime Street is a 190m (620ft) tall skyscraper which was completed in 2018. Due to its angular shape, it has been nicknamed ‘The Scalpel’.

The Shard in Southwark is the tallest building in the UK and the seventh-tallest in Europe. It was designed by Renzi Piano and was completed in 2012. It is 309.6m (1,016ft) tall and was opened to the public in 2013. There is an open-air observation deck on the 72nd floor (244m/801ft)

Bevis Marks in the City of London is the oldest synagogue in Britain. Completed in 1701

Victoria Coach Station was opened at its present site in Buckingham Palace Road in 1932, by London Coastal Coaches Limited. The building is in a distinctive Art Deco style, the architects for which were Wallis, Gilbert and Partners

Strata SE1 is a 148-metre, 43-storey residential building at Elephant and Castle. Designed by BFLS (formerly Hamiltons). Strata SE1 is one of the first buildings in the world to incorporate wind turbines as part of its structure

Westminster Bridge opened in 1862. Oldest London bridge still in use. Designed by Thomas Page

Richard Burbage built the original Globe Theatre. Redesigned by Sam Wanamaker

Julia Barfield and David Marks designed the London Eye

Nelson’s Column was designed by architect William Railton in 1838, and built by the firm Peto & Grissell

The Monument was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Its 202 foot height marks the monument's distance to the site of Thomas Farriner, the king's baker's shop in Pudding Lane, where the fire began. Wren and Hooke built the monument to double as a scientific instrument. It has a central shaft meant for use as a zenith telescope and for use in gravity and pendulum experiments that connects to an underground laboratory for observers to work. The top of the Monument is reached by a narrow winding staircase of 311 steps

Royal Albert Hall was designed by civil engineers Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Scott of the Royal Engineers and built by Lucas Brothers.  Opened by Queen Victoria in 1871

Victoria and Albert Museum has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851, with which Henry Cole, the museum's first director, was involved in planning; initially it was known as the Museum of Manufactures, first opening in 1852 at Marlborough House. Moved to South Kensington in 1857

Natural History Museum opened in 1881

Millbank Prison was used largely as a holding facility for people convicted of a crime who were being transported to Australia, a practice that ended in 1868. It was opened in 1816, designed according to principles laid down by the philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and closed in 1890. The National Gallery of British Art was built on the prison site in 1897, now called Tate Britain

MI5 headquarters are at Thames House

River Fleet is the largest of London's subterranean rivers. Its headwaters are two streams on Hampstead Heath

Fitzrovia is situated between Marylebone and Bloomsbury and north of Soho. Probably named after the Fitzroy Tavern

Thames Tunnel connects Rotherhithe and Wapping. It was the first tunnel known successfully to have been constructed underneath a navigable river, and was built between 1825 and 1843 using Thomas Cochrane and Marc Isambard Brunel's newly invented tunneling shield technology, by him and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Inspired by observing the actions of ship worms (Teredo navalis) at Chatham Dockyard, Mark Isambard Brunel created a device that was used to form tunnels underground

The Clink, Marshalsea – both in Southwark

Billingsgate Fish Market relocated to the Isle of Dogs in 1982

Olympia opened in the 19th century and was originally known as the National Agricultural Hall

St George Wharf Tower, also known as the Vauxhall Tower, is the tallest residential building in the UK (181 m)

Earls Court Exhibition Centre opened in 1937

William Crabtree designed the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in 1673. (The word ‘Physic’ refers to the science of healing.) It is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621. Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants

Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market located on Wentworth Street and Middlesex Street in East London

Mile End takes its name from a milestone signifying the point one mile east of the boundary of the City of London at Aldgate, although historically the stone's position was near Stepney Green tube station

St John’s Wood – once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem

Highgate Cemetery was established in 1839. Karl Marx, George Eliot and Ralph Richardson are all buried in Highgate cemetery

Hampstead Garden Suburb was founded by Henrietta Barnett in 1907

Wandsworth Prison was known as ‘the Surrey house of correction’

The current Hammersmith Bridge was designed by Joseph Bazalgette

Royal Observatory, Greenwich was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II. At that time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal. Flamsteed House, the original part of the Observatory, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren

Queen’s House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1619 in Greenwich. Built by Inigo Jones for Anne of Denmark, the queen of King James I of England

The Royal Naval College, Greenwich, was a Royal Navy training establishment between 1873 and 1998

Cutty Sark and Gypsy Moth IV are at Greenwich Pier

Eltham Palace is within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is an unoccupied royal residence and owned by the Crown Estate

Millwall was originally known as Marshwall, its name derives from the large number of windmills built on the river wall, in the 19th century

Peckham Library was designed by Will Alsop

Lord Burlington's finest architectural creation, Chiswick House, is inspired in part by several buildings of Andrea Palladio

Kenwood House is a former stately home, in Hampstead. The house is best known for the artwork it houses, and for summer open-air concerts

Outer London

ExCeL London (Exhibition Centre London) is located on the northern quay of the Royal Victoria Dock in London Docklands, between Canary Wharf and London City Airport, in the borough of Newham

Old Wembley Stadium built by McAlpines

Wembley Stadium was designed by architects HOK Sport and Foster and Partners with engineers Mott MacDonald, and built by Multiplex

The White Horse Bridge is the name of the new footbridge that crosses Wembley Stadium railway station leading up to Wembley Stadium

Scratchwood Services now known as London Gateway Services

Kew Gardens was founded by Princess Augusta

Palm house at Kew Gardens was designed by Richard Turner and Decimus Burton

Kew Gardens Great Pagoda by William Chambers was erected in 1762, from a design in imitation of the Chinese Taa

Kew Gardens Nash Conservatory was originally at Buckingham Palace

Marble Hill House is a Palladian villa built between 1724 and 1729 in Twickenham

Strawberry Hill was the first Gothic building. Horace Walpole’s ‘little gothic castle’

Syon House derives its name from Syon Abbey, a medieval monastery of the Bridgettine Order, founded in 1415. It belongs to the Duke of Northumberland. The interior of the house was designed by the architect Robert Adam in the 1760s

Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) was a UK government-owned rifle factory in the London Borough of Enfield. The factory produced British military rifles, muskets and swords from 1816. It closed in 1988

Bromley is the largest London borough by area (59 square miles)

The name Croydon is derived from ‘crocus valley’, is may have been a centre for the collection of saffron

Teddington Lock is the end of the tidal reach of the Thames

Richmond was named after Henry VII’s Yorkshire earldom

Richmond Park has a colony of green parakeets

Ham House was completed in 1610. Owned by Earl of Dysart

New Spitalfields Market is located in Leyton, London Borough of Waltham Forest. Opened in 1991, it is Europe's leading horticultural market specializing in exotic fruit and vegetables

West Norwood Cemetery has catacombs

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ is an informal term applied to seven large cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds. Includes West Norwood, Highgate, and Brompton

Brent Cross Shopping Centre opened in 1976

Hindu temple in Neasden was the largest outside India when it was constructed

Greater Manchester

Free Trade Hall in Manchester was built to celebrate repeal of Corn Laws

The M.E.N. (Manchester Evening News) Arena is currently Europe's second-largest indoor arena

Beetham Tower (or Hilton Tower) is a 47-storey mixed-use skyscraper in Manchester. When it was completed in 2006, it was the tallest residential building in the UK

Alan Turing Memorial is situated in the Sackville Park in Manchester

Manchester was known as Cottonopolis due to the large production of cotton

Bridgewater Canal was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761

Peel Tower stands on Holcombe Moor, above Ramsbottom

Hampshire

Stratfield Saye House has been the home of the Dukes of Wellington since 1817

Portchester Castle is a medieval castle and former Roman fort at Portchester to the east of Fareham in Hampshire

Sandham Memorial Chapel is in the village of Burghclere. The chapel is famous for its series of paintings by the English artist Stanley Spencer which were inspired by his experiences during World War I, during which he served as an orderly with the Royal Army Medical Corps

Tricorn shopping centre, Portsmouth was an example of brutalist architecture

UK Air Traffic Control Centre is located at Swanwick

At a height of 170 m above sea level, Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth is 2.5 times higher than Nelson's Column, making it the tallest accessible structure in the United Kingdom outside of London. Designed by local firm HGP Architects and the engineering consultants Scott Wilson

Jane Austen’s house is at Chawton, Alton

Mayflower Memorial is in Southampton

National Oceanographic Centre is in Southampton

Mary Rose, Victory, HMS Warrior (Britain’s first iron-clad steamship) are at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

Spithead is the area east of the Solent

Venta Belgarum – Roman name for Winchester, capital of Wessex

Calleva Atrebatum (or Silchester Roman Town) was an Iron Age oppidum and subsequently a town in the Roman province of Britannia

Southampton was built on the site of the Roman city of Clausentum

Portsea Island contains a large proportion of, the city of Portsmouth, and has the largest population of any island in England

Herefordshire

Symonds Yat is on the River Wye. The name is said to come from Robert Symonds, a 17th century sheriff of Herefordshire and ‘yat’ as an old word for a gate or pass

Hereford Cathedral Library is also well known for its chained books as it is the only library of this type to survive with all of the chains, rods and locks still intact

Hereford Mappa Mundi dates from c. 1285. It is currently on display at Hereford Cathedral. It is the largest medieval map known still to exist

Goodrich Castle is a Norman medieval castle situated to the north of the village of Goodrich

Hertfordshire

Woburn Abbey was originally founded as a Cistercian abbey in 1145

Letchworth was the first Garden City and the first place in UK to have a roundabout

Welwyn Garden City was founded in 1920

Natural History Museum at Tring was the private museum of Lionel Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild. Today it is under the control of the Natural History Museum. It houses one of the finest collections of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects in the UK

