An earlier cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1067, shortly after the Norman Conquest and rebuilding began under the first Norman archbishop, Lanfranc, whose elaborate plans goaded the archbishop of York into a frenzy of building. Lanfranc had claimed primacy for his cathedral over York. York wasn’t having it and built its own cathedral, York Minster, on a scale to rival Canterbury. Read more about York Minster here.
Treasures to see on your visit
For such a big story, it’s surprising that today only a small altar marks the site of Thomas Becket’s murder in the cathedral. It was erected after the visit of Pope John Paul II to the cathedral. He commented that he had visited memorials to St Thomas Becket all over the world, but here in his own cathedral there was nothing to remember him by.
Becket’s body was taken to the crypt after his murder, today in that crypt you’ll find an evocative sculpture by the artist Antony Gormley, most famous for his Angel of the North artwork. Made from old iron nails taken from the repaired roof of the cathedral, it outlines the shape of a floating body and is suspended above the site of the first tomb of the archbishop.
Check out the medieval wall art in St Gabriel’s chapel – left intact throughout the Reformation as the chapel was walled up; the Great South Window, featuring some of the oldest stained glass in the world, dating from 1175, and considered to be one of the most famous works of English medieval painting; and the ship’s bell from HMS Canterbury, which is rang every day at 11am.
The Canterbury monks’ medieval priory is now the cathedral chapter house, with its own separate entrance through the cloisters outside. Monks often worked on transcribing manuscripts in the cloisters, where the light was better for doing such delicately detailed work. The priory dates from the Norman period with later Gothic additions. The timber ceiling is a rare example of a surviving 600-year-old design – most were destroyed by fire. The glass in the windows is Victorian, though the masonry surrounding them is medieval.
Important tombs include the grave of King Henry IV and the tomb of the Black Prince, Edward of Woodstock, the oldest son of Edward III, who died before he could inherit the throne.
Canterbury: cathedral city
Canterbury is surely one of the most atmospheric and attractive cities in England, with its medieval winding streets, river location and ancient city walls. It has been one of the country’s biggest attractions for centuries, from the pilgrims who came to pay homage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in the cathedral to the countless numbers of tourists who flock there every year.
Where to stay: Take up residence in the cathedral grounds – Canterbury Cathedral Lodge is a comfortable modern hotel and conference centre that offers you the chance to wake up to stunning cathedral views. Not only that, you get free admission to the cathedral and can go in and out as many times as you like.
What to do: The Canterbury Heritage Museum showcases everything from the city’s Roman history to the assassination of Thomas Becket, and the museum also houses the Rupert Bear Museum. Mary Tourtel, who created Rupert, was a Canterbury local.
For more history and a deeper look into Canterbury’s Roman past, there’s the Roman Museum or you can get cultural at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, with its museum and art gallery. The Eastbridge Hospital, set up for pilgrims, soldiers and the elderly in 1180, is also well worth a visit for its Romanesque undercroft, chapel and 16th century almshouses, all sitting across Britain’s most ancient road bridge, which is over 800 years old.
Nearby, St Martin’s Church is the oldest parish church in England in continuous use and you can also visit the ruins of Augustine’s Abbey, which is part of Canterbury’s World Heritage Site and dates from 597. A small museum on the site tells the story of the re-establishment of Christianity in all of England from here.
Cathedrals of Britain: London and the South East by Bernadette Fallon is published by Pen and Sword and on sale for £12.99
]]>Known as the ‘Ship of the Fens’, Ely Cathedral rises majestically from the surrounding landscape. Once it stood on an island, surrounded on all sides by water, but the draining of the Fens marshland several centuries ago reunited the land around the cathedral with the rest of the countryside. It still retains some of that other-worldly allure however and today rises magically from the early morning mists. The first church on this site was founded by a woman, Ethelreda, a 7th century Anglo-Saxon princess, although buiding on the present cathedral didn’t start until 1081.
Lincoln
On top of one of the steepest hills in Britain, Lincoln cathedral can be seen from most parts of the county and was described by the Victorian critic John Ruskin as ‘the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles’. For a time in the Middle Ages, it was the tallest building in the world and is one of the few English cathedrals standing on the rock it is built from. Founded in 1072 by William the Conqueror’s travelling companion and supporter, the Benedictine monk Remigius, today its great west front is all that remains of the original Norman building.
Norwich
Built by the Normans soon after their victory at Hastings in 1066, Norwich Cathedral and nearby Norwich Castle were clear demonstrations of the invaders’ power and influence in what was then England’s second biggest city. As much a political statement as a religious one, the cathedral’s narrow nave with its soaring height and dramatic vaulting was deliberately sized to create the impression of power and grandeur. Its foundation stone was laid at the east end of the building in 1096.
Lichfield
Founded in the 8th century and filled with delicate angels, Lichfield Cathedral has come close to destruction several times over the centuries. The three spires of the cathedral are known locally as ‘the ladies of the vale’ and can be seen from all directions – but by the time they were completed there had already been a cathedral on the site for 600 years. The first church was built in 700, then demolished and rebuilt by the Normans in the 11 century, while today’s cathedral dates mainly from the 1400s.
Peterborough
While considerably less revered than its famous neighbours in Ely, Norwich and Lincoln, Peterborough cathedral has great historical significance and holds many treasures. It is one of the finest Norman buildings in the country and one of the few medieval cathedrals whose core structure remains essentially the same as it was on completion. Its 13th century wooden ceiling is the only one of its type in the UK and one of only four from this period surviving in all of Europe. It’s the final resting place for one of the nation’s most famous queens and maybe just have inspired part of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
St Edmundsbury
A modestly sized and recently conferred cathedral, St Edmundsbury received its status in 1914 when the former parish church of St James became the cathedral for the newly created diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. But it has a huge and unique heritage, sharing its site with a spectacular ruined abbey laid out over several acres that marks it as a place of religious worship for over 1,000 years. And its other unique aspect is a more contemporary one. It boasts the country’s newest cathedral tower, a mere infant in the grand scheme of cathedral histories, completed in 2005.
Oxford
England’s smallest cathedral, Christ Church Oxford survives today due to a series of fortunate coincidences. One of the oldest buildings in Oxford, it dates from the 12th century and as well as a cathedral, it’s the chapel for Christ Church College, one of the largest and wealthiest colleges in the university. It has strong links with several monarchs and famous literary figures and, unusually, its patron saint, Frideswide, is a woman. But it hasn’t been without controversy, particularly in more recent times.
Cathedrals of Britain: East and Central by Bernadette Fallon is published by Pen and Sword books, £12.99, buy online here
Read more
Around the UK in 30 cathedrals
Cathedrals of Britain: London and the South East – Canterbury, St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Southwark, Westminster Cathedral, Rochester, Chichester
Cathedrals of Britain: West, South West and Wales – Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, Gloucester, Exeter, St Davids, St Asaph’s
Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland – York, Durham, Ripon, Wakefield, Sheffield, Bradfield, Edinburgh, Aberdeen
Image credit: Lichfield Cathedral, Bernadette Fallon
]]>Walking across the mountains of Abuna Yosef in north Ethiopia is one of the most spectacular journeys ever. Not to mention pretty hair-raising, slightly hazardous and very challenging. There was a mule involved at the start. We eyed each other, I got on, he did a 360-degree turn on a rocky ridge, I slid off and that was it. For the rest of the journey I was walking. For five hours.
Mekonnen, the boy I sponsor through children’s charity Plan International, lives in one of the most remote parts of Ethiopia. I flew for an hour and a half from the capital Addis Ababa to Lalibela airport where I was met by Kibremidir from Plan, then it was a four-hour drive up rocky mountain tracks to meet our guides and the mules. The climb started from here, three mountain peaks ahead of us to cross.
