Dateline

Altrincham, Cheshire

Dunham Massey Hall Recreates Wartime Role

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“Sanctuary From The Trenches” in Cheshire this year.[/caption]

NOT UNLIKE THE FICTIONAL Downton Abbey, the Georgian stately home of Dunham Massey was the Stamford Military Hospital during 1917-1919, treating some 300 First World War soldiers. To commemorate the centenary of the war, the National Trust has turned the clock back to those years. Visitors can visit the ward, recreation room and operating theater—as well as a gorgeous deer park and Britain’s largest winter garden.

Datchet, Berkshire

Widespread Flooding Laps Windsor Castle

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Residents were evacuated from communities all along the Thames Valley riverside from Surrey to Oxford.[/caption]

THE MOST RAINFALL since 1876 fell on Britain through January, and the storm pattern continued well into February. Flooding spread from huge swathes of the Somerset Levels to the Severn River Valley. The River Thames overflowed its banks along more than 20 miles of Berkshire and Surrey, including Windsor, Eton and neighboring Datchet. The famous playing fields of Eton below Windsor Castle became a lake for the Queen’s swans.

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Ebbsfleet First New Garden City in 100 Years

For the first time in almost a century, a new planned urban community has been announced in the Government’s next Budget. The first phase calls for the construction of 15,000 houses at Ebbsfeet, Kent, modeled after the garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. Located on the Thames between Dartford and Gravesend, Ebbsfeet has both a Eurostar station and the available land for such a project to ease the Southeast’s housing shortage.

Fry-Up at Pub Chain Named Best Breakfast

Judges for the Men’s Health magazine restaurant awards 2014 have named Wetherspoons pub chain the number one spot for a full English breakfast. Lower fat Lincolnshire sausages and poppy-seed bread with more fiber and less sugar contributed to their choice. At £3.09 the price is right, too.

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Last meeting of A4 Class Pacific steam locomotives.[/caption]

Row, Row, Row Your Home

A rare 19th-century “Oxford Barge” is for sale as a floating houseboat, for the knock-down price of £150,000. The two-bedroom, two-bath floating luxury home on the Thames, one of only six such river barges remaining, was built in 1880, and for the last decades has served as a accommodation, changing room and party boat for an Oxford college boat club.

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£1 Coin to Be Scrapped for New Version

In the new Budget speech, Chancellor Osborne announced that the £1 coin will be replaced by a new 12-sided coin resembling the old threepenny bit that disappeared with decimalization in 1971. Ministers have urged action for years to combat the serious problem of counterfeit coins in circulation.

Lands End, Cornwall

Burrowing Rabbits Unearth Ancient Treasure

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AN EXTENDED FAMILY of wild bunnies showed up last year at Lands End, long a popular visitor attraction at the southwest tip of Cornwall, and began to burrow a network of tunnels. In addition to soil, the rabbits’ excavation threw up flint tools, arrowheads and such that date back 5,000 years. Archaeologists investigating have subsequently found a Neolithic passage grave, burial mounds and an Iron Age hill fort. The site will be studied over the next two years, and the “archaeobunnies” are being hailed for rewriting history.

Shildon, Durham

“The Great Gathering” of Steam Giants

A REUNION OF the last six remaining of 35 Class A4 steam locomotives by the National Railway Museum drew 100,000 visitors during its two-week exhibition. Two of the more than 100-ton locomotives, the “Dominion of Canada” and the “Dwight D. Eisenhower” crossed the Atlantic shipboard to join the historic gathering. Pride of place, however, went to the “Mallard,” which set the all-time speed record for a steam locomotive—when it hit 126 mph on the East Coast mainline near Grantham in 1938.

Mount Bay, Cornwall

Winter Storms Reveal Submerged Ancient Forests

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It’s hard to imagine huge forests stretching along the Welsh coast north of Aberystwyth some 3,000 B.C.[/caption]

THE GALE FORCE WINDS and huge storms of the winter washed away huge stretches of sand and shingle along the coasts of Wales and Cornwall. Prehistoric forests, which stood off the coastline for thousands of years, have been emerging in Mount Bay and along the Welsh coast between Borth and Ynyslas. Though scientists have long known of their existence, this is the first time in 40 years that the stumps of oak and pine, between 4,000 and 6,000 years old, have been seen.

Rendlesham, Suffolk

Anglo-Saxon Royal Palace Discovered

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Finds like this horse harness fitting convince researchers they have found the palace of legend.[/caption]

THE PALACE OF ANGLO-SAXON royalty buried at nearby Sutton Hoo has been discovered in farmland at Rendlesham. Now part of the estate of Naunton Hall, the fields constitute a 125-acre site that archaeologists have been researching for the past five years. Anglo-Saxon coins, gold jewelry, buckles and brooches and such have led to the National Trust confirming that the finds represent “conclusive evidence” of the Royal homestead at Rendlesham. The finds confirm legends of a royal settlement there first recorded by Venerable Bede in the 8th century.

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Nothing Much Doing in Parliament

The Government is giving MPs an extra week off with their Whitsun recess. It seems that Britain’s Coalition is running out of things to do. In fact, the Queen’s Speech is being delayed for a month because the Government has nothing exciting to propose. It means MPs will get 24 weeks off this year. Not surprisingly, there are complaints, but not from MPs.

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Now It’s Independence for the Islands?

With the vote on Scottish independence now less than six months away, a new petition lodged at Holyrood seeks a referendum for Orkney, Shetland and the Westerns Isles on whether to become independent from Scotland. With a culture and heritage distinctly colored by the islands’ historic links to Norway, the island electorate would be asked whether to stay in Scotland, become independent or remain part of the UK.

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Life Is Best in Skipton

The North Yorkshire market town of Skipton was named the best place to live in Britain by judges for The Sunday Times’s “101 Best Places to Live in Britain” report. An ideal combination of great schools, low crime, easy transport links and a bustling, healthy High Street were cited in Skipton’s praise. Three other communities were cited for special commendation: Newnham, Cambridgeshire; Falmouth, Cornwall; and Monmouth, Monmouthshire.

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Howdy Neighbor, Your Majesty

The most expensive plot of land in Britain hit the market with a £30 million price tag for 77 acres. The country lot in Surrey comes with a picturesque lake, formal gardens and Windsor Great Park next door. There is planning permission for a 10-bedroom, £15 million mansion that would be 30 times the size of the average new home. But that’s optional.

Oxford

Publication of Tolkien’s Beowulf for First Time

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J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1926 translation of the epic Beowulf, published this spring for the first time, is creating quite a stir. The 2,000-page handwritten manuscript has been lying in Oxford’s Bodleian Library archives for decades. Tolkien’s translation of the longest epic poem in Old English is regarded as the primary inspiration for his own creation of Middle Earth. The HarperCollins release, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary includes excerpts from Tolkien’s lectures on the poem, and was edited by his son Christopher.

Devonport, Devon

Oops. Pardon My Torpedo!

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Even with an itchy trigger finger, it can’t have been easy for a modern frigate to lose control of a torpedo.[/caption]

TAKING PART IN A training exercise off the naval base at Devonport, the frigate HMS Argyll inadvertently discharged a torpedo straight for the naval yard. The torpedo flew 200 yards in the air before blasting through a security fence and into a storage container. Fortunately, the torpedo was unarmed. The base is the port where Britain’s Vanguard-class nuclear submarines are refueled and maintained.