St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and became the Roman city of Verulamium. The mediaeval town grew up on the hill around the Benedictine foundation of St Albans Abbey. This is the spot where tradition has it that St Alban, the first British Christian martyr, was beheaded

Isle of Wight

Newport is the county town of the Isle of Wight

Ryde is the largest town of the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight has many dinosaur fossils

St Catherine’s Point is the southernmost point of Isle of Wight

Carisbrooke was for centuries the capital of the Isle of Wight

St Boniface Down is the highest point on the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight was known as Vectis in Roman times

River Medina is the main river, rising at St Catherine’s Down in the south of the Island and flowing through Newport, , towards the Solent at Cowes

Carisbrooke Castle is a historic motte-and-bailey castle. Charles I was imprisoned at the castle in the months prior to his trial

Osborne House was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Prince Albert designed the house himself in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main façade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847

The Needles is a row of three distinctive chalk stacks that rise out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, close to Alum Bay. The Needles Lighthouse, built in 1859, stands at the outer, western end of the formation. The formation takes its name from a fourth needle-shaped pillar called Lot’s Wife that collapsed in a storm in 1764

Kent

Dover Castle was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history. It is the largest castle in England

Deal Castle is a 16th century coastal artillery fort, located between Walmer Castle and the now lost Sandown Castle

Down House is the former home of Charles Darwin. In Darwin's day Downe was a parish in Kent: since 1965 has lain within the London Borough of Bromley

Lullingstone Roman Villa was built during the Roman occupation of Britain, situated near the village of Eyneford

Chatham Dockyard is located on the River Medway. Chatham was established as a royal dockyard by Elizabeth I in 1567. Chatham provided over 500 ships for the Royal Navy, and was at the forefront of shipbuilding, industrial and architectural technology. Closed in 1984

Isle of Sheppey separated from Kent by the Swale estuary

Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham are the Medway towns

Rochester lost its city status in 1998 due to an administrative error

The Charles Dickens Centre is in Rochester

Rochester cathedral is a Norman church. The bishopric is second oldest in England: only Canterbury is older

There are three Medway Viaducts, two of which carry the two carriageways of the M2 motorway. The other viaduct carries High Speed 1 across the River Medway near Rochester

Canterbury was the site of the first Anglo-Saxon cathedral. St. Augustine’s Abbey is also in Canterbury

Bell Harry Tower is in Canterbury cathedral

Durovernum was the Roman name for Canterbury

Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, was built in 1119 by Richard de Crevecoeur to replace the earlier Saxon manor of Esledes. The castle became a royal palace for King Edward I and his queen, Eleanor of Castile in 1278. In 1321 King Edward II besieged the castle after his queen was refused admission. Henry VIII transformed the castle for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon

Hever Castle, in Kent was the seat of the Boleyn family

Chartwell, located two miles south of Westerham, Kent, was the home of Winston Churchill

The Stade is a shingle beach in Hastings

Dubris was the Roman name for Dover

The Pantiles is a shopping centre in Tunbridge Wells

Deal has a time ball

Goodwin Sands lies six miles off the Deal coast. More than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked upon the Goodwin Sands

Queen Elizabeth II Bridge was opened in 1991

Pilgrims' Way is the historic route supposed to have been taken by pilgrims from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury

Walmer Castle was built by Henry VIII in 1539–40 as an artillery fortress to counter the threat of invasion from Catholic France and Spain. It was part of his programme to create a chain of coastal defences along England's coast known as the Device Forts or as Henrician Castles. In 1708 Walmer Castle took on a new role as the residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Duke of Wellington died in Walmer Castle

Whitstable is famous for its oysters, which have been collected in the area since at least Roman times

Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex

Maidstone is the administrative centre of Kent

The Scenic Railway is located at the site of the former Dreamland Amusement Park, Margate. It was opened in1920. The ride is now almost unique, as a brakeman is still required to travel with the train to control its speed, as there are no brakes on the track. It is the oldest roller coaster in the UK

Lancashire

Blackpool illuminations started in 1879

Blackpool Tower was constructed in 1894, and is 158 m high

Midland Hotel, Morecambe was built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1933, to the designs of architect Oliver Hill, with sculpture by Eric Gill

Built in the Brutalist architectural style between 1968 and 1969, designed by Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson of Building Design Partnership, Preston bus station has a capacity of 80 double-decker buses

The Fylde is a coastal plain in western Lancashire. It is roughly a 13 mile square-shaped peninsula, bound by Morecambe Bay to the north, the Ribble estuary to the south, the Irish Sea to the west, and the Bowland hills to the east.

Furness is an exclave of the historic county of Lancashire, lying to the north of Morecambe Bay

Blackpool is on Fylde peninsula

Bolton was called Bolton-le-Moors

Church of St Peter and St Paul in Ormskirk is one of only three parish churches in England to have a tower and a spire, and is unique in that it has both at the same end of the building. (The other two are St Mary’s Church, Purton, and St Andrew’s Church, Wanborough)

Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells, is mostly in north-east Lancashire. A small part lies in North Yorkshire. Once described as the ‘Switzerland of England’, it has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty since 1964

Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine hill range overlooking Burnley. Completed in 2006, it is part of the series of four sculptures within the Panopticons arts and regeneration project created by the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network

Leicestershire

Ratae was the Roman name for Leicester

The remains of King Richard III are buried in Cathedral Church of St Martin, Leicester, usually known as Leicester Cathedral

New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester has the largest collection of German Expressionist artwork in the UK

Leicester became a city in 1919

Charnwood forest is bounded by Leicester, Loughborough, and Coalville

Gartree prison is in Market Harborough

Ashby de la Zouch Castle was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire was historically divided into Kesteven, Holland and Lindsey

Lincoln Cathedral is known as St Mary's Cathedral. Building commenced in 1088. The central spire collapsed in 1549 and was not rebuilt

Great Tom of Lincoln is a bell in Lincoln cathedral

Dean’s Eye and Bishop’s Eye are rose windows in Lincoln Cathedral

Lindum – Roman name for Lincoln

Brigg Horse Fair is the surviving continuation of the medieval fair which was in existence at least as early as 1205

RAF officers are trained at RAF College Cranwell

Bolingbroke Castle was the birthplace of Henry IV

Merseyside

International Slavery Museum is in Liverpool

Tommy Steele sculpted Eleanor Rigby, which he gave to the City of Liverpool as a tribute to the Beatles. The statue stands in Stanley Street, Liverpool, not far from the Cavern Club

The Liver Building is crowned with twin clock towers, each topped with a cormorant-like liver bird designed by Carl Bernard Bartels

St George’s Hall is on Lime Street in the centre of Liverpool, opposite Lime Street railway station. It is a building in neoclassical style which contains concert halls and law courts, and is a Grade I listed building

Liverpool (Speke) Airport, as the airport was originally known, started scheduled flights in 1930 with a service by Imperial Airways. The old terminal building is now the Crowne Plaza Liverpool John Lennon Airport Hotel

Liverpool Cathedral is the second longest cathedral in the world (after St Peter’s Basilica) and has the largest pipe organ in the UK

Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City is a UNESCO designated World Heritage Site. It comprises six locations in the city centre of Liverpool including the Pier Head, Albert Dock and William Brown Street

Tate Liverpool opened in 1988 and is housed in a converted warehouse within the Albert Dock

Panoramic 34 is a restaurant and bar located on the 34th floor of the Beetham West Tower, Liverpool. It is one of the UK’s highest restaurants

The Silver Jubilee Bridge crosses the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal at Runcorn Gap between Runcorn and Widnes

Ashworth Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Maghull, Merseyside

Queensway tunnel under the River Mersey was opened by George VI

Southport Flower Show held at Victoria Park is the largest independent flower show in the UK

Hilbre Island is the largest of a group of three islands at the mouth of the estuary of the River Dee, which is a part of the estuary. Site of Special Scientific Interest

Norfolk

During the 14th century, King's Lynn ranked as the third most important port in England, behind Southampton and London. It was considered as important to England during the Middle Ages as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. Sea trade with Europe was dominated by the Hanseatic League of ports

Castle Rising is a ruined medieval fortification in the village of Castle Rising, near King’s Lynn

King's Lynn is mainly on the east bank of the River Great Ouse close to where it flows into the Wash

Maddermarket theatre is in Norwich

Little Snoring is a village in Norfolk

North Norfolk Railway, also known as the ‘Poppy Line’, is a heritage steam railway running between Sheringham and Holt

Houghton Hall in Norfolk once contained part of Sir Robert Walpole’s picture collection, which his grandson the 3rd Earl sold in 1779 to Catherine the Great of Russia to pay off some of the estate's accumulated debt. Now displayed in the Hermitage

Great Yarmouth is noted for bloaters and kippers

Great Yarmouth is home to the Grade I listed Norfolk Naval Pillar, known locally as Nelson's Monument or Nelson's Column. This tribute to Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson was completed in 1819, 24 years before the completion of Nelson's Column in London

Cromer is famous for the Cromer crab, which forms the major source of income for the local fishermen

Holkham Hall in Norfolk was constructed in the Palladian style for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester by the architect William Kent, aided by the architect and aristocrat Lord Burlington

Grime's Graves is a large Neolithic flint mining complex in Norfolk, though Brandon, Suffolk, is the nearest town. It was worked between circa 3000 BC and circa 1900 BC, although production may have continued well into the Bronze and Iron Ages (and later) owing to the low cost of flint compared with metals

Our Lady of Walsingham is a title used for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The title derives from the belief that Mary appeared in a vision to Richeldis de Faverches, a devout Saxon noblewoman, in 1061 in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk. There are both Roman Catholic and Anglican shrines in Walsingham