The scenery around us was breathtaking – I mean literally breathtaking: we were over 3,000 metres above sea level and I was gasping in the thin air as we reached the top of each peak. So it was fairly embarrassing to be overtaken along the ridge by men and women effortlessly walking barefoot, carrying bundles of grain on their backs.
I was there in November, harvest time in north Ethiopia, following the rainy season from June to September. October to January is the best time to visit; from February to the start of the rainy season the temperature rises sharply and the countryside loses its green blanket, becoming scorched in the searing African sun.
The sun was dipping behind the mountain as we started the final descent into a green valley with a few small tukuls (traditional Ethiopian single-room hut dwellings) surrounded by crops. I could hear a child excitedly shouting ‘faranji, faranji’ (that was me, the ‘foreigner’).
And then there were people running forward, bringing animal skins and setting them down on the ground in front of the huts, our guides were shouting greetings in Amharic, and the mules looked like they’d clocked it – we’d arrived. I asked where Mekonnen was and this beautiful smiling boy, who was busy laying our furry carpet on the ground, approached me.
I hadn’t been able to imagine what our meeting would be like and when it happened I just felt sheer and total joy to finally see him. I thought he might be a bit shy – I certainly was – but he was smiling and confident and shook my hand and then, a great honour, leaned in to touch each of my cheeks with his own. I told him I was so pleased to see him and thanked him for all of his letters over the past ten years. I was standing beside him and my legs were shaking as we talked – I didn’t know if it was from the long climb or sheer emotion, maybe a bit of both.
He speaks some English and his English is good, so it was great to be able to talk directly to him and he introduced me to his mother, his father, two sisters, brother and a friend. I met his grandmother who was sitting outside a neighbouring hut, we bowed and exchanged ‘Selam’, the Amharic greeting.
Then I sat with the family outside their house and gave them a photo album with copies of all the photos of Mekonnen and his family I have received through Plan in the last 10 years. His parents don’t speak English but we managed very well by pointing and smiling at the photos and Kibremidir translated when needed. I also took a football and football annual for Mekonnen – I know he’s a soccer fan from his letters – tea-towels for his mother and ping-pong balls for the rest of the family.
As the sun went down we went inside their tukul, a single circular room with benches around the edge and a small fire pit in the centre, the only light came from the open door and fire embers that Mekonnen’s mother was stoking into life. I was given the seat of honour, a low wooden chair covered in fur skins, under the hut’s only ornamentation – the clay wall that displayed a few photos of Mekonnen’s family alongside one of me, my brother and nephew taken in our kitchen in Ireland on my birthday last year!
After the journey we’d just taken I could fully appreciate the huge task of getting my photos and letters to Mekonnen several times a year. And we had it easy – driving for four of the nine hours of the journey. The community volunteers who carry the letters do it on foot from Lalibela – though mind you they don’t have me panting and wheezing up the side of a mountain to slow them down.
Letters are my link with Mekonnen but it’s the £15 I donate every month that allows Plan to provide facilities for the whole community. For this village of Gormalie and surrounding areas Plan has provided a school for 620 children – so many they take it in shifts to attend, the first group coming to classes from 8am to 12, the second from 12 to 4pm. There’s also a water project which provides clean water for the community, located beside the school.
In the tukul we were served branches of peas and beans – Mekonnen sitting beside me helped me find the sweetest pods. There was a coffee ceremony, with beans roasted on the open fire in front of me, then painstakingly ground in hollowed-out bark by his mother as the kettle boiled on the flames. Ethopia is the original home of the coffee plant and this was the best coffee I have ever tasted.
A huge serving platter of injera – traditional bread made from the local grain teff which grows all over the highlands – dressed with bean paste was passed around and we all helped ourselves from the plate, using the bread in place of cutlery to scoop up the thick bean filling. Freshly brewed beer, foaming furiously, was our next treat, only served on very special occasions as the grain used to brew it is expensive. As dusk fell the cows and goats returned and clustered around the tukul’s open door, more people and children came in and I played ping-pong catch with Mekonnen’s little sister. ‘Would you like some milk? Mekonnen asked, and when I said yes a cup was taken outside to the cow and filled with sweet-smelling warm – and extremely fresh! – milk.
I talked to Mekonnen about school and his favourite subjects – English and maths – and enjoyed the smiles of his younger brother who touchingly never seemed to stop beaming at me the whole time I was there. But by then it was very dark and we still had an hour’s walk across the mountain to the school where we would spend the night. The family were horrified to find we meant to leave and wanted us to spend the night there. I was humbled by the hospitality that insisted on finding space for a group of strangers among a family of seven in a small one-room tukul. Then Mekonnen, his brother and friend insisted on coming with us to carry bags and guide us safely across the mountain.
And there was still more hospitality when we reached the school; the teachers who lived in small stone huts close to the main building were worried the school floor wouldn’t be clean enough for our sleeping bags and insisted on giving up a room so we could sleep in their home, cooking us a dinner of macaroni and egg before we went to sleep.
I’m so moved by the generosity of people who have so little, sharing it with random passers-by who turn up unannounced in the middle of the night. But it doesn’t matter how much or how little, it’s the fact they share it with a happy heart and generous spirit. They may be poor in material possessions but in kindness and generosity the people I met on the mountain of Abuna Yosef are the richest of the rich.
And I learned something very important while I was there – and that’s to take what I’ve been given in life and make the most of it, not to wish my life was different or hanker after a life I don’t have, but use what I’ve been given to achieve what I want. I’ve been blessed with many more advantages in life than Mekonnen. He walks for two hours every day across a mountain to get an education, taking what he has been given to make his life better. I can learn a lot from him.
How to sponsor a child
Plan works with communities in 48 developing countries to help alleviate child poverty. In some of these countries one in five children will die before they reach their fifth birthday. For just £15 a month you could change this, helping Plan to build new schools and water treatment plants in local communities. Find out how to sponsor a child on the Plan website at www.plan-uk.org.
