Culture UK
Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact and fiction.
Hot Air Balloons in Britain – A History
Hot air balloon building in Britain has an intriguing history. Military experiments at Aldershot, Hampshire led the War Office to create a dedicated Balloon Section in 1890…
The Fortingall Yew
The Fortingall Yew stands in the grounds of an ancient church in the tiny village of Fortingall, Perthshire, Scotland. It is arguably the oldest living tree in Europe…
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The most spectacular surviving manuscript from Anglo-Saxon England, the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne off the Northumberland coast around 700 AD…
St Alban, Christian Martyr
Believed to have been Romano-British, Alban was England’s first Christian martyr, dying for his faith…
21st Birthday Key Of The Door
‘I’ve got the key of the door, never been 21 before!’ So goes the old song, but why is – or was – a person’s 21st birthday so special?
Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs was a physicist, mathematician and scientist whose achievements, discoveries and inventions have left their mark on the world to this very day…
A Girls’ Grammar School in the 1950s and 1960s
What was life like for girls at a grammar school in the 1950s and 1960s? How did their education prepare them for adult life? Unthinkable today, but pupils were also trained to become the wives of the middle classes… In Domestic Science girls were taught how to iron a man’s shirt (collar and cuffs first, girls!)…
The Feast and Fast of Traditional Advent
At this time of year many people around Britain are carefully opening tiny windows on Advent calendars to reveal little treats as they count down to Christmas. But what are the origins of Advent?
The Coronation Robes
After the monarch, the Crown Jewels are undoubtedly the glittering stars of the coronation ceremony, sparkling with their 23,578 diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds. Yet amid the main stars of the show, there is a co-star in their own right: the Coronation Robes. Steeped in rich symbolism and lavish history, the robes form an integral part of the ceremony…
Sen Yamen: Comedy, Colonialism and the Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion and in particular the Siege of Peking in 1900 grabbed the public’s attention. A play called ‘Sen Yamen’ performed at Rugby’s Theatre Royal in October 1901 fused comedy with colonialism to create a rather bizarre angle on the Chinese rebels…