Northamptonshire

Sulgrave Manor is the ancestral home of George Washington

Kirby Hall is an Elizabethan country house, located near Corby. Kirby was owned by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I

Cultural Quarter of Northampton is in the centre of the town. It is sometimes referred to as Derngate, which was the name of a gate in the old town walls located there

Fotheringhay Castle was a favoured residence of the Dukes of York, and Richard III was born here in 1452. It was also the final place of imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was tried and executed in the castle in 1587

Northumberland

Curlew is the official symbol of Northumberland National Park

Chillingham Cattle are a rare breed of cattle that live in a large enclosed park at Chillingham Castle

In 1464 during the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh Castle became the first castle in England to be defeated by artillery, at the end of a nine-month siege by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick

RNLI Grace Darling Museum is in Bamburgh

Cheviot Hills are at the northern end of the Northumberland National Park

Berwick-upon-Tweed is the northernmost town in England

Kielder Water is the largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom by capacity and it is surrounded by Kielder Forest, the largest man-made woodland in Europe. It was planned in the late 1960s to satisfy an expected rise in demand for water to support a booming UK industrial economy

Belsay Castle is a 14th century medieval castle The castle was abandoned as a residence in the early 19th century when Sir Charles Monck built Belsay Hall close by

Alnwick Castle is the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest

The monastery of Lindisfarne (Holy Island) was founded by Irish monk Saint Aidan, who had been sent from Iona off the west coast of Scotland to Northumbria at the request of King Oswald. The priory was founded before the end of 634 and Aidan remained there until his death in 651

Corbridge was a Roman settlement

Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian’s Wall. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, among the most important finds of military and private correspondence (written on wooden tablets) found anywhere in the Roman Empire

North Yorkshire

Middlesbrough transporter bridge carries a travelling 'car', suspended from the bridge, across the river in 90 seconds. Built in 1911

Middlesbrough was the first town to owe its existence to the railway, to ship coal

Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire 15 miles north of York. Most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Contains the ‘temple of the four winds’

The nave of York Minster contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window, finished in 1408, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world

The Five Sisters is a stained glass window in York Minster

The Shambles in York is a meandering, narrow medieval street

York is at the confluence of River Ouse and River Foss

York Castle is a fortified complex comprising, over the last nine centuries, a sequence of castles, prisons, law courts and other buildings on the south side of the River Foss. The now-ruinous keep of the medieval Norman castle is commonly referred to as Clifford's Tower. Built originally on the orders of William I to dominate the former Viking city of York

Drax is situated in North Yorkshire near the River Ouse between Selby and Goole. Its generating capacity of 3960 megawatts is the highest of any power station in the United Kingdom and Western Europe

Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire is a ruined Cistercian monastery, founded in 1132

Rievaulx Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey located near Helmsley in North Yorkshire. It was one of the wealthiest abbeys in England and was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538

Byland Abbey is a ruined abbey and a small village in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire

Harrogate spa water contains iron, sulphur and common salt

Hole of Horcum is a deep natural hollow in North York Moors National Park

Vale of Pickering is in North Yorkshire, and is drained by the River Derwent

Stephen Joseph theatre is in Scarborough

Grand Hotel in Scarborough is designed around the theme of time: four towers to represent the seasons, 12 floors for the months of the year, 52 chimneys symbolize the weeks, and originally there were 365 bedrooms, one for each day of the year. The hotel itself is in the shape of a 'V' in honour of Queen Victoria

Ilkley and Otley are in Wharfedale

Richmond is in Swaledale

Hawes is in Wensleydale

Wensleydale is the only Yorkshire dale not to be named after the river that flows through it

Flamingo Land is a theme park and resort located in the village of Kirby Misperton

Middleham Castle in Wensleydale was the main home of Richard III and Anne Neville

Richmond Castle was used during the First World War as the base of the Non-Combatant Corps made up of conscientious objectors

Dalby Forest is in North York Moors National Park

Cleveland Hills is a range of hills on the edge of the North York Moors overlooking Cleveland and Teesside

Tan Hill Inn is the highest pub in England (528 m), and is on the Pennine Way

Flamborough Head is a promontory on the Yorkshire coast, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, with sheer white cliffs

Danes Dyke is a long ditch at Flamborough Head

Gaping Gill is at the foot of Ingleborough

Nine Standards Rigg is the summit of Hartley Fell, a fell in the Pennine Hills. It lies near to the boundary between Cumbria and North Yorkshire. The name is derived from a group of standing stones or cairns, the Nine Standards, located near the summit

Yorkshire’s Jurassic coast is a source of jet, which comes from monkey puzzle trees

Whernside is a mountain in the Yorkshire Dales and is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the other two being Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent. It is the highest point in North Yorkshire

During the English Civil War, Helmsley Castle was besieged by Thomas Fairfax in 1644. Parliament ordered the castle to be slighted to prevent its further use

Following the death of Richard, Duke of York, at Wakefield in 1460, his younger sons, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, came into Warwick the “Kingmaker”, and both lived at Middleham Castle in Wensleydale with Warwick's own family

Richmond Castle stands in a commanding position above the River Swale. The castle was constructed from 1071 onwards following the Norman Conquest

Whitby Abbey is a ruined Benedictine abbey. It was disestablished during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The first monastery was founded in 657 AD by the Anglo-Saxon era King of Northumbria, Oswy as Streoneshalh

Nottinghamshire

Museum of Costume and Textiles is in Nottingham

In Nottingham, the square by the National Ice Centre is named Bolero Square

Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem in Nottingham claims to be the oldest drinking establishment in England

Major Oak is a large English oak tree near the village of Edwinstowe in the heart of Sherwood Forest. According to local folklore, it was Robin Hood's shelter where he and his merry men slept

The Dukeries is a district in Nottinghamshire so called because it contained four ducal seats

Rampton Secure Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital

Charles I was captured during the English Civil War at Southwell Minster

Newstead Abbey was formerly an Augustinian priory. Converted to a domestic home following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron

Oxfordshire

Oxford Cathedral – chapel of Christ Church. Smallest cathedral in England

Tom Tower is a bell tower in Christ Church, Oxford named for its bell, Great Tom

Ashmolean Museum is the world's first university museum. Its first building was built in 1678–83 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford

Bodleian Library second in size in Britain only to the British Library with over 11 million items. Re-founded by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602

Sheldonian Theatre was built from 1664 to 1668 after a design by Christopher Wren for the University of Oxford

Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford

Radcliffe Camera is a building of Oxford University, designed by James Gibbs in neo-classical style and built in 1737–49 to house the Radcliffe Science Library

Most of Oxford Castle was destroyed in the English Civil War and by the 18th century the remaining buildings had become Oxford's local prison. The prison closed in 1996 and was redeveloped as a hotel

Witney is associated with manufacture of blankets

Hidcote Manor Garden is located at the village of Hidcote Bartrim, near Chipping Campden. It is one of the best-known and most influential Arts and Crafts gardens in Britain. Created by Lawrence Johnston, it is owned by the National Trust

At one time Banbury had many crosses, but these were destroyed by Puritans in1600. Banbury remained without a cross until the current Banbury Cross was erected in 1859 at the centre of the town to commemorate the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal (eldest child of Queen Victoria) to Prince Frederick of Prussia

Liddington white horse was a monument to King Alfred

Rutland

Rutland has the smallest population of any normal unitary authority in mainland England and only the City of London is smaller in terms of area. The only towns in Rutland are Oakham, the county town, and Uppingham. The Latin motto Multum in Parvo or ‘much in little’ was adopted by the county council in 1950

Rutland Water is one of the largest artificial lakes in Europe. By surface area it is the largest reservoir in England, but by capacity it is exceeded by Kielder Water

Shropshire

Shropshire was known as Salop from 1974 to 1980

Ditherington Flax Mill, located in Shrewsbury, is the oldest iron framed building in the world. As such, it is seen as the ‘grandfather of skyscrapers’. The architect was Charles Bage

The Iron Bridge was built by Abraham Darby in 1779. It was the first bridge of its size to be made out of cast iron. John Wilkinson was a prime mover initiating the building of the Iron Bridge. Connected Coalbrookdale and Broseley

Coalport China Museum presents the history of Coalport China, a manufacturer of fine English chinaware which was based on the site between 1795 and 1926

Viroconium was a Roman town, one corner of which is now occupied by Wroxeter. At its peak, Viroconium is estimated to have been the fourth largest Roman settlement in Britain, a civitas with a population of more than 15,000

The Quantum Leap is a sculpture situated next to the River Severn in Shrewsbury. It was created in 2009 to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of evolutionist Charles Darwin

Boscobel House famous for its role in the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The Royal Oak stands near the house, in a farmer's field. It is now believed to be a direct descendant of the original tree used by Charles and William Careless to hide from the Parliamentary soldiers

Somerset

UK Hydrographic Office is based in Taunton

Cadbury Castle, formerly known as Camalet, is a Bronze and Iron Age hillfort. It is associated with King Arthur's supposed court at “Camelot”

Priddy Circles are a linear arrangement of four circular earthwork enclosures near the village of Priddy on the Mendip Hills in Somerset

Jacob’s ladder leads to the top of Cheddar Gorge

Wells cathedral was built between 1175 and 1490. Much of the structure is in the Early English style and is greatly enriched by the deeply sculptural nature of the mouldings and the vitality of the carved capitals in a foliate style known as ‘stiff leaf’. The exterior has a splendid Early English facade and a large central tower

Wells Cathedral has a clock with mechanical knights who exchange blows every hour

Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century, reorganized in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. It is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture

Royal Crescent is a row of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping crescent in Bath designed by the architect John Wood and built between 1767 and 1774. Number 1 Royal Crescent is a historic house museum

The Circus is an example of Georgian architecture in Bath, begun in 1754 and completed in 1768