The Old Deanery, Ripon
Located across the road from Ripon Cathedral, with fine views of its soaring façade, this beautiful stone building is the former home of the cathedral deans. Dating back to 1625 and blessed with character and period detail, it still has its impressive original oak staircase and is full of individual quirks, like the gently sloping floorboards and thick-walled window seats. There are just eleven rooms altogether, each one totally individual. Live the life of a cathedral dean for a day. (Theolddeanery.co.uk; from £100)
Grays Court, York
Just a short cobbled-street’s walk from York Minister, this wonderful hotel was the first official residence for the treasurers of the minster, commissioned by the first Norman Archbishop of York, Ealdred. With part of it dating back to 1080, it’s possibly the oldest continuously occupied house in the UK and has the only private access to York’s city walls, which surround the edge of its lovely gardens. Inside it’s all luxury boutique hotel and beautiful design, just what you’d expect from a building that was owned by royalty when the treasurers moved out in the 16th century. It was given as a gift by King Edward VI to the Duke of Somerset and has been voted Visit York Hotel of the Year for the last three years. (Grayscourtyork.com; from £200)
Littlecote House, Berkshire
Famously associated with royalty and political intrigue, it was here that Henry VIII wooed Jane Seymour, in the house that her grandmother lived in. A 16th century Tudor manor, it has also hosted the likes of Elizabeth I, James I, Charles II and William of Orange. The D-Day landings were planned within these very walls, which also hide a secret passage behind the library bookcases. There’s a Roman villa in the grounds, which also offer a putting green, tennis and bowling courts. And, like any self-respecting 16th century building, several rooms are said to be haunted with the ghosts of former residents. You can even bring some history home with you; nearby Hungerford is famous for its antique shops. (Warnerleisurehotels.co.uk)
Tulloch Castle, Dingwall Ross-Shire
Wake up in a four-poster bed in a 12th century highland castle. Overlooking Cromarty Firth and the Black Isle, close to the ancient town of Dingwall, the former home of the Bains and Davidsons has been beautifully restored as a 22-bedroom hotel. Wander through the 250-year-old panelled Great Hall, admire original period fireplaces and ceilings, eat in The Turrets Restaurant and after you’ve finished being Laird of the Castle, explore the nearby Cairngorms National Park. There’s easy access to Inverness and the coast is just a six-minute drive away. (Part of the Bespoke Hotel Group, Bespokehotels.com/tullochcastlehotel; from £127)
Billesley Manor, Stratford upon Avon
The manor house of Billesley can be traced back to 705AD and was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. It’s said that William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in the 8th century church in the grounds in 1582, and that his granddaughter also was married here. The charming hotel is a warren of twisting corridors and winding staircases, there’s a priest hole, grand stone fireplaces and an imposing Great Hall which hosts the morning breakfast buffet, a drawing room to take morning coffee and a library that Shakespeare purportedly visited. After its 17th-century heyday, the manor fell into disrepair, was refurbished in the early 20th century and has been a hotel for the last 50 years. (Billesleymanor.com)
Stonefield Castle, Mull of Kintyre
The 19th-century baronial home of the Campbell family (pictured top of the page) is set in 60 acres of woodland gardens and boasts a famous collection of Himalayan rhododendrons. From the wall-mounted stag’s head in the entrance hallway, enjoy one finely proportioned room after another, from drawing room to library and bar, into a long lounge with crackling open fire. Deep window seats look out to front and back gardens leading down to the broad expanse of Loch Fyne. It’s just two miles from the idyllic fishing village of Tarbert, one of the most attractive villages on the Mull of Kintyre peninsula. (Part of the Bespoke Hotel Group, Bespokehotels.com/stonefieldcastle; from £130)
The Midland Hotel, Bradford
Love the glamour of the old railways, with their puffing steam trains and waving white hankies on the platform? You’ll love The Midland Hotel in Bradford, a throw-back to the heyday of railway hotels and dating from 1885. It still has many of its attractive Victorian features, including grand foyer, glittering chandeliers and old-world appeal – and obviously it’s conveniently placed for transport, right beside the train station. It’s hosted the great and the good over the years, among them Laurel and Hardy, The Beatles and George Formby. It also attracted quite a lot of publicity when the Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving died on the main staircase, following a performance at the nearby Theatre Royal. He was attended to by his manager, no less famous a personage, Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. (Peelhotels.co.uk/Midland-Hotel; from £70)
Oatlands Park, Surrey
Overlooking Weybridge’s Broadwater Lake, this was once the site of Henry VIII’s grand Tudor palace which he had redesigned for Anne of Cleeves – Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I also spent time here. Rebuilt as a Gothic mansion in the 18th century, it has been a hotel since 1856, and has welcomed several notable guests over the years including the poet Edward Lear and writer Emile Zola. On 10 acres of gardens and wooded parkland, the hotel has 144 rooms and still sits close to royalty – Windsor Castle is just down the road. (Oatlands-Park-Hotel; from £72)
Buxton Crescent, Peak District
The 5th Duke of Devonshire’s fashionable 18th century Georgian crescent is home to the newest ‘old’ hotel on our list, opening later this year for the first time. The 81-room, five-star hotel, with renovated Assembly Rooms and rooftop pool, has a thermal spa built on the site of the original Roman Baths, situated over the main mineral water spring. A medieval place of pilgrimage and fashionable spa town in the 1700s, Buxton has one of only two sets of warm springs developed by the Romans in the UK – the other is at Bath. (Buxtoncrescent.com; from £155)
Mandarin Oriental, London
Once the 19th century Hyde Park Court and Club, these days the 138 former bachelor flats, (along with the bachelors’ drawing, dining, billiard and smoking rooms) have been transformed into a very swish five-star hotel. Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor and Gandhi have all stayed here, royalty has its own entrance opposite Hyde Park and Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret had dance lessons here as young girls. The Sultan of Zanzibar brought 12 goats to stay with him on his visit in 1929 and Rudolph Valentino stopped traffic when he stepped out on to the balcony to wave to several thousand screaming women on the footpath outside. Winston Churchill took refuge here during the Second World War and soldiers on leave from the trenches in World War 1 were given beds in ballroom if they had nowhere else to go. (MandarinOriental.com/London; from £740)
A version of this article was published in The Scotsman in summer 2020
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]]>There’s a llama nuzzling my chin. Her name is Truffle, she’s just turned 16-months-old and I’m about to take her for a walk.
I first became aware of the phenomenon of llama treks last year, over in Ireland watching a travel programme about a trip to a B&B in the countryside. Where they had llamas. And people took these llamas for a walk and it was calming, and it was restful, and it looked wonderful – a new form of mindfulness (being in the moment with a llama) and a more interesting way of meditating (thinking about a llama while walking). I googled llama treks and found a few places around Ireland that offered them. I read up on them all, then returned to London and did nothing more about it.
But the llama universe was clearly looking out for me. Because just six weeks later I had an invite from the Merry Harriers Inn in Surrey – not too far from where I live – for an overnight visit. And they had llamas…
I meet all ten of the llamas before we set off on the trek. Mungo is coming with us – he’s a few years older than Truffle and he’ll be walking with Fi – she’s a human (who says she has the best job in the world, leading llama treks year-round, weather permitting). I also meet Lorenzo, the baby of the family, just 8-months-old and too young yet for treks.
Llamas are friendly creatures, curious and loving and beautiful to look at. They are the stuff of viral videos. And they smile. Kittens – so over!
The only thing is, because they have three stomachs, they really like to eat a lot, spend 16 hours a day feeding – and don’t intend to stop just because they’re walking. So, I spend a substantial amount of the time trying to coax Truffle out of the hedges and away from foliage as we walk. With my inordinate charm? No, with a box of carrots, literally dangling a carrot in front of her to move her along. It’s quite a treat having her snuffle them out of my open palm though. Llamas, it turns out, also have ridiculously soft faces.
Treks take a couple of hours through the fields and countryside paths behind the Merrier Harriers inn. Or you can make a real trip of it and take a picnic (the llamas will carry the picnic basket and you can even have champagne).
When I’m not hanging out with llamas, I’m chilling in my shepherd’s hut or hobnobbing with the locals in the bar. There are five luxury huts set up in a field across the road from the inn and if this is a shepherd’s life, sign me up for a flock and crook now.
The inn also has accommodation in rooms over the pub or in pretty garden huts out the back (with views of the llamas). The inn itself is a 16the century pub – watercolours of it hang in Tate Britain – and serves food all day, with much of the produce sourced locally (some of it from their own garden).
The nearest station is Milford and trains run every hour from Clapham Junction, journey time is 40 minutes and then it’s a 10-minute taxi ride to the inn. If you’re driving, it’s off the A3 – follow the signs Milford and Haslemere.
The Merry Harriers is located in Hambledon in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is rather outstandingly beautiful. But mainly, there are llamas.
OWN YOUR OWN LLAMA (mug): And now, the smiling llama has become immortalised in ‘mug’ – as part of a fundraising appeal to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, set up by Lenses of Croydon. Photographer Robert Wilson Jr is a member of the group and donated this fabulous llama pic as part of the project. Read more and buy the mug here. (Other mugs are also available!)
