Historic Travel in Britain

England's Un-Natural Landscape

Americans are used to thinking of a natural landscape as wilderness, or at least old growth. Taking this as our definition, however, England has no natural landscapes, none at all, and hasn't for many centuries. Everything, without exception, has been transformed by the hands of humans at one point or another during the last six millennia; everything is history.

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Islay: Lords of the Isles

Islay, while only eighty miles from Glasgow as the crow flies, is a hundred miles of bad road and a two and a half hour ferry crossing for humans. But remoteness has its virtues — particularly for the home of some of the greatest whiskies and most historic sites in Scotland.

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The Beers of Burton

For more than two centuries, "Burton" meant "beer" in the United Kingdom the way "Hollywood" means "movies" in the United States. Then, suddenly, it stopped. The surprise was akin to the Hollywood studios being bought out by European television stations and moved to Iowa. It was unimaginable — yet it had happened.

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Dover Castle: The View from Hellfire Corner

At its closest point, England is seventeen miles from France. Today this tiny distance hardly separates two close allies, but for most of the preceding twenty centuries the seventeen miles of the Straits of Dover marked a hostile military frontier. In the last five centuries alone, England's enemies attempted invasions on twelve different occasions and made serious preparations at least nine other times. Dover Castle was England's protector, and its secret military tunnels led (and still lead) to a hidden balcony in the cliffs, known during World War II as "Hellfire Corner."

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Illuminating Blackpool

Just as Karl Marx published his Law of the Increasing Misery of the Working Classes in the mid-19th century, the Midlands working classes started taking vacations. This was completely new and unexpected; never, in the history of mankind, had the ordinary working people had enough money to knock off for a week and go somewhere else. Because this was an absolutely unique event in history there wasn't any place for them to go — so they had to create a place, a pleasure resort just for themselves. That place was Blackpool.

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St. Columba's Iona

The tale of Iona — Scotland's holiest island, the resting place of her earliest kings — is also the tale of her founder Columba, the Irish prince and saint. It is a tale of arrogance, of politics, of battle, and of death; and it is a tale of penance, of striving for God, and of peace. It is a tale that may actually be true.

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Leeds: Castle of Queens

When Leeds Castle came on the market in 1924, William Randolph Hearst was ready to buy it — that is, until he saw it. On paper it seemed to be the perfect opulent party pad. Located just east of London, it was a real royal castle, eight centuries old, yet fully habitable and ready for renovation. We can only imagine Hearst's disappointment when he finally saw it (and promptly nixed the deal). Where are the looming walls? The soaring battlements? The holes for pouring boiling oil on attacking soldiers? Sure, it had a moat (and a darn good one) but . . . what happened to the rest of the castle?

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Britain's Two Greatest Inventions

These two modest inventions produced factories, powerful engines, electrical power grids, jet airplanes, economic theory, and computers.

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