Pulteney Bridge in Bath has shops built across its full span on both sides. Designed by Robert Adam

Holburne Museum was Bath’s first public art gallery

Willow Man is a large outdoor sculpture by Serena de la Hey, situated in a field by the M5 motorway near Bridgwater. It stands 40 feet, made of willow withies on a steel frame

Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the village of Washford

Glastonbury tor is topped by the roofless St Michael's Tower. The Tor is mentioned in Celtic mythology, particularly in myths linked to King Arthur

South Yorkshire

Doncaster and Sheffield airport was named in honour of Robin Hood, in 2004

Sheffield was built on seven hills

Clock-tower of Sheffield Town Hall is surmounted by a statue of Vulcan

Wentworth Castle is a the former seat of the Earls of Strafford, near Barnsley

Danum – Roman name for Doncaster

Staffordshire

Lichfield Cathedral is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires, known as the ‘ladies of the veil’

Etruria is the site of the Wedgwood factory in Stoke, and is named after Etruria in Italy

Spode is a brand of pottery and homewares based in Stoke

Portmeirion Pottery was founded in 1960 when pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis (daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis) and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis took over a small pottery decorating company in Stoke called A. E. Gray Ltd

The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton

Shugborough is the ancestral home of the Earls of Lichfield. It is situated near Stafford

Tutbury Castle is a largely ruinous medieval castle at Tutbury, Staffordshire, in the ownership of the Duchy of Lancaster

Trentham Gardens are formal Italianate gardens, part of an English landscape park on the Trentham Estate

Suffolk

Bury St Edmunds was the burial place of King Edmund (St Edmund the Martyr), who was slain by the Danes in 869

Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge, is the site of two 6th and early 7th century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial, including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artifacts, now held in the British Museum

The original Framlingham Castle was destroyed by Henry II. Its replacement was successfully taken by King John in 1216 after a short siege. By the end of the 13th century, Framlingham had become a luxurious home

Port of Felixstowe is the United Kingdom's busiest container port, dealing with over 40% of Britain's containerized trade. In 1967, it set up Britain's first container terminal

Dedham Vale is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the Essex-Suffolk border in east England. It comprises an area around the River Stour and is known as ‘Constable Country’

Built just outside Felixstowe, at the mouth of the river Orwell, Landguard Fort, or Langer Fort as it was originally known, was designed to guard the entrance to Harwich. In 1667 the Dutch landed a force of 2000 men on Felixstowe beach and advanced on the fort, but were repulsed

National Horseracing Museum is located in Newmarket

Surrey

Surrey is divided by the chalk ridge of the North Downs, running east-west. The ridge is pierced by the rivers Wey and Mole

Box Hill is a summit of the North Downs

Woking Palace is a former manor house of the Royal Manor of Woking. The manor was in the gift of the Crown, and was held by numerous nominees of the Crown until 1466 when Lady Margaret Beaufort and her second husband, Sir Henry Stafford obtained the Manor by royal grant

JFK Memorial at Runnymede was designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe

Holloway Sanatorium was an institution for the treatment of the insane near the town of Virginia Water

In 1849 Brookwood Cemetery was established near Woking to serve the population of London, connected to the capital by its own railway service. It soon developed into the largest burial ground in the world. Woking was also the site of Britain's first crematorium, which opened in 1878, and its first mosque, founded in 1889

In 1881 Godalming became the first town in the world with a public electricity supply

Guildford Cathedral was designed by Edward Maufe

Tyne and Wear

The first settlement in what is now Newcastle was Pons Aelius, designating the bridge across the Tyne and given the family name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian who founded it in the 2nd century AD

Monkchester is an old name for Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Because of its strategic position, Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, erected a wooden castle there in the year 1080 and the town was henceforth known as Novum Castellum or New Castle

Grainger Town is the historic heart of Newcastle

MetroCentre opened in 1986. It has more than 340 shops occupying two million square feet of retail floor space, making it the largest shopping and leisure centre in the UK

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is a pedestrian and cycle bridge spanning the River Tyne between Gateshead on the south bank, and Newcastle upon Tyne on the north bank. The award-winning structure was conceived by architects Wilkinson Eyre, with structural engineers Gifford. It is nicknamed the Blinking Eye Bridge

The Sage Gateshead is a centre for musical education, performance and conferences. It opened in 2004. Known as ‘the slug’. The venue is part of the Gateshead Quays development, which also includes the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge

Angel of the North, designed by Anthony Gormley, is located in Gateshead. Completed in 1998, it is a steel sculpture 20 m tall, with wings measuring 54 m across

National Glass Centre is in Sunderland

Warwickshire

Rollright Stones are a complex of three Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments located near to the village of Long Compton on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Constructed from local oolitic limestone, the three separate monuments, now known as The King's Men, The King Stone and The Whispering Knights, are each distinct in their design and purpose, and were each built at different periods in prehistory

Kenilworth Castle was the subject of the six-month long Siege of Kenilworth in 1266, believed to be the longest siege in English history, and formed a base for Lancastrian operations in the War of the Roses. Kenilworth was also the scene of the removal of Edward II from the English throne, the French insult to Henry V in 1414, and the Earl of Leicester's lavish reception of Elizabeth I in 1575

Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from an original built by William the Conqueror in 1068. The original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified. In June 2005, Warwick Castle became home to one of the world's largest working siege engines. The trebuchet is 18 metres tall

Ragley Hall is the ancestral seat of the Marquess of Hertford

Stratford-upon-Avon has Anglo-Saxon origins, and developed as a market town during the medieval period. The original charters of the town were granted in 1196

West Midlands

Birmingham became a city in 1889

Selfridges Birmingham was designed by architects Future Systems, and is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs on a background of Yves Klein Blue

The Mailbox is a shopping arcade in Birmingham

Birmingham Library was designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo. It is situated on the west side of the city centre at Centenary Square beside the Birmingham Rep. Statue of a typical Birmingham family constructed by Gillian Wearing

Whittle Arch in Coventry is named after Frank Whittle

Coventry was the world's first twin city, when it formed a twinning relationship with the Russian city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) during World War II

Coventry Cathedral was rebuilt in 1962

A sandstone cross at Meriden claims that the village is at the centre of England

Black Country conurbation – Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton

West Sussex

Fishbourne Roman Palace is in the village of Fishbourne. The large palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest on the site of a Roman army supply base established at the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. It includes the perfectly preserved dolphin mosaic. Excavated by Barry Cunliffe

Fishbourne Roman Palace was the residence of Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus or Togidubnus, a pro-Roman local chieftain who was installed as king of a number of territories following the first stage of the conquest

Chichester Cathedral has a stained glass window by Marc Chagall

Chichester is the administrative centre of West Sussex

From the 11th century, Arundel Castle has served as a home, and been in the ownership of the family of the Duke of Norfolk for over 400 years.

Goodwood House is the seat of the Dukes of Richmond

Wakehurst Place, near Ardingly, comprises a late 16th century country house and a mainly 20th century garden, managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who also have a research facility there

West Yorkshire

The National Media Museum (formerly the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television) is a museum in Bradford

Saltaire is a textile mill and model village built near Bradford by Titus Salt on River Aire in 1853. Salt was the creator of the lustrous and fashionable cloth made from alpaca fleeces

Standedge Tunnel connects Marsden and Diggle, on the Huddersfield Narrow canal. It is Britain’s highest, longest (3 miles) and deepest canal tunnel

Harewood House is the home of the Earl and Countess of Harewood, designed by John Carr and completed in 1772 with interiors by Robert Adam

Kirkstall Abbey was founded in 1152 and is the most important historic building in Leeds

Temple Newsam is a Tudor-Jacobean house with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown, in Leeds

Halifax is known as ‘toffee town’

The Bronte Parsonage Museum is located in Haworth

Top Withens is a ruined farmhouse near Haworth, West Yorkshire, which is said to have been the inspiration for the location of the Earnshaw family house Wuthering Heights

Charles Waterton turned Walton Hall, Wakefield into the worlds’ first wildfowl and nature reserve

Leeds Bradford International Airport was formerly known as Yeadon Aerodrome

Rhubarb Triangle is an area located between Pontefract, Wakefield and Leeds. Only a few decades ago, over 90% of the world's forced rhubarb crop was grown in this small area

Pontefract Castle dates from Norman times, when it was known as Pomfret

The National Coal Mining Museum, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Nostell Priory are within the Wakefield metropolitan area, as is Walton Hall, a Georgian mansion set in what was the world's first nature reserve, created by the explorer Charles Waterton

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is held in November

Wiltshire

Salisbury Cathedral has the tallest church spire in the United Kingdom (404 ft)

Salisbury Cathedral clock dating from about 1386 is supposedly the oldest working modern clock in the world

Old Sarum (Sorviodunum) is the site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury

Sun rises over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge at the solstice

Outer circle of Stonehenge constructed of sarsen stone (a type of sandstone)

Stonehenge stones are arranged in a series: the two outer groups form circles (including the heel stone); the third and fourth groups form a horseshoe shape. Within the curve of the horseshoe is the alter stone

Aubrey holes are a ring of 56 chalk pits at Stonehenge named after the seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey

The Station Stones are elements of Stonehenge. Originally there were four stones, resembling the four corners of a rectangle that straddles the inner sarsen circle

Cecil Chubb was the last private owner of Stonehenge, which he donated to the British government in 1918

Woodhenge – six concentric circles of wooden posts, two miles from Stonehenge

Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located two miles north-east of Stonehenge. At 500m in diameter, the henge is the largest in Britain and recent evidence suggests that it was a complementary monument to Stonehenge

Nile clumps are trees planted near Stonehenge in positions of ships in Battle of Nile