I also wrote about the experience for The Scotsman – you can read the article here (it’s on page 2 – don’t panic
The Merry Harriers, Hambledon Road, Surrey GU8 4DR; phone 01428 682883; email enquiries@merryharriers.com. Inn rooms from £115 per night, garden rooms £110, shepherds’ huts £195, B&B
Photos copyright Rob Wilson Jnr at Fluid4Sight and Merry Harriers
It’s August and you haven’t booked to go away? No need! Opt for a staycation on the Isle of Wight instead – just a short trip on the ferry to this island off the south coast, you’ll feel you’re leaving the country without having to pack your passport. It’s the perfect destination for a short holiday, with great beaches, plenty of activities, interesting places to visit and a very good chance of fine weather. Or, if you’re close to the south coast, with crossing times of just 25 minutes on the brand-new Red Jet passenger ferry, it’s a day trip option as well.
The Isle of Wight is a beautiful spot. In 1963 half of the island was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and 1974 its north west coast was recognised for the unspoilt natural beauty of its soft cliffs, woodlands, farmland and creeks and defined as the Hamstead Heritage Coast. It includes the National Trust land of Newtown National Nature Reserve and Forestry Commission woodland of Bouldnor Forest, and is a haven for wildlife, including the native red squirrel.
The opposite coast, with its rugged clay and sandstone cliffs was named as the Tennyson Heritage Coast. It includes the Needles chalk stacks and is a fossil rich coastline, well known for dinosaur footprints, chines and lighthouses.
Needless to say, this natural paradise is a big attraction for walkers and a coastal path winds its way around the island, accessed from Bouldnor near Yarmouth or Thorness near Cowes, with other footpaths from Newtown, Shalfleet and the surrounding areas leading across the fields and woodland to the coastline. Altogether there are 64 miles of coastal paths to rocky coves and dramatic clifftops and over 500 miles of footpaths on the island to suit both the gentle stroller and experienced hiker.
Isle of Wight: top things to do
1. Take a guided walk to discover local wildlife and landscapes or uncover the island’s dinosaur heritage on a fossil hunt. The island is often called ‘England in miniature’ and a walk will allow you to explore the very best of the English countryside, from sand dunes and coves to thatched villages and sailing towns. ‘Rambles by Bus’ have been developed by the Isle of Wight Ramblers and Southern Vectis to allow visitors to follow walks that start and end on a bus route.
2. Hire a bike once you land on the island – most ferry terminals are near a cycle route and the majority of routes are off-road, so suitable for all the family. There are over 200 miles of cycle tracks and off-road bridleways on the island and lots of cycle-friendly accommodation if you want to make this the focus of your visit. Some local businesses offer baggage transfers so you can cycle unimpeded from place to place.
3. Pay a visit to Queen Victoria’s former home, Osborne, with its own private beach. The monarch’s former home was owned privately and kept as a summer home and place of retreat for herself, Prince Albert and their family. Writing about it she said, “It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot”. Now owned by English Heritage, it is one of the island’s most popular tourist attractions, its grand rooms, including the family’s private apartments, still full of their possessions, including many of the gifts Prince Albert gave his wife. Outside the extensive grounds house a beautiful Victorian walled garden, the Swiss Cottage built for the royal children and woodland that runs down to a private beach. Admission is £15 for adults, £9 for children under 15, more information here.
4. See Carisbrooke Castle, where the deposed king Charles I was incarcerated before his beheading. The castle is over 1,000 years old and began life as an Anglo-Saxon fortress, built to provide refuge from the Vikings. As well as a prison, it has also been used as an Elizabethan artillery fortress and royal summer residence. Today, as well as its fascinating history, you will find donkeys working the 16th century treadwheel and an Edwardian-style Princess Beatrice Garden, designed by TV presenter and award-winning garden designer, Chris Beardshaw.
Adults £8.80, Children £5.20, more information here.
5. Visit the spectacularly sited clifftop fort and Victorian coastal defence, the Needles Old Battery for the best views of the iconic Needles, one of the island’s landmarks. You can explore its history through exhibitions, displays and memorabilia and take a trip into its underground tunnel for more spectacular views.
Adults £7.50, children £3.75, more information here.
6. Travel back in time on the island’s west coast, where you’ll find Stone Age burial tombs – long barrows – around Freshwater Bay and above the village of Mottistone. Barrows are also strung out along the tops of the downs at Headon Warren and Brook Down.
7. Go on a dinosaur hunt. Rapidly becoming known as Dinosaur Island, the cliffs and beaches around the coast are full of animal and plant fossils, with the oldest rocks formed back when dinosaurs walked the earth. The yellow, brown and grey rocks exposed in the bays of Compton, Brook and Brighstone contain fossilised tress and dinosaur bones and giant casts of dinosaur footprints in stone are a famous feature at Hanover Point.
8. Hang out on the beach – there are plenty to choose from. Most popular are Sandown beach, Whitecliff Bay, Shanklin (pictured above), Brightstone and Gurnard.
For more information on all of the attractions above, see Visit the Isle of Wight website
Stay
Haven Hall on the west coast, overlooking Shanklin beach, is one of the most stunningly-located hotels on the island, a haven of 5-star luxury and just recently opened. Read all about it here.
Eat
Thompson’s in Newport is run by the youngest chef ever to win a Michelin star, Robert Thompson, and offers classic cooking with a modern touch, using lots of the island’s superb local produce. The Waterfront at Totland Bay has amazing views and great food.
The Isle of Wight is a bit of a foodie paradise, don’t leave without buying some of the wonderful local produce, including its famous garlic. Yes, it even has a garlic festival.
Drink
Fisherman’s Cottage at the end of Shanklin beach has outside tables that are just a few feet away from the sea. It also does very good food.
Getting there
Red Funnel runs a regular passenger (travel time 25 minutes) and car (travel time 1 hour) ferry service to the island from Southampton (including a free shuttle bus from Southampton train station), see details and timetables here.
It’s a dog friendly service – read more here.
Red Funnel has also produced a Days Out guide, with suggested itineraries for day trips and four self-guided day trip tour packages including Queen Victoria’s Osborne, Carisbrooke Castle and Newport, Olde-World England, around Godshill and Shanklin, and Dinosaur Isle & the Isle of Wight zoo. Packages include travel to and from the island and cost £29.95 per person and there is also a cycling package for £28 per person, including bike hire.
You can also take the Wightlink ferry from Portsmouth and Lymington or Hovertravel from Southsea.
1. Start your trip to Dublin by getting your hands on a Dublin Bus pass. Not only will it let you access hop-on/hop-off tour buses so you can travel easily around the city and see the sights, it will also give you free or reduced entry into over 30 top Dublin attractions, as well as special offers and discounts at restaurants, bars and gift shops. If you buy it online and get it before you go (by post or on your mobile phone) you can also use it to travel for free on the bus from the airport to the city centre. The pass comes with a mini guidebook packed full of information and there’s also an app where you can access more. It’s available for 1, 2, 3 or 5 consecutive days and prices start from €59 for an adult ticket, €29 for a child.
(And of course, this being Dublin, not only do you get a full tour of the city on the big red buses that run every 15 minutes all day, from 9am to 6pm and then on the half hour until 7pm, you also get the bus driver banter. The stories, the insider info – such as the best place to find a pint of Guinness – and the passenger chats. If you want to be really ‘looked after’ in Dublin, take the tour!)
2. Ireland’s National Museum is a great place to start your Irish visit, exploring the history of this ancient land from prehistoric times through early Celtic, Viking and medieval periods. Current exhibitions include preserved bog bodies from the Iron Age, as well as insights into some of the world’s oldest passage grave monuments at the ancient Irish seat of kings, the Hill of Tara. The museum is located in Kildare street and close to the National Library, National Gallery, Government Buildings and St Stephen’s Green, right in the heart of the city. Free
3. Directly opposite is the National Library, where – among other things – you can explore your Irish ancestry. WB Yeats lovers will be delighted to find an ongoing exhibition devoted to the great writer’s life and works. (Being one, I certainly was). Free
4. Completing the triad of historical art and culture, and located nearby, is Ireland’s National Gallery, showcasing a collection of European paintings with a strong emphasis on Irish artists including Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery and Walter Osbourne. You’ll also find one of the most recent Caravaggio’s to be discovered, The Taking of Christ, found lurking in the dining room of the Dublin Jesuits’ order home in 1990, and on loan to the gallery since. Coming up in July and running until the end of the year is an exhibition devoted to the, often previously hidden, works of Irish women artists. Free
5. Even more so than its artists, Ireland is particularly well known for its writers and, as the Dublin Writers’ Museum on the north-side of the city explains, “though geographically outside the spread of Western culture, Ireland has an undue proportion of the world’s greatest writers”. And this small but perfectly formed museum showcases all of the greats, including Ireland’s four Nobel Literature Prize winners, WB Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Here you’ll also find James Joyce, Bram Stoker – the author of Dracula – Brendan Behan and Oscar Wilde. It’s also a great chance to see inside a Dublin Georgian mansion, with its grand sweeping staircase, ornate ceilings and painted wall decorations. Admission €7
6. Close to the Writers’ Museum is the James Joyce Centre, a museum dedicated to one of Ireland’s great writers, the infamous, formerly-banned, terribly complex James Joyce, author of what is widely believed to be the 20th century’s greatest – and most impenetrable – works of fiction, Ulysses. Housed in yet another grand though faded Georgian mansion at 35 North Great George’s St, this former townhouse of the Earl of Kenmare was turned into a dancing academy by Prof Denis Maginni, who features several times in Ulysses, a very colourful character by all accounts.
The house owes its continued existence to Joycean scholar Senator David Norris, a neighbour on the street who saved it from demolition in the 1980s. And one of the key dates on its calendar of events is Bloomsday – that famous date in literary history, June 16 1904 – the day depicted in Ulysess when the hero Leopold Bloom takes his stroll around the city of Dublin, from 8am through to the early hours of the next day. Celebrations include dressing up in the fashion of the period and visiting all of Bloom’s stops on his journey, as well as readings, performances and the legendary Bloomsday Breakfast, including liver and kidneys alongside the traditional fry. Admission €5
7. Staying with legendary writers, in an exhibition – and cultural space – new to the city of Dubin, the Seamus Heaney Listen Now Again showcase draws on the National Library’s extensive archive of Heaney documents and features the poet’s original manuscripts, letters, unpublished works, diary entries, photographs, note books and multi-media recordings. This will be the first exhibition to be housed in the new Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre in central Dublin.
8. Another writer who features heavily in Dublin’s history, though he wasn’t always delighted to be a part of it, is Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels and Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. It is believed to be built on the site of a former church established by St Patrick himself, the much-loved patron saint of Ireland. Today’s beautiful building was re-established by a grandson of Arthur Guinness, Benjamin Lee Guinness. Admission €7
9. Which brings us neatly to one of Dublin’s most famous attractions, the Guinness Storehouse, where, it is said, you will be served the finest glass of the black stuff in the world. Arthur established his brewing premises in 1759 at the St James’s Gate Brewery, signing a 9,000-year lease at £45 per year, making it one of the best-value investment in Dublin’s history. The brewery produces 3 million pints of Guinness every day and also offers 360° views of the city. Our tour bus driver treated us to a rendition of ‘You’re drunk, you’re drunk you silly old fool’ as we drove past. Advance admission from €19.50
10. Also in this area, which was heavily colonised by the Vikings and Normans in medieval times, is Christchurch Cathedral, once a major pilgrimage site which housed relics including a miraculous speaking cross and a piece of the Baby Jesus’ crib. Founded almost 1000 years ago, the building was in ruins by the 17th century when it was rescued and revived by another purveyor of alcoholic beverages – Henry Roe, whiskey distiller. A mummified cat and rat in the crypt are referenced in James Joyce’s other famous – and even more complex – work, Finnegans Wake. Admission €7
11. Henry Roe’s distillery closed down in the 1926, despite producing 2 million gallons of whiskey a year in its heyday, probably the highest output of any distillery in the world at the time, and twice as much as the Jameson Distillery was producing. Jameson’s is still going however and you can visit its Bow St premises in Dublin’s Smithfield where you will be given three shots of whiskey to try – American, Scotch and Irish. No prizes for guessing which you are supposed to favour. Admission from €17
12. Catch traditional Irish music seven days a week at a local Smithfield pub. The Cobblestone in North King St is legendary but there are plenty to choose from, all located easy wandering distance from each other so take it handy and have the craic. (The craic for the uninitiated is a particular blend of fun, enjoyment, conversation and entertainment much loved by the Irish on a night out). Free
13. History buffs will find much to engage them at Kilmainham Jail, scene of imprisonments and executions during the famous Irish rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848,1867 and 1916, as well as the holding pen for convicts on route to Australia. Closed as a prison in 1924, it’s now a museum offering guided tours through the evocative building and several generations of Irish history. Nearby, the War Memorial Gardens commemorate the 50,000 Irish men who died in the First World War. 120,000 fought for the British Army, while back in Dublin, their countrymen were fighting against the British for control of their own country. The modern monument opposite the gardens, 15 blindfolded statues, represents the 15 leaders of the Easter Rising shot by British in May 1916. All were shot standing except one, James Connolly, who was too injured to stand and was strapped to a chair for his execution. Advance admission from €8
14. For a very contemporary take on Irish history, The Vaults is a new 60-minute actor-led journey through 800 years of Ireland’s past, blending live performance with special effects and lots of audience participation. It is opening soon in the newly-renovated old Augustinian St John’s National School, just off Thomas Street.
15. Shop for Irish gifts and souvenirs in the city centre; fashionable Grafton St on the south side, with the nearby Kilkenny Shop, Powerscourt Centre and Avoca perfect spots to browse the best of Irish design, crafts and gourmet food. Over on the north side, Henry St has lots of traditional high street boutiques and shopping centres, as well as the famous Moore St market.
16. Take coffee and cake in Bewley’s Café on Grafton Street, one of Dublin’s most iconic and celebrated landmarks, which has recently undergone a multi-million- euro refurbishment. Check out Bewley’s Café Gourmand, the Coffee Opera Cake and, an original favourite, the Bewley’s Mary Cake.
17. Stay at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, overlooking St Stephen’s Green in the heart of the city, which is a peaceful place for a relaxing early morning stroll. With top floor balconies overlooking the beautiful gardens, contemporary interiors that still have space for a cosy fire in the foyer and a very stylish afternoon tea option in the fashionable Inn on the Green bar, it’s a great city centre location to base yourself for your trip. Rooms from €289, afternoon tea from €39
18. If you want to splash out on some old-world glamour, head across the Green to the Shelbourne Hotel, where the guest register includes names like Greta Garbo, Laurel and Hardy, Rock Hudson, Princess Grace of Monaco and the Kennedy’s. The hotel’s 265 rooms have undergone a complete refurbishment in the last 18 months and its spa’s ‘drawing room’ relaxation area is one of the most sumptuous you will ever see. Or you could just pop in for a drink to the famous horse-shoe bar, where media stars and local characters rub shoulders. Traditional afternoon tea in the Lord Mayor’s room overlooking the Green €49; rooms from €300, suites from €1800
19. Dublin has another connection with legendary film stars – did you know that the famous MGM lion who roars at the start of each film is from Dublin Zoo? The Zoo is located in the Phoenix Park, the biggest enclosed public park in any capital city in Europe, just a mile and a half from the city centre. It’s a pleasant stroll out there along the River Liffey, which flows through the centre of the city and divides Dublin into north and south sides. Or, if you take the Dublin tour bus, the Zoo is one of the scheduled stops. Admission €17.50
20. And, staying with film stars and cinema, check out the beautifully restored Stella Theatre, an iconic cinema in buzzy Rathmines, a throwback to the glamour and glitz of the 1920’s and just short distance from the centre.