Alexander Keiller Museum features the prehistoric artifacts collected by archaeologist and businessman Alexander Keiller, which include many artifacts found at Avebury

Silbury Hill is a prehistoric artificial chalk mound near Avebury. It is the tallest prehistoric human-made mound in Europe

West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill . The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century

Wiltshire Heritage Museum is in Devizes

Box Tunnel, between Bath and Chippenham, was designed by Brunel and opened in 1841

Longleat was built by Sir John Thynne, and designed mainly by Robert Smythson, after the original priory was destroyed by fire in 1567

Longleat was the first safari park outside Africa, opened in 1966

Burlington was the codename for the 35 acre, secret subterranean Cold War City that lies 100 feet beneath Corsham

Fonthill Abbey – also known as Beckford's Folly – was a large Gothic revival country house built between 1796 and 1813 at the direction of William Thomas Beckford and architect James Wyatt

Old Wardour Castle is 15 miles west of Salisbury. The original castle was partially destroyed during the English Civil War

Athelstan Museum is in Malmesbury, which is England’s oldest borough

In AD 941, King Athelstan was buried in Malmesbury Abbey

Warminster has hill forts, including Battlebury Camp

The Stourton family had lived in the Stourhead estate for 700 years when they sold it to Henry Hoare I, son of wealthy banker Richard Hoare in 1717. The original manor house was demolished and a new house built

Dundas Aqueduct carries the Kennet and Avon Canal over the River Avon and the Wessex Main Line railway from Bath to Westbury, near Limpley Stoke

Worcestershire

Stained glass window dedicated to Edward Elgar is in Worcester Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral’s west facade appeared, with a portrait of Edward Elgar, on the reverse of the £20 note

Grounds of Hagley Hall contain many Gothic follies

Witley Court was built in 1655, but is now a spectacular ruin after being devastated by fire in 1937. The Perseus and Andromeda fountain has been restored to working order by English Heritage

The Malvern Hills, which run from the south of Worcestershire into Herefordshire, are made up mainly of volcanic igneous rocks

Tenbury Wells is known for its "Chinese-gothic" Pump Room buildings, built in 1862, which reopened in 2001

Trails

There are 16 designated National Trails, including the Ridgeway and Glyndwr's Way, which is wholly in Wales

The Ridgeway is an ancient trackway described as Britain's oldest road. At 85 miles, the route follows the chalk hills between Overton Hill, near Avebury, and Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire

Devised by Alfred Wainwright, the Coast to Coast Walk passes through the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the North York Moors National Park. Wainwright recommends that walkers dip their booted feet in the Irish Sea at St Bees and, at the end of the walk, in the North Sea at Robin Hood's Bay

Pennine Way was first long distance footpath. Final section of the path opened in 1965

Pennine Way National Trail is a walk starting from Edale in Derbyshire through three National Parks finishing at Kirk Yetholm across the Scottish Border

Monarch’s Way is a 615 mile long-distance footpath that approximates the escape route taken by King Charles II in 1651 after being defeated in the Battle of Worcester

Cotswold Way – a long-distance footpath, running along the escarpment of the Cotswold Hills (the 'Cotswold Edge'). It was officially designated as a National Trail in 2007

Cotswold Way runs from Bath to Chipping Camden

Sandstone Trail is a 55 km long-distance walkers' path, following sandstone ridges running north–south from Frodsham in central Cheshire to Whitchurch just over the Shropshire border

Hadrian’s Wall Path is a long distance footpath which runs for 135 km, from Wallsend on the east coast of England to Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. Passes through the Roman forts of Birdoswald, Housesteads, and Chesters

High points

High Willhays is the highest point on Dartmoor, Devon, at 621m above sea level, and the highest point in Great Britain south of the Brecon Beacons

Brown Willy is the highest point of Bodmin Moor and of Cornwall as a whole, at 420m

Dunkery Beacon is the highest hill on Exmoor, and the highest point in Somerset, at 519m

Beacon Batch is the highest point in the Mendips

Haddington Hill is the highest point in Chilterns

Cleeve Hill is the highest point in Cotswolds

Cross Fell is the highest point in the Pennine Hills and the highest point in England outside of the Lake District

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills that stretch for 120 miles from Hampshire through Surrey to Kent. They form the northern part of the Wealden dome. Botley Hill is the highest point in the North Downs

The South Downs extend about 70 miles through East Sussex, West Sussex, and part of Hampshire. Butser Hill is the highest point in the South Downs

Kinder Scout is the highest point in the Peak District

Quantock – from Celtic for ‘rim’ or ‘circle’. The highest point on the Quantocks is Will's Neck, at 384m

Rivers

River Thames is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. The usually quoted source of the Thames is at Thames Head, north of Kemble parish church, near Cirencester. Seven Springs, near Cheltenham, where the river Churn rises, is also sometimes quoted as the Thames' source

Source of the River Trent is in Staffordshire between Biddulph and Mow Cop. It flows through the Midlands (forming a once-significant boundary between the North and South of England) until it joins the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea below Hull and Immingham. The Trent is unusual amongst English rivers in that it flows north (for the second half of its route), and in exhibiting a tidal bore, the ‘Trent Aegir’

The source of the (Warwickshire) Avon is from a spring near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire. It joins the River Severn at Tewkesbury

River Severn is 220 miles long. The Severn Bore is a tidal bore which forms upstream of the port of Sharpness

Canterbury in on the River Stour

Colchester is on the River Colne

St Albans is on the River Ver

Leicester is on the River Soar

Ripon is on the River Ure

Ludlow is on the River Teme

Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell

River Ax is in Somerset

Stafford is on the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent

River Ouse is formed by the confluence of the Ure and the Swale

River Tamar is spanned by the Royal Albert Bridge, built by Brunel

Kendal is on the River Kent

River Dove forms part of the border between Staffordshire and Derbyshire

River Waveney forms the border between Suffolk and Norfolk, for much of its length within The Broads National Park

River Medway divides Kentish Man (west of the river) from Man of Kent (east of the river)

Winchester and Southampton are on the River Itchen

Fleetwood is on the River Wyre

River Tees forms much of the border between Yorkshire and Durham

River Arun is in West Sussex

The modern accepted start of the Mersey is at the confluence of the Tame and Goyt, in central Stockport

Lincoln is on the River Witham

Trowbridge is on the River Biss

River Wear flows through Bishop Auckland, Durham, and Chester-le-Street

River Nidd is a tributary of the River Ouse in North Yorkshire

River Calder rises in the Pennines before joining the River Aire near Castleford

Whitby is at the mouth of the River Esk

Roads

M1 – 193 miles

M4 – 189 miles

M6 – 226 miles

M25 – 117 miles

M25 is is Europe's second longest orbital road after the Berliner Ring

A6 runs from Luton to Carlisle

A38 runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is 292 miles long

A5 runs from London to Holyhead, partly following the course of the Roman road Watling Street

Fosse Way runs from Exeter to Lincoln

Ermin Street runs from London to York

Ermin Street meets the Fosse Way at Lincoln

Established in 1990, the newly created National Forest is an area of 200 square miles of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. It stretches from Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, and links the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood

Vale of Belvoir is an area of natural beauty on the borders of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire

Wolds refers to a range of hills which consists of open country overlying a base of limestone or chalk. There are at least two such areas (Lincolnshire Wolds and Yorkshire Wolds), both remnants of a much larger chalk system. They are geologically a single range but are physically separated by the River Humber

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks

Wansdyke is a series of early medieval defensive linear earthworks. There are two main parts: an eastern dyke which runs between Savernake Forest and Morgan’s Hill in Wiltshire, and a western dyke which runs from Monkton Combe to the ancient hill fort of Maes Knoll in Somerset

Wales

Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955

The waterfront area at Cardiff Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly and the Wales Millennium Centre arts complex

Senedd houses the debating chamber and three committee rooms for the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff. Designed by Richard Rogers

Millennium Arts Centre is known as ‘the armadillo’. Inscribed above the main entrance is the line ‘In These Stones Horizons Sing’

The original motte-and-bailey Cardiff Castle was built in the late 11th century by Norman invaders on top of a 3rd century Roman fort

Llandaff Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Cardiff

St Fagans National History Museum is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, culture, and architecture of the Welsh people

Swansea made a city in 1969, to commemorate the investiture of Prince of Wales

The Welsh name for Swansea is Abertawe, meaning "mouth of the Tawe”

Swansea was once nicknamed ‘Copperopolis’ for its copper production industry

Meridian Tower in Swansea Marina is tallest building in Wales

Gower Peninsula is administratively part of Swansea. In 1956, Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Worm’s Head is part of the Gower Peninsula

Newport is the third largest city in Wales

Until the rise of Cardiff from the 1850s, Newport was Wales' largest coal-exporting port

Newport was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839 led by the Chartists

Agincourt Square in Monmouth is the birth place of Henry V

Caerleon is situated on the River Usk in Newport. Caerleon is the site of a notable Roman legionary fortress, Isca Augusta, and an Iron Age hill fort. The Wales National Roman Legion Museum and Roman Baths Museum are in Caerleon

Conwy Castle was built between 1283 and 1289 during Edward I’s second campaign in North Wales

Caerphilly Castle is the largest castle in Wales. It was constructed by Gilbert de Clare in the 13th century as part of his campaign to conquer Glamorgan

There was a motte-and-bailey castle in the town of Caernarfon from the late 11th century until 1283 when King Edward I began replacing it with the current stone structure. In 1911, Caernarfon Castle was used for the investiture of the Prince of Wales, and again in 1969

Harlech Castle was built by Edward I during his invasion of Wales between 1282 and 1289. During the Wars of the Roses, Harlech was held by the Lancastrians for seven years, before Yorkist troops forced its surrender in 1468, a siege memorialised in the song Men of Harlech