21. For more traditional theatrics, there’s the world-famous Abbey, Gate and Gaiety Theatres with programmes of Irish and international new works and classics. And this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival runs from the end of September to mid-October.
22. Private art donations provide some of the most inspiring collections in the city, including the Hugh Lane Gallery, an impressive array of modern works in the beautiful north-side gallery with its imposing architecture. Here you can also visit the studio of Francis Bacon, painstakingly re-created exactly as the artist left it on his death, namely, in complete chaos. Bacon claimed the mess was like his mind: ‘My life is like that, I needed to create in chaos – chaos suggests images to me’. Free
23. The other private collection bequeathed to the State is the Chester Beatty Library, located in Dublin Castle and a short distance walk from Trinity College and Grafton St. (If you’re in Trinity College, don’t forget to see the Book of Kells, the illuminated gospels dating from around 800). Described by the Lonely Planet as not just the best museum in Dublin, but one of the best in Europe, with exotic artefacts from across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. At any one time only one percent of the collection is on display so even with regular changes, it is would not be possible to see all of the collection in a lifetime; quite amazing to think of breath and scope of it. Free
24. Dublin Castle, for many years the base of British rule in Ireland, is itself open to visitors and its current exhibitions include Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger. This shows 50 acclaimed artworks from the world’s largest collection of famine-related art at Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum in the US, the first time they have been seen in Ireland. Admission from €6.50
25. For the latest finds on the food scene, try Berlin-d2, newly re-opened in Dame Lane, Boeuf in South William Street and Opium in Wexford St.
26. Those of a sporty nature will love the newly re-opened 132-year-old Clontarf Seawater Baths, with an open seawater swimming pool, bar and restaurants, all with panoramic views of Dublin Bay. Clontarf is a coastal suburb, not far from the city centre, most famous for the 1014 Battle of Clontarf where Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings and ended the long-running Viking wars.
27. More for adrenaline junkies: there’s wakeboarding at Dublin docklands, from €25; white water rafting on the River Liffey, from €59; zip-lining at Tibradden, close to the city, from €15 and mountain bike trails at Ticknock, from €35. Meanwhile armchair enthusiasts can catch the GAA football and hurling season throughout the summer, with matches played most weekends.
28. Enjoy green living within the city. The National Botanic Gardens of Ireland are located just 3km from the city centre in Glasnevin. The garden is free to visit or you can take a guided tour for a small fee, enjoying the wonderful plants in gardens and glasshouses, including 300 endangered species and six that are already extinct. Afterwards pay a trip to the nearby Glasnevin Cemetery, which dates from the 19th century and is the final resting places of Irish notables including Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Eamon de Valera, Maude Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Kevin Barry and Brendan Behan. One of the most visited graves in the cemetery is that of Michael Collins, the nationalist leader who signed the Anglo-Irish treaty with the British government to create the Irish Free State and was later assassinated for his ‘betrayal’ in the Irish Civil War.
29. Get some sea air. Dublin’s coastal location makes it a great city break with a seaside option, and buses and the local DART train service run regularly to a wide range of beaches and clifftop walks. Check out Howth Head, Skerries, Dun Laoghaire Harbour, Sandymouth Strand or Killiney Beach for starters.
For more information on visiting Dublin and Ireland, go to www.VisitDublin.com and www.Ireland.com. Aer Lingus operates daily flights from London Gatwick and Heathrow to Dublin with fares from £32.99 one-way including taxes and charges. For more information or to book visit aerlingus.com
Maybe I’ll become a dancer…
I wasn’t the most obvious candidate to join a dance troupe – at the age of, er, well let’s just say I’ll never see 40 again. I have arthritis and scoliosis and spent half of the last decade on crutches. Sometimes I groan out loud when I stand up.
But I was joining the dance group for just a few weeks. It was a love affair, not a commitment. We were going to perform a dance choreographed by one of the world’s leading dancers, a man who provokes hushed silences in those-who-know-about-dance when you mention his name.
Akram Khan. (Look around, anyone nearby frozen into silence? Dancer!)
Want to impress a dancer? Tell them you’re dancing an Akram Khan piece.
Khan devised a dance routine for Big Dance Festival, which ran across the UK from May 20 to September 10 that year and learning this dance was open to all – from community groups to professional dance troupes. (You can probably guess which one I was part of). It was devised for people of all abilities and suitable even for those with limited movement as you could perform the dance standing up or sitting down. I did manage to stand up while taking part, that being a crutch-free year.
We performed it on the Big Dance stage at the Addiscombe festival in Ashburton Park in May that year, at the Park Hill Park Family Fest in June and in London’s Trafalgar Square in July.
But the most exciting performance of all was dancing with over 30 others outside London’s City Hall for the then newly elected Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and for the main man himself – yes, I got to dance Akram Khan’s dance for AKRAM KHAN!
We danced in the sunshine in view of Tower Bridge, press photographers clicking furiously, TV cameras filming – we were on the BBC London news that night. And for that morning, we were all dancers, no matter what the state of our hips or our knees or our ankles. Okay so a few of us were slightly OLDER than the majority of the young whippersnappers bending gracefully – but who cares, we could do the dance and we did it, over and over again to the beautiful music composed by Nitin Sawhney.
Akram Khan’s beautiful dance explores the themes of identity, connection and hope. It was a dance that was conceived to unite people and embrace diversity. And there is a wonderful energy created by a random group of strangers coming together for a short time, to work in harmony and dance together. As Akram Khan said, ‘people from all walks of life connect here to communicate the joy and celebration of their body’. And, joints creaking, we celebrated joyfully.
Four years on, I look back on my time as a dancer fondly, particularly now, when we’re all apart, desperately needing that connection and hope. Once all this is over, and we can unite again, maybe l’ll dust off my dancing shoes. Akram will be delighted.
]]>So nobody’s going anywhere for the foreseeable future – except now, perhaps into somebody’s back garden – but luckily, lots of kind people have taken it on themselves to make sure that we can still get a (24-hour-a-day-if-required) fix of art, culture, music and books. Here’s a round-up of some of the best.
THEATRE, OPERA, BALLET
The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is beaming opera and ballet around the world, with a schedule of free broadcasts and live content. Check out the Royal Ballet’s Peter and the Wolf and The Metamorphosis, as well as the Royal Opera’s Così fan tutte and much more on the ROH Facebook and YouTube channels.
Ditto for the New York’s Met Opera – catch their productions here – string of pearls optional.
The Bolshoi Ballet is streaming previous productions including The Nutcracker and Spartacus on its YouTube channel with more to come – pull the curtains and pretend it’s Christmas. Staying with Christmas, you can watch the English National Ballet’s Swan Lake here.
The Irish National Opera has also put several of its productions online, including Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice – full listing here. And catch Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro from Glyndebourne here.
Slava’s Snowshow is one of the most beautiful pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen (twice). You can’t recreate the magic of turning a theatre into a giant snowstorm/playground for giant floating balloons in an online screening, but you can enjoy the gentle humour and magic of the show. Try this as a taster and when we’re all released from house arrest again, check out a live performance somewhere in the world.
The Guardian has put together a great list of ‘Quarantine soirées’ – classical music and opera to stream at home from around the world, updated regularly.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has over 130 filmed productions on its Globe Player video-on-demand service, including Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance (love Mark Rylance), Jonathan Pryce in the Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Michelle Terry.