Blaenavon Ironworks is within the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape World Heritage Site

Big Pit: National Coal Museum is an industrial heritage museum in Blaenavon

Tintern Abbey was founded by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, in 1131. It is situated on the Welsh bank of the River Wye in Monmouthshire

Portmeirion was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. Based on Portofino, in Italy. It was ‘The Village’ in the 1960s television show The Prisoner

Chepstow is the oldest stone castle in UK. Building work started in 1067

Caldicot Castle is an extensive stone medieval castle in the town of Caldicot, Monmouthshire. It was at one time a possession of Thomas of Woodstock, a son of King Edward III

Great Orme is a prominent limestone headland next to the town of Llandudno. Its English name derives from the Viking word for ‘sea serpent’

Great Orme is the only Bronze Age copper mine in Britain open to the public. Great Orme Tramway is a funicular railway built in 1902

St Davids is the smallest city in the UK

Llanwddyn was flooded to create Lake Vyrnwy, to provide water for Liverpool in 1888

Lake Vyrnyw’s stone-built dam, built in the 1880s, was the first of its kind in the world

Menai road bridge is a suspension bridge built by Thomas Telford

Britannia Bridge and Conwy Bridge were designed and built by Robert Stephenson as tubular bridges of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans for carrying rail traffic

Britannia Bridge was largely destroyed in a fire in 1970. Redesigned to carry road and rail traffic

Llŷn Peninsula extends 48 km into the Irish Sea from north west Wales, south west of the Isle of Anglesey. It is part of the modern county and historic region of Gwynedd

Caldey Island near Tenby is best known for its monastery

Thomas Telford built the Ellesmere Canal

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee in Wrexham. Completed in 1805, it is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain. It was built by Thomas Telford and William Jessop

The Rhydymwyn Valley Site in Flintshire was renamed in 1939 and became M.S.Factory Valley and was involved in the manufacture, assembly and storage of chemical weapons from 1940 to 1959

Barry is in the Vale of Glamorgan

Cwmbran is the only New Town in Wales

Skerries are a group of islands off the coast of Anglesey

Puffin Island is an uninhabited island off the eastern tip of Anglesey

There are over 10,000 breeding pairs of puffins on Skomer and Skokholm Islands, off the coast of Pembrokeshire, making them one of the most important puffin colonies in Britain

Grasholm Island is the westernmost point in Wales and is known for its huge colony of gannets

Bardsey Island lies off the Llyn peninsula, in Gwynedd. The island is the site of a monastery founded by Saint Cadfan in the sixth century, and of Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory

Cardigan Bay is a large inlet of the Irish Sea, indenting the west coast of Wales between Bardsey Island, Gwynedd in the north, and Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire at its southern end. It is the largest bay in Wales

Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey was built as part of Edward I's campaign to conquer the north of Wales after 1282

Ynys Môn, Anglesey's Welsh name, was first recorded as Latin Mona by Roman sources

Llanfair PG is on Anglesey

Swellies (or Swillies) is a stretch of the Menai Strait notable for its difficulty in safely navigating its shoals and rocks due to the whirlpools and tidal surges

Snowdon (Welsh: Yr Wyddfa) is 1085 m high

Snowdon Mountain Railway is the only public rack and pinion railway in the UK

Cader Idris lies at the southern end of the Snowdonia National Park near the town of Dolgellau

Pen y Fan is the highest peak in South Wales and the southern United Kingdom, situated in the Brecon Beacons National Park

Black Mountains are in Brecon Beacons National Park

Preseli Hills are a range of hills in north Pembrokeshire. They form part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park

Offa’s Dyke Path starts at Sedbury, near Chepstow, and finishes at Prestatyn

With Offa's Dyke Path and the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, Glyndwr's Way makes up the third National Trail in Wales

Cambrian Way is a long distance footpath running 275 miles from Cardiff to Conwy

River Towy is the longest river wholly in Wales

River Usk is the deepest river in the British Isles at its mouth

River Severn is known as Hafren in Welsh

River Severn and Rye Wye both rise on Plynlimon

Rivers in Cardiff – Taff, Rhymney and Ely

Swansea is on the River Tawe

Newport is on the River Usk

Scotland

Edinburgh is known as the ‘Athens of the north’

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace, is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The palace stands at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Holyrood Abbey was founded by David I, King of Scots in 1128

The Salisbury Crags are a series of 150 foot cliffs at the top of a subsidiary spur of Arthur’s Seat which rise in the middle of Holyrood Park in Edinburgh

Stone of Scone is at Edinburgh Castle. Legends consider the Stone of Scone to be the Stone of Jacob, which he used as a pillow

Princes Street is named after sons of King George III, the Duke of Rothesay (later King George IV) and Frederick, Duke of York

The Scott Monument is a Victorian gothic monument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. It stands in Princes Street Gardens, opposite the Jenners department store

Waverley station named after the hero of the Walter Scott novels

St Giles' Cathedral, more properly termed the High Kirk of Edinburgh, is the principal place of worship of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. It is at the midpoint of the Royal Mile

Between 1916 and 1919 Craiglockhart, now a part of Edinburgh Napier University, was used as a military psychiatric hospital for the treatment of shell-shocked officers. The most famous patients were the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen

Usher Hall is a concert hall in Edinburgh

Edinburgh new town was designed by James Craig

The Queensferry Bridge (originally known as the Forth Replacement Crossing) is a three-towered cable-stayed bridge, which opened in 2017

The Forth Rail Bridge, a cantilever bridge completed in 1890 was voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in 2016. it is the second-longest single cantilever span in the world

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland

Glasgow is nicknamed The Dear Green Place

Mitchell Library is one of the the largest public reference libraries in Europe

The Barras is a market in the Gallowgate area of Glasgow

St Enoch Station was the first public building in Glasgow to be lit be electric light

The University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery is the oldest public museum in Scotland. The museum first opened in 1807. The money to build the museum, and the core of its original collections, came from the bequest of William Hunter, the brother of John Hunter (Hunterian Society of London)

Burrell Collection is an art collection in Pollok Country Park

The equestrian Wellington Statue, most often featured with a traffic cone on its head, on Royal Exchange Square in Glasgow, is one of the city's most iconic images

Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland

Duke Street in Glasgow is often stated to be the longest street in Britain but, in reality, King Street, Aberdeen is 0.2 miles longer

Glasgow International Airport was formerly known as Glasgow Abbotsinch Airport

Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city

Aberdeen is known as the ‘Granite City’

Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland by population

Dundee is promoted as 'One City, Many Discoveries' in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities

Scott’s ship RSS (Royal Research Ship) Discovery is at the Discovery Point Antarctic Museum in Dundee

V & A Dundee opened in 2017. It is the first design museum in Scotland and the first V & A museum outside of London. Designed by Kengo Kuma

The landscape of Dundee is dominated by The Law (an Iron Age Hill Fort) and the Firth of Tay

Stirling is a former capital of Scotland

Several Scottish Queens and Kings have been crowned at Stirling Castle, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542. There have been at least eight sieges, including several during the Wars of Scottish Independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle

The Wallace National Monument (generally known as the Wallace Monument) is a tower standing on the summit of Abbey Craig, a hilltop near Stirling

Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling was founded in 1129. King James VI was crowned King of Scots in the church in 1567

The Falkirk Wheel, named after the nearby town of Falkirk in is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The difference in the levels of the two canals at the wheel is 24 metres

Dunmore Pineapple, a folly, stands in Dunmore Park, in Falkirk

Dunfermline Abbey was founded in 1128 by King David I of Scotland. Dunfermline became a centre for the cult of St Margaret

Until the 17th century, Dunfermline served as the royal capital of Scotland

Inverness is Gaelic for ‘Mouth of the River Ness’

Inverness is the administrative centre for the Highland council area. It is the northernmost city in the UK and lies within the Great Glen

Loch Leven Castle is a ruined castle on an island in Loch Leven, in the Perth and Kinross local authority area. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in the castle in 1567–1568

St Mary's Abbey, Melrose is a partly ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in Melrose, Roxburghshire. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks on the request of King David I, and was the chief house of that order in the country until the Reformation

Threave Castle is situated on an island in the River Dee, 2.5 km west of Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway. It was the home of the ‘Black’ Douglas Earls of Douglas

Dunsinane Hill is near the village of Collace in Perthshire. It is mentioned in Macbeth

Bannockburn is on the outskirts of Stirling

Crathie church – regular place of worship of the British Royal Family when they are holidaying at nearby Balmoral Castle

Culzean Castle is on the Ayrshire coast. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. When it was gifted to the National Trust, it was stipulated that the apartment at the top of the castle be reserved for Dwight D Eisenhower. The castle is famous for appearing on the back of £5 notes issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland and was used as the ancestral home of Lord Summerisle (played by Christopher Lee) in the 1973 film The Wicker Man. It was designed by Robert Adam

Glamis Castle is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and is open to the public. Glamis Castle was the childhood home of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Floors Castle, on the western outskirts of Kelso, is the seat of the Duke of Roxburghe

Dating from the late 13th century, Loch Doon Castle, in Ayrshire, was built by the Earls of Carrick. In 1306 the English took the building and Sir Christopher Seton, brother-in-law of the Bruce, was captured

Fort George is a large fortress near Inverness with perhaps the mightiest artillery fortifications in Europe. It was built to pacify the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745

Pentland Hills is a range of hills to the south west of Edinburgh. The range is around 20 miles in length, and runs south west from Edinburgh towards Biggar and the upper Clyde Valley. The highest peak is Scald Law

Lammermuir Hills form a natural boundary between Lothian and the Scottish Borders

Lochnagar is a mountain in the Grampians, located about five miles south of the River Dee near Balmoral