The Globe is showing past productions for free on its YouTube channel, releasing a new show every week at 7pm. Each will be available from the date of release for 14 days. The productions are:
Hamlet (2018), Romeo and Juliet (2009), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), The Two Noble Kinsmen (2018), The Winter’s Tale (2018) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (2019) – plus, in a late addition, Macbeth (2020) has just gone live now.
You can also watch all of the Complete Walk series on its video-on-demand service. These are 37 short 10-minute films recorded with an all-star cast and shot on location, commissioned for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Latest shows just announced for the National Theatre’s YouTube channel in May and June include A Streetcar Named Desire, Coriolanus and This House. Get full details here.
Here’s a list of free musicals and plays from FilmedOnStage that you can currently stream – updated daily.
And What’s On Stage has also done a very useful round-up of stage shows, musicals and opera you can watch online for free.
Ireland’s Rough Magic Theatre has just put How to Keep an Alien, by Sonya Kelly, online, filmed at the Dublin Fringe Festival. And you can watch Druid Theatre’s award-winning production of The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Abbey Theatre and Royal Court Theatre’s co-production of Cyprus Avenue by David Ireland, starring Stephen Rea, is now available to watch online here.
Staying in the country, Dear Ireland is a series of 50 monologues created in self-isolation by 50 writers and 50 actors, exploring life during the Covid-19 crisis, commissioned by the Abbey Theatre. Streamed on YouTube over four nights and online for the next six months, it features actors and writers including Brendan Gleeson, Edna O’Brien, Cathy Belton and Joseph O’Connor and asks the question, what should Ireland write on a postcard to itself?
MUSEUMS
Why not pop over into an Irish museum while you’re at it. A whole load of them have just put themselves online for virtual tours here – top tip, the Chester Beatty Museum is a beaut.
Have a browse around behind closed doors in the BBC series Museums in Quarantine, featuring Tate Britain, the British Museum, Warhol at Tate Modern and Young Rembrant at The Ashmolean in Oxford.
Somerset House has released a brand-new virtual tour of its exhibition Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi. It’s the first time that the public will be able to see inside this original show from home, exploring the colourful cultural legacy of mushrooms and their powerful potential in the planet’s survival, featuring works from the likes of Beatrix Potter, Carsten Höller and Tom Dixon.
FILM
This could be a good time to consider a subscription to the British Film Institute – free 14-day trial and then £4.99 a month for lots of free films, plus others to rent for just £2.50. New films are being added all the time, plus there’s a substantial archive list. They have the Buena Vista Social Club – what more do you want?
The Regent Stree Cinema is also offering free membership for three months and the chance to enjoy FILM ESSENTIALS, a selection of specially curated titles powered by online streaming service MUBI. Join to receive details on how to start watching films for free over the next three months.
MUSIC
NEW: Watch the London Mozart Players in action with regular recitals broadcast every week on the LMP website, YouTube and Facebook, as well as interviews with leading musical lights including pianist Howard Shelley and jazz singer Claire Martin.
NEW: There’s more classical music on demand here, courtesy of Bachtrack – and catch the Royal College of Music concerts here.
NEW: The Sligo County Fleadh has been cancelled of course but they’re streaming some live music sessions instead this coming weekend, from May 29.
Billy Bragg live streamed a concert from New York at the start of May, featuring Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, The Indigo Girls, KT Tunstall, Loudon Wainwrigh and many more. It was a paid-for event – but here he is playing New York’s Bowery Ballroom last September.
A treat for trad lovers. Irish language TV station TG4 is running a 6-week musical tour of the west coast of Ireland every Sunday at 9.30pm, with legendary traditional musicians, father and son, Breanndán and Cormac Ó Beaglaoich – Slí na mBeaglaoich (Journey of the Begleys). Travelling up the west coast from Kerry to Donegal in their 40-year-old camper van, they’ll team up with friends for tunes and explore the landscape, musical and physical. I’m so enjoying this every week and – of course – Sligo was the highlight.
NEW: For more great Irish music, catch Mary Coughlan gigging in her garden – wrapped in a blanket! – with her band, raising money for Bray Women’s Refuge. And Glen Hansard was recorded live in the National Library of Ireland – not sure if I enjoyed looking at Glen or the books more.
In April, Jack Lukeman launched what would have been the start of his tour with a live show from his sitting room – love this and great to see the comments pouring in from all over the world. (The start of this is particularly hilarious – you have to watch it!) The good news is that it went so well he’s now doing live shows (from his sitting room) every Saturday night at 8pm. He’s already done Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash tributes, an ’80s night, folk night and songs from the 27 club. He’s on a break now for a few weeks, back on June 20 with a Bowie night.
Back in the real world – if it still exists, anyone looked recently? – Jack and Mary Coughlan are doing a show in London on Saturday 26 September in Shoreditch Town Hall. I’ll be first in as soon as the door opens.
Jack did it, so Andrew Lloyd Webber thought he would too. He’s releasing a new musical every Friday on this YouTube channel, each one will be available for 48 hours and first up is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Catch Andrea Bocelli singing from Duomo di Milano, Milan Cathedral, here. This solo performance was been created as a message of hope and healing to Italy and the world.
Over 200 musicians have come together to share their music, with concerts broadcast at 8pm on YouTube (brainchild of the artists’ agency Weltenklang, donate to the project here). With performers from Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Portugal, Canada, Louisiana, Makedonia, Iceland, Mali, Sweden, California, Romania and other exotic places taking part, you’ll join them in their homes for the session – because, these days, there’s nowhere like home.
Catch some singing – here’s a virtual performance of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours, recorded by the Camden Voices choir from their individual homes. More videos on the way they say.
ART
NEW: Take a virtual art tour, courtesy of Art Fund; options include tours of the British Museum, the Courtauld, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland.
NEW: Delve into the minds of the Impressionists at the Royal Academy of Arts, with its Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse exhibition, guided by expert curators, artists and garden enthusiasts.
NEW: You can also explore two of the Royal Academy’s recent Hockney exhibitons – A Bigger Picture in 2012 and 82 Portraits and One Still-Life in 2016. I ended up seeing A Bigger Picture shortly before midnight one Saturday as the gallery opened up all hours to meet the demand for tickets. One of the best late-night Saturdays I’ve had in London.
NEW: Speaking of late nights, Uniqlo Tate Lates have gone online now, starting from this weekend – a chance to listen to talks, poetry and music, create your own artworks and even do a bit of meditation.
NEW: Or just go to the Barbican.
You can browse beautiful paintings at the National Gallery – stare at Caravaggio to your heart’s content, I know I do. The gallery has also put together several curated collections to watch on video – take a look at paintings of people working from home, enjoy a tour of art history’s female protagonists or spend a day in the countryside.
Take a tour of the new Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern with curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran – the launch of this show was one of my last trips out to the real world. You can also tour the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain – also excellent.
The Tate’s collection is here – both contemporary and historic. There are loads of great art projects for kids here – and everything from quizzes to crafts here.
While the BMW Tate Live Exhibition has been cancelled in real time, one of the artists programmed for this year’s event has created an online work instead, performed and filmed in the empty Tanks at Tate Modern after the gallery closed. Watch My Body, My Archive, a performance re-invented for this unquie situation, by Congolese choreographer and dance artist Faustin Linyekula.
And you don’t need to stay in the UK obvs; the Uffizi gallery in Florence holds nearly a third of the world’s art treasures and the biggest collection of Renaissance art on the planet – and you can look at it here.
Browse the works of Frida Kahlo here.
Or re-create your own art at home – this one is my favourite!
BOOKS & KID’S ACTIVITIES
A fantastic piece of news – The Hay Literary Festival has gone digital this year, with a programme that is running from now until May 31. There will be talks, readings, author Q&As and special events, including a reading of the works of Wordsworth by a celebrity line-up including Hilary Mantel, Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Margaret Atwoood and more. All of the events are free but you do have to register – and while there are thousands of places available, some of the more popular events – such as Hilary Mantel talking about her latest novel The Mirror and The Light – are filling up fast. All are available to view afterwards for a limited amount of time. See the full programme and catch up with previous events here.