Rhinns of Galloway is a peninsula in southwest Scotland

Galloway refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire (or historically West Galloway) and Kirkcudbrightshire (or historically East Galloway)

Galloway Forest Park is a Dark Sky Park

Beattock Summit is a high point of the West Coast Main Line railway and of the A74(M) motorway as they cross from Dumfries and Galloway to South Lanarkshire

Caledonian Canal runs 62 miles from northeast to southwest. Only one third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy. These lochs are part of the Great Glen. There are 29 locks (including eight at Neptune's Staircase, Banavie), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal. Constructed by Thomas Telford. Completed in 1822

The Great Glen follows a large geological fault known as the Great Glen Fault. It bisects the Scottish Highlands into the Grampian Mountains to the southeast and the Northwest Highlands to the northwest

Bona Narrows lighthouse, that was once one of Britain's smallest manned lighthouses, stands on the shore of Loch Ness

Dufftown , in Moray, produces more malt whisky than any other town in Scotland

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park was established in 2002

Cairngorms National Park is Britain’s biggest national park, and was established in 2003

Inchmurrin, in Loch Lomond, is Britain’s largest lake island

Ross and Cromarty was abolished in 1975 and reorganized in 1996. Part of the Highlands and Islands region

Ullapool is a town in Ross and Cromarty, Highland

Fort William grew up as a settlement next to a fort constructed to control the population after Oliver Cromwell's invasion during the English Civil War, and then to suppress the Jacobite uprisings of the 18th century. The fort was named Fort William after William of Orange, and the settlement that grew around it was called Maryburgh, after his wife

Glenfinnan Viaduct forms part of the Mallaig extension of the West Highland Railway which was constructed between 1897 and 1901. The 21-arch single track viaduct was one of the largest engineering undertakings using concrete without reinforcing when it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine

The Jacobite is a steam locomotive hauled tourist train service that operates over part of the West Highland Railway Line

The Trossachs is a small woodland glen in the Stirling council area. The name is used generally to refer to the wider area of wooded glens and braes with quiet lochs, lying to the east of Ben Lomond. The Lake of Menteith, in the strictest sense Scotland's only natural lake, lies about six miles to the south east of the glen

Mid-Scotland Ship Canal was a proposed scheme for construction of canal between the Firths of Forth and Clyde in 1920s

Campbeltown is a town and former royal burgh in Argyll and Bute. It lies by Campbeltown Loch on the Kintyre peninsula

Ardnamurchan Point is the most westerly point on the island of Great Britain

Scone is a village in Perth and Kinross. Stone of Scone was kept in Scone Abbey

West Highland Way is a long distance footpath with the official status of Long Distance route. It is 96 miles long, running from Milngavie north of Glasgow to Fort William

Pass of Drumochter is the summit of the railway line is 452 m, making it the highest in the UK. Between Perth and Inverness

Inveraray Castle is the seat of the Duke of Argyll

Sweetheart Abbey was a Cistercian monastery, founded in 1275 by Dervorguilla of Galloway

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Scotland saw a creation of several ‘post-war new towns’. These were; Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Irvine and Livingston

Thurso is the most northerly railway station in Britain

Castle of Mey is in Caithness. The castle was in a semi-derelict state when, in 1952, it was purchased by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

The summit of Ben Nevis, at 1,344 metres (4,409 ft) above sea level, features the ruins of an observatory, which was permanently staffed between 1883 and 1904

Ben Nevis is the highest point in Grampians

Ben Macdui is the second highest mountain in UK, and the highest point in Cairngorms

Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3000 feet. Named after Hugh Munro, who compiled the first list in 1891

There are 283 Munros. 13 island Munros – 12 on Skye, 1 on Mull (Ben More)

Corbett is a separate mountain over 2500 feet. A Graham is a separate mountain over 2000 feet

Marilyn is a mountain or hill in the with a relative height of at least 150 m

Glen Coe is the remains of an ancient supervolcano

Moray Firth is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness

A830, sometimes known as the Road to the Isles, is a road in Lochaber, in the Highlands, which connects the town of Fort William to the port of Mallaig

Loch Ness is the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area after Loch Lomond, but due to its great depth is the largest by volume

Loch Ness forms part of the Caledonian Canal

Loch Morar is the deepest freshwater body in the British Isles, with a maximum depth of 1017 ft

Loch Awe is the longest freshwater loch in Scotland

Urquhart Castle overlooks Loch Ness

Knoydart is a peninsula in Lochaber, Highland. Known as ‘Scotland’s last great wilderness’

Cape Wrath is a cape in Sutherland, Highland. It is the most northwesterly point on the island of Great Britain

Old Man of Stoer is a sea stack of sandstone in Sutherland

Glenrothes is the administrative centre of Fife

Dunnet Head is a peninsula that includes the most northerly point of the mainland of Great Britain. The point lies in Caithness on the north coast of Scotland

Alloa lies on the north bank of the Firth of Forth

Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth is home to 10% of world’s gannets

First Scottish lighthouse was built in 1634 on Isle of May

Bell Rock Lighthouse is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse and was built on Bell Rock (also known as Inchcape) in the North Sea, 12 miles off the coast of Angus, and east of the Firth of Tay. The lighthouse was built by Robert Stevenson between 1807 and 1810

River Tweed flows primarily through the Borders region

River Tay is the longest river wholly in Scotland. Dundee and Perth are on the River Tay

River Forth (Gaelic for ‘black river’) rises in the Trossachs and flows through Stirling

Aberdeen is on the River Dee

Gretna is on the River Sark

River Tay and River Dee meet near Blair Atholl

M8 – Glasgow to Edinburgh

M80 – Glasgow to Stirling

M9 – Edinburgh to Stirling

M90 – Edinburgh to Perth

Up Helly Aa is a fire festival in Shetland, at which a replica of a Viking longship is burned

There was a tsunami in the Shetland Islands 7,000 years ago

Fair Isle is administratively part of Shetland, although it is closer to Orkney. Remotest inhabited island in UK

Mainland is the largest island of Shetland

The ZE postcode area, also known as the Lerwick postcode area, is a group of postal districts covering the Shetland Islands

Foula Island in the Shetlands still uses the Julian calendar. Christmas Day is January 6 and New Years Day is January 13 (Gregorian)

Unst is Britain’s most northerly populated island

Unst bus shelter, also known as Bobby's Bus Shelter, is equipped with a sofa and a television

Yell is the second largest island in Shetland after the Mainland

Muckle Flugga lighthouse was designed and built by brothers Thomas and David Stevenson in 1854

Muckle Flugga is a small rocky island north of Unst in the Shetland Islands. It is often described as the northernmost point of the British Isles, but the smaller islet of Out Stack is actually farther north

Mainland is the main island of Orkney. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island

Orkney means ‘seal island’

St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney is the most northerly UK cathedral

Shortest scheduled flight in the world is between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkneys, a distance of 2.8 km

Skara Brae is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney. It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BC – 2500 BC. It is Europe's most complete Neolithic village

Maes Howe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland, Orkney

Ring of Brodgar – a Neolithic henge and stone circle on the Mainland, Orkney

North Ronaldsway is the most northerly of the Orkney Islands

Pentland Firth separates UK from Orkney Islands

The Outer Hebrides is a chain of more than 100 islands and small skerries located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) west of mainland Scotland

Outer Hebrides are also known as the Western Isles

Barra's airport is the only airport in the world to have scheduled flights landing on a beach

Castle Bay is the chief port on Isle of Barra

The northern part of the island of Lewis and Harris is called Lewis, the southern is Harris and both are frequently referred to as if they were separate islands

Callanish – stone circle on Isle of Lewis. Dating from around 2000BC, the overall layout of the monument recalls a distorted Celtic cross

St Kilda became a world heritage site in 1986

St Kilda was populated until 1930

The Minch, also called The North Minch, is a strait separating the north-west Highlands from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides. The Lower Minch is to the south and separates Skye from the lower Outer Hebrides: North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Barra

The Inner Hebrides are a chain of islands and skerries located off the west coast of mainland Scotland

Black and red cuillins – mountains on Isle of Skye

Dunvegan Castle on Skye is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the stronghold of the chiefs of the clan for nearly 800 years. It is the seat of the Clan MacLeod

Portree is the largest town on Isle of Skye

Trotternish is the northernmost peninsula of the Isle of Skye. Its most famous feature is the Trotternish landslip

Sound of Sleat separates Skye from the mainland

Tobermoray is the capital of Isle of Mull

Firth of Lorn separates Mull from Scotland

Iona – lies off the tip of Mull

Islay is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides”

Fingal’s Cave is on Staffa. Supposedly created by Irish giant Finn MacCoul

Eigg is an island in the Inner Hebrides owned by its residents

Rum, in the Inner Hebrides, is known for its deer rutting

Skerryvore is a remote reef that lies off the west coast of Scotland, 12 miles south west of the island of Tiree. Skerryvore is also the name given to the lighthouse on the skerry, built between 1838 and 1844 by Alan Stevenson

Coll is an island in Inner Hebrides

Arran is known as ‘Scotland in miniature’

Brodick is the main town on Isle of Arran

Brodick Castle was previously a seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland

Goat Fell is the highest point of Isle of Arran

Bute is an island in the Firth of Clyde

Rothesay is the principal town on the Isle of Bute

The Cumbraes are a group of islands in the Firth of Clyde. The islands belong to the traditional county of Bute and the modern unitary authority of North Ayrshire. The main islands in the group are: Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae. These two islands are separated from each other by a broad sound called The Tan and from the Scottish mainland by a shipping channel known as the Fairlie Roads

Ailsa Craig is a granite islet at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde, 10 miles off the Ayrshire coast. Nicknamed ‘Paddy’s Milestone’ for its location halfway between Glasgow and Belfast. Gaelic for ‘Fairy Rock’. Curling stones are made from granite quarried from Ailsa Craig

Stroma is the most southerly of the islands in the Pentland Firth between the Orkney islands and Catithness. Stroma is now abandoned

Northern Ireland

Ulster is composed of nine counties. Six of these (almost 57% of the land area) make up Northern Ireland: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. The three remaining counties (about 43% of the land area) are in the Republic of Ireland: Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan

Antrim – county town of Antrim

Armagh – county town of Armagh

Downpatrick – county town of Down

Enniskillen – county town of Fermanagh

Coleraine – county town of Londonderry

Omagh – county town of Tyrone

Fermanagh is the only county of Northern Ireland that does not border Lough Neagh

Belfast (meaning “mouth of the sandbanks”) is the capital and largest city. Most of Belfast, including the city centre, is in County Antrim, but parts of East and South Belfast are in County Down. It is on the flood plain of the River Lagan

The Big Fish is a printed ceramic mosaic sculpture by John Kindness constructed in Donegall Quay in Belfast

Waterfront Hall is a concert hall in Belfast

Titanic Belfast is a monument to Belfast's maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland & Woolf shipyard. Opened in 2012

Belfast City Airport was renamed in 2006 in honour of George Best

Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest city

The old walled city of Derry lies on the west bank of the River Foyle

In 2013, Derry became the inaugural UK City of Culture

Lisburn is the third-largest city in Northern Ireland

The Maze prison was known as Long Kesh and The H Blocks. Closed in 2000

Lisburn is the birthplace of Ireland's linen industry, which was established in 1698 by Louis Crommelin and other Huguenots

The other cities in Northern Ireland are Armagh and Newry

Armagh has Roman Catholic and Protestant archbishops

Giant’s Causeway is a lava plateau caused by volcanic activity in County Antrim. Legend has it that the Irish warrior Finn MacCoul built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. Same hexagonal basalt columns as Fingal’s Cave

Slieve Donard is the highest mountain (850 m) in Northern Ireland, in the Mountains of Mourne, a granite mountain range in County Down

Sperrins Region (Sperrin Mountains) is located in the centre of Northern Ireland, stretching from the western shoreline of Lough Neagh in County Tyrone to the southern portions of County Londonderry

Lough Neagh is the largest lake in Northern Ireland at 392 km², supplying forty percent of its water

Strangford Lough is a large sea loch or inlet in County Down. It is the largest inlet in the British Isles

River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland, and flows through Lough Neagh

M1 – Belfast to Dungannon

Republic of Ireland

Ireland has historically been divided into four provinces: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster. There were once five; the fifth province, Meath, was incorporated into Leinster, with parts going to Ulster

Leinster includes Dublin, Wicklow, Meath and Kildare

Tipperary is in Munster

Ireland is divided into 32 ”traditional counties”

Ennis – county town of Clare

Tralee – county town of Kerry

Navan – county town of Meath

Castlebar – county town of Mayo

Louth – smallest county in Eire. County town – Dundalk

Dublin means “dark pool”

Baile Atha Cliath is the Irish name for Dublin

Abbey Theatre in Dublin is the national theatre of Ireland. Founded in 1904

Olympia Theatre in Dublin was opened as ‘The Star of Erin’ music hall in 1879

Halfpenny Bridge is a pedestrian bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin. So called because this was the toll for pedestrians. Official name is Wellington Bridge

The Custom House is a neoclassical 18th century building in Dublin which houses the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government

Temple Bar is promoted as “Dublin's cultural quarter”

O’Connell Street was known as Sackville Street until 1924

Dublin spire is a 121m stainless steel monument on O’Connell Street, also known as “Bertie’s Pole”. Designed by Ian Ritchie Architects. World's tallest sculpture. Replacement for Nelson’s Pillar, which was destroyed by the IRA in 1966

Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript, containing the four Gospels. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells. It is on permanent display at Trinity College Library

St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 by Arthur Guinness

Mountjoy prison has the largest prison population in Ireland

The Custom House is a neoclassical 18th-century building in Dublin

Cork is the second largest city in Ireland. The city is built on the River Lee

In 2005, Cork was selected as the European Capital of Culture

Cork is home to the Heineken Brewery that brews Murphy’s Irish Stout

Cobh was first called Cove (‘The Cove of Cork’) in 1750. It was renamed Queenstown in 1850 to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria. This remained the town's name until 1922 when it was renamed Cobh with the foundation of the Irish Free State. Queenstown was the final port of call for the RMS Titanic

Bantry Bay is located in County Cork

Blarney Stone is a block of bluestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, about five miles from Cork. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with ‘the gift of gab’. The stone was set into a tower of the castle in 1446

Limerick is the third largest city in Ireland. The city lies on the River Shannon, with the historic core of the city located on King’s Island, which is bounded by the Shannon and the Abbey River

Galway is the fourth third largest city in Ireland

Galway has an International Oyster Festival every September

The Claddagh is a beach area in the western part of Galway. People have been gathering seafood and fishing from the area for millennia. Historically, its existence has been recorded since the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century. Claddagh ring is a traditional Irish ring

Connemara is in County Galway

Aran Islands are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay. The islands are Inishmore, Inishmaan and Inisheer

Tipperary was divided into North (capital – Nenagh) and South (capital – Clonmel) Ridings in 1838

Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years prior to the Norman invasion

Malin Head is the northernmost point in Ireland, in Donegal

Carrantuohill is the highest peak in Ireland. Located in County Kerry, it is 1,038 metres (3,406 ft) tall and is the central peak of the Macgillycuddy's Reeks range

Burren is the karst limestone region of approximately 300 sq km which lies in the north west corner of County Clare

The Twelve Bens or Twelve Pins is a mountain range in Connemara

Newgrange is a passage tomb in County Meath. Newgrange was built in such a way that at dawn on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a narrow beam of sunlight for a very short time illuminates the floor of the chamber at the end of the long passageway

Benbulben is a large rock formation in County Sligo

Knock Shrine is a pilgrimage site in County Mayo, where it is claimed there was an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, John the Evangelist, angels and Jesus Christ in 1879

In 1947, the "Customs Free Airport Act" established Shannon as the world's first duty-free airport. Shannon Airport is in County Clare

Fastnet Rock is the most southerly point of Ireland. Due to its location, Fastnet was known as “Ireland's Teardrop”, because it was the last part of Ireland that 19th century Irish emigrants saw as they sailed to North America

River Barrow is one of The Three Sisters; the other two being the River Suir and the River Nore. The Barrow is the longest of the three rivers. At 192 km, it is the second-longest river in Ireland, behind the River Shannon

Drogheda is on the River Boyne

Waterford is on the River Suir

Athlone is on the River Shannon

M50 – Dublin ring road

Isle of Man

Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown Dependency. It is divided into six sheddings

Douglas is the capital and largest town of the Isle of Man

Snaefell is the highest point on Isle of Man. Means ‘snow mountain’

Snaefell has the only electric mountain top railway in UK

Laxey Wheel (also known as Lady Isabella) is a large waterwheel built on the Isle of Man. Designed by Robert Casement, it is 72 feet 6 inches in diameter. It was built in 1854 to pump water from the mineshafts

Peel Castle originally constructed by Vikings. The castle stands on St Patrick’s Isle which is connected to the town by a causeway

Calf of Man is an island off the southwest coast of the Isle of Man. The word 'calf' derives from the Old Norse word ‘kalfr’ which means a small island lying near a larger one. Calf of Man is home to a breeding population of Manx Shearwaters

Chicken Rock is the southernmost island administered by the Isle of Man. It lies southwest of the Calf of Man. There is a lighthouse on the island

The Isle of Man has become a centre for emerging private space travel companies

Isle of Man airport is at Ronaldsway

All ferries are operated by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company

Scotland is the nearest country to the Isle of Man

Channel Islands

Channel Islands are known in France an Iles Anglo-Normandes

The islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth to be occupied during World War II

Channel Islands are under jurisdiction of Diocese of Winchester

Jerriais is the language of Jersey

Mount Orgueil was built in the 13th century to protect Jersey from French invasion

Jersey is the largest and southernmost of the Channel Islands

St Helier is the capital of Jersey

The Bailiwick of Jersey consists of the island of Jersey, along with surrounding uninhabited islands and rocks including Les Minquiers

The Bailiwick of Guernsey also includes Alderney, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou, Burhou, Lihou and Sark

Saint Peter Port is the capital of Guernsey as well as the main port

Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands

Alderney is called Aurigny by the French

St Anne is the main town on Alderney

Alderney Railway is the only working railway in the Channel Islands. Two 1959 tube carriages

Sark has a hereditary overlord known as the Seigneur or Dame

Sark is a car-free zone where the only vehicles allowed are horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles and tractors

In 2011, Sark was designated as a Dark Sky Community and the first Dark Sky Island in the world

La Coupee is an isthmus joining Great Sark and Little Sark

Since 1993 the tenement of Brecqhou in the Channel Islands has been owned by the Barclay brothers

Cars and bicycles are banned from Herm

Isles of Scilly remain part of the ceremonial county of Cornwall, and some services have been combined with those of Cornwall, since 1890 the islands have had a separate local authority

Isles of Scilly are known as ‘Islands of the Dead’ due to the large number of burial chambers

Bishop Rock is a small rock at the westernmost tip of the Isles of Scilly known for its lighthouse, and listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest island with a building on it in the world

Hugh Town is the main settlement on the Isles of Scilly. The town is situated on the island of St. Mary's, which is the largest of the Isles of Scilly

Tresco is the second largest island

Only five of the Isles of Scilly are inhabited

Midway between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly is the supposed location of the mythical lost land of Lyonesse, referred to in Arthurian literature