Galway’s Cuirt International Festival of Literature also went online for the first time in its history this year, with some excellent readings and talks from, among others, Anne Enright, Sara Baume, Sinead Gleeson and Lisa McInerney – catch them all here.
You won’t be able to go to your local library any more for books, but you can borrow ebooks and audiobooks from thousands of libraries online using your library card with the Libby app or at Borrowbox. If you don’t have a library card you can still join online while they are closed – just sign up here.
More places for free books – try Project Gutenberg, a library of over 60,000 ebooks which you can download or read online. And for another 16 free book options, Lifewire has put together a list of the best websites here, with pros and cons for each.
Internet Archive has just put 1.4m new books online for free browsing, from study support and educational texts to the latest novels.
If you’re looking for kids’ books, David Walliams is releasing 30 free audio books for children. And here’s a list of children’s authors doing read-alouds and activities.
Also for kids, some very enterprising person on FB has just published a timed list of daily activities – quite fancy a few of them myself:
9am PE with Joe Wicks
10am Maths with Carol Vorderman
11am English with David Walliams
12pm Cooking with Jamie Oliver
1pm Music with Myleene Klass
1.30pm Dance with Darcey Bussell
2.00pm History with Dan Snow (free for 30-days)
4.00pm Home Economics with Theo Michaels (Mon/Wed/Fri)
Non-daily events include: Science with Professor Brian Cox and Geography with Steve Backshall
Of course, if you want to support independent booksellers during this incredibly difficult time, lots of them are now doing deliveries – some by skateboard – and they need your money more than Amazon.
GET CREATIVE OR ‘GO’ PLACES
NEW: Pop along to Ireland’s Bloom festival this weekend, Sunday May 31, with workshops on cooking and gardening as well as a craft beer and farmhouse cheese tasting, not quite sure how that’s going to work out…
NEW: If you’re living in Croydon, you might want to contribute to the Museum of Croydon’s Lockdown Stories, reflecting the lives of Croydon residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and providing a record for future generations. If you’re not living in Croydon, you might want to seriously re-consider your life choices.
Get creative yourself – there are literally thousands of courses being released for free at the moment, everything from cookery to cricket (well, I’m not sure really about cricket – but there’s bound to be one eventually). My favourite last week was a masterclass of guitar lessons with Carlos Santana, this week I like the look of these free online art courses, thoughtfully rounded up by this kind man on YouTube.
Once you’ve progressed from learning guitar with Carlos, you can find out how to compose a film score with Hans Zimmer (did music for Inception, The Lion King, The Dark Knight) – this one is a paid-for course.
Gresham College in London has put a whole archive of lectures online – everything from mysteries of the dark cosmos to equations that have changed the world. They’ve also put a fantastic collection of lectures specifically about London up – am most looking forward to ‘The City of London in Literature’. Went to a few of their lectures in the days I could roam freely – they are really excellent (I’d like to take this chance to recommend their Christmas series).
If you really have to ‘get out’ – you can virtually wander across 825 miles of Florida’s beaches, go to Austria or – just for fun – tour the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, once the world’s most famous and expensive prison, which housed Al Capone.
NEW: Visit the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, wander around Buckingham Palace and Kew Gardens or make the most of this quiet time in the world’s busiest tourist spots and check out everywhere from the Spanish Steps and Colosseum to St Mark’s Square and Prague’s Old Town. Here’s what New York looks like empty. And here are some eerie photos of London before and after lockdown.
Visit Highclere Castle for a tour with the lady of the house every Friday evening at 7pm, courtesy of Viking TV. The home of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, it’s better known today as the ‘real Downton Abbey’.
If you want to go even further back in history, look at prehistoric cave paintings in the Dordogne, view medieval buildings and travel through beautiful countryside here.
Why would we ever want to leave the house again?
After a week of wind and rain and a storm called Brendan (Brendan, seriously?), the hip replacement playing up (sometimes I wonder if they actually left the old one in) and general January “bleh”, Sunday’s glorious sunshine was like a bolt of energy from a beautiful blue sky. The weather called for a walk – and a proper walk, none of your urban strolling around a city park.
I went to Woldingham – 15 minutes from East Croydon on the train. Mainly because I like the name (it also happens to be the next station after Upper Warlingham, try being the announcer on that train with a hangover). But also because looking at the map of the area surrounding Croydon, Woldingham is on the edge of a big green bit.
I downloaded the All Trails app before I set off so I could follow a walking route – it was useless. I could see an overview of a possible route but to download the detail would have cost me a year’s subscription fee. So I did it the old-fashioned way and printed – yes, printed – the Woldingham Countryside Walk.
From information board outside Woldingham station, turn right along Church Road. Just before Church Road Farm, turn right over railway bridge and left towards Marden Park Farm. Continue up gently sloping bridleway, taking in views across the valley.
This is proper countryside – glorious vistas and sweeping views, made all the better by that huge expanse of blue sky and sunshine. There’s still signs of this morning’s frost, as well last week’s rains and God is that ‘gently sloping bridleway’ muddy. Don’t try this with trainers.
Bear right on tarmac road and then left through iron gates on to Horse Chestnut Avenue. Worth a look back to see view of 19th century mansion, once part of the Marden Park estate, established by Sir Robert Clayton, Lord Mayor of London.
Right, so I can’t see any sight of the 19th century mansion but it’s still a very nice view. Lord Clayton was a local 17th century politician, owned a bank and rebuilt St Thomas’ Hospital in London, though clearly had nothing to do with the mansion, which is now Woldingham School.
At South Lodge, bear left and then turn immediately left through squeeze gap into Marden Park. Climb steep 200m section of path with care.
It was steep but the view from the top of the hill was worth it – looking over Godstone and Bletchingley and, according to my map, views as far as the South Downs on a clear day. Which was news to me. I thought I was in the South Downs. But no. Turns out this is the North Downs.
The North Downs, according to my info, has inspired the likes of JM Turner, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Winston Churchill and Charles Darwin both lived nearby. The North Downs Way runs 153 miles from Surrey into Kent, following the Pilgrims Way to Canterbury Cathedral. Being fond of a cathedral, I like the idea of walking to Canterbury. But that’s for another day.
For now, I’m veering off my guided walk, 3 miles in. There’s another 3 miles to go if I want to stay on this route and end up back at Woldingham station. But a wander back down the hill to South Lodge leads me to “ancient woodland”.
Then this.
No, I wasn’t expecting that either. But then this.
So I follow the path down the road towards the vineyard, walking into clear blue sky.
And I come to this!
Result! Godstone Vineyard, a winery, cafe and wine shop bang in the middle of my healthy countryside walk. In the sunshine. So I take off my mucky boots, sit outside in the sunshine and a very nice lady brings me a cream tea.
The vineyard was set up in 1985 and currently produces about 15,000 bottles of local sparkling wine every year from its 10 acres. I had a small sample of both wines they produce – the white (excellent) and the rose (even more excellent, fine bodied and not the slightly wishy washy liquid rose can often be). Then I sat for another while in the sun, sipping a glass of sparkling wine, and thinking how much I love countryside walks. No wonder they’re so popular. I’m really looking forward to my next one.
(Just to finish off, I should probably say that after tea and a scone with jam and a glass of wine, plus a couple of small wine samples, I couldn’t face the next 3 miles to complete the walk – especially since I’d wandered off the route to the vineyard. So I got an Uber to take me the couple of miles to Caterham station, and from there got a bus to East Croydon. Countryside walks. Fabulous.)